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Three unrelated items:
1. The new Ash and Stars title is Burn the World, which, I feel I should clarify, is a reference to funerary practices and not... whatever that sounds like if you don't know anything about Barrayaran funerary practices. But it should be read as "poignancy, despair, extravagant grief" rather than "anarchic destruction". If you pick up this letter quickly enough, you'll get to listen to it before I do, lucky bastard.
2. My gravity friend purports to be hovering on the edge of breakthrough, so I might write you another letter any day now forwarding her schematics. Genius, alas, cannot be scheduled.
3. A looming personal crisis finally hit this morning, so I might not have time to summon you anytime soon.
Enjoy the music. I'll write you again if I think of anything else to say.
Miles
thisvorlunatic
middlingalong
"Right then. Nice to meet you insofar as I have done, Mark."
And Ivan goes upstairs and looks for Cordelia.
And Ivan goes upstairs and looks for Cordelia.
middlingalong
"He likes me too much to make me interact with him, where 'interact with' apparently means 'look at' because he was willing to talk."
greatcomposure
"It goes something like this," she says. "He knows that a lot of things about his past and the way he thinks and reacts to situations are likely to upset people, but he has a severely underdeveloped ability to tell which things. And he knows that. So he can rarely be convinced to take the risk of talking to anyone, especially someone he likes. The two exceptions are Miles, because he has excellent intuitions about how Miles will react to things, and me, because I managed with difficulty to convince him that I don't mind. We've been trying to convince him to branch out, but apparently talking from behind a crate of zorkmids is as far as Miles has managed to coax him. And he seems to like hiding in dark corners even if there isn't anyone in the room he's afraid to talk to; I think he just finds it comforting."
middlingalong
"I don't get how he thinks coming out from behind the crate would make anything worse. I told him, I look at Miles all the time. He looks like Miles, right?"
greatcomposure
"Exactly like Miles, yes. Maybe the crate makes him feel better protected from the social obligation to make small talk."
greatcomposure
"I'd make a joke about it being a magical crate, but it's a little harder to make that kind of joke now."
middlingalong
"Just a bit. Mark knows about all the things, right, the zorkmids didn't have to be explained as something else?"
greatcomposure
"He does know about all the magic-related things, yes. Otherwise I would've found it hard to explain how I got him here from Earth in less than a day."
greatcomposure
"You could try being patient. He might get to be less shy as he settles in. And, um... try not to be too startled if he appears suddenly out of nowhere. It's a habit of his."
middlingalong
"Okay. Does he at least dress differently from Miles or should I distinguish them entirely by the one's habit of spontaneous apparition?"
greatcomposure
"He borrows Miles's clothes, I'm afraid. But it's not at all hard to tell them apart most of the time."