The child stares at the old man. "You tell that story like you were there."
"And who is to say I was not?" Blue eyes crinkle into a smile from a leathery brown face.
"Tutor says that fables like that are invented to explain natural phenomena that primitive cultures do not have the science or technology to understand when naturally inquisitive human nature demands an explanation." The child rattles off the speech like it's been prepared in advance solely to stump some hapless storyteller.
"Oh?" The old man is anything but hapless. He still can do noncommittal like a champ.
"So things like that don't actually ever happen," the child says impatiently, losing patience with innuendo and going for the kill. "That's why they all begin with 'Once upon a time.' A girl does not just disappear in order to keep the moon alive. Things like that just don't happen." The child looks up at him defiantly, daring him to contradict.
The old man only smiles, and thinks back to pale hair and blue eyes and ghostly lips pressing to his, so many years ago. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" He looks up at the sky. Overhead, the moon smiles back.