Bearclaw Valley the specular thought brought on oneself:

Easily she sets to the shared task, carefully extracting the struggling leaves so that the healthy ones may flourish. It is a companionable task, and Blondine's breaking the silence is not unwelcome: she laughs herself, carefully setting down the dying rose bud she holds between her teeth. "Funny, that," the ex-priestess agrees, "but happily." While talking about herself carries a degree of... vulnerability she is not fully reckoned with yet, at this point Poet trusts Blondine well enough.

"I was born at a temple, taken from my parents and raised among the other priestesses. The head of our temple was Beneath-Night's Breath, a ... channel, so to speak, to our goddess. If the wolf who was Beneath-Night's Breath form had a self other than Breath's..." She cuts herself off. "We tended to her, maintained the temple, provided healing and religious services for travelers."

Here Poet pauses, swallows. Glances at Blondine, a touch nervously. "I... was her head priestess; her adored second hand. Our relationship was... intimate, but fraught. We worshipped her as a God but in the end she was wolf, same as any of us, and... I was young and easily made jealous.

I... hesitate to say the rest," she admits. "It may... affect how you think of me. I am not ... a good person, per se."