Bearclaw Valley return

wardruna notes her hesitance and listens as she gives him a flimsy reason as to why she can't. i em dumb. it causes his breath that rises to his throat to stick for a moment before it passes in a low, small hiss upon his exhale. he doesn't like that she calls herself 'dumb' and his immediate assumption is that someone told her that, called her such a degrading thing ( the audacity that anyone would speak to one of his wives like that positively burns him ) and it stokes the heat of his ire. the northerner tempers it, allowing her presence to ground him, to keep him in check. "no you are not," he protests forcefully, wanting to be sure she heard him and believed him. "you are perfect, sif. perfectly you," he tells her as she nestles closer. "you are smart, and beautiful and kind and i —" — and i don't deserve you, but he doesn't say it. she is good and pure and he ...he is corruption; he supposes that is why he is drawn to her. the darkness in him is undeniably attracted and pulled in by the goodness in her. beyond wanting her at his side he needs her there. to be the moral compass that he indisputably lacks.