"I'm not afraid." That's a lie, but Sonia carries on in sincerity. "I just don't understand why anyone would want to know. I mean -- through Miles, and now you, I know the war ends, that we still get to be Barrayar. And I can't complain about knowing that. But details? Knowing my future?"

Sonia shakes her head, and takes to plucking out blades of grass between her feet again. "If I know how I'm going to die, I'll spend my whole life waiting for it. If you tell me the name of the man I'm going to marry, every man I meet with that name, I'll wonder if this is it, if this is the one. I'll be afraid to let go. But if I marry him, I'll never be able to stop wondering if I love him because I really love him, or if it's just because I'm supposed to. I'll spend my whole life wondering if this is the track I'm supposed to follow, or if I can change any of it, or if I'm supposed to." She shakes her head again, staring dimly down at the grass in the dark. "If I knew my future, I'd spend my whole life waiting for it to happen. That's no way to live."