"- wow, that's a long pregnancy - uh - is that all necessary or just usual -"

"That is all necessary."

"Okay, here you get married but that is not necessary just usual, buy a child credit but that is not necessary except legally just usual, take birth control pills till you want a baby and then stop, that's necessary, have sex, that's necessary, be pregnant for most of a season and have a baby."

" - so if you just have sex without any planning -"

"Yeah."

"You could just all leave. We'd take you with us if you'd like, I mean."

"Go off to Elfworld?"

"It has its drawbacks but it is not this place which seems to be as terrible as possible in every conceivable respect."

"Gee, what happens when we get there and you notice we are also from this place which etcetera."

"You mutter at our royal family on the streets and then they come over to hear about what went wrong and fix it."

Snort. "I guess I'm qualified for that."

"We might not get it right but we wouldn't get it this wrong and if we did you could demand we fix it."

"'S nice."

Maitimo if I want to take a family of reds away can you wrangle it -

"...one of my brothers has developed an impulse desire to take a family of reds home with him, for reasons I can't guess, should I run over and dissuade him or is that all right as long as we keep them contained appropriately -"

"Uh. As long as they're not essential services..."

"Of course -" are they essential services -

"Are you or the baby's father or anyone else you'd care to bring along 'essential services' -"

"I don't want to bring her father. I'm not essential and I'll get way less essential if you end the war but my parents are and they won't want my little siblings to run off I think."

"You don't want to bring her father?"

"Those are not even big words."

"I can't - I'm sorry - I can't take a baby to another galaxy without -"

"Fine. You can do whatever you want."

He closes his eyes.

He sings.

It is not a happy song.

She's crying inside a few bars.