"Well, then I'd better not ask."

"I'll leave the stories to you," she agrees.

"That means I have to come up with another one."

He considers.

"This is surprisingly difficult. Okay, how about the time in military school when I annoyed all my instructors by being too competent?"

Doesn't that sound familiar. But that set of stories is really not fun either, and it sounds like his set is.

"Oh?"

"So! There's this series of practical examinations at the Barrayaran Imperial Service Academy, where we're simultaneously tested on our mastery of the specific skills we've been taught and on our ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. The cadets would go around piloting shuttles and so on under the watchful eye of the examiners, and every so often they'd throw a fake emergency at us - could be anything, depressurization alarm, coolant leak, whatever - and we have to handle it, and when we did something that would've gotten us injured or killed if the emergency was real, they'd make a note of it and we'd have to wear ribbons to advertise our shame. I think it was red for death, yellow for injury, but it's been a few years and I could be wrong. Anyway, it's really unusual for a cadet to get through the whole examination period without any ribbons, and when somebody's gotten through a few tests unscathed they tend to start increasing the severity of their fake emergencies."

"Did you avoid the ribbons of shame, Miles."

"Yes. Yes I did. And on the last day of that examination period, they thought they were going to get me - they had me and another kid flying a shuttle, and they drained the charge on all the breathing masks in the emergency supplies compartment and then engineered a toxic gas leak. It was my partner who did the relevant part of the preflight check, and he just counted the masks, didn't check their charge. But after we launched, I noticed that the examiner had three breathing masks in his pocket, so I guessed approximately what they were going to do. When the leak started, I put the shuttle in a controlled spin to keep the stuff contained - it was heavier than air and it started near the back - and then I hacked together a makeshift breathing apparatus using a bottle of oxygen and some tubing, and I and my oxygen straw dove to the back of the shuttle to shut off the appropriate valve. The examiner's face was a sight to behold. When we docked again, someone came up to us holding out a pair of ribbons, and he just shook his head—" he imitates the movement and the rueful expression that accompanied it.

She can't help it. The imitated movement and expression are too much.

Lord Callida, only apprentice to the Dark Councilor Darth Occlus and a Sith Lord in her own right, starts giggling.

"That," she laughs, "is amazing."

Miles giggles too.

"I have," (one last lingering giggle), "comparable stories, but they're all -" Handwave. "Sithy. My instructor at the Academy didn't like my competence, either."

"I'm getting the impression that I shouldn't ask if I want to keep my good mood."

"No. But he did get more angry every time I showed up successful, and I enjoyed seeing it."

"Yeah, that can be very satisfying."

"Anyway. Happier topics. ... How often does courier work send you off-planet?"

"Pretty frequently. And on kind of an unpredictable schedule."

"That sounds difficult," she says, sympathetically. Especially for, oh, she doesn't know. Dating. Which might mean he's maybe still single. Which is very important to know; but how can she acquire this information sneakily.

"But you do get to see the galaxy, and bring back -" Damn it limited vocabulary she is trying to figure out if he's single, get out of her way, "things for people you like."

"There's not a lot of time for shopping out there, not most of the time anyway, but once in a while I pick up a present for my mother or something."

Okay, so, good odds that he's single from that explanation. If he were dating someone he would have mentioned getting them something. Probably. Right? Right.

.... She thinks she needs further confirmation, but she's not sure how to get it.

"Well now I'm curious about what sorts of things are out there in this galaxy to acquire."

"And of course my mind immediately goes blank..."

"Oh well." Damn it, this line of questioning isn't working. How do normal people do this? She doesn't know. She's a Sith Lord, usually her peers handle this sort of thing by going, 'You. Bedroom. Now,' which is so incredibly not what she wants to do. Well, not unless he wants her to but anyway. Does he even like women? She doesn't know! He hasn't confirmed it! He could be totally fucking gay and then this would be for nothing! AUGH.

.... Also she's kind of running out of dinner to eat. And by 'kind of,' she means that it's all gone now. Hm. Maybe she should tactically retreat and re-evaluate possible attack vectors to figure out if he's single and into women.

"If there's a -" seriously she doesn't know the word for dessert, ugh, "nice after-dinner-food, I think I might be in trouble," she observes, eyeing her plate. "Because I have no room."

"Dessert," supplies Cordelia. "And I'm afraid there is, but of course you're free to skip it."

"That's appreciated, thanks. ... I could get a box for it?"

"Of course."

Dessert arrives. Cordelia issues appropriate instructions. Lord Callida can have a little box for her slice of cake.

Excellent, the dessert will not feel slighted. Callida feels kind of bad for basically ignoring Cordelia in favor of her son, but. She seemed entertained by Envee? So it's probably fine.

Well, she supposes that'll end the dinner party, and also her slightly clumsy attempts to figure out how to relationship, time for the foreign duo to depart.

"Oh," says Cordelia as they're all standing up from the dinner table, "Miles, that poem you like, the one about the mountains - do you think you could recite it for Envee? She's interested in the technical aspects of Barrayaran Russian poetry and I think it's a good example."