milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Maria is in the bar, having some food while she holds Alex on her lap with the other arm.

Come say hi!

Strata can't resist, and walks over to Maria, also holding a baby and a large plate of rice and beans.
"May I join you?"

Maria smiles at her and her baby warmly. "Sure, sit down."

"How old is he?" Strata asks, full mother coo-mode on.

"Just about three weeks."

"Elpida's three weeks today. I would say it's a coincidence around here. But," she grins, "There is so much plowing of fields around here I'm suprised there isn't a baby born every week."

Maria grins back. "Well, Michael and I weren't long married when Alex was conceived, so..."

"So?"

"Alex was kind of... unexpected."

"Unexpected? What other outcome of marriage (and its benefits) could there be?"

"Oh, no - we knew we'd have kids. Just not yet."

"Is your husband also here in Milliways?"

"Yeah, he is." She smiles softly. "We got married after we came here."

"You are very lucky," she says with only a slight touch of bitterness. "And children will always come when they are most needed."

Maria looks at her with some concern, but just says, "I guess so."

"How did you arrive in Milliways? Can you go back and forth? And to where and when?"
She studies the young woman closely; she seems so very young to be having a child, even by Strata's society's terms.

"My husband brought me. Well, he wasn't my husband then. I can leave, but... the world we came from isn't safe for him. We have got another place to go, though, now."

Strata smiles gently and knowingly. "The world isn't safe for a lot of people, myself included. Or at least the one I came from."

"I don't mean just danger like for everybody. He's... hunted. And they'd want Alex too, probably, if they knew about him. So we left."

Strata knows she shouldn't be nosy, , but asks anyway. "Why would they want your child? If yor husband's guilty of a crime, they wouldn't come after Alex."

"He's not guilty of anything he didn't do in self-defence", Maria replies, reminding herself not to snap when Strata can't possibly know. "They want him because... he's not human."

Strata goes through everything she knows about non-humans in the Greek world. "Is he a demi-god? He can't be a centaur or a minotaur or some other creature, or your child would not look like that..." She's curious, but she can also tell she's hit a nerve, trying to balance out caution and inquisitiveness.

"He's a hybrid of human and... another race. From a different world."

She's not sure she should be telling this much to a stranger... but Milliways is different.

Strata has gained some understanding as to the existence of people on other planets, as well as the behavior of people towards others in her own world, and how strangers were just not welcomed. "So people hate him, because he's not like you... I think I understand."

"Hate him and they're scared of him. It's stupid." She frowns, stroking a hand over Alex's head.

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