milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

guppy sandhu,
teja

(no subject)

Guppy is by the trilobite tank, with some crayons, doing some colouring with the kids.

Fry has been drawing a picture of Teja, by the looks of it. Coral is alternating between chewing the crayon and scribbling. Guppy is helping both of them.

There's plenty of paper left over if anyone wants to join them.

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Papers. Colourful pencils. Spreading colour around just as a pastime...

How utterly normal for a child from the future; and yet, what a great treasure it would be for one of those children from Gotland. Teja is leaning against a nearby pillar, pondering.

Fry picks up his picture and takes it over to Teja. He holds it out without making eye contact.

"Those are my cats, and me, by the lake!" Teja says, looking at the picture.

Pause.

"You draw truly well, filling the whole picture with colour," he adds.

"I started it at nursery and Michelle telled me the wrong letters." Fry says.

"Hi Teja." Guppy waves from his table.

"She probably didn't know," Teja says. "It's T - E - J - A. But it is not a name common in your time. Indeed, it was not a name common in my time, either."

Fry crouches to look at Teja's shoes.

"What's comm-un?"

"A thing that happens or occurs often," Teja says.

"There's another Alex at nursery but not a Fry." Fry says.

"Deh!" Coral shouts from over at the table.

"And not another Coral." Fry adds.

"I never met another of my name," Teja says.

"Why did you get called it?" Fry asks.

"It was my grandfather's name," Teja says.

"My gran-farer's name is Grandad." Fry says.

"It is not," Teja says. "That's just what you call him."

Fry looks blankly at Teja, because what he said doesn't quite make sense.

"Not everyone calls everyone the same thing." Guppy tries to explain.

"You call your father 'dad', I think," Teja says, "but we call him Guppy, and his patients call him Doctor Sandhu."

"Daddy." Fry says, but he nods.

"How are the twins doing?" Guppy asks Teja.

"They are doing much better than any dared hope, at the beginning and still in winter," Teja says. "They are rolling over now, and beginning to crawl; they laugh easily, and keep growing stronger. They no longer cry that much or that badly, but instead are discovering life around them. Little Hilde says they are worse than the kittens to watch so they don't come to harm."

"Good!" Guppy laughs. "Coral's getting into all sorts now she's started walking."

"It will get worse with the twins, before it gets better," Teja says, "but then, that household has seen many children grow up already, and they know how to deal with them. They just never had two of the same age before, as Gotho does not give birth as often and easily as Liuta."

"Natural twins are quite rare." Guppy says. "One in a hundred. But with modern fertility treatment they are more common in my world."

"But in a household of two couples, it would be easy for the women to have children that are much closer in age then siblings can be," Teja says. "It merely did not happen that way."

"Oh I see, yes." Guppy says, nodding.

"Babies are smelly." Fry says.

"That's not very nice." Guppy says.

"But they are!" Teja says. "It is natural for them, as they cannot yet control their bowels, and must relieve themselves into the napkins in their swaddling cloth."

"Nap-pees." Fry corrects.

Guppy smirks. "Yeah, we say 'napkins' for serviettes. Cloths for eating?"

Teja shakes his head. "I know nothing of these things, and what they are called in the future," he says.