Miles traipses, giggling, into her office.

"Hello. What has you so entertained?"

She puts away the giant diagram and summons up the message. (With her other arm she scoops her husband.)

Would you fucking stop?
—MPVK

"Right?" cackles Miles. "Oh my God, Mark!"

"Do you suppose Simon is going to abide by this request?"

"Probably not. But he might write back."

"Now that I'd like to see."

"I'll ask him to copy us." He unhugs one arm from Linya so he can pen Simon a quick note to that effect.

Forehead-kiss.

"Can you imagine the effort it would've taken to find - that has to have been an actual fountain pen. Those aren't hugely common on planets that didn't have a Time of Isolation recently! They're getting moderately hard to find even on Barrayar! And the paper, the envelope. I'm half surprised it's not sealed in blood. Probably just 'cause he couldn't get his hands on a seal dagger. He used his initials! My little brother is a glorious little shit, Linya!"

"He would have had to go to some kind of specialty supplier, certainly, but I'm not sure it would be that hard to find the relevant ingredients if he were willing to drop a lot of money or shoplift. He has very good handwriting, doesn't he?"

"Yeah. I don't even have handwriting that good. Where does he find the time to learn all this shit?"

"Speaking as I do from the perspective of someone biologically disinclined to time-wasting..."

"I am not a very idle person," he reminds her, "and I'm six years older than he is, and he's apparently managed to learn every single thing I know plus, I must assume, extensive assassination training, plus apparently counter-espionage and calligraphy on his own time. I am going to remain impressed and slightly jealous for the forseeable future."

"You spend time with people," murmurs Linya. "Which is not timewasting exactly - behold how I am spending time with you right now - but it does not tend to lead to you knowing calligraphy at the end of the day. And if we know one thing about Mark's upbringing it's that it was woefully short on people."

"...True. Well, now I'm sad and slightly jealous."

Snuggle.

"It's possible he chose it principally to be recognized and not because he's using the name privately, but yes."

"I don't know... I'm getting a definite impression that if he wanted a way to be recognized without acknowledging the name, he would've found one. Include a dried bean, maybe. The initials feel very - deliberate. The whole thing feels very deliberate. You know, apparently when they successfully manage to follow Mark around, most of what he does is read books and commit casual petty theft. I'm getting the weirdest picture of his life."

"I suppose a bean would have done the trick handily... What does he pettily thieve?"

"Food, books, clothing, basic necessities. You'd think the money I gave him would be more than enough to cover that sort of thing. Maybe it's some kind of obscure statement."