Bearclaw Valley reliance

Sif does not ask any more questions about reproduction, a small thing to be grateful for, even as worry creases the lines of Poet's face. She inches closer, hoping to lay her head across the line of Sif's shoulders if she will allow the gesture. 

I want to be the baby. "You are young," Poet agrees. The ex-priestess does not know her sister-wife's exact age but her naiveté, her charming childishness speak to a younger maturity level. Poet does not think she is much older than Sif chronologically, but they clearly occupy wildly different sides of the spectrum of burgeoning adulthood. Gently she extracts herself from Sif's side to better address her. "If you want to be the baby, you can be," she reassures her, "there's no rush. You are you, not the expectations of others." Wardruna, the Valley, Poet herself, even. 

Carefully, gently, she asks, "have you talked to Wardruna about this?" Although she trusts he will not force Sif into anything, she wonders if he will understand her feelings, especially seeing how Addie's departure hurt him. Who knew how complicated an arrangement this would all become (she thinks, dryly.)