"I was nine, m'cousin made me and his friend Elena dig an escape tunnel to escape from I think it was fictitious Cetagandan invaders - well, it wasn't real invaders of any kind, at least - and it fell on my head."

"Wow. That reminds me of the time when I was seven when my best friend decided we ought to set her dad's hat on fire. I'll spare you the details, but it involved about a gallon of gasoline, an explosion, left a hole in the yard, and we didn't manage to kill the hat."

"That sounds like a heck of a hat. I hope the ground's the only thing you left a hole in?"

"Yeah, everyone was fine. It's more of a helmet, really, Edie was convinced it was evil."

"Is it in terrible taste? Bad color palette?"

"She was convinced he stopped having thoughts when he wore it."

"What an odd thing to think."

"Well. We were seven."

"This can excuse many oddities. I think I still believed in Father Frost when I was seven."

"I'm going to assume that's Barrayaran Santa Claus. Or 2999 Santa Claus."

"I think he's a Barrayaran thing, although we may have inherited him from one or another of the colonist sources, probably Russia. Is Santa Claus a fellow who small children believe to be responsible for their winter holiday presents?"

"Yep, that's him."

"Then yes. I believed he existed until I was seven, and then I received Winterfair socks and realized this was a very human injustice."

"Pfffft."

"More recently, I only narrowly escaped dressing up as him for a pageant whose originally intended sole cast member over the age of eight fell ill. He got better in plenty of time and his sister did not have to paste a beard on me."

"I have never come close to having to dress up as Santa Claus, I'll tell you that."

"Really? Santa Claus is not a pretty twentysomething girl?"

"Nope. Bearded old man with a jolly red suit and a tummy like a bowl of jelly."

"Father Frost is as often seen in shades of blue."

"Well, they don't seem to be quite the same character, even if they share a certain spiritual kinship." She looks him over. "You don't quite seem to suit the role of an old man either."

"I'm not quite twenty-six," he smiles. "The beard would have been rather overworked."

"The poor dear. Such a tragic fate, so narrowly avoided."

"The fellow who did wind up taking the part was only thirty himself but still."

"Ah well. At least you escaped unscathed."

"I am unharmed. By that." Perhaps unconsciously, he picks at a fairly fresh-looking scar on his knuckle. Actually, he's got several of those.