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[knifewithnoname]

Who| Pruna and you!
What| Pruna is back in the capitol, cheers for her favourite tributes and goes on a research mission.
Where| District 12 suites, common room, library and out and about around the city.
When| In the days following Pruna's (as of yet unwritten) death.
Notes| Standard fare, might be some language. Oh and very awkward discussions about where babies come from for anyone tagging into part 3

[District 12 suites] This time Pruna was expecting to wake up, so she wasn't confused and she didn't struggle. She just sat still and did as she was told as the checked her over and even remembered to say thank you when they let her go.

Effie would have been proud. Pruna wasn't pleased that she had died, but if her count was correct she had lasted longer than last time, it had been a stupid mistake that had killed her though. And she had only killed two people again.

Once she got back to her room she pulled on what had became her favourite dress, a simple yellow cotton one with white frills on the sleeves and orange flowers near the bottom. Then she went to the lounge, to see who was there, before heading over to Sandy's room and knocked on the door. "Sandy do you be being in there?"

[Common room] Later that day Pruna headed down to the common room, her cuff was still round her wrist but she ignored it and the stares she got. She found a seat near a TV and watched as they went through the remaining tributes.

Howard was still alive, Pruna grinned, he was doing well and even though it was stupid that she hadn't outlived him. If she wanted anyone to win it would be Howard. Well maybe Shepard too even if Pruna didn't really trust her. She was alive too, so was that man she had stolen off; annoyingly.

The woman that hurt Sandy as well, she was still alive. Pruna bared her teeth. She should have killed her too. She would kill her. She was also glad to see the Grand Highblood was still alive, and Tim. They might win too.

The man who helped her learn spears, Maximus was next on the list of those still alive and he had killed a few people, and apparently dating the man who had showed her carving. At least Pruna thought that was what the television was saying, and she watched the footage for tips, if she was to make everyone believe she was dating Sandy.

[Library and around town] The library was always a good place to start when you needed to know things. Sandy and Pruna had come a few times before this arena but today Pruna came alone. She smiled at the librarian, who was always nice to her despite her cuff. "I do be needing to be knowing where children do be coming from."

At the woman's blush and flustering Pruna frowned, not understanding. Maybe the librarian didn't know either.

"I did be thinking about it. And sometimes people do be being married and then they do be getting kids. But sometimes they do no be married and do still be getting kids. And then there do be being the kids like me who do no be having parents at all. So I did be thinking maybe parents do no actually be having anything to do with it. Because there do be being people who do be being married and no be having children and I did then be thinking it did be magic. But there do no be any magic here and still kids."

At that the librarian just looked shocked and disappeared, a moment later bringing back a book and telling her that the answer was in there. Pruna nodded and took the book out, going to sit on the edge of a fountain in the city and read it. It was a baby book, at least it seemed so to Pruna. Colourful pictures and not much writing at all, she did sometimes get the feeling the librarian thought she was stupid.

It showed a man and a woman smiling, and said that when they wanted children there was an egg, and a seed and it made a baby. There were some pictures of the baby turning from a dot to a baby and then the couple smiling with the baby in their arms. The woman also seemed to get very big and there was something called a hospital involved. Pruna sighed.

"This do be being stupid." She picked up the book and wandered a bit, seeing a woman with a pram and a second child walking beside her she followed stalking them for a while, as if this would solve her mystery.

It just opened more though, she had seen parents with their children in markets in Gauig before, but had never really paid attention. Hadn't thought them important. But she wrinkled her nose as she watched the mother and the children, she didn't seem angry at them, not even though the baby cried a lot.

She continued to follow them silently.

Comments

[president_evil]

"Find it lacking, did we?" came a voice from nearby.

Wesker had found himself a seat on a bench beneath the sweeping branches of a tree, the shade preferable not just to the heat, but the bright, unrelenting rays of the sun.

(The glasses helped, but could only do so much. They hadn't been meant for eyes such as his.)

His legs were crossed, ankle resting on one knee, and one arm was stretched along the back of the bench - a silent warning to any who might have been foolish enough to attempt approach without invitation. His.

In the other hand was a book. A red cover, the dust-jacket removed.

He didn't look up at Pruna's long-suffering sigh, just turned a page with a careful shift of his fingers.

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna looked up and saw Wesker there, she smiled, because she liked Wesker even though she felt a bit embarrassed. She had told him, last time they had met, that she would win. But here she was having obviously not won, even if she had done better than last time.

She sighed again from where she sat. "It do be being stupid, and it do no be telling me anything."

[president_evil]

When compared directly to some of the others - say, the gladiator, or Ms. Dee Milo - Pruna was rather easy to overlook, but on her own, taking into account the ease in which she manipulated others and turned upon her fellows, Wesker was rather encouraged.

Talents such as those were so very hard to teach.

"Perhaps you're asking the wrong questions."

He marked his page with his finger and tipped his book down. "What is you wish to know?"

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna wrinkled her nose at that, because it sounded exactly like something Kant would say.

"I do be wanting to be knowing how we do be existing. No the gods sending our souls to our bodies I do be knowing that bit, but where do the bodies be coming from. This book do be saying an egg and a seed but what do you be doing with them? Planting them?" She tried to imagine babies growing in fields like potatoes. "You do no be having magic here and this book do be being for babies."

