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Cam is out flying. There's a decent cloud of atmosphere around the gold plane, now, millenia of demons making air around themselves for comfort and not sealing it up because why would you bother. There's a small forest, here - the effect is kind of ruined by the lamps it has to grow under, but it's still pretty.
He feels an open summons and lets it grab him -
Cam on Barrayar
from_scratch
thisvorlunatic
"That was really an excessively long pause," he comments as he goes to finish this one.
cheerfulish
The next angel is female, tallish, wearing a sky-blue dress with a swishy knee-length skirt and sky-blue tights patterned with cartoonish white clouds and satiny white shoes. Her large, soft-feathered wings are white with sky-blue banding.
She blinks at Cam. "That's unusual!" she says. "Hello!"
She blinks at Cam. "That's unusual!" she says. "Hello!"
thisvorlunatic
"Hello," says Miles. This one gives him hope. "How do you feel about working with demons?"
cheerfulish
"Just fine, I suppose. What am I working with demons on? My strongest specialty is electrical engineering, but I've picked up a lot of this and that over the years."
from_scratch
"This and that. Mostly getting rid of stuff I make after it's served its purpose. Some de-radioactivizing things, maybe, if we don't get a separate angel for that. Making me presentable for people who wouldn't want to see me going around with wings and a tail, with less blood and awkward castoffs."
cheerfulish
"I can de-radioactivize! That is a thing I have picked up. And I can un-ickily un-wing you."
cheerfulish
"My name is Janvia," the angel adds. "What is the pay like for an angelic assistant? Do I get arbitrary objects? I am fond of arbitrary objects!"
cheerfulish
"I suspected as much," she says. "Because you are a demon. How do you come to be walking around all talkative and assistant-seeking, anyway?"
from_scratch
"This is not the usual mortal world. This is a completely different mortal world which discovered daeva by accidentally summoning me."
cheerfulish
"I do not mind about staying for a long time," she adds. "I thought I would mention, because this is starting to look like one of those sorts of jobs."
thisvorlunatic
"That's handy," says Miles. "Well, welcome to Barrayar. If you stay for the really long term, and find it convenient, we can also pay you in actual money - Cam here is going to be an official government employee as soon as I call my emperor. Sound good to you?"
cheerfulish
"An emperor. Gosh," says Janvia. "General angelic assistance in exchange for arbitrary objects and optional local salary, to be concluded whenever we feel like concluding? That sounds just fine."
cheerfulish
"I heard," she says, as Miles disappears off to call his emperor. "It is nice to meet you too. I think your summoner forgot to introduce himself."
from_scratch
"Summoner's name is Miles Vorkosigan. He is a nice summoner. Oh, by the way, in case you'd be alarmed to learn this later: I am one hundred percent off leash and expect to stay that way."
cheerfulish
"That seemed to follow from the part where you were summoned by accident," says Janvia. "It would be an awfully convenient accidental summoning that just happened to include all the standard bindings, especially if you are the first daeva this world has ever seen."
cheerfulish
She shrugs. Her feathers rustle very faintly. "It is possible that after you were accidentally summoned and did not go and do any horrible things at all and taught your very nice accidental summoner how to summon with proper bindings, he summoned you again with a binding on. But I do not think it is quite as likely as the alternative."
from_scratch
"Excellent deductive work. Anyway, basics of this newfound mortal world: it's the late thirtieth century. No aliens, but lots of human space colonization, principally via wormholes. We are on a planet called Barrayar, which is the principal of three planets ruled by the aforementioned emperor, who is also very nice. Lots of exciting technology and culture to occupy our immortal selves."