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]

"...What does he think I'm going to do?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I, er, think he's more worried about what you're not going to do. And also that you might be - that you might have some unexplained ulterior motive for being cute with me. Which I don't believe, for the record."

[isthisart]

"Good, if you believed that it would probably be awkward. 'Hi, Miles.' 'Hi, Linya, sent any interesting intelligence home to your celestial master today?'"

[thisvorlunatic]

...He giggles.

[isthisart]

"I wonder if it would be better all told if I looked for Barrayaran people to work with on the pen thing rather than going with the Escobaran fellow just because I have this extremely tenuous connection already. Would that look meaningfully less suspicious? Does Barrayar have reasonably sophisticated electrical engineering and allied industries?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um... I'm not sure what your standards are. We're up to galactic par, mostly, in some places. I think - if you found someone to work with on Barrayar, it would probably reflect well on you."

[isthisart]

"I'll sit on the message to Escobar, then, I may as well look into it. I built this one by myself in a workshop intended to let us make cunning electrical sculptures, I'm sure I can teach someone who knows the rudiments how to make more of them with cheaper materials."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm sure you can too."

[isthisart]

"What do you think of the form factor? I was making it a priority to have it come off as plausible jewelry on casual inspection, but I'm not sure if that's a positive or a neutral for the general case."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I think... if I have the option for mine, I'd like it to really look like an old-fashioned pen, if possible. I'm not sure of the size of the market for that aesthetic in the wormhole nexus at large."

[isthisart]

"For the projection to work right there does need to be something clear on each end. I suppose I could possibly make it look like a pen cap on the nib side," Linya muses, shuffling her screen around and switching back to full color to write this down.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Why not a, a glass nib?"

[isthisart]

"It has to - well, it's easiest to make it work if it's a hemisphere. I suppose I might be able to figure out enough optics to get it to behave in a nib shape." Note note.

[thisvorlunatic]

"It would be fun."

[isthisart]

"Quite possibly. Let's see if this ship library has anything I haven't read in the relevant problems of making light go through oddly-shaped things." She goes and browses through the available texts, humming.

[thisvorlunatic]

He sits down and gazes adoringly at her for a little bit.

[isthisart]

Occasionally she catches his eye and grins.

[thisvorlunatic]

[isthisart]

Eventually Linya concludes that the ship library does not have what she would need to make progress on the glass nib problem.

So instead she kisses Miles.

[thisvorlunatic]

...Eee!

[isthisart]

Eee indeed!

(If Miles is capable of complex thought he might notice that she kisses like someone with only theoretical knowledge of the practice, but Linya vaguely suspects that he might take long enough to have this power of discernment for her to catch up on the learning curve.)

[thisvorlunatic]

He already pretty much knows that she has only theoretical knowledge of the practice. He doesn't really consider it a detriment. She's kissing him. It's lovely. The end.

[isthisart]

Mmmmmkiss.

And then that seems like enough kiss for the time being. Although she does decide that his hair requires petting.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles hugs her and leans into her and makes contented humming noises of the sort one might make if one were discovering the joys of hairpets.

[isthisart]

Awwwwwwwwwww.