milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Thirty two week pregnant teen sitting by the fire, looking at a parenting book the bar gave her.
Reading is slow going, and any word longer than seven or eight letters usually means she forgets the first ones before she has worked out the last ones.
She has her feet up and is eating sandwiches as she reads.

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"I don't want him to miss out of the good parts of our cultural heritage. Besides, if time stops in Borogravia when I'm here, then does that mean my world will stop permanently if I don't return?"

"Oh. right. That would be bad. Still getting used to how time works here." The ruge to sing Jim Croce's song about time in a bottle comes, and goes, the spell almost knowing the context is wrong.

"You said he. Could be a she just as easily."

~~Oh bugger, I've been trying so hard not to do that~~

"Did I?" she says in surprise. "That's strange, I haven't done that before."

She puts her hand on the bulge. "I don't mind which it is. It'll still be the most precious thing to me."

"Well, it sounds like where you come from, being a girl has its strengths, and its drawbacks. At least she would have a mother who isn't afraid to take chances, and the way your world - and mine - are, a girl should have that." Knox is no feminist, but as a product of the 60s, he's absorbed a lot.

"If it is a girl I will be more inclined to bring it up here." she says. "I invoke enough social scandel back home as it is, bearing a child out of wedlock. If it is a boy then at least I will have some sort of legal protection when he comes of age."

She shakes her head. "I dislike reliance on men after what happened, but the country isn't going to change overnight."

"If it means anything, where and when I come from, things are a little better. At least under the law.

"And if your strange flat world is really like Earth was in its past, things will change sooner or later. Especially since you and your friends did a bit of men's work. I don;t know too much about history, but I know that things changed fast where I come from after a war where the women stayed home but did men's jobs."

"Maybe." she concedes. "There have already been some changes. But I have already had to fight off attempted abduction once, and that won't cease to be a threat until the place gets burned down in the summer."

He winces at the notion of such a tough place, worse than even home, by far. "The place? What place?" And the music has left him for now, finding little to play.

"The Girls Working School." she says quietly.

"Let me guess. That's where your country sends its unwed mothers?" A decent idea, in theory, if you aren't all about the Moralizing and are all about the Help.

"Close." she says.

"It's a place that takes unwed mothers away because nobody will miss them and they can use the child as labour too. It's a place that abducts girls that nobody will look for and sells their labour. A place that breaks everyone eventually."

Knox scowls at a world that could have that. "Can I contribute the first match?"

"I think Lofty and Tonker have first rights at it. They were the ones to escape and join the army with me. Burning things is the only pleasure Lofty has left in life."

"Oh." Knox has no idea who Lofty is, but makes a mental note not to leave the matches around just in case. "No, you and your friends would get the right to burn it down. But I will happily help from a distance. There is NO excuse for slavery, for child abuse, for any of that no matter how much you think something is immoral.

"Not," he adds, "that I have a problem with you and your child. It happens, and the only thing wrong is that your guy didn't take responsibility." Knox is, in general, not one to encourage teen prengancies, but he lives in the real world and can avoid bromides about it.

She fidgets.

"Thank you. A lot of people back home call me a whore."

He snorts. "I wonder if those people were ever young and full of hormones. Or how many of them are busy visiting the brothels while upholding other people's morals.

"You are just a member of a really silly, stressed out, romantic, lustful and generally lousy race. One who seems to be trying harder to get her act together than most people my age." The thing about cynics is that deep down, most want to believe in something better.

"And I think I had better go and eat something before I start to sing again. Take care, kiddo."

She nods and smiles.

"You too. Bye Mr Knox."

She then opens her book and goes back to the beginning of the sentence.

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