"We are very much alike in a lot of ways. Being really great, for example."

Well, that has earned an extra, and slightly louder sob.

"Did you know," she begins, feeling inane, and then there's another sob and she has to pause and pick it up again, "that slavery's a thing in t-the Sith Empire?"

"...It's not the most surprising thing I've ever heard."

"Right, the society seems to have built itself on the premise of 'how absolutely terrible can we get, let's find out empirically,' it's insane. What probably is a bit more surprising is, the." She snuggles closer; her voice comes out kind of muffled. "Sith's not exactly a profession for the long-lived. And they decided they wanted more Sith, and didn't want to fix the turnover rate problem on account of the aforementioned premise upon which the society is built, and. So they checked various people for Force sensitivity and threw those that were into their academy to become Sith. No matter what they'd been before."

Does she need to say it? She kind of doesn't want to say it.

...he cuddles her.

She probably does not have to say it.

Excellent, she prefers that. It's easier if she doesn't have to say it out loud.

"S-so, there's that, which is - itself, but I think my problem right now is, is." Sniffle. "Some equivalency to travelling through an endless desert, and somehow surviving on account of a mix of luck and cleverness and eventually reaching the point where it's not - easy, perhaps, but surviving in it is manageable. And escape isn't really expected but the desert itself isn't so bad once you have the basics of not dying down and I think I've fleshed out the metaphor enough to continue on let's not linger longer here." Another sob, followed by a sniffle. "Then when you least expect it suddenly there's an, an oasis of some kind, and. And now I am crying, which is great, some Sith Lord I am."

"My favourite Sith Lord," he reminds her.

Did he want another extra sob, because he has earned one. Here it is, just for him.

"Also the only one you've met," she mumbles.

"True. But if I'd met any others I bet you would still be my favourite. Your teacher, when she arrives, will have to be content with second place."

She makes a noise that sounds like an unholy mixture of a sob and a laugh.

"I can't imagine she'd be jealous, she doesn't much care for others' opinions."

"Works out nicely, then."

Snuggle.

Snuggle. Sob.

And then, because she will not just leave well enough alone, she has to be very sure that the proverbial oasis is not a mirage and isn't going to disappear into desert sands: "I - I might end up having a, a jealousy problem, I've noticed that I've had some, obsessive, or perhaps a better term would be possessive tendencies. Which, is fun, it's great to know that I definitely have the capacity to become a crazy Sith."

"I'm confident we can figure it out," he says, hugging her.

"What, make a twelve step program for what to do if your girlfriend goes crazy and starts demonstrating why Imperial standard for what to do if a Sith becomes infatuated with you is 'quietly despair inside and say yes to everything they ask'?"

"One, I have more faith in my favourite Sith Lord than that. Two, even if you don't have that much faith in my favourite Sith Lord, perhaps you should have more faith in your favourite Barrayaran."

She whines a little, and shrinks into him.

"While I do not at all want to dismiss you or your abilities, because I think that'd be a grave mistake, I also can and have turned a man into paste with my mind, so, um. I'm, I'm afraid of myself, I have some measure of faith in my own abilities but I haven't - done anything of this nature before and if I fuck it up, then. Then I don't know, I'm afraid of hurting you. In fact the thought of being in some kind of active conflict with you sort of makes me want to crawl into a hole and die, which admittedly makes it hard to follow the train of thought of how you'd handle me going off the deep end."

He hugs her some more.

"I think we're going to be okay," he says. "That's - not to dismiss your concerns, but - if there's one thing in this world I really truly understand, it's people. When I say things like 'my favourite Sith Lord would never do that', I'm not just flippantly reminding you of how much I like you, I'm saying - the reason I like you and the reason I expect you to be reasonable and ethical and in control of yourself are the same reason, it's because that is who you are as a person, that's - everything I've ever seen you say or do - you're smart and resourceful and organized and you have good priorities and you care about people and you think things through. I really truly do not expect all that to fall apart if you start dating someone."

".... Yeah, okay, when you put it in those terms it does seem a bit far fetched for me to snap and go crazy. Thank you." Snuggle.

Snuggle. "Anytime."

"Well," she says, scrubbing at tears and shoving her issues back into their box. "I think that's my set of possible relationship constraints, complete with a healthy dose of some insight into the darker places in my head and in my history, do you have any you'd like to share?"

...He thinks about it.

"...I do actually need to marry the person I end up spending my life with, and marrying me comes with a - a place in the social and legal landscape of Barrayar - that's why it's so important that you love it here, it's not just that I personally appreciate you for it and it's not just that I love it here and want to live here for the rest of my life, it's... I'm Lord Vorkosigan, heir to the Vorkosigan Countship, and the woman I marry becomes Lady Vorkosigan and eventually Countess Vorkosigan when I inherit the Countship from my father. I would expect to have children eventually, although not anytime soon because I in no way feel ready for fatherhood yet."

"I'm not really adverse to being responsible for things or having a place in social and legal landscapes of places I actually like. Though I expect that I'm not going to stop being so involved in - everything. Is being Lady and then Countess Vorkosigan something that requires more time than I'm likely to be able to give, what with all of the other things I'm likely to be doing?"

"Not necessarily. It's - I don't know. You could ask my mother, she has experience making sense of it from an outside perspective."

"All right."

She smiles at him, then looks thoughtful. ".... I'm not against having children, but. To be honest it's not a thing I ever really expected to, ah, have? What with being a Sith Lord in the Sith Empire." Pause. "Any children we would have would be very likely to be Force sensitive."

"Yeah. Well, we have plenty of time to think about it."