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He was abstractly aware that King Beast was abdicating in favor of his teenage son, but he hadn't actually.... expected it to have any impact on his life. 

That's maybe a little overstating it but cmon, it wasn't like a new Auradonian king would change things on the Isle that much. They'd still eat Auradon's garbage and it would still be Queenie and Legion and Nat and Nico keeping him safe, not the royalty over in Auradon City who he'd never even see except on the sickeningly wholesome entertainment news channels. 

Except. Except. 

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He will just listen, and maybe ask why Auradonians don't think people should have blue hair if there's a natural opening, but it doesn't seem likely that there'll be one. 

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After breakfast, Charlotte will take him aside and say, "Now. Marital relations."

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"First of all why are they called that." 

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"Because you only do them when you're married!"

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"...observably, people do not only do them when they're married. You just said Naveen had sex when he wasn't married." And I know I'm not married, he doesn't say, because that just sounds like a really pointless thing to bring up. 

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"Prince Naveen has four illegitimate children and was disowned by his family because they were tired of paying off the mothers. And then he was looking for money and fell into the clutches of a voodoo witch doctor and turned into a frog and all of New Orleans was almost sucked into the Other Side."

Her tone implies that this is the ordinary outcome of premarital sex.

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"Nico doesn't have any kids, and neither does Nat or Legion or Queenie or Mal or Uma or Gil or — and none of their families have disowned them although in some cases it might be better if they had — and nothing bad has happened to any of them except having to live on the Isle which they would have had to do anyway. And nothing has been sucked into the Other Side, or into anything else," unless you count Sasha's mouth but holy fuck is he not saying that out loud. 

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"--My goodness, you have a lot of marital relations before marriage on the Isle! Well, I suppose you are villainous, it is to be expected, but-- here, darling, you don't have marital relations unless you are married, although of course we make allowances for a little eagerness before the wedding day, first babies are always a little premature is what I've always said."

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They sure do. He nods like this instruction makes sense and like he is intending on following it, even though it doesn't and he isn't. 

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"How do you manage to avoid having babies?"

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"I don't know about here but on the Isle pretty much kids don't happen unless you're actively trying for them, that's how much sex you have to be having to have a kid. And even then a lot of the time not." 

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"I wonder if they did some magic to make having babies harder. That seems reasonable, the Isle is a terrible place and you certainly wouldn't want a child to be raised by villains by accident."

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...that seems pretty unlikely. 

He shrugs. "Maybe." 

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"Do you have any more questions or do you want to save them all for your man talk with Ralphie?"

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"What is a man talk and why am I having one of those as opposed to a normal talk." 

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"Oh, you know, it's when men talk to each other about manly things like marital relations. I don't know at all what you would talk about, I am just a silly little woman, after all."

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".............okay." 

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"Well, if you don't have any questions, I'll just let the two of you get on with it."

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"I.... don't." 

He has several dozen questions but is pretty sure he isn't going to get helpful answers. 

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When Charlotte takes him to Ralphie, Ralphie looks profoundly uncomfortable. 

"Don't have sex before you get married," he says, "and if you do have sex use a condom or get a contraceptive spell."

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"If I have sex with a girl I will use either a condom or a contraceptive spell," he agrees, and decides to look up what the hell a condom is later rather than asking Ralphie about it. 

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"That's good," Ralphie says. "I'll, uh, show you your room?"

Sasha's room has a bed and a walk-in closet and a vanity and a desk with a computer.  

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"It's beautiful. Thank you." 

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"Lunch is at noon," Ralph says. "I'll leave you to unpack and get settled in, then?"

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"Sounds good!" 

The room still looks kind of bare after he's done unpacking, but he has a room all to himself and it has windows and a desk and maybe he can have books. He flops on the bed until lunchtime, and this time he knows not to try and ask Charlotte questions. 

The bed is big and soft and excellent and he still can't sleep alone; he keeps reaching out for Nat or Nico and not finding them and waking up and then remembering where he is and wondering how they are and whether they're eating and whether they're okay and then struggling to get back to sleep. There continues to be plenty of food; Sasha doesn't stop storing away parts for later, just in case. 

Computers are weird. He figures out how to use it, slowly. Safety Rules for the Internet contains lots of very obvious advice about not giving personal information to strangers in chatrooms (as if he'd trust someone that quickly anyway) and almost nothing about how the hell you find what you're looking for, but it's better than nothing. Auradon in general is weird. Apparently people who look like men don't wear skirts here, and when they do they wear very flamboyant almost villain-kid-ish makeup and lots of shiny things and use women's names. 

Charlotte takes him shopping for new clothes and he can't stop staring at how big everything is, how bright and soft and clean and colorful, how much of everything — most of the people he knows only have one real set of clothes, and when he and Charlotte are done he has more soft whole undamaged fabric in his arms than he thought he'd ever see. (Sasha doesn't ask for skirts, even if they would look pretty when he twirled in them, which he's very sure they would.) 

He eats. He eats more than he had ever imagined he would be able to. Auradon might be bizarre and lonely, but it's colorful and bright and soft and there's enough to eat and nobody tries to stab him or punch him or steal from him, and so he's pretty happy with it. 

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