"Ah - sure. If it's safe."

"I judge it a high likelihood, especially since we sent our luggage ahead and Illyan didn't suggest, for example, including a note to explain why there were thirty more articles than I left with."

"But you have not, say, told them?"

"No. I hate composing vid messages and avoid it wherever possible. Real-time communication is so much more - alive."

"Hmm." Well, they're his parents. They are, in fact, parents at all; she's hardly one to talk. Her designer might not find out that she's left Cetaganda for months yet.

"Anyway. I stand by my prediction that Mother's going to like you."

"I hope you're right."

"I often am!"

"He is... less transparent to me than Mother," sighs Miles. "I'm really not sure what he's going to think of you, which makes it very hard to give you any tips in advance, you see."

"Mmm. Is there a shortlist of possibilities...?"

"Not exactly, no." He looks up at her, then away, trying to marshal his thoughts. "More like a long list of impossibilities. My father is a good man. I know he's not going to - disown me, try to have you deported, do anything physically dangerous... what I don't know is what he will do. Maybe he'll fire off a round or two of sarcasm and retreat in good order, like Illyan. But I don't think so; that's less his style. I... fear that he might see you as an irrevocable bad decision on my part, or a threat to my safety, or to Barrayar's. That he might try—and certainly fail—to convince me I should pack you off to Beta Colony as soon as possible. Or to somewhere more remote. But that doesn't seem quite right either. And thus we come back," his free hand makes a horizontal circling motion, "to 'I don't know'."

"You are very categorically dismissing the possibility that I was a bad decision on your part," she points out.

"Yes," he says. "Should I not? Do you disagree?"

"You were a good decision on my part, and I'm certainly willing to give this," she gestures generally at Barrayar around them, "a sincere try, because it seems it likely will suit the goals I had in mind to begin with and because I like you very much, but I feel quite sure that if a couple of months ago you'd written out a list of characteristics for your ideal Lady Vorkosigan you would not have described me, and some of the items on that list might turn out to be relevant."

"I... tend not to put much stock in ideals," says Miles. "That kind, anyway. It's not possible to define perfection into existence. What would I look for in the ideal Lady Vorkosigan? Well, I admit I wouldn't have predicted the haut part, but - as you can perhaps tell from the fact that I married you - I'm rather enamoured of the whole package. I would stand in a circle of inexplicably dyed foodstuffs and swear to be your spouse and helpmeet, forsaking all others, united in love, giving aid where needed and accepting it where given, et cetera et cetera I always forget the bit at the end, for as long as we both shall live. And any external complainers can take a wormhole jump to hell." He pauses, then adds, "I promise to leave that last amendment out of the actual ceremony, if and when. Unless you think it'll add flair."

"It will be purely an unspoken addendum, then," he assures her. "If and when."

"All right. I'm not going to hold you to any of this if there are, I don't know, traditional pitchforks and torches outside your house this time tomorrow carried by people who demand my summary export. But it's nice to know where your thoughts are on the matter."

"Okay," he says, and kisses her hand.

Linya thinks Miles is terribly cute.

"By far my most natural state is to be honest and direct, so it is convenient that it will help with all these people. Do warn me if we come across anyone with whom I ought to be untrustworthy and sneaky."