singing open the great gates

[middlingalong]

The following day, very little happens, except for Vorreedi mentioning that Yenaro has been arrested (by the civil police, for theft, on charges from a ghem-lord Miles has never heard of, as opposed to by Cetagandan security for treason).

Also, Ivan gets bored - with all the bodyguards Vorreedi now requires for them after the incident at the bioestheties exhibition, the possible spontaneity of going out with his ghem girlfriends is much reduced.

But the next day they get to attend the Singing Open of the Great Gates.

And oh, is there ever singing.

Comments

[isthisart]

When he wakes up, he will find her still asleep, having changed into a dark blue nightdress and put her hair in a simple single braid that trails off the edge of the bed. Also, she has his head tucked under hers and her arm over his middle and she is mumbling in assorted languages, mostly English. Recognizable words include: "Key. Flower. Aerosolize. Periwinkle."

[thisvorlunatic]

...

Miles decides that no power in the universe could get him to exit this cozy situation prematurely. He snuggles up and closes his eyes.

[isthisart]

"Veracity. Thimble. один. Star."

And with that she yawns, and stretches, and resettles her arm around him. "Good morning. I didn't squish you or anything, did I?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I remain one hundred percent unsquished!" he reports happily.

[isthisart]

"Good." She nuzzles the top of his head, then yawns again and sits up.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles sighs. Cozily, though.

[isthisart]

Linya rummages in one of the boxes and comes up with an outfit, and ducks into the lav to change into it; she comes out in burgundy and white layered under a long elaborate shawl of what might be pink, though the material of the top layer is so thin and netted that it's hard to identify for certain. She can apparently do her hair herself, at least in a handful of styles including "two braids folded into loops and bunched together with ribbon".

[thisvorlunatic]

While she's in there, Miles cozies a little while longer and then gets up and picks out an outfit of his own - plain and boring, because there's no point whatsoever in trying to outshine his wife and the effort required to so much as approach keeping up is daunting enough to reserve for special occasions. So when she emerges, he has a stack of clothes in his arms.

"You look beautiful," he says. "Not that you ever haven't."

[isthisart]

"Thank you. I used to just let other people coordinate my clothes for me, but at least I can remember what they did and coast on that for a while. Do you want me to wait for you before I go to breakfast?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"You can if you want. I'll just be a few minutes in the shower," he says, and kisses her hand since in order to kiss any part of her face he'd need a stepstool, and disappears into the lav to shower and change and perform personal grooming rituals.

[isthisart]

She waits, learning how to describe colors in Russian to pass the intervening minutes.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles pops out of the lav again about four minutes later, dressed and depilated and slightly damp, and hugs his wife. (His wife!)

[isthisart]

She scoops him up and twirls him around and kisses his forehead and then puts him down again. And then off to breakfast. Perhaps mercifully, it doesn't look like Ivan's up yet.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles spends the entirety of breakfast playing the part of a helium balloon. Being scooped up and twirled around and kissed will apparently do that.

[isthisart]

Linya eats a considerable quantity of breakfast, about which she makes neither face nor comment, and then back to their room they go. She rummages around in her boxes for earbuds, with which to listen to the ship's library's audio content of Russian.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles hugs her again. Because he can.

[isthisart]

Awww. Hug. Hug is compatible with listening to Russian.

[thisvorlunatic]

It is, isn't it?

Then she can have hugs with her Russian.

[isthisart]

Eventually they are one-armed on her end, as she starts taking notes on what she's hearing - she's apparently already assigned gestures to Barrayaran Cyrillic and learned to write them reasonably quickly. She will be perfectly content to stay approximately like this for a couple of hours if Miles doesn't have anything better to do than watch her scribble in the air about conjugation and pronouns.

[thisvorlunatic]

As much as he enjoys cuddling his wife, Miles is not a naturally indolent person.

He experiments to find a configuration where he can both use the comconsole and snuggle Linya. Then he starts composing his written report to Illyan.

[isthisart]

"Am I allowed to see that?" she wonders, after glancing to see what he's up to.

She asks it in reasonably-accented Russian.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Technically no," he says, also in reasonably-accented Barrayaran Russian; then continues in English, "But you were there for most of it and you know the rest, I'm not risking a meaningful security leak by writing it in front of you."

[isthisart]

She looks up the translation for 'technically', guessing how to spell it on the first try, then also continues in English. "Should I pretend you didn't write it in front of me regardless?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um... I wouldn't volunteer it, but if Illyan guesses, better to admit it than lie."

He begins putting actual substance in his report - a surprisingly bare recitation of facts, getting in all the relevant details but omitting editorial commentary. Once or twice he looks something up from notes he made at the time, but for the most part his memory suffices. The report does not, indeed, contain anything Linya doesn't already know.

[isthisart]

"Okay," she says, switching to Russian again.