"You'd think whoever left her could have put on a note. With her name, at least," says Drou, watching Cordelia cradle the baby.

"Hmm. Yes. The name is a problem," Cordelia agrees thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should do something about that."

"I'm sure they'll find out where she came from eventually," Drou says. "She's got to have a name."

"I am not at all sure 'they' will get any farther in tracing her origins than 'they' already have," says Cordelia. "The end they reached seems to have been pretty thoroughly dead."

"What do you think will happen to the baby, then?" wonders Drou.

"I'm not sure. It's... worrying, how everyone seems to be very focused on finding out where she came from and not at all focused on figuring out where she's going."

"I suppose there's orphanages..."

"I suppose there are."

"If we can't find her parents she's as good as an orphan, isn't she?"

"Yes. I think... I think I'd like to talk to Aral," says Cordelia.

Drou makes an automatic check of the room to make sure that no one is waiting for her inattention in the rafters or behind the curtain, then goes to poke her head out the door and send the nearest servant to fetch Aral for his wife. The servant scurries and lets Aral know that "Lady Vorkosigan would like to see you, Lord Vorkosigan."

"It's this baby," she says. "I'm concerned for her future. I'm not sure I want to give her up to an orphanage."

"And she still doesn't have a name. What do you think?"

"I think..." He shakes his head. "I think the course of action you are implicitly proposing may be more difficult than you realize."

"Well, I think this girl needs someone in her life who won't treat her like a potential explosive. Several someones. As many as will fit."

"...All right," he sighs. "What shall we name her?"

"How about Nika?"

"Nika Madeline," he suggests.

"Nika Madeline Vorkosigan. It suits her," Cordelia declares.

"...Milady?" says Drou uncertainly.

"Yes, Drou?"

"You're going to adopt the doorstep baby?"

"Yes. I think it's a very elegant solution to the problems she faces. We're not going to let her potential as an explosive overshadow her potential as a human."

"I could teach you," she offers. Probably he just hasn't learned how, goes her train of thought.

"No you can't," he says. "I'm stuck." He gestures to the brace. "It's cause my bones break if I do things."

"Oh." Nika contemplates this. "That'd be bad." Think, think. "I do for you?"

...Miles looks thoughtful.

"I don't break, I just go bump ow," she explains.

"Oh. Why?"

"Walking is pretty hard," she says solemnly.

"Yeah?" he asks, interested.

"I have to do both feet."

"Yeah. But I can!"

"'Grats."

She walks in a little circle, trips, sits on the floor instead, and looks up at him.

"Bump ow?" he inquires.

"Yeah. I'll practice."

"Practice helps?"

"Droushie says," nods Nika. "She says practice falling too but I just fall anyway."

"Why would you practice falling?"

"To do it less ouchingly."

"Oh. That'd be good," he says wisely.

"Yeah. D'you need me to do any walking for you? I can practice at the same time."

"Probably yeah," he says. "Maybe not right now."

"Okay. Why do you break?"

"Cause my bones are bad. Good bones only break if you hit them really hard," he explains.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are yours bad?"

"Dunno. It's just how I was born."

"Oh. I wasn't born. I was doorstepped."

"Weren't you born somewhere before you were doorstepped, though?"

"I think I would remember that."

"No-o-o..."

He grins. "So maybe you were born!"

"Maybe. But I did it different I guess."

"Yeah. Most kids don't get doorstepped," he says authoritatively.

"Why not?"

"Because they're born and they have parents and their parents keep them and don't put them on anybody's doorstep," he explains.

"Why did I get doorstepped if I was born first?"

"I guess your parents decided to doorstep you. Or, or somebody stole you!"

"Stole me!" exclaims Nika, alarmed.

"Yeah! Maybe you're a fairy baby and when you're all grown up you'll, you'll sprout wings and fly away," he says imaginatively.

"I would like to fly," says Nika. "But maybe not away."

"Well, sprout wings and fly around, then. Yeah, that's better. You're my sister, I don't want you flying away."

Nika giggles. "Why would fairies doorstep me?"

