“How odd that this all should feel harder, now.”

He kissed her hair beneath his chin. “There’s a weight of expectation that wasn’t there before, I suppose. I didn’t…” He hesitated.

“Hm?”

“I rode into West Blue, onto your family’s farm, last week thinking…I don’t know. That I would be a clever Lakewalker persuader and get my way. I expected to change their lives. I didn’t expect them to change my life right back. I didn’t used to be Fawn’s patroller, still less Fawn’s husband, but now I am. That’s a ground transformation, in case you didn’t realize. It doesn’t just happen in the cords. It happens in our deep selves.” He gave a nod toward his left sleeve hiding the loop binding his own arm. “Maybe the hard feeling is just shyness for the two new people we’ve become.”

“Hm.” She settled down, briefly reassured. But then sat up again, biting her lip the way she did when about to tackle some difficult subject, usually head-on. “Dag. About my ground.”

“I love your ground.”

Her lips twitched in a smile, but then returned to seriousness. “It’s been over four weeks since…since the malice. I’m healing up pretty good inside, I think.”

“I think so, too.”

“Do you suppose we could…I mean, tonight because…we haven’t ever yet…not that I’m complaining, mind you. Erm. That pattern in their ground you said women get when they can have babies. Do I have it tonight?”

“Not yet. I don’t think it’ll be much longer till your body’s back to its usual phases, though.”

“So we could. I mean. Do it in the usual way. Tonight.”

“Tonight, Spark, we can do it any way you want. Within the range of the physically possible, that is,” he added prudently.