"If you show me where then I can go myself. Not sure how much I can carry back, but I suppose I can always eat it there."

She checks on her children and feeds them. She saves the sunflower seed for for Ingolfr, on the grounds that she is probably better at stomaching sour foods than he is.

"I can show you in a bit." First he naps.

Entirely reasonable. 

She watches her toddler and paces around the valley a little and imagines stories just for herself.

And eventually he is up and can show her an annoying and intricate series of paths down a tree and across a root (this can only possibly cover like two inches of ground, but it's steep and requires climbing and takes the better part of an hour) and across a small stream and a meadow to some sunflowers, which you can access while tiny if you go up this tree and take a path from there. 

Oh good. This should last them for quite some time, then. 

He dawdles by the stream skipping rocks and seeming pleased with himself.

"Probably should try to take it back for the kids, actually, I don't think they can make the climb."

She tests whether she can carry whole giant sunflower seeds at this size or whether that's, like, a fairy thing.

Extremely effortful but not impossible; they're bulky but don't really feel all that heavy.

Huh.

Maybe she'll, like, try breaking one in half and seeing if she can make the trip with that much.

When he sees her on her way, he picks up the other half and follows. It's not a difficult trip except the climbing-over-a-root bit, which is made much easier by having both of them.

Oh good. Then she can occupy herself for quite some time with exploring various paths and watching her children play and occasionally telling stories, and will probably not run into any problems feeding herself in the immediate future.

This won't really solve the problem for very long but he didn't get into this situation by thinking about long-term plans in the first place, did he. 

He is unsure what things humans think are private, or if they have the concept, but he waits until the children are both sleeping to pull her into his arms and give her a kiss.

- she doesn't try to free herself, she stopped having that reaction a long time ago, but she tenses up and freezes.

"-mm?"

It's not like she hasn't already accepted that this is probably one of the costs of living here. It's not like she hasn't let it happen a hundred times before. It's not like she even actually objects, she came here willingly and she knew what would happen, on this front, and this is how these things work.

It's just been so nice, forgetting that she has to keep doing this. And it's really kind of pathetic, to fall apart about it, but she wasn't expecting it at this specific second and hasn't had time to calm herself down about it.

She tries not to cry, and a moment later starts crying anyway.

- he checks worriedly to make sure he did not accidentally dislocate her arm or something. There aren't any signs of this but he doesn't know what human injuries look like. So he carefully releases her and sits there, at a bit of a loss. 

She sits and presses a hand to her mouth to quiet herself and manages to choke out a "sorry".

"Did I hurt you?"

Headshake. But she's crying a little harder now.

This is so concerning. He looks around for other plausible sources of injury and doesn't see any and that's...kind of the limits of his interpersonal problem-solving ability, actually? 

He should probably just...do something else? But something interruptible if she wants to explain herself?

He pulls out his knife and starts whittling a stick into a flute. Probably she'll explain later if she wants to.

That's - honestly pretty bizarre, but it's not really alarming, and in a minute or so she's calmed down a little.

"Sorry," she says, again, because she actually has no idea what else to say, she's really confused about what just happened.

So is he! 

"...here people usually do that if they're hurt. Or very upset."

Nodnod.

Well, she can be mysterious if she wants to. 

He carves, sullenly.

This is worrying. He looks upset. It is really important to her that he not be upset with her. 

"But I didn't mean - I understood that coming here probably meant I'd have to - "

She gestures vaguely and breaks off, frustrated with herself for not having all of her words back yet.