Post-Halloween

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is working. Very seriously. She is not mooning over her new relationship with Gideon even a little bit; she has too much work to do.

She is, however, wearing a skull with accents of deep, almost black purple, with a starburst or floral pattern just below her temple, that she has never been seen to wear before.

Other than that sentimental embellishment, however, she is entirely focused on Obaeg's Toward a Common Haemographology. She is making copious notes in the margins--courting future simian fury--and thinking that she should have found this for Moiraine before they started working on her weave notation.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

"...perhaps it seems strange," she says after a beat, "that I would ask about a relationship with a Warder and not about a relationship between two women. I am not used to it being at all noteworthy."

"May I presume from what you have said it will not be a problem?"

[blue_ajah]

"It will not," Moiraine says. "There is nothing objectionable about it. Such relationships are both known and accepted in my birth world."

[we_bring_hell]

She inclines her head in thanks and acknowledgment. "They are quite common in the Empire. Certain technologies make such pairings equally capable of conceiving children--indeed most couples, regardless of composition, prefer it."

[blue_ajah]

She blinks.

"I do not think that is a technology with which I am familiar."

(The narrative observes that the one conversation with Cordelia Vorkosigan about such things occurred in an AU timeline, and thus does not factor in here. Alas.)

[we_bring_hell]

"Ah." She considers how to describe it. "The extent and availability of the technology varies from House to House. Speaking broadly, it is possible to combine the genetic information of any two partners in a laboratory setting. From there the fetus can either be implanted in a human womb or a mechanical incubator."

"Resurrected humans have difficulty with fertility, especially with a necromantic parent, and of course it's simply safer and more comfortable to use an incubator. I believe the majority of children in the Empire are decanted rather than born."

"The Ninth's access to such technology is quite low, and we cannot afford the kind of equipment we would need to rebuild from our current population."

[blue_ajah]

"I can see how such things could be useful under the right circumstances," she murmurs.

[we_bring_hell]

"I had thought perhaps the reason some worlds frown on such relationships is the lack of technology to make reproduction possible," she says. "But it seems in your world, this is not as much an obstacle as it could be?"

[blue_ajah]

She gives a very elegant shrug.

"If you are asking about questions of inheritance, there are generally branches to the bloodlines in the noble houses," she replies. "If one line does not have a direct heir, another may easily be designated."

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes," she says. "Perhaps I was looking for a rational explanation for a matter of culture and history."