Archive of Our Own ^beta

In hindsight, Natasha realized it had been a bad idea to bring it up at dinner. Especially with Da and Papa being ridiculously sentimental about her leaving for a year on Beta, and Vasha at his most irritating in full-blown over-protective big brother mode. She should have waited and talked to either Papa or Aral privately.

But then again, she'd never really been known for her impeccable timing. Or, come to think of it, for keeping her mouth shut.

She waited through the soup and the salad, patiently enduring Vasha's redundant advice on what to avoid on Beta Colony (which she'd visited three times already, thank you very much), and refraining from asking him just how he knew so much about certain of the capital city's more – ahem – lively districts. Da and Papa were being weird too, bringing up odd and embarrassing stories from when she was a kid, apropos of apparently nothing. But Natasha had concluded over the years that parents in general were just plain strange, and hers more than most, so she wasn't much bothered by it.

Aral just looked amused. Natasha found herself feeling absurdly grateful. At least there was one sensible member of this family besides herself.

Finally, as the servants set her salmon in front of her and whisked the polished silver lid away with a flourish, there was a lull in the conversation. Seizing immediate advantage of it, she said, twirling her fork in one hand, "So, after I get back." They looked up, four endearingly attentive faces, and she was reminded that she'd have been the princess even if she weren't really the Princess. "I'll be getting married, yes?"

There was a choking noise off to her right – Aral, she thought, the twit. Papa merely blinked and looked confused. Da stared at her with his mouth open. And Vasha –

"What?" he squawked. "What are you talking about? Getting married – you're not getting married. You're not even old enough!"

"I will be when I come back," Natasha said. "I'll be eighteen."

"That doesn't mean you're going to get married," Da replied, his voice strangely high pitched. "Eighteen – no one's ready to get married at eighteen! You – you're – I –"

Papa cleared his throat, cutting effectively through Da's gibbering. "Sweetie, is there someone you'd like to tell us about?"

She frowned a trifle impatiently – sometimes she could swear her parents were dense on purpose. "No. I just assumed that when I got back, you would have people I should meet. Men, I mean."

Vasha glowered at her. "You're never meeting men. Ever!"

As she'd done for her entire sentient existence, Natasha ignored him. "Komarran men, I thought," she added, pointedly addressing Papa.

"Uh," Da said, displaying the brilliance everyone always ascribed to him.

"Well, it would make the most sense," she said, tugging nervously at a stray strand of hair. "The Counts are mostly too old, and the only thing with less power than a Countess is a dowager Countess. Also, they're gross."

"True," Aral said, obviously trying not to snicker. She kicked him under the table. "Urk."

"I suppose a Count's son would be all right, but . . ." She shrugged in that way she knew Da hated, and watched him control his wince out the corner of her eye. "A Komarran would be progressive. A nice gesture. And some of the Komarran dynastic families have sons my age. Some of them are even handsome."

"And how would you know this?" Vasha demanded.

"I looked it up," she said, blinking. Did they really think she'd never thought about it? How stupid did they think she was? Honestly. "I wanted to know."

Da gave Papa a baleful look. "We should have locked her in the basement."

Papa's lips quirked. Natasha, however, failed to find it amusing. In fact, this was getting weirder by the minute. She'd expected them to be startled, maybe, but she hadn't thought they'd collectively go off the deep end, however short a leap that might have been for some of them.

"It's not too late," Vasha said, eyes narrowing. "We could still lock her in the basement."

"We don't have a basement," Natasha pointed out, cutting her eyes pleadingly to Papa.

"We have an armory! And ImpSec has those apartments –"

Natasha rolled her eyes. Sometimes Vasha was just not to be believed. "So now instead of locking me in a tower, you want to lock me in ImpSec's subterranean prisoner apartments?"

"It does lack a certain poetry," Aral murmured.

"But would be very effective nonetheless," Da growled.

"Maybe we should all just settle down –" Papa said.

"I am –" Vasha began.

