video

[rathercommon]

Hullo everyone. It's Kitty.

[ Kitty looks a little more normal than she did the last time she made a post on the network, since the last time she made a post on the network she looked like a tiger. She's bright-eyed, cheerful, and has a pair of very elaborate and beautiful earrings. ]

So, I'm taking a class in journalistic methods at the local community college - it's a brilliant class, too, I'm having an excellent time, school really gets much more worthwhile when you get to the college level, doesn't it - and we've been given an assignment to conduct interviews. I know that some of you are willing and happy to help me out and submit to being interviewed. [ Her grin is confident. ] It's nothing too personal, I promise - just some stuff on your attitude towards the locals here, that sort of thing. It'll be fun.

[ This...is not one hundred percent truthful, since the assignment is to interview one person, not the whole community. But, hey, why not do some broad info-gathering, right? ]

Comments

[dendarii]

[ MIles would have found a way to bust in regardless. He has much the same huffy, embarrassed register over the link. ]

She's not - I mean, she is incredibly important to Gregor and I, and don't think for a moment she's a lesser part of this relationship, but - Kitty doesn't want the same things Gregor and I do.

[use_everything]

[By bird, by miniature, or by elaborate ruse involving a shuttle drop, three mercenaries and a convincing lie about invasion forces. One way or the other, Aral was sure.]

She's made that clear. Quite unusual, honestly.

[dendarii]

Unusual in not wanting children?

[use_everything]

Don't you think so?

[dendarii]

[ There's a fraught question. Betan and Barrayaran sensibilities war for a moment; in the end, he has to come down on the side of Kitty, though the link betrays the fact that it isn't as cut and dry response as it may seem. ]

Kitty may do whatever she likes. That is not unusual in the slightest.

[ And then, surging up quickly to resolve that noise underneath: ]

Besides, I want children badly enough for three people.

[use_everything]

The trick is the partner to offer the gametes... though I never asked if it was bearing or the rearing that was objectionable. I know your Mother wouldn't mind helping.

[As androgenesis was certainly something that was still intensely foreign in Aral's time. Just barely becoming a concept in Miles']

[dendarii]

[ It takes Miles a moment to realize that the tech is what's ultimately in question here. Though he's also sure that his mother would help - as much of a pang that would cause in him. Gregor's genes take priority here, or would have to if not for the new tech... ]

I'm certain she would too. But we can manage with just Gregor and I. It's new but hardly out of reach.

[use_everything]

[On the other hand, it's foreign enough that the connection to tech is not intuitive or immediate to Aral.]

What is new?

[dendarii]

Androgenesis. Biological children between two men, grown in a replicator the same as they would for any other couple.

[use_everything]

[There's no answer immediately. The mind on the other side was a whirl with the implications of what something like that could DO with a society like theirs.. especially if the first example of it was the Emperor and a High Vor.

Change, that kind of change, especially, never came without unrest. Would it shake the unquestioning faith the average Barrayaran had in their deity in man for engaging in the 'unnatural' or would it open a few shuttered minds.

Both, he imagined.]

That.. could have implications.

[dendarii]

[ Some of which Miles can guess at just from that hum of mental activity alone. He has to remind himself that Aral is progressive in many, many ways - and that his own sense of his father is from twenty years in the future.

Besides, any concerns Aral raises now will only be echoed a hundred fold by the rest of Barrayar. ]

Well. I'm going to marry him, if he'll have me, and I want approximately a dozen children, so Barrayar is going to have to adjust.

[ The bravado is undercut sharply by fear, bright and hot. ]

[use_everything]

Well, that's one answer to two shortened families.

[The tone is musing, dry humor shooting through it like veins. The ponderous, moody thought behind it didn't abate though. It was too large, too new and sudden to settle yet.]

... Not all at once, I hope.

[dendarii]

[ A faint mental snort intermingled with longing. Miles might very well try to have twelve children at once if he isn't stopped. ]

I was thinking sets of twins, actually. Spaced a few years apart.

[ The longing deepens. Miles wants to meet his children so very badly. ]

How do you feel about Emperor Aral?

[use_everything]

[He did warm entirely as the thought passes from politics to progeny. The idea of twins making mischief around the house was certainly not a terrible o-














Emperor Aral.












Good god.






















... Well better than Serg.














BUT STILL.]

Honored. How about we break naming traditions as well, however. Maybe a second son.

[dendarii]

[ Miles, thankfully, comes down on the side of amused rather than concerned. As concerning as that wall of blankness is for a moment. ]

We're going to be breaking tradition enough as it is. Better to have the easier ones prevail, eh?

[use_everything]

[It's quite impossible to choke on words as easily mentally as one does physically, but he manages.]

In such case, you'd best both outlive me by an age.

[dendarii]

[ Miles just laughs at his father, fondness streaking over the link like the sunrise. ]

All right, all right. We can be convinced. Should I show you the whole list?

[use_everything]

[There's another ruffle, residual, like a dog shaking off the last offending water. ... And then brightens immediately.]

I'd be quite receptive.

[dendarii]

I'll come over.

[ There's the quiet sound of motion in the next room, then Miles footsteps coming down the hallway. He knocks once. ]

[use_everything]

[There's a bit of an odd overlap as in that transition to an audible conversation, the words and thought of "Enter" come nearly at the same time.]

[dendarii]

[ Miles does so. When he swings the door open, it's immediately apparent that he's wearing earrings of his own. More steel and silver than glitter, something more traditionally masculine in the Barrayaran sense. They read exactly the same as Kitty's had, except with masculine pronouns.

He's also holding a sheaf of papers in one hand. ]

Hello, Da.

[use_everything]

[There's a long look, curious, at Miles' earrings. But there was nothing there to honestly be surprised by, other than a style he'd not seen often.

He clears space on the small writing table between them for Miles.]

Evening, my boy. Lets see what you've gone down to.

[dendarii]

[ Miles waits a moment, to see if there'll be more of a reaction ... then subsides, a bit relieved to feel none. He settles down at the table, the loose sheaf of papers in hand.

"Aral Alexander" is at the top of the list, as is "Olivia Delia." But there are other names too, mixes of older Vorkosigans and Vorbarras and other members of the household. Some Lenas and Tauras, even a Konstantin. Serg has been crossed out repeatedly.

The last sheaf is just Miles writing "Prince-Consort Lord Captain Miles Naismith Vorkosigan Vorbarra " over and over again. As one does. ]

It's - not quite so settled as that. Just ideas. I've added a few since coming back here.

[use_everything]

[There's some .. honest warmth at seeing that first name. The harder part was disassociating the title...

His finger pauses as it slides along the page.]

Taura?

[dendarii]

[ Miles warms in turn at that. A brief - but arresting - image bleeds across. An absolutely enormous woman, faintly lupine, with wicked fangs and claws ... and a fondness for pink, feminine clothing. ]

One of my Dendarii. I'm very fond of her.

[ On multiple levels. ]