The Equine Affair (Vorkosigan, G, gen)

[extrapenguin]

Title: The Equine Affair
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1236
Synopsis: The Emperor assigns his aide, ImpSec Lieutenant Aleksei Kostolitz, to the most important task he's had in his life:
Finding the perfect horse with which to impress Laisa.
Bujold Ficathon 2013
Prompt: From Memory:

Miles leaned over to Lady Alys and whispered, "Where did Gregor ever find that horse?"
"Three Districts away," she murmured back. "It was flown in to the Residence's stables yesterday. Gregor has been driving his domestic staff to distraction for four days, planning every detail of this luncheon."

***
The tale of Gregor finding/approving/delivering the perfect horse for Laisa. Who was it purchased from? Did Gregor have to get personally involved so the owners would part with it?

“...and what if she decides to run away?” his Emperor said in growing terror, continuing to pace. “I'd never find anyone to marry!”

Lieutenant Aleksei Kostolitz tried his best not to sigh. He wished this Laisa woman would do something – anything – to make the Emperor stop his hysteric pacing. Even if she ran away at high speed, the Emperor might eventually settle for marrying one of those tall Vor beauties Lady Alys kept throwing at him. (Aleksei had long since come to the conclusion that the Emperor was weird. He sure as hell wouldn't have turned down any Vor Lady that hung on his arm. Then again, he wasn't the Emperor.)

“Perhaps a present would be in order?” Aleksei suggested.

The Emperor stopped in his tracks. His face lit up. “It'd show her I cared for her... – Lieutenant, you're a genius!” he exclaimed, grabbing Aleksei by the arms, swinging him around and then planting a sloppy kiss on his mouth. (It was after one of these occurrences that Aleksei had quietly suggested to Lady Alys that she might want to try introducing the Emperor to some men. She'd verbally hit him in the nuts for it.)

 

As originator of the idea, Aleksei was charged with acquiring the present, which had, after three hours of anxious Imperial babble, become a horse. Now, Aleksei did know something about horses – he had a rough idea of what a good one looked like, and he knew what kind of personality was required – but he decided to hire himself some more experienced help anyway. An extensive round of background checks later, Filippa Cherenkova was standing next to him with a pen and a sheet of paper.

“So, what's the horse going to be for?” she asked, in an accent halfway between that of Vorkosigan's District and Vorhalas' District. She was trying to approach the Newscaster Neutral accent, and not quite failing hideously.

“The Emperor wants to impress his hopefully-soon-girlfriend.”

Filippa gave Aleksei a Look. “…No wonder you're ImpSec. – Is she a horse person?”

“She's Komarran. I don't think they have horses on Komarr.”

“They don't. Idiots.” She scribbled something down in Russian. “How tall is she?”

Aleksei held up his hand level with his chin. “A bit shorter than you. Plump.”

“Nothing over seventeen hands, then. I'll assume the Emperor wants a horse that's very pretty... Let's see if there are any Arabians for sale.”

“Arabians?” Aleksei felt slightly confused.

“A breed of horse”, Filippa said. “Way back on Earth before spaceflight, a tribe of desert people used them as war horses. Not the stallions, of course; just the mares. A prized war mare might live in its owner's tent, so they're well-behaved. They're also considered one of the prettiest, belike.”

“Oh”, was all Aleksei could reply.

 

After about a week of scouring For Sale listings and Filippa's contacts, they had a database of horses for sale. A further day went into sorting out the no-goes appearance-wise. After that, Aleksei sent teams of ImpSec people to assess the personality and soundness of all the horses left. (All the teams had at least one experienced horseman.) That eliminated further horses from the list. (One of the ImpSec men had to report to ImpMil after having his ulna broken by a surprisingly strong bite from a horse.)

Aleksei went to the Emperor with photographs of the remaining fifteen candidates. None of them was a pure Arabian (the only Arabian they'd come across was the one who'd delivered the hapless Captain to ImpMil), but all were very well conformed.

“Sire. Here are the ImpSec-approved horses. Please see if any of them meet your requirements.”

The Emperor dismissed him with a nod, then stared intently at each of the horses in turn. He began organising them into piles.

 

Three days later, the Emperor had finally decided on which horse to go look at. Agrafa was a beautiful dapple gray warmblood, belonging to Filippa's father Mal.

The Emperor practically cooed at her, watching Filippa take her over small jumps in style, before riding her for a bit. After she'd been taken back in, Filippa's parents negotiated outside with the Imperial stablemaster.

“Aleksei?” Filippa asked. They were in the tack room, where Filippa had just put away Agrafa's bridle.

“Yes?”

“Where's the Emperor?”

Wordlessly, Aleksei came to the window, saw that the Emperor was nowhere near the Imperial stablemaster, and walked into the stable proper. Filippa followed him.

The Emperor was nowhere in the stable. A Red Alert had not yet popped up, so he was still with his Armsmen and ImpSec perimeter. However, it was bad form for an Imperial Aide (or ImpSec liaison officer, whatever his title was today) to not know where his Emperor was, so Aleksei continued his search outdoors.

Filippa and he found the Emperor standing next to a large paddock whose only occupant was standing at the gate, being scratched behind the ears. All four Armsmen were watching around warily, hands on their stunner holsters. Armsman Flaherty and Aleksei exchanged nods of greeting. The Emperor turned to see them approach.

“Who's this lady, Miss Cherenkova?” the Emperor asked, indicating the horse.

The horse was beautiful. She was pure white (Aleksei shuddered at the thought of keeping her clean during the muddy season) and had a long, silky mane and tail. Her profile was slightly dished, indicating relatively recent Arabian ancestry, and she appeared very fine-boned.

“Officially, she's Glazika, but we call her Liz around the stable, Sire. We got her as part of a package with one of our warmblood broodmares, but she's too small-hoofed and fine-boned to do much more than walk around in the countryside”, Filippa explained, beginning to look halfway between smug and concerned.

“May I see her papers?”

“Certainly, Sire”, Filippa said, then turned and marched off. When she returned with the mare's registration papers, she had her parents and the Imperial stablemaster in tow.

It turned out that Glazika was currently merely taking space in the Cherenkovs' stable. If they weren't living where horses could graze year-round, they probably would have gotten rid of her, but as it was, no-one had expressed any interest in her, so she'd stayed. Except that now the Emperor thought she'd be the perfect match for what he wanted.

In the end, the Imperial stables received both Glazika and Agrafa, at the stablemaster's insistence. In any case, the Emperor could show his maybe-perhaps-hopefully-sometime girlfriend some equine eye candy.

 

Three days after the successful Imperial luncheon with Laisa, Aleksei was going for a walk to clear his head after being forced to cope with with an Emperor experiencing First Love. He heard hoofsteps on the cobblestones behind him.

“Hi, Alyosha”, a voice came from above.

Aleksei turned, and saw Filippa on a horse that had a black mane, tail and lower legs, and was otherwise a brown rapidly approaching blood red. He wasn't that large, but he still made Filippa look imposing.

“Hi, Filya. Who's this?”

“This is Falcon, otherwise known as He Who Broke Captain Milosz's Arm. He's a purebred Arabian. Perfectly fine and gregarious, I can't figure out what our Captain did. Probably wore a dreadful aftershave or something. So, how did it go with Glazika?”

“A phenomenal success”, Aleksei replied. “Now, please tell me, is that horse a two-seater?”

Filippa grinned and pulled him up into her lap. “Where do you want to go?”

“Wherever you want to, Filya.”