when will my life begin

[powershines]

In the morning, Rapunzel is not disturbed until she has had a little while to go over her coded notes from last night (letter by letter - she will learn to read this just like she learned to read printed notes, but neither task is quick) and has opened the door.

The guards posted there - they've changed in the night, she notices - tell her that she's invited to take breakfast with her parents in the dining hall.

Comments

[hisowninvention]

"Yes, that's true."

[powershines]

"I mean - who would you be doing them with?"

[hisowninvention]

"Just people I happen to meet. Usually it's been people I met the once and then never saw again, but if I'm going to be settling down here with you, I suppose I'll have more opportunity to get to know people."

[powershines]

"People just jump straight to that with people they don't even know?"

[hisowninvention]

"Some people, some of the time. There are even people who do it for money with strangers, and, reciprocally, people who pay for it that way. I've been the first kind more often than the second, but that was all a while ago now. It's not a well-thought-of occupation and it's considered impolite to talk about it in most places."

[powershines]

"...Why do people pay money for it? I don't get it."

[hisowninvention]

"Usually it's men who want something they can't get by themselves and either aren't married or don't want to go to their wives for it, for some reason or another. I guess that doesn't explain why there's so many of them, but the trade thrives regardless of how badly thought of it gets."

[powershines]

"Huh." She looks contemplative for a long moment, and then says:

"If I could talk to a version of my parents who weren't going to be culturally awkward about having the conversation at all what would they have to say about you wanting to do things with other people in your - spare time?"

[hisowninvention]

"I could guess that they might not think it was anyone's business but mine, except for making me seem vaguely disreputable, unless you were planning to marry me, in which case I could guess that they'd say it would be appropriate for me to stop beforehand and not start again. If you married me and it was generally known that I did that sort of thing - well, people would feel sorry for you, especially since I'm not any kind of nobility. People, your parents likely included, would think it meant that I didn't really love you. While we're on the subject of your parents' opinions on you and me and marriage, I think that from what Cearl said to me yesterday, if you do plan on marrying me he'd appreciate knowing about it well beforehand."

[powershines]

"I don't plan on anything, right now."

[hisowninvention]

"I figured."

[powershines]

"But it sounds like you have plenty of room to stop-and-not-start-again if that seems best later even if you do things now?" she shrugs. "Without that making anything worse?"

[hisowninvention]

"Yeah."

[powershines]

"Well, for now I don't mind," she shrugs. "I mean, for - reasons internal to me I don't mind. If there are awful social consequences of some kind I will probably mind."

[hisowninvention]

"Okay. I'll do my best not to incur even mild to moderate social consequences," he says. "Which amounts to making sure that the people who know I'm doing that and the people who know I'm the princess's ambiguously close friend aren't the same people. - By 'ambiguously close friend' I mean that it will occur to pretty much anyone who knows how close we are as friends to think that maybe I want to marry you, even if they don't also think we're doing anything socially unapproved in the meantime. And the presence of your father's guards wherever you go is going to make it pretty easy to prove that we aren't."

[powershines]

"Is that what they're for? I thought they were actually for guarding me."

[hisowninvention]

"They're actually for guarding you, but Cearl made it pretty clear that they're also for - the word is 'chaperoning'. It means something like, 'watching to make sure no Things are going on where they shouldn't be'."

[powershines]

"There's a word for that. Wow."

[hisowninvention]

He giggles.

[powershines]

"If people are this obsessed with Things aren't they going to think some happened before there were any guards watching us?"

[hisowninvention]

"I told your father there weren't any. He seemed to believe me. I think that'll be enough for most people - even if they don't directly ask him, just the fact that he's still letting me stay under his roof is a strong sign of approval."

[powershines]

"This is really complicated."

[hisowninvention]

"Yeah."

[powershines]

"It's probably premature for me to be judgmental about complicated social structures I don't understand but it seems like it may be stupidly complicated."

[hisowninvention]

"I've spent some time thinking the same thing. Judgmental isn't a natural state for me, though. It is what it is."