Pre-Jump Earth Literature

[aestrix]

It's a new term, and the end of the break between terms most students have been enjoying. But time marches ever on, and so at 1:00 PM, just after lunch, twenty-six students all around the age of fifteen are finding seats in an obnoxiously decorated classroom. It's one of those classrooms that tries very hard to be peppy and inspirational, and only succeeds at being very out of touch, and kind of creepy.

Soon it will be time to read about things long-dead people wrote.

Comments

[washed_in_blood]

He looks at her, confers with a shorter and less visible person next to him, and heads in her direction.

[thisvorlunatic]

The shorter and less visible person proves to be Miles! When the crowd is finally thin enough between him and Yvette for him to see her, he grins and waves.

[poll_the_stars]

Yvette grins and waves back, with the hand that is not holding ice cream.

When he is within speaking distance, "You know I didn't realize until I got home, but 'afternoon' is not actually a very specific time," she says, amused.

[thisvorlunatic]

"It worked, didn't it? Here we both are, at the museum, in the afternoon."

[poll_the_stars]

"This is true."

She inclines her head to the bodyguard. Hello, you exist, I respect your job and acknowledge your existence as a person. She'd talk to him, if she expected him to want to converse, but that's pretty unlikely, she thinks. A Barrayaran bodyguard that's this professional would likely want to do his job as well as possible, and this involves minimizing distractions.

"Well, ready to go?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah."

To the science museum!

The promotional materials displayed in the entryway promise exhibits every bit as exciting as Miles implied. There's one about lasers, one about magnets, one about molecular biology, one that purports to explain wormhole physics on a level a child could understand—

"Okay, I know just enough to know that's a huge oversimplification," says Miles, gesturing at the holo display advertising the wormhole exhibit, "but it's a very pretty oversimplification, I will admit."

[poll_the_stars]

Giggle. "Yes. Want to go there first, then?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Let's!"

[poll_the_stars]

"Excellent."

On, to the wormhole exhibit! They have pretty oversimplifications to see!

[thisvorlunatic]

The oversimplifications are so oversimplified, and so pretty. Miles is delighted.

At the end of the winding path through beautiful and mildly informative displays, there is a huge unmarked holomap of the wormhole nexus, surrounded by smaller displays that identify particular planets of interest - Beta Colony, of course, and Eta Ceta (with the other planets of the Cetagandan Empire lined up underneath), and Earth and Escobar and Tau Ceti. Barrayar isn't among the chosen few, but it is present on the larger map - Miles squints up at the detailed image to see if he can spot the Dendarii Mountains.

[poll_the_stars]

"Looking for something in particular?" she wonders. "Or are you just gazing at the majesty that is our home planet?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes. Very majestic. But not majestic enough for the Betans, apparently. Oh, there they are!" A mountain range is just rotating into view on the northern continent. "The Dendarii Mountains."

[poll_the_stars]

"Ah-ha," says Yvette, and she doesn't add that she thinks that looking for his family's mountains is terribly cute. Now it is obviously her turn to find where she's from, though she doesn't have a mountain range of her very own.

She squints up at it and waits for the holo to turn a bit more before pointing and saying, "Well, I live near that huge blue watery part, up in the northeast. Vorpatril's district, if you're curious."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I have a cousin who's a Vorpatril but he's nowhere near the Countship. Is it nice on the coast? I've never been."

[poll_the_stars]

"During the summer it's wonderful," she sighs, sounding like she misses it. "Warm without being scorching hot, and not humid or dry at all. And - Vorbarr Sultana is nice, but I like New Evias a lot more. It's quieter. Less busy."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, now I'm homesick," Miles remarks with a half-smile, gazing up at the rotating planet as it slowly carries his mountains out of view. "I miss weather. And horses. And maple syrup."

[poll_the_stars]

"Sorry." Pause. "I miss the sky, and the - light from it, to sound weird. The light doesn't change here, it - gets darker when the lights are off, and the lighting varies from place to place but there's no. Pinks and oranges and purples and yellows, it is just white and bland or this bright burning neon, unless you're in a place that's changing the light on purpose, and then it's like that all the time, and that sort of takes the fun out of it if that's all you have. And trees that aren't - there are trees here but they are all... the term I want to use is tame? Neatly planted exactly where they are wanted and pruned to perfection, until they are the perfect example of trees everywhere, aren't all of those other trees that can grow however they like jealous."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Barely qualifies as a tree, in my opinion," he says. "I miss the outdoors in general. Beta Colony doesn't have an outdoors, it has a—an exterior."

[poll_the_stars]

"Qualifies as a tree in name and biology only," agrees Yvette wryly. "Yeah. I couldn't actually live here because of that, I think. Among other reasons. Exterior, but no outdoors. Bleh. I'll probably refuse to go inside for hours when I get home. 'No, Mama, I have to look at the sky some more.'"

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles giggles. "I'm going straight to the lake house and making sure my horse didn't forget me, I think."

[poll_the_stars]

"You have a horse?" she asks, delighted.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes. His name is Fat Ninny, which is entirely Grandda's fault. But he's a good horse, and I like him."

[poll_the_stars]

Giggle. "Why did your Grandda name your horse Fat Ninny, Miles?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, we're on Beta Colony so I should probably blame it on some sort of subconscious desire to punish me for my defective skeleton, but actually I think the real culprit is his sense of humour."

[poll_the_stars]

"Aha. The most dangerous culprit of all on the subject of names."