closed starter for @neomacaught
“Robin!”
Normally, she didn’t panic the very moment Robin wasn’t at her side. He was a crafty kid, precocious as shit, ( six years old and going on fifty, her dad would’ve said, ) and curious as the devil; Janet was constantly chasing him down after he’d found some little alleyway or shiny rock or street cat that demanded his attention. Robin rarely went too far, and half the time he’d discovered a brownie or a good-natured pixie to befriend by the time she found him.
The problem was that lately the number of not-so-friendly strangers had risen sharply— it was enough to make a mother suspect that maybe an old enemy ( say, the courtly Queen she’d outright stolen his dad from ) might be looking for her kid. That’s the kind of thing that makes you a little paranoid.
“Rob—” Janet breathed a sudden, shaky huff of relief when she caught sight of him at the edge of the crowd, bouncing on the uneven sidewalk at the edge of the park. He was chattering away to someone, but the woman —tallish, dark, pretty in a... melancholy sort of way— didn’t look like she trying to take him anywhere, so... Small blessings. “Hey! Robin Eanruig Morse! What have I told you about running off?”
“Mom! I made a friend.” Robin was unrepentant, of course, beaming up at her and grabbing onto the woman’s hand.
“I see that...” Janet skidded to a stop on the sidewalk next to them and took a moment to catch her breath, then flashed the stranger an apologetic smile. “I’m, uhh, so sorry. I hope h—”
“She’s so old, Mom,” Robin interrupted with a sunbeam of a smile.









