"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "The Little Prince"

A/N: Oh my goodness. Do not ask me why I have the barefaced stupidity to submit this. I mean, I tried rereading this story, I really did, but it's beyond repair. Look at it. Look at that grammar. It hurts me inside.

I kind of wanted to see if anyone in the world would bother clicking on the link. I know how I'd react:

(click. refresh.)

"Uh...did I ever subscribe to this story? Seriously? I'm so over this fandom." (click.)

"Wow. Chapter one is terrible." (click.)

"Why is this person updating after leaving this decaying carcass alone for like a year? Why has the writing style COMPLETELY CHANGED?"

Soyeahlolhaiguyswhat'sup.

When Glen saw a little girl with long shiny curls sitting alone on the forest floor, he did not panic and call the police.

For one, it's very hard for anything tree-based to panic.

For another, he didn't actually know what police were, despite the concept having been explained to him by his patient wife.

So, in typical tree spirit fashion, he leapt from limb to limb of his oaks until he was almost right above the shiny little nest of bronze hair – and it was bronze, too. Almost metallic, was what it was. It did not look natural in his forest, but he didn't really care.

So, in typical tree spirit fashion, he jumped down off of the tree to land in a graceful little tree spirit crouch right next to her.

The little girl was playing with discarded sticks and dried up leaves on the floor. She'd already made a little hut, balanced precariously on a pile of pebbles.

"Hello," he said to her, very softly.

She was peeling the bark off of another twig; black dirt was caked underneath her little-girl fingernails. "Hello," she said in a very high-pitched voice. She didn't look up.

He wasn't stupid; he knew what she was. He'd seen more than a few halfies in his time. Not for a while, which was saying something for him, but it was something you could smell out. He had a pretty good guess as to where she was from, too. Of course, he didn't tell her that.

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

"I'm building a tree house," she replied brightly, pointing to the little hut covered in leaves. "See?"

"Yes," he said. "I do see." He was silent for a short while. He watched her tiny, pale, chubby fingers working at peeling the bark off of the stick like a tiny, pale, chubby spider with tiny, pale, chubby legs. She was very systematic – peel off a long strip here, tear it off, then go for the strip next to it, and when you'd gotten all the way around you started on the next level down.

"It's a very small house," he remarked finally.

"Yeah," she agreed. "That's why I'm making really little people for it." Again without looking up, she pointed to a little pile of peeled sticks with pieces of grass tied around them for arms, and balled up green leaves stuck on top for heads.

"Ah," he said.

And then, after another short while, "What's your name?"

"Mommy said not to talk to strangers," she chirped curtly, which was an odd combination.

Momentarily puzzled by this, he tilted his head to the side and frowned. "Ah," he said again. "Well, I'm Glenwood, and I'm the dryad…in charge of this forest."

Was "in charge" the thing you used there? He didn't remember.

She looked up at him, finally, and he was met with sharp and clear eyes. She furrowed her eyebrows disbelievingly.

He laughed, because he reminded her of someone. And leaned forward.

There was a quick motion, he grabbed a handful of dirt with one hand and with a little flick of his wrist, which was really just for show, he offered her the freshest white daisy in the world.

She took it, the stem of it in her hand, and shook off the leftover dirt on the roots, which were slowing down but still growing.

She blinked a few times. "Wow," she said reluctantly, looking at it. "Wow," she said again.

"Now will you tell me your name?"

She nodded.

"I'm Matilda," she lied, because she'd seen it in a movie and she liked that name better than hers.

This was obvious to Glenwood, who had seen people lie many times and knew the good ones from the bad ones. This girl, he got the feeling, did not lie often. She put the flower next to her little hut.

She finished peeling the stick she had and set about looking for another, patting the ground around her and craning her neck. There weren't any, but she didn't know that yet. Just when she was beginning to be frustrated,

shoop!

A tiny stalk shot up from the ground, about a foot in height, with little bright green maple leaves just sprouting from the top. Glen snapped it from its tiny trunk easily and handed it to her. She took it gratefully, if a little angrily (she was supposed to find the stick).

Glenwood was glad that plants couldn't feel physical pain, and not for the first time. It sure looked cool, but making something grow up that fast when it usually took so much longer was painful. Being stretched too quickly, expected to function like any other thing of the same size, it was painful.

He looked at "Matilda" again. He had heard about the little vampire baby not two years ago.

Now, Glen wasn't stupid.

"Matilda," he said, placating her, "Don't you think your mommy and daddy will be worried if they don't know where you are?" His voice was very soft, like bells like the hum of velvet like warm sunlight, and she looked up at him again with her bright clear eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "They're always worried about something and me."

"That just means they love you," he told her, smiling an angelic smile and moving closer, just a little. "I worry about my son all the time, because I don't want anything to happen to him."

