dark_light | we do not bear children until we have so chosen

we do not bear children until we have so chosen

Amariah appears in the Belltower, throws herself into a chair, and tries to read postcards, but her eyes won't focus on them. She tries the Bellbook, and scarcely has better luck, although her eyes do catch on a certain word.

"Jane."

"Yep?"

"I want to talk to Aether."

"I'll let her know!"

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"People don't like unrestrained negative feelings around their children. I had my rant; you don't have to be its audience."

"Because it's going to hurt? Sure it is. But it hurts already," he says. "If we actually understood each other, it might stop hurting."

"I - that's not what I'm worried about. People resent negative feelings about their children, people don't like people who produce negative feelings about their children."

"But... you're you," he says, utterly at a loss. "And you feel how you feel. I can't resent you for being you, it would be like - like resenting Petaal for not settling, you couldn't be any other way, something would be wrong if you weren't who you are, I don't know everything about you but I know that finding out more things isn't going to make me love you any less. Probably cry. Never love you any less."

Isabella kisses his hair.

"I didn't want her. I don't know if I ever would have wanted children, but now if I ever do they won't be the ones we would've had and you took that from me and I hate it. Your life is - almost incomprehensibly different to me now, we didn't get to learn to be parents together, I'm the one who vanished but you left me behind and now I have to scramble desperately to catch up and I can't even insta-cheat with magic like Juliet did with her spontaneous teenage relative. Or I could mostly ignore her, but - that's not who I want to be."

He sighs and hugs her.

"I mean, at least I didn't already have plans in place to have a little Dominique - Yseult donated the name to the template since she's not using it - at least I hadn't formed expectations that specific - although if we'd talked about it maybe you'd have called her something I like more than 'Helen' - I'm getting used to it but I wouldn't have named her that, Ianthe is fine and Kalavar is fine but -" She sighs.