baby? baby?
ok am back after long ass time. I had my first major thought in forever!!!
I was adamant that Yarrow was adamant about not having any children, but... now I am suddenly excited about the prospect and, having talked to Sam about it, it feels like it's pretty much canon already lol.
Much to consider...
Firstly, I guess the reason he didn't want a child was... I don't really know... the same reason I don't? Which is actually two reasons -- 1) I just don't; and 2) childbirth is horrific. But, the landscape for sprites is much different --- the population is really low, and, who's to say childbirth is As Bad for them anyway... humans are unique in having giant baby heads in relation to pelvis size lol. According to a quick search even in other primates the difference is significant... so I'm just gonna say it's a liiiittle less harrowing for a sprite. As a treat. I guess that means they probably come out a little smaller than a human baby relatively speaking. Which means, maybe they are more vulnerable in those first weeks, months of life...
Ummm... I'm not a scientist but... a few points:
- Longer gestation period = bigger, more developed, and vice versa. Thus, do sprite babies come out a lil half-baked and vulnerable, more so than humans? How long is the gestation period, since sprites have very long lifespans?
- Many non-human primates give birth easier than humans because of their pelvic tilt -- I figure this comes into play cuz I picture Yarrow squatting a lot of the time like a lil monkey. Maybe it's uncomfortable for sprites to stand actually upright for too long...?
- Sprites typically give birth alone, because they typically live alone, so this also implies that childbirth is less prone to complications than in humans.
- Since the gestation period probably Is very long, this probably is a large part of the reason why the population is struggling, so that's cool to have figured out. With apes this is also an issue:
Female chimpanzees typically reach reproductive maturity around 11–13 years of age, and successful mothers usually space births 5–6 years apart, since each infant requires years of intensive nursing and care before a mother has the capacity to support another. This slow reproductive rate has real conservation implications — chimpanzee populations simply cannot recover quickly from population losses the way faster-breeding species can. Chimpanzee Gestation and Birth Explained
So anyway... all that said... let's consider the fun stuff.
As I said, I don't think Yarrow imagined himself being a parent, but when Jesper stumbled into his life through circumstance, he found himself naturally wanting to take on a very caring role, seeing him in a younger-sibling sort of way. In the way that an older sibling would look after the younger one in the absence of solid parental figures in their life, anyway. We know Yarrow has massive mum energy. This shows with the imps too. Giving them blankets and supplies, teaching them about the forest, and even before that, watching over them from afar the way he does with the whole forest. But I don't think he saw this in himself before Jesper came along. Then, Jesper sort of filled that role in his life anyway so he hadn't thought much of it, maybe. As he got to know the imps too, though, and how they all look out for each other, maybe he also realises he was scared to do it alone. And now he isn't. Oh, and, there's also the factor of not being able to find another sprite anyway lmao. But after discovering the yearly fair in the big city, he knows where he could reliably meet another sprite.
I'll think about how that actually goes down some other time... too much lmao...
Oh, something else that randomly hit me today, get ready --- sprites carrying their young around as they do their stuff... even climbing trees... good time to bring back this drawing:
Also, as all sprites do, he raises the child essentially nonbinary. Maybe they also get assigned a gender by humans lol. Also also, really probably going to settle on Mayhaw as a name. The humble mayhaw:
This is very cute because yew berries look kind of similar, so the baby would be named after Yew in a way.
I wanna also just highlight Sam's thought about Jesper helping out, and the imps too... I was thinking earlier about Mayhaw growing up around the imps and surpassing them in height... although I don't know if the current imps would live long enough to see them get to that point :'(... but it still stands that compared to an imp baby Mayhaw would be pretty big...
Anyway I like to think they would be somewhat holdable for the imps for a brief moment in time... even Sol...
The other thing from Sam was!!! about Jesper living with Mayhaw after Yarrow is gone :').......... it's something to think about, I definitely want it to happen, but, young sprites tend to leave to find their own territory and I don't think Jesper would leave Yarrow to live with Mayhaw :'|... But I did have a thought that, maybe they can just expand their area of land that they oversee, together ! I'm sure there's adjoining land that Yarrow isn't able to cover on his own. I also think, like Sam said, Yarrow doesn't want to leave Jesper behind as he gets old and dies, so he's a lot happier knowing Mayhaw will still be with him...
It also struck me earlier that like. Yarrow is filling all these books with drawings and recording observations about the forest and junk and I don't think he even knows why he's doing it, he started before Jesper was there... and then he just one day is like. Oh. This is knowledge I'm passing down... to Jesper and Mayhaw...
And... ough... singing Yew's little song to Mayhaw... and Jesper... the continuation of the idea they all live on in each other's lives...
And.... maybe Yew getting to meet Mayhaw... just one time...
Ok. As I say. Much to think about but there's no rush to figure it out.