"Can I ask you something, Uncle?" Candide asked, causing Takeru to look up. "Ratin told me you might know."
Takeru nodded, able to guess what the topic had been about. Alain had surprised everyone - to put it mildly - during a family conversation over food, and Makoto had practically stomped off after the meal.
"Is it about what happened earlier?" Takeru asked.
Candide bobbed, his best approximation of a nod. Takeru couldn't blame the youngster for being confused; when Ganma and human cultural norms clashed, especially over the topic in question, adult humans and Ganma got confused too and Candide was relying on a kind of genetic memory to function.
"Ratin and Gonta couldn't explain it," Candide told him.
"It is hard," he acknowledged. "Sometimes words don't translate too well between your Gonta and our world."
"Like Ratin doesn't like being called 'father'?" Candide asked.
Takeru remembered that explanation and Kanon's reaction to being called a father. "Because of human gender differences, she wasn't comfortable with that. But because 'ratin' means something a little different, she doesn't mind you calling her that."
It meant 'the/a parent that doesn't gestate the child' in the Ganma language, where "gonta" denoted 'the parent that gestates the child'. It was nowhere near 'father' and 'mother', except in the generic sense. But Kanon had accepted it because the meaning was different.
Candide bobbed up and down, accepting the answer.
"In your Gonta's world, people don't keep track of someone's parents. Here, we do." It was what made humans better, in some ways. "We keep track and we raise our children, if possible, but it works differently there." He sighed. He'd wanted to like the Ganma world, but in the end, he'd had to seal it away because its inhabitants were so dangerous to Earth. "Your Uncle Makoto was upset because your Gonta never told him that he was a ratin to one of Gonta's children." Among other things. "Your Gonta didn't tell him because he didn't think it was important, but it was important to your Uncle Makoto. Different cultures have different ways of doing things, and sometimes it makes people upset."
Onari had speculated, based on what Alain had told him, that the Ganma created souls that would eventually come to Earth and be born as humans. And then, after they died, sometimes they came home. Makoto had been upset to learn that he had essentially sired at least one child on his male-looking brother-in-law. Takeru had actually been sympathetic to Alain after the shock wore off - at the time, Alain didn't know the importance of family to humans, so he had a good excuse for not knowing the fate of his child or children. Hopefully for Makoto's sake, the child or children had been reborn as human souls in human bodies so that they weren't trapped in the Ganma world.
He wondered what Kanon thought - it had been quite a shock to find out that she herself had 'fathered' a child on her husband, back when Candide had been born. To find out that Candide and Kanon's unborn child had cousins that were also half-siblings to them probably wasn't easy to digest - he had a hard time getting his mind around the concept himself - probably wasn't easy on her, though it was probably easier than when Candide had emerged from Alain's chest.
"Oh," Candide said, in the tone that said he was considering what Takeru had said.
"If you have questions, come back to me." Takeru smiled at the Eyecon, watching Candide absentmindedly flot off. It was something not easy to deal with, but they'd eventually figure it out. Eventually.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
winterfish
no subject
Date: 2016-02-20 02:05 am (UTC)Takeru nodded, able to guess what the topic had been about. Alain had surprised everyone - to put it mildly - during a family conversation over food, and Makoto had practically stomped off after the meal.
"Is it about what happened earlier?" Takeru asked.
Candide bobbed, his best approximation of a nod. Takeru couldn't blame the youngster for being confused; when Ganma and human cultural norms clashed, especially over the topic in question, adult humans and Ganma got confused too and Candide was relying on a kind of genetic memory to function.
"Ratin and Gonta couldn't explain it," Candide told him.
"It is hard," he acknowledged. "Sometimes words don't translate too well between your Gonta and our world."
"Like Ratin doesn't like being called 'father'?" Candide asked.
Takeru remembered that explanation and Kanon's reaction to being called a father. "Because of human gender differences, she wasn't comfortable with that. But because 'ratin' means something a little different, she doesn't mind you calling her that."
It meant 'the/a parent that doesn't gestate the child' in the Ganma language, where "gonta" denoted 'the parent that gestates the child'. It was nowhere near 'father' and 'mother', except in the generic sense. But Kanon had accepted it because the meaning was different.
Candide bobbed up and down, accepting the answer.
"In your Gonta's world, people don't keep track of someone's parents. Here, we do." It was what made humans better, in some ways. "We keep track and we raise our children, if possible, but it works differently there." He sighed. He'd wanted to like the Ganma world, but in the end, he'd had to seal it away because its inhabitants were so dangerous to Earth. "Your Uncle Makoto was upset because your Gonta never told him that he was a ratin to one of Gonta's children." Among other things. "Your Gonta didn't tell him because he didn't think it was important, but it was important to your Uncle Makoto. Different cultures have different ways of doing things, and sometimes it makes people upset."
Onari had speculated, based on what Alain had told him, that the Ganma created souls that would eventually come to Earth and be born as humans. And then, after they died, sometimes they came home. Makoto had been upset to learn that he had essentially sired at least one child on his male-looking brother-in-law. Takeru had actually been sympathetic to Alain after the shock wore off - at the time, Alain didn't know the importance of family to humans, so he had a good excuse for not knowing the fate of his child or children. Hopefully for Makoto's sake, the child or children had been reborn as human souls in human bodies so that they weren't trapped in the Ganma world.
He wondered what Kanon thought - it had been quite a shock to find out that she herself had 'fathered' a child on her husband, back when Candide had been born. To find out that Candide and Kanon's unborn child had cousins that were also half-siblings to them probably wasn't easy to digest - he had a hard time getting his mind around the concept himself - probably wasn't easy on her, though it was probably easier than when Candide had emerged from Alain's chest.
"Oh," Candide said, in the tone that said he was considering what Takeru had said.
"If you have questions, come back to me." Takeru smiled at the Eyecon, watching Candide absentmindedly flot off. It was something not easy to deal with, but they'd eventually figure it out. Eventually.