fh_trips | Kohala Coast, Hawaii - Morning & Afternoon - Friday

"Of course she did," Ender muttered. It would have been too much to hope she'd kept herself contained to Ben, who at least had the decency of not bringing her up. He briefly considered pretending like he thought she was talking about the other Valentine, then felt fairly immature for the thought and brushed it aside. "No, she didn't mention it."

Edited 2011-02-26 06:58 (UTC)

"She said she wasn't allowed to fetch me a bottle of tequila, even with seven children clinging to my skirts and calling me 'mommy,'" Karla informed him brusquely. "I think that was very unfair of you to have made a rule like that."

Guess who was enjoying this conversation already? Just guess!

"I think that rule is incredibly sensible," said Ender. Of course he thought so. Duh. "Especially when you have seven children with you. One of them might get hurt if you're not paying attention..."

"I'll be happy to lock you in a room with them for several hours and see how hard you cling to your abstaining ways when you're done," Karla said wrly. "Besides, I would have foisted them off on their mothers, fathers, and various unsuspecting relatives first. I'm not that bad with children."

Taking another picture of the reef, Karla asked, "So, was this the first year of children for you?"

"I'd cling to them twice as much, considering that's the only way I'd be able to keep control of the situation."

Everyone else could drink; Ender had no intention of ever downing even a drop of alcohol.

"And yes, I suppose it was." Somehow, he didn't think adding 'so do we absolutely have to talk about it' would work.

Maybe he could just be extra difficult...

"Just 'suppose'?" Karla asked. "That's hardly the precise answer I would expect. I'd say you got off lightly with just two, but considering your genes combined with his would make Valentine quite the handful."

Yes, of course Karla was going to press. Now the world could finally witness exactly what happened when an irresistible force met an immovable object.

"And that's not even counting Olhado--who was a stepchild of yours, I hear?"

Do go on, Ender. Do.

"Yes, he was, in some future," Ender said, squashing his irritability because he didn't need to give her more fuel for the future. "Apparently I married his mother, and he's got siblings."

Let's talk about Novinha's kids, then!

"His mother must be some female," Karla said with a low whistle. "I'm sure Valentine handled her unexpected stepbrother much better than Jaenelle Mara did. And her unexpected half-sister, too."

No, no, let's keep it right here, thanks.

"She was fine with it."

Ender could do laconic all day if he wanted to, you know, Karla.

And Karla could doggedly keep pushing for that information anyway.

"That doesn't strike you as odd?"

"Not really," Ender said, with a slight shrug. "Why should it be?"

"Even with the knowledge that these children represent different timelines and, thus, present no danger to her immediate timeline, it is in the nature of most children--Hell's fire, most people--to be possessive of things they consider theirs. Including their parents." Karla snorted, giving Ender a wry grin. "Not to insult you by saying any daughter that springs from your loins would ever be considered normal."

He recognised that Karla was trying to draw him into a discussion about this, especially on a topic he had, for once, worked very hard not to think about. "Thanks," he just said. "I figured yours spent the whole weekend yelling at each other."

This topic knocked him just an inch too far off balance to be too subtle about it.

"That's not entirely true," Karla replied, unruffled. "They spent plenty of time yelling at other children and occasionally just yelling. In short, my children acted like children. I see nothing wrong with that."

She dropped her jocular tone. "Considering in exactly half those futures I am somehow gravely ill and an invalid, and several of them also speak of war that has happened or is imminent...well, I'm glad to see them acting as children. Fearless, boisterous children."

Some of Ender's repressed irritability fell away at that. "You're of tough stock," he said, "I'm not surprised that crawled into the next generation. Which shows some hope for the future..."

There may have been some expectation of that when she'd mentioned it, yes.

"Stubbornness and a tendency to bite, more like," Karla said easily, though without a resumption of her earlier smile. "Though it's odd. I've never really saw myself as the maternal type, seven children aside, and an eighth from last year."

Ah, so that's where they were going. He should have guessed.

"Well, as Ben likes to say, Fandom rarely provides us with any that are actually possible," Ender said, "So I think for the moment you can probably breathe easy."

Why yes, he was missing the point entirely on purpose.

Karla would utterly unsurprised to discover that Ender had a better idea where she was going with their conversation than she did. Sometimes it felt like their conversations were like chess games and he was always thinking five moves ahead.

"If I had any indication that was actually going to be my life--mother to seven children, I mean--I'd be stowing myself away on your ship as you head off to Eros," she replied.

A thought occurred to her and she was asking it before she even consciously decided to. "Do you want kids?" she asked. "Not, 'do you think having kids would be a good idea?' or 'can you ever see yourself having them?' because I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that, but...I dunno, deep down where your instincts are, do you want them?"

He was genetically programmed, then reinforced, on the matter of thinking five steps ahead in any conversation. He didn't even realise he was doing it anymore, most of the time.

He also very much wanted to say no, but that would be a lie, he realised. "I have no idea," Ender said, truthfully. "I'm a creature of responsibilities. But that has very little to do with anything. I'm not letting some Fandom phantom dictate what I will or won't do with my life."

Edited 2011-02-26 20:04 (UTC)

"Yeah, that wasn't exactly something I was worried about with you," Karla snarked. "But they have made me think, at least. Before, there was always this kind of...absent expectation that I wouldn't have children. For lots of reasons, but none of them had anything to do with whether or not I wanted them. Now seeing futures where I do...it makes me wonder. Not whether I won't or I will, but what I actually want."

"So do you know what you want?" Ender asked. He... mostly just didn't want to think about it. Not yet. Not in these circumstances; that's why he'd said what he'd said about phantoms.

Fandom whimsy.

"Not seven," Karla said fervently. "And not really, no. I want a future where I feel loved and comfortable enough to have children, but that doesn't mean that I actually want them. And making the decision based on how adorable they were or how attached I got to them over the weekend is a poor way to make a choice of that magnitude."

Making a face, she added, "Though I suppose a good way to tell whether I've made a decision is just seeing how I react to the idea of nine months without Craft. If I'm still recoiling in horror from the idea, the answer's probably still no."

"I'm sure the time will come," Ender said, "By which I mean 'when you figure it out', or 'when you decide to', depending on what happens at the time. Either way, I think those children could do a lot worse than you as a mother, if you opt for it."

Karla shrugged a bit, flashing him a small smile that faded soon after. "I worry some about being able to be a good mother and a good Queen," she said idly. You know, because she didn't have any reason to give a sentence like that any kind of emotional weight. Really. "But, either way, that day is a long time from now. I'm still trying to figure out who I am to be responsible for anyone else."

Which was also kind of ironic, when you thought about it.

"If the time is right, you'll figure it out," Ender said. This topic was... a lot less complicated when he could make like Ben and shut off any consideration about his own situation.

He'd either think about it later, or find a reason to feel offended by it. He wasn't actually Ben. "I did find you a few books. If you want to read, and maybe talk to me about it." Deflect, deflect.

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