[we'll all love you just the way you are if you're perfect] [open]

[lesser_son]

Melou, wearing his usual look of utter woe, is picking huckleberries on the edge of the woods. He remembered a basket this time, and is working steadily, his fingers a little sticky from accidentally squashed berries

Comments

[hniit]

"Hi." It's a girl, a girl about Miranda's age in jeans and a sleeveless shirt, sitting crosslegged by the bushes with a book and a bottle of water. She offers a slightly wry smile.

[lesser_son]

Eeeeep. He didn't realise there was anybody else in his little patch of forest. He flushes. "P--pardon, lady."

[hniit]

She grins. "My name's Nita. You?"

[lesser_son]

Shyly, "Melou, my lady."

[hniit]

Sigh. But Nita is used to strange people calling her strange things, and decides to let it slide. "Pleased to meet you. And you weren't interrupting, we were pretty much through."

[lesser_son]

Luckily, the idea of a woman communing with nature (or whatever it is she's communing with--for all Melou knows, it's the book) is not, by his family's standards, that weird, or even out of the natural order of things. He nods. "I pray your meeting was well."

[hniit]

She grins. "I think it went okay." She nods at the bushes, climbing to her feet.

[lesser_son]

omg, says Melou's face. "Didst bid them grow?"

[hniit]

"Yeah. Well, I mean, I just asked them to make a little extra effort this year, 'cause we could use the surplus." She shrugs. "They're okay with it."

[lesser_son]

"Thank you, my lady."

[hniit]

"Hey, not a problem. I like blueberry muffins as much as the next guy," cheerfully. "So I figured I should do my bit. I'm not that great at actual gardening, but I'm pretty good on the diplomatic side."

[lesser_son]

He's smiiiiliiiiiiiing. "Wouldst speak to the little mushrooms, and bid them be of the wholesome kind?"

[hniit]

"No," a trifle dourly. She is SERIOUS okay. "Would you listen if I told you to go be a-- a muskrat, or something?"

[lesser_son]

Ahhhh. Melou curls up like a woolly caterpillar that's been poked.

"Nay--nay, of course," mumbled, looking at his hands.

[hniit]

Oops. "Sorry. I just--"

[lesser_son]

"I meant a jest," unhappily. "Not to pay you disrespect."