thaumobabble | technical issue

Kanim crashes at the castle for a few days, then he buys Bella's old house off her, makes it walk to a more comfortable distance from the castle, and just visits a lot. He is very helpful. Tony makes spectacle frames, Bella makes lenses, Kanim makes out with Tony. When the spectacles and the window are completely replaced, it is spring, and Bella plants herself a garden of important herbs on the castle grounds, and takes apart wizard staffs with Kanim.

Kanim really likes Tony; he looks at her rather like she fell out of the sky into his lap and he's trying to figure out how she could possibly have happened. He really really likes her. He does not want to marry her. This is made extremely clear when Queen Marianne asks how he would feel about being Tony's backup husband possibility in case Bella cannot solve the technical issue, to which question his response is to bolt from the room at top speed shouting "I AM GOING TO GO HELP BELLA WITH THAT SPELL NOW."

(This is, he feels the need to explain to Tony later, no slight against her undoubtedly stellar qualities as a potential spouse. Which he wants Bella to enjoy. Which he will not be partaking of himself even though it is, evidently, not a law of nature that only one person can marry a given other person. Because he does not want to be any sort of royalty and be asked for things even if his only duty would be to impregnate another sort of royalty. He is not even sure he wants non-royal children.)

Bella works on the spell, and Kanim helps. It's mid-Pink when Bella finds her beloved Sherlock and says:

"I think this version will work, even if it would be premature to test it before Umber. Which throws into rather stark relief the fact that if I cast it, eventually we will have a baby princess on our hands, and we have not actually discussed parenting."

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"Okay. You going to breastfeed?"

She shrugs. "I don't see a reason not to."

"...How many kids do we want, eventually?"

"At least one that survives to adulthood," Sherlock says dryly.

"I mean - the more of them there are the less pressure is on any individual one to like politics, get married, produce children of their own," says Bella. "You two were having issues with the husband quest thing, after all. But of course there are also reasons not to have half a dozen even if that would still only involve going through childbirth twice apiece."

Tony snorts. "How about one each?"

"One each sounds workable to me," Bella says. "Unless of course Sherlock tells us it's disastrous and we must never try it after her turn."

"I find that unlikely."

"People do routinely go through the process more than once on a volunteer basis," agrees Bella. "Okay. So probably three. Their own rooms near enough Sherlock to be heard. Standard princessly tutoring, no unusual dietary arrangements, what am I forgetting - there should probably be some consistent reaction from us if they misbehave, I guess, so they don't just go to whoever the softy is." She glances at Tony. She bets Tony would be the softy.

"Who, me?"

"Maybe," says Bella.

"And yet, we cannot predict ahead of time precisely in what ways our future children might annoy us and agree on the appropriate course of action for each one."

"No, of course not. But, general principles. I wasn't a defiant kid, but I wasn't perfectly behaved either. Ranata usually took away privileges, Charlie usually sat me down in disappointed silence and grounded me," she supplies. "...I think I'm pretty much just against spanking across the board."

"Yes," says Sherlock.

"We, uh... didn't get a whole lot of parenting. Dad ignored us until I got big enough to work on stuff with him, and then he'd just kick me out of the workroom for a while if I broke something or forgot a safety rule. Probably not the best example to follow."

"What about your mother?"

"If she found out we were doing something she didn't want, she'd sit us down and explain why it was a bad idea."

"...That seems like a generally decent principle, no?"

"Yes."

"All right then, we default to that, for anything serious we call in all of us and agree on something unless it's an emergency in which case best judgment in the moment?" says Bella.

"Agreed."

Tony nods.

"Do you suppose your mother is going to have a lot of strong opinions on how we bring up Carinna, speaking of her parenting techniques?"

"I'm not sure," says Sherlock.

"We should probably ask her, then, since that's going to be more of a pressing issue than anything my parents may think given living arrangements."

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