"I'm really not sure you having a sex ed lesson will meaningfully accelerate the reverse engineering of IUDs."

"We can skip it if you prefer, then?"

"I'm not - refusing to do it, if you want, just - your stated reason does not I think obviously apply."

"I think if you spend a large amount of time working on something, I don't want to have to avoid learning about the details of doing so? But possibly I can just...not avoid learning about the details. Without needing to learn things first."

Nod nod.

"Do you have a sense as to how long your research on this might take?"

"...uh, depends how many animals I can keep to experiment on. I'd do something smaller than dogs but if they're too small I'll have more manufacturing issues. Sheep'd be big enough I think but they only lamb once a year, right?"

"I'm not sure what that means?"

"...the thing I want to try requires making small objects out of copper, putting them inside of animals that are not wildly different from humans in size, and seeing if the animals still get pregnant. I think sheep can only get pregnant at one time of year, so using them would get results slower than using an animal that doesn't have that characteristic. Right now my best idea is dogs but I might be overlooking another medium-sized animal that would work."

"Donkeys?"

"Are those substantially smaller than horses?"

"Yes."

"Then maybe that'd work well. I do expect to wind up with some number of pregnant donkeys in the process."

"Hrm, possibly dogs would be cheaper. And less suspicious."

"Are we likely to be able to rehome the puppies or will extras probably die?"

"About how many do you expect?"

"Depends how many dogs and how hard it is to get functioning IUDs."

"If it's under a dozen, I believe we can keep them all ourselves, if it's more... I don't actually know for sure whether commoners keep pet dogs. I can probably pawn some off on my friend Sophie if need be."

"I'd be pretty surprised if commoners didn't keep any dogs but they might only keep working dogs."

"Which would be distinct from the ones I'd be able to buy without subterfuge."

"Nobles don't have dogs for... hunting or something that might be of the same breeds as ones that can also catch rats?"

"I think it would be taken as strange if I acquired hunting dogs - women aren't generally expected to hunt."

"You couldn't claim to be breeding them as a hobby project?"

"-hrm, we'd be expected to involve a kennelmaster if we were doing that, how noticeable would your experiments be to such an involved party?"

"I don't really know what a kennelmaster's job is. Possibly very."