milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Cordelia Vorkosigan hasn't been in the bar since Twelfth Night.

But tonight she's here. She's had a conversation with Mary Lennox, and is now sitting in an armchair by the fire with a mug of coffee and a brillberry muffin.

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"Was he there too, that night? -- I was hoping for a chance to properly meet all these people; I barely knew who I was standing with."

"Yeah, with Nita; he's her partner. Puck and Raven were there too - you've probably heard of them, if you know Athena."

She bends down to start gnawing at the chair's upholstery a bit. "So what's your story, stranger?"

"My story?" A small wry smile. "That depends on how far back you want me to start."

"You know best, when it comes to that."

"True. Well, I was born and raised on Beta Colony; I was a captain in the Astronomical Survey, and then I was a soldier, and then I was a POW. And then my life got complicated, because I married Aral Vorkosigan and moved to Barrayar."

"Soldier, huh? Thought so," Peach says. "Complicated how?"

She sounds interested, although she looks a little absorbed in pulling stuffing out of the hole she's created in the chair's upholstery.

Cordelia gives Peach an odd look, sidetracked from her narrative. "Soldier's hardly the most significant part of what I was. I've never thought much of the military."

"Deinên, hêi sun Arêi melei polemêia erga perthomenai te polêes aütê te ptolemoi te," she says cheerfully. "I can usually pick out soldiers, all the same." She pauses to drop a beakful of stuffing on the floor. "Kai t' errusato laon ionta te nissomenon te."

"Dreadful as Ares, she loves the works of war, and the sacking of cities, and the shouting, and the battle. And it is she who saves the fighters who go to war and come back alive." First Homeric Hymn to Athena.

A pause. "If you say so. Though I don't think I understood most of what you said just then. What language is that, Greek?"

Mysteriously: "It's all Greek to me."

That probably means yes.

That was a definite snort of laughter.

"All right then. Where was I? ..."

"Married what's-his-face, things got complicated." Peach is helpful even when she's destroying furniture.

"Aral. And ... yes. I don't know how much you'd be likely to know about Barrayar, but if you're a military enthusiast...." She makes a slightly wry face.

A squawk of laughter. "That's one way to put it," Peach says. "It's a busy place, eh?"

Dry, "Extremely. I came there planning to marry a retired Admiral. Next thing I know, he's been named the Imperial Regent, and next thing after that the Emperor's died and the five-year-old heir is the new Emperor, and everybody and their brother is suddenly trying to assassinate my husband."

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