”So, does that mean… you’re my mother too?” Lanam asked her softly.

Anara was sitting on what was now her and Kes’s bed, and Tresit was sitting on the floor before her. Kes was sitting on Lanam and Tresit’s bed, with Lanam sitting in her lap. She and Anara had been explaining to Lanam and Tresit that the two of them were married now, and what that meant. Tresit seemed content with it, not having many questions. Lanam, however, was very curious, as usual.

Kes looked to Anara for her cue on how to answer the question. ”I, um…”

”Yes, that’s… that’s just what it means…” Anara spoke up, sounding shy but pleased in saying it.

Kes smiled to her at that, warmed by it. And a little daunted to be suddenly named a mother too, honestly, but… in a good way.

”Oh… okay…” Lanam replied. ”I didn’t know girls could marry other girls.” She said thoughtfully. ”Maybe I can too one day. It’d be better than marrying a boy.” She clearly said it to tease her brother as much as for any other reason she may or may not have had.

”Should I take offense at that?” Tresit asked in a halfheartedly playfully way.

”You’re my brother, it doesn’t count.” Lanam countered smartly.

”It’s a long way away anyway, we don’t have to worry about that sort of thing yet.” Tresit said distractedly. Kes regarded him and saw he looked… disheartened. For a split second, Kes was worried that maybe he wasn’t as alright with her and Anara’s marriage as she’d thought, but then she put together that she’d seen him look like that before, a couple other times. And her mind quickly made the connection that it was always when the subject of the future came up. Planning for the future. Why would he react like that to planning for the future? Kes resolved to find out soon.

”Why not?” Lanam asked. ”And I wasn’t worrying, it’s a happy thing. Like mother and, um, other mother? Like they were doing before.” She said. ”Whatever they did, it made them happy. I thought it sounded pretty.” She was blind, so of course she hadn’t seen, just heard.

”You thought so?” Kes asked curiously.

”Uh-huh.” Lanam replied. ”What was it you were doing anyway?” She asked. She’d asked that once before too (it had been the first question she’d asked, in fact), but Kes had managed to dodge answering it that time. She should have known she wasn’t going to escape so easily. She really wished they’d had their own room. Last night she she’d thought Anara was right about it not mattering that much, but now she wasn’t sure about it at all. Now she understood perfectly why parents were intimate with each other in another room (because they were cowardly about facing their children in the morning – and as far as reasons for cowardice, Kes now counted this one as a very justified reason).