"You're talking about locking me up!"

"Not seriously, sweetie," Papa assured her.

"I'm serious," Vasha muttered.

Natasha shot him her patented "Yes, I am the Royal Princess and if you're not careful you're soon going to have my very expensive shoe lodged in a very uncomfortable place" Glare and said, in an attempt to win back some semblance of sanity to the conversation, "Look. I'm just trying to get a handle on what's going to be expected of me when I get back. And I'd like to point out that I wouldn't have had to ask if one of you had seen fit to talk to me before now."

"Well, you're not getting married," Da said, stabbing his salmon. "You've got three years of university after you're done on Beta, and even then you'll only be twenty-one, and you're not getting married."

"Unless you want to," Papa amended.

"Not even if she wants to!"

"But . . ." Natasha stopped. "I thought that was the point. Go to Beta for a year, get more, um, experienced –"

"Experienced how?" Vasha asked suspiciously.

"Just more experienced than I am right now, which frankly wouldn't take that much effort!"

"Like you're one to talk, Vasha," Aral piped up. "I've heard the stories, I know exactly what you did during your year on Beta."

"That's different!"

"Why?" Natasha asked, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow at him. "Because you're a man? What is this, the Time of Isolation? I'm supposed to be chaste and trembling on my wedding night but you went to the Orb three times!"

To her immense satisfaction, Vasha turned bright red. "It's different!" he repeated.

"It's not. From what I've heard you slept with damn near anything that moved on Beta, but you want to get me fitted with a chastity belt, you howling hypocrite!"

"Okay," Papa said. "Let's calm down a little, shall we?"

Natasha barely heard him. "And who cares if I'm a virgin on my wedding night? I mean, really, who is going to give a flying –"

"Natasha."

"No one, that's who! No one but you! Certainly not some Komarran! Komarrans are galactics, they don't have these idiot Barrayaran notions of honor and virtue being kept between a woman's legs! Just you wait till I tell Grandma Cordelia! She'll come back here personally and she won't care if you are going to be Emperor someday, she'll have you by the –"

"Enough!" Papa said, not loudly, but swiftly and with a note of unmistakable authority that not even Vasha could ignore. Natasha bit off the rest of her sentence and glanced at Papa. He frowned deeply at her, but his voice, when he spoke, was gentle. "Natasha, we're not marrying you off to anyone, and I don't know where you got the idea that we would. I thought we were always perfectly clear on that with all of you."

"You were," Natasha said, studiously avoiding looking at either Vasha or Da – or Papa, since she thought she might cry if she did. He was her Papa, and she loved them all and they drove her crazy pretty equally, but she thought she would miss him most of all. She stared at the fine white tablecloth as she said, carefully controlling her voice, "But I thought – well, I mean, Vasha came back from Beta and went off the Academy. Aral came back from Beta and took over as Da's proxy in the Council. What am I going to do?"

"University," Papa said. "Just as you'd planned."

"Well, yes, but . . ." She looked up at last. "I don't know. I assumed I'd come back and pick one of the men Aunt Delia trots out for me. I can still go to university, it's not like I'm going to get pregnant right away or anything."

"Damn right, you're not," Da said, crumpling his napkin. "Locking you up is sounding better and better."

"Too late," Natasha said, scowling. "They've already loaded my luggage, all five ridiculously huge suitcases. In less than twelve hours I'll be off this barbaric backwater planet, and on my way to Beta, where I can sleep with any man, woman, or hermaphrodite I please."

Da's ears turned red. Papa pinched the bridge of his nose and said weakly, "Sweetheart, your parents are getting old. Please don't say those things."

"'S true," Natasha muttered, pushing her plate away. "May I be excused?"

"Yes," Papa said, just as Da said, "No."

