"Adults are just obsolete children and to hell with them."
-Theodor Seuss Geisel


"Fordo! Fordo, it's time to come in."

He looked out to the west, studying the position of the sun above, having forgotten his watch somewhere between here and there. "But Mum, it en't even dark yet!"

"No, love, but it's getting there fast. You'd best come in or you'll catch cold." Perched in the doorway watching her son, Theresia Summers could hardly help smiling at the returning expression. Dark curls fell over angelic eyes, rosy lips pressed together in a childish pout. She pondered his freckles for a moment, their bizarre path winding across his cheeks and bridge, wondering if he would lose those speckles as was customary in the Summers clan or if they would linger.

"Can't I stay out a bit longer?" He seemed a perfect specimen of childhood at that moment, begging his mother for an extended time of play, skirting his bath and bed for the dying light and cool night-breeze. It was entirely possible that he was simply playing this card to conquer the generation gap and she realised this, but only half-heartedly. It was difficult to decline so sweet a face as this.

"You'd best not, goose. You're father won't approve."

"Since when do you do what he says?"

"Since now. Now come down from there." Theresia held her arms out so as to make Fordo more inclined to escape the branches of his favourite playplace. "Besides, you've lessons in the morning and I'll not send you to Farder Brian covered in dirt."

"But I like dirt!" He crawled down the tree nonetheless.

"You also like waxworms. What does that say about you?" retorted Theresia, finally grasping her son 'round the waist and tossing him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He squealed in delight and squirmed, having always been one to laugh at such treatment. His mother laughed too and spun him about with a laugh from her lovely mouth. Fordo gently patted her cheeks and gave her a rather sloppy kiss, grinning at his success. Theresia set him down and they took hands back to the house, Fordo tottering slightly for his own amusement. "And how is Tree today, goose?"

"He's all-right. Tree doesn't want it to be autumn, Mum. He gets so lonely..." Theresia gazed down at her son, noting the far-away look in his eyes. Certainly Fordo had been raised as any mother of Theresia's caliber could manage: taught to love nature and learn the elder tongues and remember the teachings of Eru. But there was something so... different about him. Fordo didn't really play with the other children, much as she hated admit it. He studied them. There was something about their games that seemed to fascinate him and he had often returned from his games with many questions as to why they played at war, wasn't that something wrong.

"Why lonely, love?"

Fordo glanced back over his shoulder at the aging willow, watching the swaying of its great boughs in the light wind. "Because he's no one to talk to. All his leaves go and the birds leave and no one pays him any attention. He doesn't like to be alone like that. He says it makes him sad."

Theresia bent to kiss him, a soft touch he hardly noticed in his reverie. "You can keep him company every afternoon, Fordo. He'll be all-right."

A pair of gray-green eyes lit up at this. "Really, Mum? You promise?"

She smiled warmly, ruffling his curls. "I promise."