He scratched his head. “Well, among my people, we try not to be crude in front of the young ones, but we have to instruct and be instructed. Because of the hazards of tangling our grounds. Which young couples still do. There’s nothing so embarrassing as having to be rescued from an unintended groundlock by your friends, or worse, her kin.” At Fawn’s baffled look, he added, “It’s a bit like a trance. You get wound up in each other and forget to get up, go eat, report for duty…after a couple of hours—or days—the body’s needs break you out. But that’s pretty uncomfortable. Dangerous in an unsafe place to be so unaware of your surroundings for that long, too.”

It was her turn to say, “Oh,” rather blankly. She glanced up at him. “Did you ever…?”

“Once. When I was very young.” His lips twitched. “Around twenty. It’s not something most people let happen twice. We look out for each other, try not to let the first learning kill anyone.”

A couple of days? I think I had a couple of minutes… She shook her head, not sure if she believed this tale. Or understood it, for that matter. “Well, that—what Sunny said then—wasn’t what made me so mad. Maybe he didn’t know either. Even getting with child didn’t make me mad, just scared. So I went to Sunny, because I reckoned he had a right to know. Besides, I thought he liked me, or maybe even loved me.”

Dag started to say something, but then at her last statement stopped himself, looking taken aback, and just waved her to continue. “This has to have happened to other farmer women. What do your folk usually do?”

Fawn shrugged. “Usually, people get married. In kind of a hurry. Her folks and his folks get together and put a good face on it, and things just go on. I mean, if no one is married already. If he’s already married, or if she is, I guess things get uglier. But I didn’t think…I mean, I had nerved myself up for the one, I figured I could nerve myself up for the other.