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The next time Linya and Ekaterin meet up (for impromptu bonsai skellytum pruning lessons, lunch, and an attempt to teach Ekaterin the simplest version of a complicated haut card game) Linya says, while shuffling for a second example round:
"Miles and I are planning to get married again, Barrayaran ceremony groats and all, and I wondered if you'd be my Second."
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isthisart
isthisart
"Yes. I'm glad I didn't become complacent about going accompanied outside the house," she sighs.
isthisart
"He didn't have a weapon on him. Even if I'd been alone I think I could have gotten him off of me before he did any damage, although I don't think I could have managed it as elegantly as Bylinkin."
thisvorlunatic
"Well, that's what Armsmen are for. Protecting the Count and his family."
isthisart
Linya nods. She gives Miles another snuggle and another kiss and then lets him go so he can see to the care of her abused hair.
thisvorlunatic
He brushes the hair. He pets the hair. He braids the hair - a five-stranded French rope braid that spins elegantly down her back. He pets the hair again. And then he sits in Linya's lap and kisses her.
thisvorlunatic
"I love you too. And your hair. I definitely love your hair."
thisvorlunatic
Miles giggles. "I, um, yes." A memory of a certain conversation with Bel Thorne springs to mind, and he adds, "...How hopelessly pathetic was I when I first saw you? With the falling to my knees and all?"
isthisart
"...Do you want me to generate a number on a scale from one to ten or elaborate further on what I thought of it?"
thisvorlunatic
"Oh, I don't know, is both an option? I confess I'm much more interested in the latter."
isthisart
"Then the latter you shall have. It's - a substantial part of your appeal is the way you sort of - project your experience of the world outward. It's very compelling. When that experience happened to be that you were thunderstruck by my designer's artistic choices, that was flattering; the particular way you displayed it was incidental."
thisvorlunatic
"Well, now I'm going to be insufferably pleased with myself," he says, grinning.
thisvorlunatic
Giggles! Snuggles! Giggly snuggles! And rebraided hair! Miles feels terribly accomplished.
isthisart
Linya continues to attend classes. She's got a variety. Right now she is doing her genetics homework.
isthisart
"Hi." She puts her pen on its collar and holds out her arms for a hug.
thisvorlunatic
Hug!
"So," he says, "you remember that conversation we had after our wedding...?"
"So," he says, "you remember that conversation we had after our wedding...?"
thisvorlunatic
"Yes. Wedding number two. With the groats. Well - I've been thinking about it, and I think I mostly have my head sorted out. Is now a good time to talk about it again...?"
isthisart
"...Sure," she says, apprehensive but not, it would seem, upset.
thisvorlunatic
"Okay. Um. I think - I have a sort of mystical appreciation for the uniting of undoctored sperm and undoctored egg into potential child, where that method is available, and from that basis I don't really mind what changes are made as long as they're all unambiguous improvements - all the things you said about headaches and colds made sense to me, but, say, if you were going to make the kids tetrachromats I'd want to find some way to convert standard colour formats into something that a four-coloured display could render so they'd see it properly. Actually, now that I've thought of that, I want to do it anyway. Is it possible? Can you bend your genius to it or locate an appropriate engineer or something? I'm getting off-track, sorry - because it seems like being a tetrachromat isn't unambiguously better, see, you have that problem with holos, but if the problem was adequately solved it would, er, not be a problem."
He takes a quick breath.
"—And as long as enough of the original sequence remains that you can fairly say you didn't just replace the genome wholesale with something designed from scratch. And - I don't know, I'd want to be appraised of what you were doing, I'd want to get a say, express opinions, but I trust your judgment enough that I don't expect to want to really veto anything. You aren't going to give our children, I don't know, fangs or something else that would get them spit on in the street, you aren't going to insist that their heights be arranged in birth order or want to predetermine their sexualities according to specific ratios or something - I thought it was terribly sweet that you wanted to give them all my eyes." Another breath. "And it's not as though we urgently require an heir at this very moment, so we have time to work out the details? I think? I hope?"
He takes a quick breath.
"—And as long as enough of the original sequence remains that you can fairly say you didn't just replace the genome wholesale with something designed from scratch. And - I don't know, I'd want to be appraised of what you were doing, I'd want to get a say, express opinions, but I trust your judgment enough that I don't expect to want to really veto anything. You aren't going to give our children, I don't know, fangs or something else that would get them spit on in the street, you aren't going to insist that their heights be arranged in birth order or want to predetermine their sexualities according to specific ratios or something - I thought it was terribly sweet that you wanted to give them all my eyes." Another breath. "And it's not as though we urgently require an heir at this very moment, so we have time to work out the details? I think? I hope?"