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Already inside, I'll join you once I have Miles busy.

[ And it will take a while until she's decided Miles is properly distracted, whether with Gregor or something else in the house. Something that won't get him killed.

Her armor's been ditched and stowed somewhere for now, opting for mobility and figuring if she's going to be able to see his expression and body language easily, he should be able to see hers. She knocks politely on the door to the study. ]

[He had spent most of the day with Cordelia, barely a hairsbreath away at most moments, and quite content to be there, if acutely aware of the reason. The retreat was less to process, and more to give her time with the children - now back to properly being children. Processing was carefully kept at bay with reading.

When Tex entered, the latest puzzle of circumstance with her, he looks up.]

Enter.

[ She slides in and closes the door immediately behind her. She's standing at parade rest as she regards him, a stance that is familiar and easy to slip into. Even in this incredibly strange situation. Where the hell do they even start? ]

I wasn't planning on this happening. [ That seems like a safe place to begin. ]

I quite doubt it came with a full, proper, or [A wry smile edges across his features here. Physically, Aral barely seems much older, a little more grey salts his hair, more lines edge his mouth and eyes...

But the change is in demeanor. He seems far more settled.] .. frankly, any explanation at all, given the lord in question.

Perhaps it is best to ask what you do know of it.

[ At least he hasn't changed nearly as much. It's a welcomed after all the other drastic ones she's been running into all day.

She sighs and shakes her head. ] No, it didn't. I heard some about the links, but didn't realize Miles had something similar for anyone who swore to him.

[ She folds her arms over her chest as she regards him. ] All I know is that he says I'm supposed to 'protect him and follow him around.' Or something like that. Gregor mentioned how I was similar to a family friend and armsman back home who was scary. Other than that, nothing.

[He folds the book closed and gently sets it on the now quite.. interesting map.]

Ah. Not incorrect, but not complete either. Hardly anyone would take such a one sided contract, no matter the social conditioning.

And... I believe they were referring to Sergeant Bothari, Miles' personal bodyguard.

Yeah, that was the name they used. [ She relaxes somewhat and steps closer to get a better look at the changes that have been made to the board. ]

What's missing to make it complete then?

[There certainly hadn't been dinosaurs the last time she'd looked.]

From us? Absolute trust, our service, what protection we may offer, and most of all, there will be one place in at least one of the billions of dimensions that you may, without reservation, call home.

[ She raises a brow at that, instantly suspicious. That can't be at all true. ]

All that from a kid making me repeat some words on a whim of his?

Is that the depth of your regard?

He hardly made that decision in his right mind. He thought I was one already when I showed up and wanted me to give an oath on the spot when I said I hadn't sworn anything.

His belief in you is quite obvious, actually. I had been asking upon yours.

[ That's a trickier question and her gaze immediately drifts down towards one of the toy dinosaurs on the board.

When she speaks, it's carefully and in an even tone. ] I trust him to do exactly what he says, nothing more and nothing less. He hasn't lied to me yet.

[He's silent a moment, considering those words and the weight of them.]

Could I ask from you that same measure?

[ Right, these things extend to both him and Gregor by extension. She shrugs. ]

Only if you can guarantee everything you've said to me so far can be taken at face value.

[His eyebrows lift at that, but it... smooths quickly into understanding.

Someone who didn't instinctively know what such an oath meant, thought a vow was a whim, even from a child...couldn't know the weight of his word if he pledged it.

This person, a competent, tried soldier, a woman his wife, his heart in another form has let closest to herself... well. If he couldn't give trust, how could he expect it.]

I could show you.

[ He wants to show it? That only earns him more confusion from her as she watches him closely.

Her posture remains relaxed however, she knows at least he means her no harm. ]

How?

[He touches his temple with his index finger.]

There are ways to hide or to shield, but not to lie. It .. is a personal concept.

I've been keeping them closed since I got them. [ Except a small bit to Miles when the boy had been distressed by it, but she has a feeling Aral would have picked up on that already from his son. ]

I didn't think you'd want an uninvited guest.

[Miles is not a telegraph, he's skywriting.]

I would abhor it. However, I believe this is an invitation.

[ She frowns as she considers that a moment and reluctantly opens her side of the link. ]

Then I accept it.

[He forces down his own guards, rather than reach out for her own space. It was his invitation, after all. The connection opens between them, the mind on the other side of it something organized, unyielding and hard as stone at first brush.

When you are ready. The concept 'Agent Tex' and 'Allison' spoken in Cordelia's voice blurs at the end of the thought.]

[ Her own mind, what he can see of it, is kept clouded and partitioned off. Something he should be able to tell is more out of habit than distrust, she's had mental companions before without a body of separation and learned very quickly how crucial it was to keep them apart.

She's tentative at first as she reaches over the link into his mental space. How much has Cordelia told him about her?

You can stick with Allison when we're like this. Though there's some doubt mingling with the sentiment, would this even be more of a one time thing? ]

Edited 2016-04-01 18:18 (UTC)

[As you wish it. There's a brush of respect, like a breeze, here but in passing. This close, his own is similarly partitioned, flat stone between him and everything else.

He finds in him that knotted, complicated concept and unpacks it. It's not organized, the way words are. There's no sentences and verbs carefully picking out meaning and context. The grammar of this is different, far more raw.

--It the concept of being Vorkosigan. There's the heavy maple leaves, lush districts, winefields and a barren, radioactive scar, twisted, unhealthy plants taking root there and reclaiming. There's the hillfolk, his people, rural, plain and ferociously loyal, upright as the trees. The horrible sickly sweet taste of maple mead and the blurring rush of it's wicked alcoholic burn. There's the fire of adrenaline, whipping a flying machine through a gorge in the dark, memory more than vision... there's the complicated, threads towards a man, white, deathly white in a bed, the bond is laced red with raw pain of a trust abused.. there's a tall, wirey man, distant, scornful, the link is a deep, impression jagged and broken, but a deep, unshakeable loyalty between the two of them was tested and unbroken, a young man, Gregor, the resemblance to the creature kept alive in the bed uncanny, a new trust there, a loyalty offered and laid open to see what will return--

It unfolds further.

--Men in brown and silver, uniforms pressed, pride evident. There were the deep backcountry dialect as well as the urban tones of the educated cities. Flashes of a man fetching him as a child from a tree. The view of older brothers, with wives, families of their own, the gossip of affairs, the games in the hall. A new young man from the city who was truly HIS more than his fathers, decorated and earnest, determined to make a DIFFERENCE in his district, to his lords. Another, a hatchet-faced man with a complicated, deadly air, holding Miles with the gentleness of a father. He was a protector, but also the tiny child's freedom. No danger got closer than the dark man's long, long arms--

And once more.

--There are no images at this depth. It's a simple feeling, loyalty beyond all other bonds. Trust that goes to the bone. Identity that comes of family. Removed of all of the images, lord and sworn alike, these lines, silver webbing, remain true and untarnished--]

Edited (html and clarity) 2016-04-01 19:44 (UTC)

[ No, it's organized by any stretch of the imagination, but every bit of it is being parceled and processed as she takes in each image.

It's the first she's ever seen of Barrayar, of its people beyond those that have been brought here. So they're happy living like that. Or so it seems from what he's showing. And with the bonds she's seeing, feeling more than anything, she's starting to believe it.

Mentally she's peering closer, as if to get a better look at this man deemed protector before the image is gone and replaced. A simple questioning Bothari? follows after it, in an attempt to put a name to a face. Suddenly Gregor's earlier comparison makes a lot more sense with this context given.

Does he really consider all those sworn to him part of a family, a home that is as far as it is near? ]

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