thisavrou | video. 001.

video. 001.

( the face that appears is open and handsome, smiling charmingly and with wavy black hair parted smartly to one side. it's clear from the feed that he's unusually tall, and his accent when he speaks is rich and warm, though guttural. a cousin to russian, maybe, if someone was familiar with that particular accent. he's dressed in the given uniforms of the ship, reclining in his assigned quarters that are, for once, blissfully quiet.

well mostly, because there's a small, tiny meow coming from his hand — a grey kitten from the bonsai kitten tree. someone's stepped up and taken responsibility for something that came from his universe. ivan's petting it absently with a finger until it decides that its had enough of that and sinks its teeth into it instead. ivan hisses in annoyance as he tries to pry it away. )

Get off you little monster — I knew General Count Piotr was a good name for you—

( because his great uncle was a right fucking terror. anyway, onto the point of this broadcast! )

I'm looking to set up my cousin on a blind date. He's going to drive me mad otherwise — I think he's doing it on purpose this time, instead of it being a natural byproduct of his personality. ( a beat, and then he has a really great idea. ) And my other, more distant cousin, because he deserves to have a good time for once in his life. I can vouch for them both if you like, give an honest opinion of them to interested parties, but I think they'd like to speak for themselves. Well, one of them you won't be able to get to stop.

He likes tall women. Dark hair, and with the ability to break him in half if they wanted to. Not actually that hard to do, so be careful when throwing him around. I'm told he's charming, but it comes across as him being an egotistical prat. Damned clever and knows it, so be prepared to suffer if you can’t keep up. Requirements include being open to sexual creativity and unusual partners.

( you're welcome, miles vorkosigan. )

Anyway, the other one's your typical tall, dark, silent fellow. I don't actually know what his type is, come to think of it, and I'm not sure anyone does. M'mother would have thrown every woman that fit it at him until he married one of them if she knew. If the phrase 'let’s wait and see what happens' won't drive you up the wall, he's the guy for you. Requirements include being open to having five children. At least.

( you're also welcome, gregor vorbarra. please find a nice woman and get married and have as many children as there are uterine replicators on barrayar. )

So! Interested? Let me know and I’ll set you up.

ADDED IN LATER:
Nevermind about the child thing, just be willing to handle a fun, no-committment deal with him instead.

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Thank you, Elizabeth. It's true I'd prefer my relatives to have a single gram of common sense in their heads over any amount of luck, but I've given up on praying for the impossible and I think luck will have to do.

Oh... you didn't want Ivan to do this?

[Sorry Greg. She's new here.]

He certainly did not ask my permission. Nor Miles'. Nor did he allow us any editorial say over what he posted beforehand. So... no, in short.

...So Miles isn't sexually adventurous and you don't want five children?

[There is a brief pause.]

It is my extremely limited outsider's understanding of Miles' personal affairs that he is not exclusively adventurous, but I would not presume to speak for him. [Unlike some people around here.] As for myself, I am not opposed to children, if I meet the right person at the right time--though I think 'five' is a bit of a strong advertisement for a personals ad.

[God what a diplomatic answer. Not terribly encouraging in the Miles department but... honest at least.]

I'd say it's a little strong. I'm not sure I want to think of forty-five months of being pregnant when I read about someone I might like to have coffee with, now that I think about it.

[Gregor chokes a little on a half-laugh, staring down at the communicator for a moment.]

I don't think I'd ask that of anyone, no. As an interesting bit of trivia, uterine replicators have recently become relatively standard use back at home, so I would not be asking anyone to be pregnant for any period of time, for certain strictly physical definitions of pregnant. I think banning any woman who was willing to be the wife of any one of us three from drinking for nine months at a time would be cruel and unusual, pregnant or not.

...I'm not certain I'd classify that as 'trivia', that sounds like terrifying science fiction instead of a party game.

[Holy hell, did anybody have to do anything the hard way in the future? Good lord...]

You're all very hard on your fellow family members, I haven't had a single drink to handle Ivan or Miles yet.

[Could help that her father was an alcoholic so she's a little... nngh, about drinking to excess. But this is a funnier way of saying that.]

Less terrifying when it removes a lot of medical complications for the woman in question, I think. Only because we care about each other, I think. And you are an uncommonly bright and resilient and lovely person, Elizabeth, for dealing with the lot of us en masse.

[Well... she hadn't thought about that.]

[...honestly if her mother hadn't died in childbirth, her life would have been vastly different.]

