fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Friday

Since the weather was tolerable, Ender had left the students a note to meet him on the dorm lawn. He was already there, seated on the ground, looking exhausted but also happy in an uncharacteristically dopey way. He'd left baby Val with Ben that morning - with difficulty, mind you. He greeted the arriving students with a, "Sit down in a circle, please." He smiled briefly. "Well, there aren't many of you, so I'll accept any formation that makes all of us more or less equal."

He had a bag of sandwiches and a bag of bottles of water with him, which he put in the middle of the circle.

"Welcome," he said. "My name is Andrew Skywalker. I'm an alumnus of this school; I graduated several years ago." That was all they needed to know, as far as he was concerned. "And you might be wondering what you signed on for."

"While 'philosophy' is in my class's title, we're not here primarily to talk about the philosophers of old or the specifics of particular lines of thought in philosophy. In this class, we try to put our own experiences into a greater perspective through conversation and debate. That means I expect some level of participation from all of you."

He smiled wryly. "That doesn't mean you always need to speak up about yourself," he said. "No topics are everything to everyone. If that week's subject veers too close to something you want to keep private, be my guest - just try and pitch in when someone else speaks. Ask questions."

"Because that's the point of this class: to ask questions of ourselves and of the people around us. You can even ask questions of me, if you feel the need. And maybe together we can get to the core of our joint and individual experiences." His mouth quirked a bit more. "That doesn't mean we're always going to be lingering on the existential questions - or staring at our belly buttons. It just means we're going to try and dig and come to some understanding about each other, ourselves, and the world."

He picked up a bottle of water. "As for today, let's open a dialogue," he said. "As far as I can tell, for most of you, this is all new. You just got here. How is it working for you? Are you elated? Annoyed? Don't want to be here? Achingly happy to be here? And for those of you who aren't - how has the past year treated you? Has there been anything that made you cry or made you think or made you wonder?"

"We can talk about that. Or you can bring up something else you feel is worth questioning. I consider most topics fair game, as long as they're brought up with regard for your fellow students. I can't claim knowledge on most, but I can claim an ability to annoy you with questions about just about anything."

He grabbed a sandwich from the bag. "If one of you wants to call themselves my TA, feel free," he said, "But I'm not sure we'll have much need of one with this group. Maybe we're all TAs, this time around."

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"Oh."

That didn't sound nearly as fun at he'd made it seem at first.

"It's just that, if I had a living toy, it would be better," she explained.

"Why?" Ender asked.

She picked her bunny up again, taking him away from the untouched bottle of water, to hug.

"Because then I'll get to keep it," Alluka said.

Something about that made something in his heart crack. "You know," he said, "my partner makes robots? Droids, he calls them. They're like toys, but they can be programmed to do just about anything, even chat with you."

She looked up at that.

"Like, like a person would?"

Ender nodded. "I never asked him to build anything that complicated, but I know he knows how," he said. "When we were in school together he made me a tiny one he called a mouse. That one was programmed to bring me breakfast. But he could've put a voice in it, too."

She giggled.

"So you never had to get your own breakfast!" Alluka looked pleased at that thought. "Kitchens are complicated."

"That's why I usually like to stick to the microwave, and nothing else," Ender said, sounding a little amused himself. "The mouse droid was a help."

"I never got to use a microwave before coming here," Alluka shared, still smiling. "Could the mouse use the microwave?"

"I think so," Ender said. "I never bothered to ask it. A stupid oversight on my part."

"Would you ask it now?" she wondered.

"I might," Ender said, "But I think I put it away somewhere. Nowadays my partner makes the sandwiches."

"He sounds nice," Alluka offered. "What's his name?"

"Ben," Ender said. "He teaches the class on mechanics." He smiled wryly. "If the droid thing didn't tip you off that he likes mechanics a lot."

"Do you like mechanics?" she asked curiously, and reaching out to take her bunny's bottle of water to drink from it.

"I like practical things, so I went through the effort of learning how to work with them," Ender said, "But it's not my passion the way it is Ben's. He can get stuck on a project for months and keep trying to make it better."

"For months?" she said, wonderingly. "I never had a tea party that went on that long."

Ender smiled. "But you've probably taken a lot of time building up your collection of toys and making sure you had all the right things for the party."

She shook her head.

"My toys just show up in my room," Alluka said. "I never got to pick before, until Kathy let me pick out a giraffe on Monday."

"Do you have any favorites?" Ender asked quietly.

She had to think about that, was the thing.

"My bunny got to see all sorts of new things with me now," she said, after a moment. "And I love my giraffe. There's a panda at home I like to sleep with too."

Practical Philosophy, Friday

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