Pipit's ears were big. They weren't abnormally big. Not odd looking. But he just had big ears. It went right with his big nose and the freckles. It was part of who he was.
When he was a little boy, he used to stop arguments between bullies. Pipit hated bullies. He did! They were awful. All they ever did was hurt innocent people, or themselves.
(Ironically in his adulthood he would come to be close friends with one of the bullies he used to argue with, and would marry the other.)
When he was a little boy his mother would see him stopping fights, and she would watch carefully, stepping in to save him if need be. Between the two red haired bullies, that was often necessary. Then when the fights were ended, and Pipit came home, she would patch up his injuries and clean the dirt off his face and say "Chickadee, you are wise beyond your ears."
He never got it. He always thought it was stupid of her to say. Was he only supposed to be as wise as his ears were long? That wasn't a lot of wisdom.
When he became a student at the academy she said it again to him, and he stared at her and smiled a little to himself because he finally understood that she was playing off the phrase 'wise beyond your years'. Of course he still thought it was ridiculous to call someone 'wise beyond their ears'.
Of course, someday he would find that he was just as ridiculous as his mother... because he found himself saying the same words to his own children-much to their confusion and annoyance.