"Dunno. Maybe... maybe you're magic and you're gonna save Barrayar from... evil fairies? Or maybe you're s'posed to be an evil fairy but you're not because you're a Vorkosigan and you're gonna defeat all the evil fairies with fairy magic."

"Eeee," giggles Nika, clapping her hands. "Fairy magic! How do I fairy magic?"

"I dunno! It might not work until you're older and you get wings," he says wisely.

"How older?"

"I don't know, I'm not a fairy!"

Nika gets up off the floor and spins around with her arms up and then taps Miles on the nose. "I fairy magicked you."

He giggles. "What am I magic for?"

"Good fairy things," she assures him.

He grins. "Maybe it'll make my bones better."

"Maybe! Then I can teach walking and doing both feet." She tries to spin again but is not so fortunate this time. Plop.

"Bump ow?"

"Yeah." She sighs long-sufferingly. She gets up again and goes looking for more people to fairy magic.

There's Gregor! He is in the next room with Droushie, sitting at a comconsole and reading.

Nika goes up to Gregor! She hugs his leg, since his nose is not reachable. "I fairy magic you," she announces.

"Miles says maybe I was doorstepped for fairying," she explains. "So I fairy magic."

"Oh." Gregor smiles. "Okay. Is it good fairy magic?"

"Of course!" she says indignantly. "I am a good Vorkosigan fairy not an evil fairy."

He nods. "That's good. Fairies can be tricky. I'm glad you're on our side."

"I am the best fairy," she says, continuing to hug his leg.

He ruffles her hair. "You sure are."

Eeee hair-ruffling. Nika beams up at him. "I'm going to fairy magic more people," she says. She goes and fairy magics Droushie (who also ruffles her hair) and then goes looking for Mama or Da or Bothari, whoever's easiest to locate.

Well, Bothari is back in the room with Miles now.

Nika goes up to him and pats him on the knee and informs him, "I fairy magic you."

Nika beams and continues looking for people to fairy magic.

Da is in his study! He is doing something at a comconsole too.

"Do you? I feel very magical now," he says, scooping her off the floor for a hug.

Nika cackles delightedly. "I am a magic doorstep fairy!"

"The most magical doorstep fairy there ever was," he agrees. "Have you magicked anyone else yet?"

"Yes, I did Miles and Gregor and Droushie and Bothari and then you and now you are all fairy magic!"

"Let's go find your mama," he suggests. "I'm sure she could use some fairy magic too."

"Yes, I fairy magic her too," agrees Nika.

"Would you like me to carry you, or do fairies prefer to walk?"

"Fairies fly. But I am too little to have fairy wings so carry me like I can fly!"

"Wheeeeeeee!" squeals Nika delightedly. "Flying flying flying!"

This is clearly the best possible use of the Lord Regent of Barrayar's time.

Look! There's Mama!

"I am a flying magic fairy!" Nika tells her mama.

"Yes you are," she says, accepting midair transfer of the flying magic fairy from her husband and twirling Nika around fairy-fashion.

"Eeeee! And, and I fairy magic you."

"Fairy magic! What does fairy magic do?"

"Good things," says Nika. "Magic good things. I'm a good fairy."

"Of course you are."

"I am the best fairy. I fairy magicked Miles and Gregor and Droushie and Bothari and Da and you."

"How industrious. Who's next? Or are you done for the day?"

"Who else could I fairy magic?" wonders Nika.

"I'm not sure. Kou, maybe."

"Okay, fly me to Kou?"

"Sure," he says, and gives her one. With a little smile.

Nika says "thank you!" ever so politely and then walks very carefully so as not to drop her prize. Nibble, nibble.

"Mm-hm!" Nibble nibble. "Maple is my favorite."

"Where'd you get it?"

"I asked Gregor and he gave it."

"Could you go get me one when you're done yours? You can practice walking," says Miles.

"Oh," says Nika. "But he sent me too."

"Miles had three?" muses Nika suspiciously.

Nika beams and hugs his leg and goes and eats them in front of Miles, humming.

"You had three," she says.

