"Why does the sun set?" The child asked his mother. The woman abandoned her knitting needles and glanced at her son.
"Why do you ask?" She said, brow furrowing slightly. Her boy was an odd child. He was always curious about the most peculiar things and asked the strangest of questions. Mother and son did not share the same views of the world and Hunith only hoped he would not be harmed for his thoughts. For now she could protect him while under her mindful eye but when he would inevitably grow older, she would have to release him from her care.
"It goes away every evening and comes back every morning," the small boy explained in a high voice. His lithe figure was silhouetted in soft hues of the setting sun as he crouched in the kitchen window. "Where does it go? Why does it leave? Why can't it stay all night long?"
"If it remained in the sky then we wouldn't have a night," Hunith said. "Without night we wouldn't sleep. Without sleep we couldn't remain awake, and we couldn't eat or play or live or have any fun at all."
The boy tilted his little head. His calculating stare penetrated the very depths of Hunith's soul. "Alright." He said at last.
Hunith released a sigh. She feared he wouldn't accept her answer and demand another, the accurate reply, and the truth was the woman with a scant education knew very little about science or the ways of the earth and was too ashamed to admit she hadn't the knowledge of the works of the sun.
"Come down from there now. It's time for bed."
The child leapt down from the window and Hunith opened her mouth to berate him for jumping from so high — but he nimbly landed on his feet like a feather upon the water's surface and quickly bounced back on his toes. She caught a flash of gold as he turned to the wash bin.
Oh Merlin, she sighed as she took up her knitting. You will be the death of me.
