Standing on the shoulders of Titans

"He's always smiling."

Flora noted it more or less out of the blue, but it didn't take Addam paying uncharacteristically scrupulous attention to the laundry she was gathering so as to shuffle it out of the kitchen before dinner preparations had to commence to know who just such a "he" was. There was, in fact, only one on his mind, most days.

There seemed no better response to the gentle remark than to repeat back, "Always?" Maybe in a more boisterous mood, Addam himself would be sufficiently cheered - who wouldn't want to hear about the ubiquitous happiness of someone in their care? But maybe it wasn't a good thing. Maybe that was cause for concern. Anything could be, anyway.

"Most of the time, yes." She smoothed out a wrinkle in a miraculously white and spectacularly pint-sized short-sleeve button-down shirt and gave a careful tug at a button on the sleeve - better to snap it off and re-attach while there wasn't anyone wearing it, of course. "If I ever catch him with a frown...well, I try not to. I try not to notice, anyway."

Well, so not always. Not necessarily conspiciously constant, in that way. "Huh."

Huh. It summed up most of the general confusion surrounding Milton, at any rate. It was why Emilia, chief of housekeeping even though the Origos couldn't see anywhere near justification for such a position in such a place, hadn't set his clean clothes in the appropriate place, because no one really knew where to put him or what to make of him to begin with. They'd expected that he'd want privacy, yet he stayed, if sheepishly, in the spare room off of the master bedroom night after night anyway.

Oh, there was spirit in him, anyone could see that, but without friends his age close by, he'd developed more than a bit of a shell within which to hide, and when he did emerge, it was with decided unsurety about how exactly to treat the two who were acting, roughly, as his parents, more than just so simply his guardians, despite all manner of awkward titles.

But that...that's a slightly different conversation, more about them than about him. Of the moment, it was just Addam worrying, worrying, worrying, and Flora being probably just as worried, but not showing it. With the proper outlook, it didn't need to be a burden, moreso an opportunity - the sunshiney face of Milton himself was more than enough proof of that.

"I think I know where he got that from, too." She was coy, very coy, but nothing less than truthful.

Addam, on the other hand, didn't receive it half as evenly. "Oh, don't start. I'm certainly no role model - I don't even know how I'd have been able to keep him on if I didn't have this estate, and that's none of my own doing. I wish it had nothing to do with me whatsoever, but sadly that's not the case. We're just lucky, that's all. Damned lucky. No more."

Even with that objection, constructed of such an obvious build-up of unspoken stress, thrown into the mix, it was decidedly pleasant, non-operative conversation. Flora might as well have been humming as she re-threaded those bright red-orange ties through their respective grommets, securing them with only the most pleasant of invisible knots to boot. "No? I think it shows you've got what it takes to be an excellent father."

"Really? I hardly think...well, you know." Sighing, Addam moved to fret his own fingers at the remainder of the wash, and Flora did no more than neglect to swat his hand away. "Half the battle of being a parent is keeping the child alive to see adolescence, and then comes the rest. So I've not done either, just yet."

"Neither did your father, really," chided his wife gently, "and even he wasn't the absolute worst."

"Well, but..."

"Stop welling!" And now she did shove him off. "He idolizes you, you know."

"Me? That's...that's ridiculous." Likely, Addam meant it for all those reasons he had just established, if not a healthy handful more. You shouldn't aspire to be a people-pleasing layabout whom no one who actually means anything wants around. But, then again, aren't you twice as much so a people-pleaser if you do try to please those people, at the cost of your own base integrity? Quite the conundrum.

"Well." (Yes, we can allow the lady one, too.) "Maybe, but if he turns out to be even half as sweet a fellow as you are, I'll be happy."

And since we're so serendipitous, in fact, in came Milton just as the last fond sentiments and other assorted motions had trailed off, trousers grassy and grin hesitant but toothy. His eyes went to Addam first, but flicked over to Flora with immediacy - from the looks of it, he wanted to make it just so apparent that he'd clocked himself on his unchivalrous indiscretion. That could be smarmy, or it could just be adorable.

His lips worked and his face flushed, just a tad, as he considered his opening before coming straight out with it: a handful of thistley silvery-green leaves supporting miniature clusters of petals in a wide range of blues with a ring of suspiciously pale blooms at the base, thrust forward as the offering party said hastily, "These are for you."

