"Thank you. He was quite upset when I finished the third trial so early he'd originally thought I'd given up entirely. It was wonderful."

He laughs.

She smiles again. It seems strange, to sincerely smile this much. .... Which is a bit depressing, now that she thinks of it. The smile wanes to the more impassive expression that is typical of her.

"I like to think that I beat him not just by completing the trials, but by refusing to become the thing he was trying to make me. With Occlus's help, I managed to remove two of my peers from the trials without killing them. They live on - I think the name was Bialok, a world in the Outer Rim. Near Ossus, actually, if you've gotten to that point in the archives."

That last part was directed to Cordelia.

"Not yet, I don't think."

"Ah, well. Ossus is worth reading up on, though perhaps not suitable if one would like to hear a happy story."

"What is the unhappy story? Or would it make poor dinner conversation?"

"It makes passable, if depressing, dinner conversation, I think. The other major group of trained Force-users in that galaxy is the Jedi. Ossus was once the knowledge center of the Jedi Order - it had a great library with tens of thousands of texts in their original forms and in stored datacrons. Primarily it was of Jedi history, technique, philosophy, but not entirely. They valued all knowledge of the Force, even - perhaps especially - from outside their own order. By all accounts, it was a center of education and insight." She pauses, a bit pensive.

"One of the Jedi's own decided that he wanted the darker secrets of the Sith that Ossus kept locked away, and the ensuing conflict left Ossus bereft of libraries, citizens, Jedi, local wildlife, and even its oceans. The place is an arid and irradiated wasteland, now."

"Damn," Miles says softly.

"Yes. I've been to the planet to try and recover some of the archives, it was a sobering experience."

"I can imagine."

"Occasionally I wonder what mysteries we've lost to the ages because Force-users became involved and raised the stakes, or decided that the casualties were worth the price to gain what they wanted."

"Maybe you can... start over, in this galaxy. Do better."

Or maybe she'd just be exposing an innocent galaxy to a force (or a Force) that will raise every available stake and drive everyone using it to ruin. Just like before.

But what future is that? Giving up on something entirely because, despite all of the ways it could go right, it could go horribly, horribly wrong? Deem that all of her efforts will be for naught, that there can only ever be death and ruin if she follows this path? No. She refuses to hide in a cave because the outside world is a bit scary. Perhaps it's arrogant to think she could change the trajectory of Force-users themselves, but she is a Sith Lord. Arrogance just kind of comes with the program.

"Perhaps," she agrees softly, smiling a little.

He smiles back.

He has such a lovely smile.

"If I do end up training Force-users here," she says, "it would not be as a Sith, or a Jedi. I don't know what they'd be."

"Well, I hope one day we get to find out."

Softly: "I hope so, too."

Dinner meanders through more ordinary topics and then winds down from there, and Lord Callida eventually bids them goodnight and returns to her manor. She has an Emperor to request refuge from in the morning.

Morning arrives, and with it, Callida's meeting with the Emperor.

Official meetings with the Emperor are a touch more formal than dinner at Vorkosigan House. When Callida arrives at the Imperial Residence, she is scanned for weapons and directed through charming wood-panelled halls to a small private sitting room, where Gregor is waiting. The chairs look very comfortable. A couple of ImpSec men station themselves just outside the door.

The absence of her lightsaber itches in the back of her mind, but it hasn't suddenly become okay for her to carry a weapon around the Emperor. It stays at home, and she suffers the discomfort. As she's being searched, she absently thinks that she could have dismantled it and taken the crystals with her, but that seemed insufficient. Inefficient. She couldn't exactly put her lightsaber back together quickly in an emergency, after all. Dismantling it for her own peace of mind wasn't worth it. So it's whole and ready for use, but back at her room in the manor. (No one to watch over it this time, which made something in her mind itch more.)

She doesn't let it get to her, and when she meets the Emperor, she bows politely. "Emperor Vorbarra."

"Lord Callida," he says, with a courteous nod. "What did you want to discuss?"

Lord Callida sits in one of the comfy chairs, unease settling into her stomach to be ignored with the discomfort born from separation from her lightsaber. Talking to Gregor in an official context is different than the dinner party. She's not precisely sure she likes doing it.

Not that that'll stop her.

"I would like," she says, "to formally request asylum from the Sith Empire for myself, those under my command, and, with your permission so that she can enter Barrayaran space, my teacher and those she would bring with her."

He nods.

"I am inclined to grant your request, but before I do so, can you tell me more about what exactly granting you asylum from the Sith Empire entails? Do you judge it likely that you or your teacher will be pursued; do you judge it likely that pursuit, if undertaken, will succeed?"

"Darth Occlus will want a safe place in which to store and study the Force artifacts she's acquired, some of which are dangerous if touched by someone without appropriate protections in place. She'll be bringing the things with which to keep the artifacts safe, but more applied resources would likely prevent any unfortunate accidents. I can ask for a list of everything she brings and the appropriate safety measures and potential risks involved with them."

She pauses thoughtfully to get her thoughts in order, then continues, "Any pursuit for me or my fleet has likely ended by now, probably with assistance from Occlus quelling the attempts. Pursuit for Occlus is expected, she is a Dark Councilor and head of the Sphere - or Pyramid - of Ancient Knowledge. Sith Lords, powerful ones, will want to find where she went and how she disappeared. That being said, if she succeeded in coming through the wormhole after me, being able to follow her would rely on taking an astronomically precise route to a very minor world from a very exacting starting point. The exact details of which only my fleet knows. While I hesitate to say that reconstructing our route is outright impossible, it would be very very difficult. And it is possible that my disappearance and Occlus's will not be connected by many; I expect Occlus to leave a false trail if she leaves any at all."

"I would appreciate that list, yes," he says. "Do you expect to need accomodations on Barrayar for you, your teacher, her artifacts, or any of your people; or will you all be remaining with your fleet for the forseeable future?"