"But I wanted another one," he says. "And I asked you to get me one and you said you would and then you didn't."

"Do you also want four?" inquires Gregor.

"That is fair," says Nika solemnly.

"Thank you," says Nika sunnily, and she goes to give one of the new candies to Miles.

"Thank you," says Miles, beaming. He eats his candy.

"You're welcome," says Nika. Om nom nom. "Gregor is nice."

"Yeah, he is," Miles agrees.

"And maple's my favorite."

"Maple's the best."

"It comes from trees," she says knowledgeably.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Maple trees. With the leaves like our family crest."

"Ooh! How do you make leaves be candy?"

"You don't! They're just pretty. The candy comes from inside the trees. But I dunno how. It's the same place maple syrup comes from... maybe if you cut a maple tree it bleeds maple syrup?" he speculates.

"Tree blood!" cackles Nika. "Eeee!"

"Tree blood," giggles Miles.

"We're TREE VAMPIRES," she exclaims around the last of her candies.

"But does that mean that if trees drank our blood it'd be like candy?" he wonders.

"Maybe," says Nika thoughtfully. "That would be fair."

"But I don't know if trees can taste things."

"Trees don't have mouths."

"Yeah. I don't know if they can taste things without mouths."

"I can only taste things with my mouth," says Nika. She starts licking her fingers.

"Me too. I think that's how tasting works. So if trees don't have mouths they probably can't taste things. Which is good, because it means they won't try to drink our blood."

"But is that fair?" she wonders.

"Maybe not. Some things aren't."

"Oh. Well, that's bad."

He shrugs.

"But I don't want trees to drink my blood. So maybe not very bad."

"Anyway I'm not sure trees want things. They're trees. So it's probably okay not to be fair to them, because they're trees."

"Maybe," says Nika dubiously.

"Well, being fair to people matters because they're people, right?"

"I like being fair to my stuffed animals."

"Stuffed animals are like people. They're like pretend people."

"Oh! Okay. But what if you pretend trees are people? You could. You could name them."

"Trees aren't here," he says logically.

"But we could go where trees are and name trees things."

"I guess... where are there trees?"

"Forests!"

"We're not in a forest. We're in a city."

"There's trees out in the garden."

"You could go name them."

"But what if unfair things happen to them later?"

"Well... like what?"

"Like... like... getting cut down."

"Then maybe we could pretend they were tree ghosts."

"TREE GHOSTS!" crows Nika enthusiastically. "Wooooooo!"

He grins. "Tree ghosts! Yeah!"

"They could haunt stuff."

"Yeah. And drink people's blood! Vampire tree ghosts!"

"Can things be vampires and ghosts?" breathes Nika in fascination.

"Of course," says Miles authoritatively.

"I might have to do fairy magic to - to defeat them. If they did too much haunting," she muses.

"Cause you're a good fairy. Yeah. You can stop them drinking everybody's blood."

"And then we can eat GHOST MAPLE CANDY!" she squeals.

Miles giggles uproariously.

"Your grandda doesn't want to meet Miles, but he wants to meet you," says Nika's mama.

"But, that isn't fair," says Nika. "Does he know?"

"Does he know that it's not fair, you mean? I'm not sure," she says. "But sometimes people do want things that aren't fair, even though they aren't."

"Oh. Why does he want that?"

"Your grandda wishes he had a grandson who was healthy and could run around and play like you and Ivan and Gregor do without getting hurt," Cordelia explains. "He wishes that so much that he doesn't like Miles because Miles isn't the way he wants."

"I can't run around," Nika points out.

"You can do it better than Miles can. If Miles fell over as often as you do, all his bones would break and he'd spend most of his time in the hospital."

"Well, he doesn't even walk. I walk for him."

"Yes, you do."

"What's Grandda like besides unfair?"

"He loves your Da very much, even though they're angry with each other about Grandda being unfair to Miles. And he's a hero. He did a lot of very important things when he was younger."

"What important things?"

"When your Grandda was young, younger than I am now, Barrayar was invaded by Cetagandans and Grandda helped fight them off. That's when he became a General."

