we do not bear children until we have so chosen

[dark_light]

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!"

Comments

[truthwright]

"Okay."

Snuggle. Weepy snuggle.

[dark_light]

Quiet snuggle.

[truthwright]

Snuggly snuggle.

[dark_light]

This will probably take a while.

[truthwright]

A while of snuggles?

That would be okay.

[dark_light]

Yep.

[truthwright]

The crying mostly trails off after a while, and then there are only snuggles.

[dark_light]

Snuggles snuggles snuggles.

"Did Ranata or Charlie know when I was prophesied to come back?"

[truthwright]

"Don't think so," he says. "Inkeri just told me 'n Helen. And the queen."

[dark_light]

Amariah nods slowly.

In that case she is not in any hurry.

Snuggle.

[truthwright]

Snuggle.

"And nobody knew exactly when, 'cause I didn't remember down to the day," he says.

[dark_light]

"I would've checked. It didn't look like you were doing well even with as much information as you had, I guess."

[truthwright]

Kas shudders.

"I couldn't—if I'd known from the start I would've been fine," he says. "And if you'd just shown up one day I at least wouldn't have spent six years getting good and wrecked about it first. The finding out too late to do me any good, but in plenty of time to worry about it for years - that was bad."

[dark_light]

She nods slowly.

"So - so I read some postcards. And Juliet recommended talking to a Tony so I did that, after trying to talk to Aether and that not working all that well. And then I talked to Helen's alts. And then Helen. And then I finished the postcards. And - now I am back."

[truthwright]

"I don't know... what happens now," says Kas. "I don't know what - you know, when I first met Stella, I told her something like this was going to happen? Because... I don't know you perfectly, and I'm not perfect, and forever is too long a time not to make any mistakes in. But I didn't think it was going to be so soon." He sighs. "I guess you never do. If I'd known it was going to turn out like this, I wouldn't have done it."

[dark_light]

"You didn't think I'd mind," says Isabella slowly. It's inflected like a question, except at the end of the sentence.

[truthwright]

"I thought you might mind, you might think it was inconvenient or something that I'd gone off and had a kid by myself, I didn't think you'd - hurt," he says helplessly. "And then she came out yours, and I didn't know what the hell you were going to think, but I still didn't really know it would be this bad. This is - I don't know what this is. I don't know what's going on. You said we're going to be okay but I don't know how."

[dark_light]

"I don't know specifically. I was figuring I'd - try not being missing for a while - see if that helped."

[truthwright]

"Help - what," he says. "Help me miss you less? Sure. Help me know what happened, what things I need to not do if you go missing again - no. Not really."

[dark_light]

"Don't create sapient life," says Amariah. "I would've dealt a lot better if she'd been somebody else's too, if you'd just met someone and wanted a kid with them - I would have managed even better if you'd run into some orphaned or mistreated moppet and decided to look after them, some kid who already existed - this I don't understand."

[truthwright]

"...I don't know what the difference is," he says. "I don't - okay. Sure."

[dark_light]

"If you'd met somebody else," Amariah says, "and you had a kid with them I wouldn't be - like - There would be another factor in the situation besides you being disastrously wrong about how I tick. I'd have started out imagining that you met someone who really really wanted kids and that was a compelling feature of the situation. And the kid would have a full set of parents instead of a gap where I was supposed to be - which would be the case even if you'd spontaneously impregnated yourself with a clone of yourself, unless I missed a postcard where you broke up with me in absentia, people are involved with their partners' children, you knew I was coming back and you knew everybody involved would carry on existing forever, maybe if I'd shown up when Helen was thirty this wouldn't be an issue but you sure couldn't rule out my appearing during her childhood. And if you had adopted someone who already existed - then they were already in the set of people I count within my sphere of things-to-take-responsibility-for because I picked up the entire worldsheaf, that would be the more involved equivalent of you making a close friend who was going to be around a lot."

[truthwright]

He curls up and shivers.

[dark_light]

She sighs and puts her arm around him.

"I didn't think I was that - hard to understand."

[truthwright]

"Did we ever even talk about it at all? I don't think we did," he says. "I don't know what you'd think of me... I don't know... carving the moon into one of those lacy balls with more lacy balls inside them by hand, either. I can guess that you might not mind it because it doesn't really affect anything important, or you might mind it because everyone is going to be weirded out that the moon rattles now, but I don't actually know, you've never said anything either way about anything that's even enough like that for me to tell."