The morning began with Keal dramatically flopping out of bed like a wounded poet. Stretching his arms, Keal yawned and mumbled, "Good morning, my beautiful gothic mother..." before blinking rapidly. "I mean—uh—just 'mother.' Regular mother. Not beautiful. Or gothic. I need tea."
"Alas," he sighed to the ceiling, "another day to suffer beauty and divine thread-sight."
Nylessa, who was sipping her tea, raised an eyebrow. "You're eight. Maybe keep the dramatics under the godsdamn ceiling."
Keal slid across the floor in his blanket like a tragic prince. "Eight... and already burdened with cosmic elegance."
Nylessa didn't even look at him. "Cosmic elegance doesn't excuse muddy footprints. Get off my rug."
He flopped harder. "The threads whisper to me, Mother!"
"Then tell them to wash their feet, too.
Keal spent ten minutes trying to convince a rock that it had a hidden thread.
"You're tense, I can tell," he said.
The rock, being a rock, said nothing.
"Silent type, eh? I like mysterious."
Nylessa leaned out the window. "Stop flirting with sediment."
Keal shouted back, "I flirt with potential, Mother."
...
Every squirrel was a new challenge.
"Hey cutie," he whispered to one. "That tail is divine."
It chittered and threw a nut at him.
"Hard to get? I respect that."
Nylessa later found him covered in acorns.
He was beaming.
...
He composed a love ballad to dew.
"You glisten like regret on a divine pillow."
Nylessa spat out her tea.
"What does that even mean?!"
"It means I feel deeply."
"You're grounded from metaphors."
"Unjust."
...
Every evening, Keal made dramatic entrances into dinner.
"Behold," he'd shout. "The heartthrob of threads arrives."
Nylessa once dropped her bowl just to make him trip.
He landed with flair.
"Worth it," he mumbled.
...
By night, his dreams were even more ridiculous.
He slow-danced with a divine thread under moonlight.
"You're radiant," he whispered.
The thread spun him.
He dipped.
The thread bowed.
A divine chorus applauded.
He woke up sobbing from joy.
...
He wrote thread love letters.
"To the twisty blue one: you confuse me. In a good way."
Nylessa burned them.
"For safety," she claimed.
Keal called her a romance killer.
She gave him chores.
He called it oppression.
...
Throughout the days, his flirts escalated.
He winked at a cloud.
"Call me."
He blew kisses at puddles.
They rippled in response.
He declared them soulmates.
...
Nylessa began ignoring him more aggressively.
"I will not acknowledge your seduction of grass."
"It was mutual, Mother."
"You need real friends."
"The grass listens better."
...
He wrote epic poetry to a pinecone.
"You're prickly... but lovable."
He signed it with a lipstick kiss.
Nylessa found it stuck to her shoe.
"Why is it addressed to 'My Spikey Heartthrob'?"
Keal shrugged. "It's private."
...
He once tried to charm the moon.
"I'm free Friday."
The moon blinked behind clouds.
"She's shy," he whispered.
Nylessa dragged him back inside.
...
he stood atop the hill, staring into the starlit sky full of threads.
They shimmered. Danced.
"I love you all equally," he called out. "But especially you, red twisty one!"
A shooting star blazed overhead.
He gasped.
"It winked! Did you see that?!"
Nylessa sighed behind him. "I'm going to need stronger tea."
---