Fair enough, I imagine that mothers in my time were simultaneously fascinated and perhaps a little scared with what grew inside them. It's a complicated process, from what I understand. Keep talking like that, Greg, and you can be sure I'll never have to turn to alcohol to stand the three of you en masse.

It's still a complicated process, where I'm from. There's just an added choice about exactly the form those complications take, I suppose.

[He smiles a little down at his comm, though he knows she can't see him.

I will compliment you--justly, by the way--all you like, if it will ensure that your saintly patience does not run out abruptly and leave us to find Miles or Ivan gently strangled and tipped down a waste disposal in the library. Not that anyone would blame you, for different reasons for both of them, but the cleanup would likely be messy and I do actually need them for things.

What kind of complications can arise from an artificial process? I'd think you could control every aspect of it, but I guess even machines make mistakes. Nothing's perfect.

[Elizabeth grins down at her MID too. These Vor boys... Maybe she does have a bit of a problem. Just a small one. Or she's just too easily flattered.]

Oh no, I'd never do that. Blood is awful for books, Greg. I couldn't do something so terrible to such a defenseless thing.

It rather seems to be the choice between keeping something irreplaceable and invaluable as close as possible at all times, or storing it somewhere else in as safe a location as you can manage. Neither is entirely without its practical dangers, all more technical medical concerns aside. Elizabeth, you are entirely too kind.

True... Ugh, I can't imagine having your child stolen, lock, stock, and barrel so to speak. What a terrible thing. Oh don't mistake kindness for practicality, Greg! I only look like an angel, I promise.

I've found the results are generally... unpleasant. For the thieves, anyway. The woman I know who had her replicator stolen didn't take terribly kindly to the theft. She ended a civil war on my planet over it when I was four.

[He can't make this stuff up Elizabeth, I'm sorry.]

I entirely agree about your looks, but I hardly think kindness and practicality are mutually exclusive.

...Yeah, that sounds about right. I'd probably do the same, honestly. [She'd been known to sic a tornado on people who displeased her, after all...]

[Thank goodness that's really not a thing anymore.]

Come on, you can't take my joke and turn it into philosophy! [No you can Greg. Please, talk philosophy to her.] But you're right. 'No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted', so the story goes.

I believe you. I think you and she would get along quite well, actually. Aesop, is it? No wonder you're the ship's librarian. At any rate, the best people I know have been both kind and practical, in careful measure.

Edited 2016-01-03 03:54 (UTC)

Really? Who was she? Aesop indeed, The Lion and the Mouse. I'm pretty well-read, if I do say so myself. When I first got here and learned what my job was, I was almost certain the captains knew something of my life before now. I suppose the best people find that balance, and never let one infringe on the other too much.

Ah, she's a legend, back at home. She emigrated from another planet, but she used to be a scientific survey ship captain before she came to Barrayar to marry her husband. She's brilliant in a hundred different ways and terrifying, but only dangerous when she absolutely has to be. She also happens to be my foster-mother.

[Gregor hesitates for a beat.]

And therefore Miles' biological mother. Cordelia Vorkosigan née Naismith broke into the Imperial Residence where Miles' replicator canister was being held captive at the end of an attempted coup to take power from Miles' father, who was Regent at the time. My own mother was killed during the ensuing chaos and Cordelia beheaded the man responsible with a swordstick, burned down a whole wing of the Residence, and carried, along with the replicator, the head back in a plastic bag to dump on the negotiating table in front of her husband, father-in-law, and all of the other side's conspirators. She is also one of the most deeply decent people I have ever known. Though she does make a hell of a first impression. So, ah, you begin to get some of an idea of where Miles gets it from.

Wow... I mean, what do you say to that besides wow. What a woman, she sounds amazing. Yes, I suppose I definitely see where Miles gets it from.

[Apparently she's not at all bothered by the image of a woman carrying a fetus and a severed head at the same time.]

[It was a fetus in a jar at least, Elizabeth, they aren't utterly uncultured.]

'Amazing' is certainly a descriptor I would use. But... yes. She's also very kind. Everything in moderation, I suppose.

[..............alright moving on.]

So Ivan mentioned she's your guardian. Did you and Miles grow up like brothers, then?

Yes--he and Ivan are closer, genetically, but Miles' parents were legally responsible for me from the time I was about four or five until I reached my majority. They have been very good to me for my whole life--Miles' father helped me light my grandfather's funeral pyre, just before my mother died and right after my father did. I lost all three of them in about the span of a year, and the Vorkosigans took me in, as my mother was a friend of Miles' mother.

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