fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, March 20}

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Ethics [Thursday, March 20}

Today Anakin's desk was covered with droid babies in bassinets.

Each baby had a tiny stuffed Ewok tucked next to it. Shh.

"Today we talk about lust," Anakin said. "Or rather, the unintended consequences that can happen when you take action without precautions."

He smiled. "Meet your little projects for the next week. They're heavy, they cry, and they will record everything you do with them. So if you stuff them into a closet for a week, believe me, I'll know."

He reached for a list of paper. "Some of you I've paired together, some of you are single parents." His smile turned a little evil. "Some of your babies are a little fussier than others."

He was a petty, petty man.

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"Umm." Karal didn't know what else to say. He didn't mind, he decided, it was just very, very odd.

Oh, it would figure that the father of her fake child would be a holy man, wouldn't it? And Adah didn't exactly think Karal would be too keen on the idea of handling this droid baby the way she and River had when she had one, either.

"I find this exercise a bit farfetched," she wrote, sliding her notebook over to Karal once she'd finished scribbling down her words. "No child gestated in my womb would come out this healthily. But, look on the bright side, at least it's a girl, so we know she won't have Lesch-Nythan's and start trying to eat her own hand."

And people said Adah wasn't an optimist. Psh.

Karal didn't manage even an Umm this time. Altra put his paws up on the desk so he could read what Adah had written and promptly started snickering again. Bright flame. "That, yes. That sounds like a good thing. Hand eating would be...bad." With an effort he shook himself out of it. "And you're right, it is farfetched. I have some experience with babies, if you want me to care for it."

He had trouble imagining that Adah would be at all interested in looking after the droid baby. "You could be responsible for keeping us both clothed and fed," he added with a wry smile.

Adah quirked a dully surprised but impressed sort of eyebrow at the suggestion, and wondered if Karal had just known what to say to sway her towards a congenial reception of the situation, or if she was just cursed to be from a slice of history where her ovaries chained her to domestication while the rest of the multitude of universes passed by without a thought to the fact that a female breadwinner would be scandalous. Reasonably, though, she would have been the breadwinner: she was going to be a doctor, after all, and she knew firsthand that religion was a career in poverty, if you were truly sincere about it.

At the same time, though, she couldn't bring herself to accept that arrangement. Part of it was because she didn't want Skywalker to think that she just shrugged off her burden to a willing recipient. She didn't want anyone thinking that just because she could, she was going to take the easy route. Besides, thrown into something like this was a chance to prove to herself that she wasn't going to turn out like her mother and abandon the Unwanted at the first open opportunity to do so and get away with it.

She examined the little droid child a moment again, a finger brushing against its realistically rendered hand before she wrote again.

"I have some brief experience as well; I did have a little baby sister, after all. We should both care for it, although, this weekend, if you could take the brunt of it, I'd appreciate it, as I have other, fluffier babies that I'll need to deal with. Besides, that's when I work at the clinic. In the fantasy family life I'm assuming we're intended to construct for this assignment, that would definitely be symbolic of the long hours my important and successful career demands me to be away."

He nodded, looking from the baby to Adah and back again. "That will be fine. A healer cannot be dividing her attention between her duties and her child. I can take her today, if you like, and pass her to you on Monday morning, if you like. I will be away for a time on Friday evening, but I'm certain I can find someone to care for her."

Karal had to ask. He had to. "Fluffier babies?"

He also found himself picking up their baby and cradling it. Even if it did seem very odd, it looked like a baby, felt like one. He'd helped care for Trenor-his-brother from the day after Trenor was born.

[ooc: Sleep now! Back in far too few hours!]

"There's no reason I can't care for her while you're gone, and you can get her Saturday morning at the clinic. I can make sure she has all the proper shots and vaccines while she's there.

Yes, there was a wry smile as she wrote that, which was good, because it helped mask the fact that she almost gave herself away with another smile at the next bit.

"As for the fluffier babies, Bob is pregnant."

She debated as to whether or not she should clarify which Bob. Since fate seemed to wish to deal her a rather nasty hand of child overload lately, she decided against it, if only to potentially amuse herself with the reaction.

Edited 2008-03-20 15:03 (UTC)

"That would work very well. Thank you." Karal had been in Fandom too long. Bob is pregnant took his mind to places it really shouldn't go. His staring at Adah was at least ninety percent boggle. "Bob is pregnant? Glory, this place will never stop being strange!"

Adah had to admit to being impressed by he ability to keep a cool expression when all she wanted to do was smirk at that response. She even managed to tweak her look with a bit of confusion as she scribbled down, "What is so strange about it? Are rabbits unable to procreate where you're from?" In fact, the effort into the confused expression was probably what helped her hide the smirk so well.