"Why'd the Cet-gandans do that?"

"I'm not sure. They weren't interested in explaining themselves at the time."

Nika giggles. "Okay. How far away is Grandda?"

"He lives at Vorkosigan Surleau, which is a beautiful house on a lake, and it's three hours away by lightflyer."

"Will you read to me on the way?" Three hours is a long time.

"Of course."

Nika politely does not make the first thing out of her mouth be "you are unfair". Instead she says, "Hi Grandda! I'm Nika!"

Nika nods. "Hugs are nice!"

So Grandda hugs her.

And Nika hugs her Grandda. "This is a pretty place," she tells him, in case he did not know.

"Thank you," he says. "I think so too. Do you want to see more of it?"

"Yes," says Nika, still with her arms around his neck, because possibly that way he will carry her instead of her having to walk around the pretty place. "Please."

That's very convenient! Nice Grandda. Nika points at specific pretty things and clarifies that they are especially pretty.

"Horses!" approves Nika. "Yes please."

Nika points at the prettiest horse. "That is my favorite," she informs him.

"And why's that? Is he pretty?"

"He's pretty! The others are pretty too. That one is prettiest."

"He is very pretty," Grandda agrees. "Do you like horses, Nika?"

"Yes. Horses are good. Can I pet the horses?"

Nika pets the horse's nose, giggling. "Can I give it a sugar?"

"Yes, you can," says Grandda. He hands Nika a sugar.

Nika puts it in her palm just like Grandda did and holds her hand under the horse's nose.

Nom!

"Eeeeee," giggles Nika. "The horse and me both like sugar."

"Is that so?" says Grandda.

"Yes. I like maple sugar best. Like our leaf!"

"Miles says we are tree vampires," says Nika. "Are we tree vampires?"

"...What's a tree vampire?"

"He said, maple syrup is tree blood! So, we're tree vampires."

"...That's almost right," Piotr allows. "Trees have sap like people have blood. Maple trees have maple sap, which isn't much good by itself - it's just like sweet water. But boiling maple sap gets you maple syrup, and boiling it some more after that gets you maple sugar."

"What if you boil that?"

"Maple sugar doesn't have enough water in it to boil any more."

"Oh. So boiling doesn't just always make it nicer."

"If you tried to boil maple sugar you'd just get burnt sugar," he says.

"That wouldn't be nice." Nika pets the horse's nose again.

The horse seems reasonably pleased about this.

"They are," Piotr agrees. "Do you want to ride a horse? I could find you a nice little pony."

"Yes. A Nika sized pony."

"A Nika-sized pony. Exactly," he says.

"Where is one?"

"I'll have to borrow one from a friend, for next time you visit."

"Okay. Can I ride a big horse because there isn't a Nika sized pony today?"

"Okay. Is this horse a calm horse? Is the prettiest horse a calm horse?"

"I'll find you the calmest horse," says Piotr, handing Nika back to her mama. Cordelia nods approvingly.

Nika waits in her mama's arms, supervising the horse-finding process curiously therefrom. "What makes horses calm?"

"I'm not sure," says Cordelia. "Perhaps some of the same things that make people calm."

"Bedtime stories?" suggests Nika.

"Maybe not that thing in particular. But maybe so. I don't know a lot about horses."

"Naps? Tea?"

"I don't think horses drink tea."

"Do they drink tree blood?"

"They might."

"Vampire horses!"

Cordelia laughs.

So does Nika. "Horse horse horse I will sit on a horse."

And Nika clings to the saddle and beams. "Does the horse have a name?" she asks.

"His name is Acrobat," says Piotr.

"Acrobat!" repeats Nika. "Does he know his name?"

"Yes, he does."

Nika holds on tight and grins. "Acrobat doesn't fall!"

"He's a horse," says Piotr. "Horses don't fall much."

"They have more feet though. Two feet is complicated."

"Four feet don't fall over as easily as two," he says. "Think about tables. Have you ever seen a table with two feet? It'd never stand up."

"Oh. Can I get more feet?"

"Humans have two feet each," Piotr says firmly. "That's the right number."