She got up anyway, threw her napkin down onto her chair, and marched out past the distinctly bland servants bringing in the next course. She was nearly to her bedroom when she realized she was being followed by both Negri and Aral. She keyed open her bedroom door. "You may come in," she said to the elderly cat, who minced past sister and brother with delicate dignity. Natasha glared at her brother and gave him a shove backward. "You, on the other hand –"

"What did I do?" he yelped, and wedged himself inside the door so the sensors wouldn't let it close. "I'm on your side!"

"You were laughing the whole time. It's not funny!"

"Oh come on, it's at least a little bit funny. Da and Vasha –"

"It wasn't funny. If I'm not getting married, I don't know what I'm going to do when I get back!"

"Wait," Aral said, blinking. "Are you telling me you want to get married?"

"Yes!" She shook her head. "I mean, no, not really. It's not like there's anyone specific. But at least it's . . ." She gestured helplessly, gave up trying to keep him out, and sank onto her bed. "All anyone in this family ever talks about is serving Barrayar," she muttered, tracing the pattern of her bedspread with a finger. "That's the only honor that's real to Da, and even Papa."

"That's –" He sighed. "Probably not far from true."

"Right, well, what does that leave me? Marriage, that's what. It's the only way I have."

"No," Aral said, without conviction.

"Yes." She looked up at him. "They don't want to marry me off for the politics, and I love them for it, but it's the only way I have of – of serving. If I married a Komarran, that would help Barrayar. If I married someone else, even if I were in love with them, what good would that do?"

"But that's not fair to you."

"You're going to talk to me about fair? You don't want to be Count Vorkosigan. All you ever wanted was to practice medicine." She shrugged. "I don't care who I marry, and I'd rather it did something for Barrayar. But they won't even let me have that."

"So, let me get this straight." Aral forced Negri to move over and sat down beside her on the bed. "You want the freedom to do whatever you want on Beta – but you want them to arrange your marriage for when you get back?"

"Um." She squinted. "Not arrange, per se. But yeah, I guess. I realize it doesn't make much sense," she added.

"No sense. It makes no sense. In fact, I think it actually makes negative sense."

"But –"

"Natasha, listen to me, because I'm going to try to stop being your big brother for two seconds." He paused, almost squirming. "Look, your year on Beta . . . it's going to be a little . . . intense sometimes. Mine was. You're going to have opportunities you wouldn't have here, which means you'll have to make decisions you wouldn't otherwise have to. Some of them will be good ones, and some of them won't be, but they'll be yours to make. And at the end of it . . . well, you're going to be different. Really different. And I doubt that you would much appreciate having to come home and get married. If you want to come home at all."

"If I –" Natasha stared at him. "Of course I'll want to come home!"

"Don't be so sure." He smiled tightly. "I didn't."

She knew her mouth had fallen open, but it was only after several seconds that she was able to force herself to close it. "Really?"

He nodded. "But you have more options than I do," he said, looking down at his hands. "Like you said, I don't really want to be what I am."

"I'd switch with you," she said quietly. "If I could."

He smiled, and it was a little less strained. "I know. And that makes me think you'll probably come back. But don't – don't lock yourself into anything you don't have to first. Someone should be free to choose for themselves in this family."

"Yeah," she said. It had never before occurred to her that he might actually be jealous of her. She had been jealous of him sometimes – more and more, of late, actually. She supposed it was normal not to know what you were going to do with your life at seventeen, but her life had never been normal, and she had found herself wanting that certainty – that peace of mind. "Maybe I could help, somehow," she said. "When I get back, I mean."

"Maybe. If you want. But you know," he added, with a lightness she almost believed, "you never know who you'll meet out there."

"Man, woman, or hermaphrodite," she said, smiling.

"Right. But, er – if you think it's going to be from the latter two categories, you might want to let me know first. For the sake of Da and Papa's nerves."

Her eyebrows shot up indignantly. "Like they can talk!"

"No, but you are the little girl, whether you like it or not."

"Okay," she sighed, and then smiled evilly. "But you wouldn't tell Vasha, right?"

"Oh no," Aral said, returning her grin. "Much more fun for everyone if he finds out the hard way."

Fin.