Karal just stared. "Not the boy rabbits!" Though, if males could reproduce it would explain a great deal, like the very open attitudes towards shaych relationships and the question Andrew had asked him about being the same and now his head hurt. "My head hurts," he said under his breath. "Tell me it is at least just the rabbits?"

Adah let a soft laugh slip and, despite its escape, she fought to put it away and retain her calmly confused demeanor. She's caught the muttering about the headache she may have been starting to cause; that only inspired her more.

"Do you mean to tell me that, where you are from, female rabbits procreate without the aid of male partners?" She written it with a lilt to the writing to denote a sudden fascination, copied in the lift of her brow. After all, she'd used that specific word, procreate. She hadn't asked anything about whether or not they got pregnant.

Oh, she was feeling that this could only get worse, and she had to admit, she was rather fond of the destruction it might cause. Language was such a fickle, delicate, easily manipulate thing; she would have expected the president of the language club should know this.

"Sunlord, no! They do so the same way everything else does!" And now he was pink around the ears and completely confused. "But you said Bob was pregnant. Bob is a boy's name."

Adah bit her lip, but she was definitely, unmistakably grinning now. Her ability to hide things like that had decreased dramatically since she'd started here, or, more appropriately, since she started fraternizing with certain Eels.

"And a homonym of Karal can be a girl's name, can't it? My rabbit's name is Bob; ask River, she named her. Perhaps it's short for Roberta. You didn't think I meant the Librarian, did you? That's just silly."

Karal dropped his head on the desk and groaned. "You," he said, partly amused and a great deal relieved, "enjoyed that far too much."

She did; she really did. Adah chuckled silently, shaking her head as she took up her pen again.

"I'm a sadist; so shoot me. It's entirely your fault for making it so easy, though, really. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, though, I suppose I should just can my hopes and dreams of naming our robot spawn Bob, shouldn't I?"

"My credulity is far greater than it used to be before I came here." Karal lifted his head and grinned at her. "On the contrary, I think we should name it Bob. In honour of our esteemed librarian and your soon to be many rabbits. And Adah," he looked at her solemnly - well, almost solemnly. He was having trouble not laughing - "if, in all the weirdness that manifests on this island we get pregnant boy rabbits, I am going to hold you responsible for putting the idea out there!"

Adah glanced over toward Karal, a wry smirk on her face as her head lowered to send a challenging gaze his way from beneath the fringe of her bangs, as if considering this responsibility he was now placing on her unbalanced, uneven, crooked shoulders.

Finally, she noted, dutifully accepting the burden, and, should it happen, her expression made it clear that she would bear it with the utmost pride. Especially since she intended on capturing a few of those said pregnant male rabbits (or coaxing someone to capture some for her), observing them, studying them, and churning out a breakthrough medical document.

And then she wrote again: "Let's not name her Bob. I have enough Bobs in my life, I'm afraid. If we name her, let's name her Edgar."

This was why he liked Adah, for all her prickliness. She could express more with a single look than most people could in hundreds of words. "Edgar it is, then," he said, looking down at the droid baby. "You can be Edgar, and you will grow up to be a credit to both your parents."

He felt a little silly, knowing it wasn't real. But it yawned and smacked its lips in its sleep - and I am going to have to stop thinking of it as an it - in her sleep, making it hard to remember.

With a small, impressed expression at Karal's acceptance of the suggestion, Adah gave him an appreciative smirk and then turned her attention for a moment toward the fruit of their sudden, supposed, imaginary lust, and smiled a little bit more as she poked the wee robot's wee robot nose. Lucky her. Thanks to her father's congeniality, she got to be named after a dead, drunken, inbreeding poet rather than Adah's dead little sister, which was what she was going to suggest if he'd been against the idea. Edgar's nose wrinkled at the touch, but, otherwise, she regarded it no more than the tiniest blip in her programmed sleep. It would have been an almost maternal gesture on Adah's part, really, surprisingly so, if it weren't for the fact that she'd merely tucked her pen into her palm to free up her fingers, thus threatening to poke the droid's eye out if she'd made any sudden movements.

She then gave Karal another wry smile, drawing her hand back and turning the pen around to the utilitarian position so that she could write. "Don't let her get dismantled before Friday; I need a good grade in the class."

Karal let absolutely no trace of the fact that he found that entirely cute, despite the pen and potential eye poking, because he was afraid the pen might be turned on him if he did.

He just nodded, straightened in his chair, and said, "Yes ma'am," very obediently and with only the tiniest trace of a smile. "I shall pass her over to you on Friday perfectly safe and sound."

Adah narrowed her eyes momentarily at Karal, suspect of that small hint of amusement tainting the severe gravity of the situation, but, ultimately, she conceded to his words with an agreeing nod.

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Ethics [Thursday, March 20}

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