She pouted, but didn't say anything else.

So he contentedly watched the little almost-vampire-girl, who was growing up too quickly, as she peeled the bark off of a twig and hummed to herself.

When his wife walked out from between the trees, wearing jeans and a very dirty white t shirt, they made eye contact quickly. She raised her eyebrows, and he smiled at her while "Matilda" made another tiny stick person. He jerked his head in the direction of her parents, who, he suspected, were fretting since they'd lost all scent of their precious little sheltered little daughter.

He wondered what their rationale was. A girl could be sharper than a magpie, but it was wasted if they never let her know anything, wasn't it? She barely knew how to interact with other people through words.

Little Renesmee spoke through pictures and didn't like out-loud-words, and everyone she'd met liked her, and even Glen knew that that could ruin a perfectly good personality.

Cora nodded and smiled back at him, heading back in that direction. She'd be back with them in a few minutes.

"How old are you, Matilda?" he asked her.

"Dad says I'm almost nine," she replied. "I mean, he says that's how tall I am."

"Really?" Glen smiled and started to play with a dead leaf on the ground, crinkle smoosh snap crush discard. "My son is about as tall as you are."

Which was saying effectively nothing, because Tarrow was barely three. The thing about trees, was that they grew up before they grew out, because that was the only way to reach sunlight in a forest. You got old as fast fast fast and you could, and then you could get the experience that made you a real person.

Poor "Matilda."

"How old is he?" she quipped, looking up and frowning again.

"Oh, about the same age, I expect," Glenwood replied, which was about accurate. Tarrow looked almost nine. Skinny as a beanstalk.

"Do you follow him around everywhere?"

"No. He likes to be alone a lot, and I know there's nothing that can hurt him, so I leave him alone sometimes." Which was true. He was a very solitary little boy. And he was a very sweet little boy, when he wasn't a brat. Cora had this thing she said about him, how did it go?

"There was once a little boy who lived in the forest. And when he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was bad, he was awful."

"My parents follow me around everywhere."

"Oh?"

"So does Jakey."

"I see," he said, even though he didn't know who Jakey was. "Don't you want them to?"

She frowned at him, picking up all her little white stick people and strategically placing them around the house. "No. I'm almost nine. I can do things on my own," she said defiantly. She stabbed a stick person into the ground, outside the hut.

"You should tell them that," he ventured after a while.

"No," she said after a while. "…they'd get more worried."

It was a tragic thing, little girls who weren't allowed to grow up. Even though they were trying so hard. He hoped, in a way, that she stayed that way. Because if she grew up enough, she'd wonder if her family had room for her actual personality.

"Well," he said. "I know you'll figure it out."

"You can't know that," she said sadly. "Nobody can tell the future 'cept Aunt Alice."

"Ah-ah," he said, prompting her to look up again, her shiny metal curls falling in front of her face. "I'm a magic forest man, remember?" He tapped the side of his head. "You don't know all of the things I can do."

She smiled, this beautiful sort of toothy smile with sparkly eyes. "I – "

"Renesmee! Oh, oh sweetie! There you are! Oh, I was so worried about you!"

The pretty brown-headed vampire girl sped through the trees, and in a blink Renesmee was cradled up in her arms, held to her chest protectively. "Oh, Renesmee," she said breathlessly, which was a little unnecessary.

"Mommy!" the girl chirped, seeming genuinely happy to see her mother. She touched a tiny, pale, chubby hand to her face. A few seconds later Bella was cooing at her and bouncing her up and down. The red-headed man stood a foot away from her, smiling widely.

Glenwood was not a very mean person. He tried not to be. And it was a very sweet, very loving family.

But when they'd left, and Cora had come to sit down next to him, he remarked quietly, "I think they are smothering that tiny person to death, Cora."

And she just shook her head and told him, "You try having loving parents."

A/N: I'm sorry. I took issue with almost everything in the fourth book, which was kind of unintentionally hilarious, but most of all with the way the little girl was treated. OH LOOK THEY CREATED A HYBRID MARY SUE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS HAHAHA IT'S SO INTERESTING I'M GOING TO WRITE A CHAPTER ABOUT HER GIGGLING.

A girl expected to be the light of her parents' lives, the center of everyone's attention, protected from everyone and everything. There is no way to mature faster than is normal, because while nature is certainly part of a personality, nurture is just as significant. Having no life experience outside that of your family, in the period of a few months, does not make you at all mature, despite your cognitive abilities. I know that Meyer is no biologist, but it's a kind of sickening concept, presenting it as a positive thing.

Yeah, yeah, I'll update Rain Shadow. That just takes longer since it takes more effort.

So yeah. Bye y'all.