View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
One summer day, a baby appears on the literal doorstep of the Imperial Residence's west servants' entrance. She is in a basket. She doesn't look Barrayaran; while Barrayar is not uniformly Caucasian, it has very few people of east Asian extraction, and that is where this baby appears to have been toted from by more or less circuitous routes of migration and inheritance.
It is not terribly difficult for ImpSec to find the person who put her there - recent hire to the kitchen staff, competent but not overwhelmingly concerned with security when it was literally just a baby and not an explosive and he was offered a large chunk of change. Tracing back this chunk of change leads through a long meandering trail of people, variously shady, none of whom acted with particular malice beyond greed and the sort of vague dishonorableness of putting packages on the doorstep of the Imperial Residence.
The trail ends at someone who - under fast-penta - has no memory whatever of having interacted with the baby, the cash, the shady person who druggedly identified her, or anything else about the affair. She doesn't even have a similar-looking sister to explain the mixup. She has nothing in her background to explain how she would come by an offplanet baby or why she would convey it by such a circuitous method to the Imperial Residence. It's definitely not her baby - the lady's six months pregnant and the baby isn't that old.
In the meantime, the baby is parked with Droushnakovi, who found her in the first place; Cordelia, who was the first person she went to; and Gregor, as Drou is his personal bodyguard.
The baby and her basket are searched and found to be: a baby, and a basket. There is no note, it's the middle of summer and the child wasn't even in a blanket, the basket itself and the baby's onesie turn out to be local products that a Vorbarr Sultana thrift shop didn't even bother reporting stolen.
The baby babbles in her sleep. She's very cute.
+ Show First Post
hatchedplan
"Nika Madeline's a pretty name," says Drou.
greatcomposure
"I think so too."
She gets up, still holding the baby, and gives Aral a kiss.
She gets up, still holding the baby, and gives Aral a kiss.
on-my-word
"Well," he says, gazing down at Nika. "Welcome to the family, Nika Madeline. I'll go... hm. Yes. I'll go call Father."
He goes.
He goes.
Nika Madeline Vorkosigan proves to be... a baby. She learns to talk a little early and walk a little late. She walks and talks and plays and falls over.
One day she walks right up to her big brother.
"I can walk," she announces.
One day she walks right up to her big brother.
"I can walk," she announces.
Miles peers at her from the chair where he is currently propped in his excessively constraining back-brace.
"...Good for you," he says.
"...Good for you," he says.
"I could teach you," she offers. Probably he just hasn't learned how, goes her train of thought.
"No you can't," he says. "I'm stuck." He gestures to the brace. "It's cause my bones break if I do things."
"Oh." Nika contemplates this. "That'd be bad." Think, think. "I do for you?"
...Miles looks thoughtful.
"I don't break, I just go bump ow," she explains.
"Oh. Why?"
"Walking is pretty hard," she says solemnly.
"Yeah?" he asks, interested.
"I have to do both feet."
Miles leans over as much as is possible, which isn't a whole lot, and peers at her feet.
"Is that hard?"
"Is that hard?"
"Yeah. But I can!"
"'Grats."
She walks in a little circle, trips, sits on the floor instead, and looks up at him.
"Bump ow?" he inquires.
"Yeah. I'll practice."
"Practice helps?"
"Droushie says," nods Nika. "She says practice falling too but I just fall anyway."
"Why would you practice falling?"
"To do it less ouchingly."
"Oh. That'd be good," he says wisely.