"But I fall."

"Can I have wings instead?" she tries. "There is nothing to trip on for flying things and I could be a fairy."

"I will go on a pony and know how to tell the pony to go," Nika agrees. "But, I am from a basket. I could be a fairy."

"If I was a fairy I could do fairy magic," says Nika. "I play fairy magicking people, sometimes."

Nika leans forward and taps Piotr on the shoulder. "I fairy magic you," she says magnanimously.

"You're welcome!" beams Nika.

Her Grandda smiles. So does her mama.

"How small is he? Is he really as small as you?"

"No, he is a size for me to sit on, not like a great big horse like Acrobat," Nika says.

Miles giggles. "If I could ride a horse I'd ride the biggest one! Just 'cause!"

"Maybe Grandda will stop being unfair sometime and then you can!"

"I hope so. Riding a horse sounds fun."

"It is! Grandda's big horses do dressage. It's fancy."

"What's it mean?"

"It's horse dancing!"

"Horses dance?"

"Yeah! I want to dance horses when I grow up."

"Me too!"

"We can dance horses together and win contests and stuff!"

"Yeah!"

"And have our own dancing horses. I want a dancing horse."

"If Grandda has them, he might give you some when you're old enough to ride them!"

"Maybe! But for now he is borrowing Gumdrop. Gumdrop is little and doesn't dance but he's gray and he likes apples."

"Is he grey all over or does he have other colours too?"

"If you look real close some of his hairs are white!"

"I wish I could ride a horse..."

"Maybe you could! It's mostly sitting. You sit."

"Maybe..." He gets his speculative look.

"You could be sat on a horse, I think," says Nika, with more authoritativeness than ought to exist in a three-year-old.

"And then I could ride the horse."

"Yeah! And, the horse knows how to do four entire feet, so it's not complicated unless you do fancy horse dancing things."

"Is four feet less complicated than two? Or is it that the horse is doing them instead of you?"

"The horse is doing it."

"That makes sense."

"Yes. I want my own horse to do feet for me all the time."

"We should both have them. And then I could go places and you could fall down less."

"Yeah! What would you name your horse? Horses have to have names."

"I dunno yet. What would you name yours?"

Nika thinks about this, then says, "Magic."

"That's a good name for a horse," says Miles.

"Yes. It is the best horse name. It has to be the best horse name because I want the best horse."

"What if I get the best horse?"

"Then you should give it to me so I can name it Magic. You can have the next best horse."

"But I want the best horse too," says Miles.

"Then, you have to think of a horse name as good as Magic. And then we can get the same bestness horses."

"I'll think about it," he says.

Nika nods. "And our horses will dance together so it should be a name that sounds good with Magic."

"Yeah."

"If I think of a good name I will tell you it."

"Okay. And if I think of a good name I'll tell you. And then I'll have a horse with a good name and we'll both have the best horse."

"Yes. They can be best horses together."

"Best!"

"Hi grandda! How are you?"

"I'm fine," he says. "How are you?"

"I'm goooood. I want to come over and ride Gumdrop again and Miles wants to ride a horse too and it is mostly sitting and he can sit, he does it all the time, can he come please too? I'll share Gumdrop."

"We want to both have horses when we grow up and dance them and if I am very much better at horses than him it's not fair," Nika wheedles.

"...I'll think about it," he says.

"Okay good," says Nika. "Does Gumdrop miss me, do horses miss people?"

"I don't think Gumdrop knows you well enough to miss you yet," says Piotr.

"So you should have me and Miles over soon and then he will know me more."

"...Do your parents know you're talking to me, Nika?"

"No. There's nobody here."

"I... see. I think I'll have to talk to your parents about inviting Miles to visit."

"That makes sense," says Nika.

"I'll do that, then."

"Do you need me to go so you can call them?"

"I rather think they're going to call me," he murmurs wryly.

"Do you need me to tell them so they will call you?"

"You certainly can," he says.

"Okay. Tell all the horses I said hi!" And then she hunts for the button to end the call, and does that, and goes searching for parental units.