Sunset Bracket
"You're telling me you'd rather have a whole baby than have your own personal legacy memorialized?"
Addam shakes his head. Over good food and good companionship, he and Minoth will rise into the most inane of conversations - good conversations, still, but so blessedly stupid sometimes.
(The good companionship is watching on with unhidden and quite possibly also unbidden amusement, chewing noises their loudest contribution.)
"Minoth, I haven't got a personal legacy worth memorializing. I'm a bastard prince with no interest in ruling and no real impacts on the people I lord. So yes, I'd much rather lend my resources for the good of some hypothetical child in some hypothetical future of this world than have you make up glorious lies about me to tell to the people who are alive in some even more hypothetical future hundreds of years from now."
Minoth grimaces and flops his cheek on his hand. That can't be comfortable, all that metal pressing into his face, now, can it? "Leave it to you to be so eloquent and righteous refusing a loving tribute from a friend."
"If you were just my friend, I'd trust you. Actually, I'm not sure I'd ever trust you to be normal about me, no matter what we called each other. But if we didn't have a homoerotic attachment, I'd trust you slightly more."
"Friends close, enemies closer?"
Addam just about radiates. "And whatever Minoth is, closest of all."
"But about this baby..."
"What, are you going to help me have it, somehow? I really don't think you can."
"Homophobe," Minoth says sourly. "Or maybe it's transphobe. Either way. I'm a product of science myself, so you can't convince me that there isn't a way."
A way to do what, exactly?
"Minoth, you're ridiculous."
"My prince, that's why we were made for each other."
And were they, truly? Nice expression, anyway.
Aegaeon chooses that moment to interject, "I am sure His Majesty would do anything in his power to ensure legal protections for your union."
Hugo elbows him. Audible only to the Ardainian contingent, he mutters, "That may be so, Aegaeon, but I'm not sure that as my advisor you should be encouraging me to be helping those two reproduce."
Brighid puts in, to scathe, "Sometimes I wonder if it's better than supporting the same of Aegaeon."
Jin, privately, wonders if there's anything in his journal relating to whatever it is Minoth is referring to. Lora and Haze are whispering at crackles, and Milton and Mikhail look distinctly distressed. He decides not to make a point to find out.
Mythra, by her lonesome, just blinks, and blinks, and blinks.
Somehow Minoth has swung fairly quickly, powerfully, and insistently from his position of ridicule, regarding Addam and his associated feelings in legacy, to one of gable interest.
He bangs open the manor door with a passion.
"Flora!"
She doesn't respond, but he's undeterred, crossing great lengths of the parlor floor at speed.
"Flora!" he calls again. And why would she answer? Why, exactly, would she be there at his beck and call?
"You don't have to yell," she appears at last, uncharacteristically frowny in the face of Flesh Eater guest.
"No, but I wanted to," Minoth replies, and that's the first clue into his, again or still, ridiculous mood.
"You need something?" Flora guesses. "I don't have any leftovers you'll want."
"Sometimes I surprise myself. But no, not food. I'm curious about your views on babies."
"Babies?"
"Children," Minoth amends. "The human version of a legacy left to the world."
Flora cocks judgemental brow, invoking further frowniness. "I don't really think of them that way - and I don't think Addam does either. A child is what and who they want to be, and not what we make of them."
"That's a good answer." Minoth seems to have settled down somewhat, but is still teetering on the verge of pacing. Flora can't decide if an Addam tagged along would have calmed him any or would just have worsened matters.
For her part, she decides to take a seat on the setee and just observe. It's an interesting topic, to be sure, and one upon which she doesn't feel in danger of misspeaking.
If a child is considered to be the legacy one can leave to the world in the sense that they, in manifestation of the support and love you've given them, are the greatest gift possible, then yes, that's the right description. If you're purely self-serving and self-modeling in your parenting, then no, it's not great.
Adoption mustn't be shunned, but Flora can also understand why it doesn't always deliver the same effect. Her parents had been less failing by virtue of the second mode and more floundered in the problem of opting in to something they weren't completely sold on, which is a universal crux.
Flora knows Addam won't have that problem, and she hopes that she won't either; that the two of them, together, will stay strong in all their choices.
And then there's Minoth.
"Are you thinking about children?" she asks, craning her head forward and around as part of the gesture of her question.
He looks her straight in the face like a stymied Ellook.
"Me?"
"Or are you just trying to see if we're looking for a live-in nanny?"
If he had been a ruminant, now he resembles a canine, tail-between.
"I'm just interested, is all."
"Yes," Flora says, "I was just thinking to myself that it is a very interesting question. But Addam-"
And then there he is, affectionate to both of them and crowding them all onto the setee.
"Minoth was asking me some very interesting questions," is what he says when he finally starts saying intelligible words. Minoth nods, enthusiastic but still looking slightly shell-shocked, his hand having been wandered by no volition (rather, no doing, if perfectly willing) of his own to the waist of someone not wearing armor. Flora's not sure any of them will remain the voice of reason, in this.