Surely not for Addam, no matter how lionized the not-so-petit prince, and thus definitely for Flora, so she stepped out from around the island and moved to take them. Luckily for Milton, his episode of violent blushing seemed to have been concluded, and he just shifted awkwardly in place as she brought them to her nose. "Oh, Angel's Sage...they smell lovely, thank you, Milton."

(Of course they did, because they'd been so bruised as to release relatively much more of their potent, earthy-homey scent than any flower normally would, untouched out in the field, and of course that meant that they weren't exactly much to look at, anymore, anyway.)

Hands - suspiciously ungloved hands, though Flora could spot the articles stuffed haphazardly into a back pocket of his overalls, which meant that he was in fact learning not to forget them - now free, Milton made to wipe them yet again on his pants, but stopped, threw a nervous glance at the sink, then one to Addam, before giving up and lacing his fingers behind his back.

"I wanted to get the fancy ones, off in the cave, but I got too tired." Not an unreasonable lament, all things considered, but one had to wonder how far he'd gotten on his way there, before turning around and doubling the distance just traveled anyway. "How do you do it, Master Addam?"

"Er, do what?" After all, Addam was quite eager for opportunities to actually prove himself, in the arena of avuncularity and that generally awesome responsibility of caring for someone who simply isn't equipped to caring for themselves, but all the same, Flora could detect more than a hint of uneasiness in his voice. What if he said something he wasn't supposed to say? What if he did something he wasn't supposed to do? Even she didn't have the entire encyclopedia on that, herself.

But, it was none so non-harmless a request. "Cross the whole moor, every day. It's so far! And I'm so short, my legs don't help at all!" To emphasize his point, Milton gave a gratuitous shrug, complete with all slumping of shoulders and a disappointed loll of his head to one side, ears drooping.

That did a lot, didn't it? The position of arms, down instead of up, probably contributed just as much to the defeatedness of it all, but he'd learn, soon enough. You've got to look up at the sun, if you really want to see it.

"Well, I, ah...have patience, how's about that?" Flimsy advice, Addam - are you still worrying, too much to be of any use to anyone? "Why, someday you might even be taller than I am! And then it'll be no problem, you can pick all the flowers you like, for a girl of your own."

"Who said I wanted a girl? These are just for Mistress Flora, and that's all!" Oh, she couldn't help but smile, but she hid it behind the makeshift bouquet. If he was to be like Addam in that way, too...well, she certainly wouldn't complain.

"Don't worry, Milton. I like, oh, Shepherd's Coronets and Bladed Holly and Glossy Chamomile as much as the next lady, but unlike Addam, you don't have to get married, if you don't want, to a boy or a girl. You've got quite enough growing of your own to do before anything like that happens, anyway."

"And what if I want to pick more flowers for you - the nice ones, in the cave?" (It is, of course, at this point that we can begin to suspect that Milton did not only want to venture into the cave in order to further vaguely heteronormative ideals of affection, platonic and romantic and a strangely sweet in-between mixture alike.)

Laying the bundle of sage to the side (and possibly thinking about how she could most discreetly tear it into appropriately-sized pieces for seasoning the evening meal, hopefully Rhogul or some other such white meat), Flora leaned cheek in palm and elbow on counter. "I think I happen to know a certain fellow who'd be very happy to give you a lift."

In that moment, the tiny Gormotti boy couldn't have looked more consternated if he'd tried - whether he was or he wasn't was quite another matter. "But I get airsick!" Apparently even the slightest hint at the prospect of traveling by non-transport Titan was enough to send him running, and it'd taken him a while to overcome that hangup too.

"Not Azurda, silly...come on, Addam." No better way to conquer your insecurities than to face them, right? So why don't you actually look after him, hands-on, for a change? Why don't you make sure he's happy? I don't quite think you'd be annoyed to have to do so.

The named man had been looking out the window, towards the Cloud Sea, and snapped his head back into the conversation with a start. "Me?"

Yes, you, you silly, silly man. Pay attention, won't you? You've got a job to do. "I am getting a little tired of raspberry tea, after all..." Multiple quests in parallel, in fact.

Subsequent trips out on the moor were far less expedient, to be sure, but even atop Addam's shoulders, Milton found a way to look up to him (and vice versa, indeed!), and to think about the type of friend he'd like to be, no matter how young or old or short or tall he was, to people in need - whether that need was food, shelter, clothing, family, or simply a smile as wide as every greenest field they crossed.