[president_evil]

She wanted to know where babies came from.

How adorably droll.

"A poetic way of putting it, to say the least," he drawled, amused. "But not technically incorrect."

At least it wasn't falling back on the old 'stork' trope.

"The egg comes from a woman, the - 'seed,' as they so colorfully put it - is from the male. Together, they create a baby and it's planted inside the woman." His head tipped. "There's no magic involved, I assure you. Merely biology."

[knifewithnoname]

"That's why the woman do be being big." She flicked through the book until she found the right page. "So the baby do be being inside her?" She wrinkled her nose, "How did they be doing that?"

[president_evil]

His mouth twitched, the only movement on his face outside of the shadows playing across the lenses of his glasses as the leaves shifted above him, teased by the wind. (Rustling gently, a hissing like snakes.)

"What did the book say?"

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna looked at him, wrinkling her nose and flicked through the pages. "It do be saying, the seed and the egg do be joining together and making a fo... fo... etus," she sounded out the word, "And that do be growing like this," she held the book up so Wesker could see the different stages of development, done as scan pictures.

"And then they do be going to a hospital whatever one of those do be being and getting the baby out."

[president_evil]

"Fee-tus," he corrected smoothly, pronouncing it for her. (Almost gentle for a man such as Wesker.)

His head tipped slightly, a pale brow lifting.

"And, I assume, you wish to know how the seed and the egg 'join together.' I'm afraid you'll need a different book for that. One with less pictures."

Or more.

[knifewithnoname]

"Foetus," she nodded and wrinkled her nose again. "It seemed like he was not going to tell her. Maybe it was some kind of secret, one you only got to know if whoever decided who could have babies chose you. So she dropped it for now.

"Well I do be knowing more now, there do be being a man and a woman and a seed and an egg and the baby do be growing inside the woman. What if it do be two women that do be wanting children, how do they make them?"

[president_evil]

"There are a few more steps involved, typically," he mused, snorting gently to himself, amused.

The mouths of babes.

"But the basic principle remains the same. A male is still needed somewhere in the process. A baby cannot be made without a piece from each sex."

[knifewithnoname]

"So then you do be needing three people..." She wrinkled her nose, "And if two men do be wanting a baby they do be needing to be borrowing an egg from a woman?"

She was getting this she thought though she still had questions. "And what about kids who do no be having any parents, how do you be making them?"

[president_evil]

He nodded, confirming with a soft, "yes." Then his head tipped thoughtfully.

"A child may not have a mother, or a father, but it still has parents, genetically speaking. They don't spring from nothing."

He waited, studying Pruna silently, face dappled beneath the tree.

"Wondering where you came from, dear heart?"

[knifewithnoname]

She blinked at him, frowning as she worked that through her mind before nodding. "Yes... I did no never be having parents..." But he was saying she did. She looked back at the book, the man and the woman holding the baby looking happy.

She worried her loose tooth with her tongue.

[president_evil]

"You did," he corrected, that low, soft purr as his eyes narrowed consideringly, sizing her up from beneath the glass. "At some point, eleven years prior to this moment, a man and a woman made you, and brought you into, well," a slight curling of his mouth, "your world. What happened after that..."

He trailed off, gestured vaguely with one elegant hand.

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna was quiet as she thought about that a moment, a man and a woman had made her, and her sister she guessed, and then she had been a baby. She wrinkled her nose, "Maybe they did be dying." People died all the time, they were really easy to kill. But then again she knew a lot of kids without parents, surely not all of them were dead. There had been no big diseases or anything in Gauig in recent history.

She looked back at the smiling pictures again and traced and angry frowny look on the woman's face instead. "Do sometimes people be making babies, and then when they do be getting them be deciding they do no be liking them?"

[president_evil]

"Yes."

Simple. Direct.

But not cruel, so much as painfully honest.

(Wesker had never really been one for hand holding.)

"Occasionally, a child isn't intended, but due to poor planning or accident, one is still made."

[knifewithnoname]

"You can be making children by accident?" She wrinkled her nose, how that was even possible when it was so difficult to even work out how to make them.

"And then they do just be throwing them away?"

[president_evil]

A rare chuckle, low and dark, like rustling velvet.

"It is a rather simple process for such a complicated result," he purred, strong white teeth flashing. "'Throwing them away' is a rather dramatic way of putting it, but I'm sure some would agree with its accuracy."

[knifewithnoname]

She wrinkled her nose, it didn't sound simple. She finger traced a frowny face on the man as well.

"How do people usually be putting it then?"

[president_evil]

"Adoption, is the official term."

He shifted, dog-earning the page in his book with one finger and setting it beside his thigh, turning the full of his attention on Pruna.

"If a couple doesn't want their child, but decides against termination of pregnancy, adoption is a common solution."

[knifewithnoname]

"Adoption." Pruna nodded, filing away the new word. "Does it be happening a lot?"

[president_evil]

"Often enough," he allowed, head tipping slightly. "I don't know the numbers personally, but it isn't uncommon."

[knifewithnoname]

She nodded, closing the book. She was glad she had learned this much even though it had opened some new questions up. "So do kids who do be being adoptioned normally no be having names?"

[president_evil]

A pale eyebrow twitched upward.

"Pruna isn't your name?" he asked, inferring again that the conversation had greater purpose than mere curiosity.