Just another island day.
The strangest thing, when it comes down to it, is how strange it isn't. Robb is fairly sure that waking up younger than one's normally small, now teenage son is technically amongst the more bizarre things that has ever happened to him, he's become so used to the island's being what it is that he mostly just finds himself feeling relieved that at least for now, Reynald is big enough to be responsible for his own care and feeding.
And Reynald, who has never known anything other than a world where everything--people, animals, the environment--change for no reason whatsoever, is mostly just confused by the gaps in his knowledge that come from having grown up very fast. That his father is now suddenly smaller and less serious than usual takes a distant last place in his concerns, behind being hungry, the strange and unsettling ways his body is different than it was, and the fact that he feels he should know how to do a lot more things than he does. (Part of the unsettlingness is the vague uncomfortable feeling that somebody might see him ask a little boy how to make his lunch, for instance, even if the little boy is his father and he knows, logically, that he just hasn't learnt it yet and being a good deal taller does not account for time.)
Having worked out most of the kinks--Robb's just given a fairly child-friendly crash course in basic survival--now mostly what they both want is to get away from each other; Robb so he can stop feeling responsible and go find someone to play with, and Reynald because for right now he's a teenage boy and embarassed by his parents, regardless of circumstance. So with a manly handshake, Robb and an also smaller Grey Wind head off one direction, and a Reynald ready to explore the wide world head off in another.
[There. Robb is about 10, Reynald 16. Tag either, or if you're terribly keen, both before they get too far.]
And Reynald, who has never known anything other than a world where everything--people, animals, the environment--change for no reason whatsoever, is mostly just confused by the gaps in his knowledge that come from having grown up very fast. That his father is now suddenly smaller and less serious than usual takes a distant last place in his concerns, behind being hungry, the strange and unsettling ways his body is different than it was, and the fact that he feels he should know how to do a lot more things than he does. (Part of the unsettlingness is the vague uncomfortable feeling that somebody might see him ask a little boy how to make his lunch, for instance, even if the little boy is his father and he knows, logically, that he just hasn't learnt it yet and being a good deal taller does not account for time.)
Having worked out most of the kinks--Robb's just given a fairly child-friendly crash course in basic survival--now mostly what they both want is to get away from each other; Robb so he can stop feeling responsible and go find someone to play with, and Reynald because for right now he's a teenage boy and embarassed by his parents, regardless of circumstance. So with a manly handshake, Robb and an also smaller Grey Wind head off one direction, and a Reynald ready to explore the wide world head off in another.
[There. Robb is about 10, Reynald 16. Tag either, or if you're terribly keen, both before they get too far.]