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[tryto_fly]

He is sitting indian-style in the grass somewhere in back of the mansion. He's working energetically at braiding some long pieces of grass together. The result is a horribly ugly, tangled mess, but the task has managed to capture his attention anyway.

Comments

[sixpearls]

Mary's been worried about him and thinking about him ever since she first met him, and upon seeing him while she's out walking, she comes over in a gentle rush of long skirts. "Hello!"

[tryto_fly]

He looks up and smiles a bit, shyly. "Hello."

[sixpearls]

"However are you?"

[tryto_fly]

"I'm well thank you," he says politely, but stiffly, as though reciting something he'd been told many, many times to say.

[sixpearls]

"Are you quite sure?" She sits down beside him, rearranging her skirts, with a slight, gentle smile.

[tryto_fly]

"How are you," he says with a start, her question apparently reminding him of the remainder of his polite recitation.

[sixpearls]

"I'm quite all right. I've been thinking about you."

[tryto_fly]

"Why?" he asks, looking up at her curiously.

[sixpearls]

"Well, I've been worried."

[tryto_fly]

"Why?" he asks again, turning a little bit towards her.

[sixpearls]

"Because you fell such a long way, and I was afraid you might be hurt, and I didn't know whether you had settled in all right here."

[tryto_fly]

"I'm alright. --My father's not here," he adds after a pause.

[sixpearls]

"Do you miss him?"

[tryto_fly]

"I don't know," he confesses. Like any good boy without an adult watching after him, he seems to have done a fair job of dirtying his clothes and his hands. But he twists another blade of grass into his lumpy chain and decides, "Yes." And with that, he seems to tire of this activity-- he starts to toss the chain aside, then offers it to Mary.

[sixpearls]

She takes it gently. "It only makes sense, after all."

[tryto_fly]

"What does?"