"Conceivably problems could lie along that route if Force sensitivity became known to people in the galaxy as a thing that existed. I believe your husband mentioned there might be several groups willing to try to kidnap and mass clone-me if they knew about my abilities. The same could be true for anyone that has the potential."

"Yes... that's certainly something I'd rather avoid."

"Quite."

"Do clones - I suppose you wouldn't know. Do twins habitually have the same amount of Force sensitivity as one another?"

"... If they're identical, I think so. Fraternal, not necessarily."

Thoughtful nod.

... She suspects there's something more to that, but doesn't ask.

"It stands to reason that clones would work, it seems to be at least somewhat genetic, but." She shrugs. "I'm a librarian, not a biologist."

"I have a brother," Miles explains, "a belated twin, you might say, created as part of a clone substitution plot because my life is just that ridiculous. We got along all right when we met, but he decided not to come home and meet our parents."

"A clone substitution plot," repeats Callida, a little appalled. She shakes her head. "All right. Well if he's ever here in the same system, I can check him too."

"Honestly, I wouldn't put it past him to catch that bit of bread even without magic."

Snort.

"There are different tests, this one was just the fastest."

"All right then."

"And more amusing if you'd proved to not be Force sensitive."

"That's true."

Dinner winds down, their major topics of conversation already brought to a close. The hour grows late and the sky grows dark, and Callida bids the Emperor and the Vorkosigans a fond farewell and returns to the manor. She gets her lightsaber back from Envee (feeling very much like getting back a limb) and then retires to her room, to stare up at the ceiling from her bed. She has some things to think about, and doesn't have the presence of mind to meditate, though she probably should.

Could she train Miles? Well. That's not the question, is it, of course she could train him, the real question is 'could she train him well.' Which is a much more difficult proposition. She has no personal complaints with Occlus's teaching style, somewhat detached thought it might be, but she thinks it wouldn't work for everyone. What else does she have to emulate in teaching someone how to use the Force? The Academy? Ha, ha, ha. No. She doesn't know how Jedi teach their prospective students, and what she knows of how other Sith teach theirs - she's not going to get any tips from them. Or, if she can't manage to contact Occlus, anyone, really. She'd just be on her own. Left to figure out what to do with her knowledge and responsibility and life.

It's all just been one situation she's been shoved into after another, hasn't it. She's been tremendously lucky, for a Sith. She has a relationship with her teacher that's healthy, she has friends, she's not slowly going mad from paranoia and lust for power. She only had to suffer three days of the Academy. Instead, she could have not been Force sensitive at all, and gotten to - what would her future have been? 'Bleak,' is about the summary. Lives aren't pleasant for pretty and stubborn slave girls. And instead of Occlus, she could have had literally any other Sith Lord for a teacher, and - well. That would have gone terribly. Who knows how she would have ended up, if not dead in a ditch somewhere.

But she doesn't feel tremendously lucky. She feels lost and small and buried under more responsibility than she really knows what to do with. Young and inexperienced and naive in a strange foreign galaxy. Alone. Which is stupid, she has almost everyone with her that she would want to bring. Almost everyone is a lot. It'd be insane to discount that. It'd also be insane to discount how lucky she is to have landed near a planet instead of in the middle of deep space somewhere, doomed to life the rest of her life trying (and probably failing) to get back home. How lucky she is to have landed near this planet, with its empire that's so - so itself. So precisely what she would have wanted her empire to be. So filled with reasonable, intelligent, understanding people, with an Emperor that takes care of his people instead of exploiting and abusing them for power.

She wants - well, she wants a number of confusing, contradictory things. She wants to have just always lived here. She wants to be back in her room at Occlus's archives, without a whole fleet relying on her for their care. She wants to be exactly where she is, by the exact means she got here, because even if she's a little bit broken, she wouldn't be anyone else and she won't apologize for who she is. She wants there to be no way for anyone in the Sith Empire to ever find them, but she wants Occlus to be able to replicate the phenomenon that got her here. She wants to teach Miles, to show everybody that it's possible to teach a Force-user without the insanity of the Sith or the Jedi, that it can be done right and they're all wrong. She wants to never, ever teach anyone about the Force because it could spiral out of her control in a heartbeat and set this beautiful galaxy ablaze.

But mostly, she wants to sleep, because she's tired, cranky, and frankly being a bit melodramatic, and she's going to ask Miles to let her have a look at his synthetic gemstones tomorrow. So she can maybe see about getting most of what she wants.

The next morning, she spends an hour or two meditating to get her head back in order, and then sends a message to Miles asking after the gemstones.

Miles is happy to show her the gemstones! How about that very afternoon?

Sounds perfect, she'll be there then.

That very afternoon:

Sith Lord! Everybody's favorite one!

Miles's favourite one, at least!

And here is the place where the half-ton of synthetic gemstones is stored, and here they all are. They appear to be packed away in crates, and when he opens the crates they're mostly laid out in neat dense rows on stacks of flat foam-padded trays, although many of the trays seem to be disarrayed.

"Well," pronounces Callida shortly, "this is terrible. I'll have to tell TN-R13 that it did not have to grow and monitor those synthetic crystals I asked for a week ago. Because I can definitely just use a lot of these."

"Poor TN-R13."

"I will get it something nice and beg for forgiveness, and after I've sufficiently bribed it, all will be well."

"Good, good. Well, feel free to borrow as many as you need, and you don't need to be particularly dedicated about returning them."

"Thank you, I appreciate it. ... Though, if I return them, you might want to set them aside from the others. They'll likely have some lingering effects of being used. Nothing dangerous, just. A sort of remnant of attunement with the Force."

"All right, I'll remember that."