New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

This follows directly after The Black Tower (LJ), which is after Over the Wall (LJ).

Well, indeed. “That was my mother’s generation, mostly,” I stalled. Here I was, a home-maker in the new millennium, a graduate of The Pumpkin. I wasn’t really the one to ask about that.

But I was the one Zizny was asking.

“It’s always surprised me,” it mused, “that you would try for ‘equality.’ Gender is so important to the differentiated species, isn’t it? It’s why Cxaidin and I have always attempted to approximate a bi-gendered couple.”

Ah, so that had been intentional. I took a moment to feel better about our misread, then got back to the crux of the questioning.

“‘Equal’ has never meant ‘the same,’ at least not to me,” I pondered. “It certainly doesn’t, the way it was taught in The Pumpkin.”

“I was under the impression that Lady Cassidy’s Academy taught home-keeping skills?” Zizny waved one claw vaguely. “Cleaning, cooking, that sort of thing?”

“Well, that’s the impression The Pumpkin likes to give,” I said slowly. Zizny wasn’t human; it wasn’t quite the same as telling secrets out of school. Quite. “But this is the modern era, and most of that is automated; it takes up very little time in a day, especially once your children are in school.” Or gone to the Black Tower.

“Hence the impression of outdatedness, yes. But you said it’s a misimpression?”

“Well,” I smiled, fondly remembering a few of my midnight lessons, “there are things that the Black Tower likes to keep to itself. And The Pumpkin has its secrets, too.”

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