vor | Fifth Cream Cake: [Action/Voice]

[Almost two weeks spent in Malnosso captivity and what does Gregor have to show for it?

Lots and lots of band-aids, mostly. Also a minor cold that has turned into a chesty cough.

Instead of any great torture, drugs, or whatever he'd been expecting, the Malnosso mostly took DNA samples. Blood samples. Tissue samples. He's from further in Earth-universe's future than most besides Ivan, so maybe his specific point in human evolution was of interest. He understands the "lab rat" metaphor pretty well now. There hadn't been a lot of space in his cell, so he's a little stiff and sore. At least the hallucinations are gone. That had been the worst part--having to assure himself that this was a normal reaction to solitary confinement. He slowly heaves himself to his feet, blindly scrabbling for his journal. Writing is not easy with all his bandaged fingertips, so he speaks, sounding hoarse, slightly congested, and exhausted.]

Ivan. [A pause. ] Buffy. Adele. Whoever's...interested, this is Greg. I'm back. [He coughs a couple of times, fairly hard.] The Malnosso...anyway, I'm fine. It...wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm heading home now. Did someone take care of my horse?

[He'll take about fifteen minutes to walk home from his spot in the woods.]

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[ she stands abruptly. ]

I don't mind one bit. Not one iota.

Milk? Sugar?

Please.

A coffee drinker after my own heart. I've met too many people here who just take it black. How dull.

[ there was space between the top cupboards and the counter to peek back into the living room from the kitchen, so she kept an eye on him while setting up the machine. ]

I have a sweet tooth. [He takes another spoonful of porridge, careful to do it in such a way where the remaining porridge is making a sort of wall. It's like the parting of the Red Sea, if the Red Sea all went to one side instead of being split down the middle.]

Hence the maple syrup. And the...what else did you say?

Cream cake? Sure could go for one of those.

[Ah, Gregor's favorite.]

They're best when they're small. I've been looking for a Barrayaran recipe so I can give it to the baker in town.

[ she sets out a pair of mugs and keeps talking in a raised, distracted voice: ] What makes a cream cake Barrayaran, then?

I don't bake.

And I don't surf, but I know a good California wave when I see one.

[ she lines up the milk and sugar. just gotta wait for the coffee, now. ]

I still couldn't tell you how it's done. I just...know one when I eat one.

My money -- if I had any money -- is on whatever makes the ingredients special to that planet. Right? Like how peaches from one state taste better than peaches from another. Or how the chocolate bars we could get at the newsagents in Scotland tasted way better than the ones back home.

The recipes might be the same, but the bits are all different. Localized.

Maybe. [Another spoonful.] Although most planets don't naturally grow Earth-descended plants very well, not without terraforming. Sergyar is pretty exceptional that way. It's one reason we snapped it up when we found it.

So, what? Greenhouses? Or is that still too natural?

They do that kind of thing on stations, like Kline Station. And on Komarr, here and there. On Barrayar, it's a process of conditioning the soil. We're pretty Earthlike nowadays, even in rural areas, but you still have native vegetation mixed in.

[ finally, she could pour out the coffee. buffy hovered briefly over the hot and fragrant steam. ]

Oh? Anything both native and delicious?

No, it's all toxic to humans.

...Bummer.

[ she stirs in generous spoonfuls of sugar -- one heaped portion each. ] Sucks to be the pioneer who learned that one.

I think they were tested before anyone ate them.

Here's hoping. [ she lifts the milk jug in a cavalier salute before pouring a measure into first one mug and then another. then followed the clink of a stirring spoon before she was striding her way back to the living room, fingers looped around handles. ]

I could cry. [Deadpan. He's eyeing the coffee. But instead of crying, he reaches for the cup when it comes near enough.]

Do you guys have a day for it? [ she gently delivers the mug into his hands before sitting once again. ] Commemorating your empire's beginning, or whatever? Your version of the 4th of July? Your Bastille Day?

No. [He takes a lingering drink of coffee, a bit closer to ravenous than he was with the porridge, before continuing.] It wouldn't really be appropriate. Unless we celebrated Emperor Dorca uniting all the warring counts, but that didn't happen in a day. Our holidays are less...commemorative. More something that can keep being celebrated even when regimes change.

["Anything done twice on Barrayar is a tradition," Simon says.]

Do regimes change often? [ she quips over her coffee. ] Often like a pair of socks or often like your desktop wallpaper?

When I was five, we had the Pretender's War.

[Yes, going to drink more coffee. He assumes the title of the war is self-explanatory.]

...I'm guessing that wasn't a rip-roaring game of make believe.

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