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teja

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Teja is having breakfast, reading some news-paper from the future with quite evident satisfaction.

Something happened, it seems, that Teja entirely approves of.

[[OOC: This post is brought to you by the linked mun journal entry as well.]]

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"Hey Teja."

Guppy approaches, with newborn in arms and firstborn in tow.

"What does 'Screw fox news' mean?" Fry asks, peering at the paper.

"It is, I take it, a general scoffing in the direction of a very biased earth news source," Teja says, looking up.

Pause.

"You have a small, new child."

"Yes, this is Brooklyn, she arrived two days ago." Guppy says.

"She's not small, she's enormous." Fry says. "She doesn't even have to go in a tank."

Teja stands.

"Greetings, and welcome to the world, little Brooklyn," he says. "And she's very small, for an entire human being!"

Long pause.

"I thought Brooklyn was a place; I think that is where Steve Rogers hails from?"

"Brooke for short." Guppy says. "A small stream. Who's Steve Rogers?"

"I wanted to call her Pondweed." Fry comments. "What's biast new sauce?"

Brooke opens her eyes and peeps in the direction of Teja.

"Steve Rogers is a good man that fought against the evil tree god, also," Teja says. "I had been at odds with him, but we made a truce over that shared menace. He is also known as Captain America and as such embodies a symbolic figurehead for the war effort in World War II, a role upon which he is entirely wasted, because he can really fight, not just prance."

Pause.

"And a biased news source" -- he enunciates it quite slowly -- "is some source, that is place where it comes from, for news, either a newspaper or a tee-vee channel as in this case, or maybe something on the internet which is something you look at on a computer, which is biased, that is, bent unfairly towards one certain opinion or world-view, neglecting all other possible aspects of reality, and thus telling those that get their news their a version of the truth that is so incredibly bent, it is for all intentions and purposes nothing but a great load of lies."

This is a bit of a long explanation, even for a bright spark like Fry. But he understands the last bit.

"A biased news source is bent and tells lies."

"Close enough." Guppy says. "Would you like to hold the baby, Teja?"

"Indeed, Fry, you understood that very well," Teja says. "And I would, if I may."

He has indeed changed much in the years since his death.

Guppy hands Brooke over gently.

"Coral dropped her earlier." Fry says.

"She didn't mean to, and Mummy caught her in time." Guppy says to the tattle tale.

Teja holds the little one quite warmly and gently. He has held enough babies lately to no longer be worried.

Brooke doesn't seem terribly delicate, even for a newborn.

"She's already too big for the newborn baby clothes some of the family bought." Guppy says.

"Look at her hand and mine, compare, and tell me she's not tiny!" Teja says.

"She is nearly five times the size Fry was when he was born." Guppy says. "That's why she seems big to us, for a newborn."

"Fry must have been very tiny," Teja says, looking at her and trying to imagine a baby that's only a fifth of her size.

"Oh yes." Guppy gets out a newborn picture of Fry, for comparison.

Fry peeps at the picture.

"What's that?" he asks, pointing at a tube on his face.

"That helped you breathe, because your lungs were very tiny."

"He was hardly any bigger than a kitten!" Teja says, amazed.

"He was smaller than some kittens." Guppy agrees. "He fitted right into my hand."

"How do we grow?" Fry asks.

"Well, the food we eat gets put into our bodies and that makes them bigger." Guppy says.

"And nature dictates in what direction your body grows, that your fingers grow and your nose becomes bigger and you grow hair," Teja adds.

"How come she has no hair and I had lots of hair when I was born?" Fry asks.

"Because everyone is a little different." Guppy says. "Just like how your skin is a little bit darker than Coral's, and how she is small and you are tall."

"It is because how your parents' differences combine," Teja adds.

Guppy nods.

"Like how you told me how some people have different colour skins and how black people have black babies." Fry says.

"Yes, that's right."

"Because everyone has jeans." Fry adds.

"Indeed," Teja says, who cannot here a difference in the pronunciation, "and if a black person and a white person have a baby together, it will be brown-ish, and look a bit of both, because the parents' genes mix in the child. But each of their children will look somewhat different, as in each, that mix is made once again."

"Mummy has green in her hair, does that mean we will get it?" Fry asks.

"No, the little green streaks are dye that Mummy puts in herself." Guppy says. "Just like how tattoos aren't passed on."

"Or scars from injuries," Teja says.

"What's a scar?" Fry asks.

"If you get a big cut, the skin grows back slightly shinier." Guppy says. "That's a scar."

"Like this," Teja says, pulling up his sleeve and showing a few lines below his elbow. "I singed myself at the forge the other day, when I did something quickly and didn't wear the apron that keeps me from being burned."

Fry looks at the scar, then runs his finger down the scar.

"Don't do that, burns are sore." Guppy says.

"This is not that fresh, and no longer hurts," Teja says.

"Okay, but Fry you should ask before you touch. You know that, you don't like people to touch you." Guppy says.

"Okay." Fry doesn't touch it again. "Is a burn like I got when I touched the cake tray?"

"Yes, though that was just a little one, so it didn't scar."

"These things are something that happen on a body during a lifetime, and do not come from their parents' genes," Teja says, going back to the original question.

Fry thinks for a moment then asks.

"How come I feel things different and you and Mummy don't?"

"Because sometimes genes mix up." Guppy says. "And make new ones."

"That's why it's useful to have two parents," Teja says.

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