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

[exerce_imperia]

Empress Lisbet actually laughs out loud before re-engaging her bubble and floating away. Emperor Fletchir follows, with a hint of a smile cast back at the newlyweds. The consort-bubbles fall in line behind them.

Ghem-General Benin steps forward from a doorway to guide the galactics to the South Gate of the Celestial Garden, where a car is waiting to return the Barrayarans - plus new addition - to their embassy. Maz is welcome to travel with them or stay to catch the tail end of the funeral banquet.

[isthisart]

Maz accompanies them.

And Lady Vorkosigan strolls sedately, humming a little under her breath.

[middlingalong]

"So... hello," says Ivan.

[isthisart]

"We have met," Linyabel points out to him.

[middlingalong]

"...Congratulations?" he tries.

[isthisart]

"Thank you."

[thisvorlunatic]

She's humming. She's happy. Happily married. To Miles.

Why yes, he's going to be like this the whole way back. Possibly all the way to Barrayar.

[isthisart]

"My things are already packed," Linyabel mentions. "If there's a strict cargo allowance I can tell the servitors which containers to abandon."

(Maz and Vorob'yev are having a soft but animated conversation in which she is excited and fascinated and he is glad that Vorkosigan...s... are imminently no longer his problem.)

[thisvorlunatic]

"Not a strict one per se. As long as we can fit it all in the courier ship - ballpark mass and volume for me and I'll tell you if you need to drop anything."

[isthisart]

"I went ahead and assumed I couldn't have the grand piano," she says wryly. "Everything else fits into thirty boxes yea big -" She gestures; the shape isn't tiny but not too big for one person to haul, "and one a bit longer for the keyboard, only one box exceeding thirty pounds. It's mostly clothes, and I don't really care about those, I assume they have clothes on Barrayar."

[thisvorlunatic]

"We do have clothes on Barrayar," Miles affirms. "And pianos, actually. Well, multiple pianos on the planet, one specifically at Vorkosigan House. Your stuff should fit on the ship just fine."

[isthisart]

"Okay, good." Deprived of float-chair comlink, she plucks her pen from her necklace and scribes off a quick message to the ba who are handling her things. "That should be all delivered to the embassy later within the hour. Do your various fellow embassy-dwellers want to have heavily veiled interrogations about me or do they make those faces all the time?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"They might want to," says Miles, and lets the sentence end there.

[isthisart]

Linyabel giggles.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles beams.

[isthisart]

"Should I expect interrogations with some level of veiling, or not, at any point in the future? I would like to know what to expect."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles rubs his face and attempts seriousness.

"All right... when we get home, I'll probably want to introduce you to Mother right off. She can get settled in while I report to my boss - have I told you about my boss? Simon Illyan, chief of ImpSec, perfect memory, deadly grasp of sarcasm. He can have all the information out of me he cares to ask for. Probably he'll want to talk to you or something, I don't know. And then I imagine as soon as he's pretty sure you're not secretly some kind of ticking bio-bomb or sleeper agent or something, you'll get to talk to Gregor. Who I'm sure will like you. My advice for dealing with both of them is - don't be afraid to tell the truth. Advice which does not apply to the Barrayaran public at large. Illyan will store everything you say in that brain of his, so be careful not to tell him anything you really don't want him to know, but your best defense against his suspicions is not being whatever he suspects you of. And Gregor... is Gregor. By the time we make planetfall he'll probably have come up with ten different ways to steer whatever trouble your arrival stirs up to an agreeable conclusion. It's important to be honest with Gregor."

He bites his tongue on an admission that this is not the first time he's gone adventuring out in the wide wide galaxy and come back with strays. That will have to wait until Illyan clears her to know about Admiral Naismith. God, what a tangle that will be... he hopes he can wring that clearance out of them soon.

[isthisart]

Linyabel woggles her pen in a way that causes the "screen" it projects to appear totally white, although she's obviously still able to see something in it and seems like she's taking notes.

"I'm not a sleeper agent, a biological Trojan horse, or anything else more complicated than being - Cetagandan, haut, myself," says Linyabel, shrugging gracefully. "But if those characteristics turn out to be more of a disaster than you anticipate - I will not complain much about being shuffled off to somewhere else. I believe I will have to rely on your judgment about how much disaster is too much disaster, as you know the situation on Barrayar infinitely better than I do. What is your advice for interacting with the general public? - And you didn't list your father."

[thisvorlunatic]

"My father... is slightly more complicated," sighs Miles. "We can talk about him later." Perhaps when they are actually alone together.

[isthisart]

"Okay."

They arrive at the embassy. Linyabel's luggage, all clearly marked with numbers on the boxes, also arrives and is disgorged from its car by a ba servitor who bows in what might be a vaguely affectionate manner to Linyabel before departing; she bids it goodbye by name and then opens the long box to make sure her keyboard is intact, which it is.

She does a lot of notetaking on her blank white pen projection.

[middlingalong]

The lieutenants are not already packed.

While packing is going on - that is, as soon as it's possible to tear Miles out of the presence of his new wife to get him to put objects into luggage - Ivan mutters: "What are you going to do with her?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, I did promise I'd take her up in my lightflyer around Vorkosigan Surleau," Miles says brightly.

[middlingalong]

"Right, great, you can probably sink a whole afternoon into that. Then what? What are you going to tell Illyan? Or the Count your father? Or Gregor?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I am going to tell all three of those people that I got married, Ivan. And since my wife seems very happy with me, I plan to stay that way... do you suppose we should have a second ceremony on Barrayar? I'll ask her what she thinks," he decides. "I wouldn't want anyone to think I wasn't serious about it, just because all I did was eat some candy and hold her hand. Ought to give my proper oaths."

[middlingalong]

"And then everyone will get the message that you're very serious about marrying your friendly but not that friendly haut-lady, that sounds great. Can haut even still have children with regular people?"