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One of the holidays Zee actually liked was Halloween. He liked pulling pranks and frightening people, he liked dressing up, and he loved the sweets. There was only one thing Zee didn't like about Halloween, and unfortunately, it was one of the biggest things about the holiday. Children. It wasn't that he didn't like children, he had three of his own and got along with them fairly well. It was just this time of year, when children came up to the door demanding for his sweets. That was annoying. How could they expect him to share? They never said please or anything.

Still, there was no point in keeping his youngest son from the fun that was the season of pranks. He'd heard about a fall festival, and had been interested almost instantly. They could go through a haunted cornmaze, carve pumpkins and everything.

Devin wasn't as excited as his father seemed to be. He shook his head--true, he liked pumpkins, candy, and dressing up. He was also a bit of a coward, despite the sword that was constantly at his side. "Daddy, I no want to thee ghotht," he mumbled. Ghosts were scary, horrible creatures that you could see through!

"You won't see ghosts," Zee assured his son with a grin. "Let's carve a pumpkin first, alright? Maybe we can make a cat-jack-o-lantern."

Zee gave a polite smile and a nod in the teenager's direction. "Sure do. Do you have any cat patterns?" He glanced over the pattern books set out on one of the tables. "This one looks promising," he showed the Beginner's Pattern book to Devin, who nodded in agreement. "Thank you," Zee said, flashing another smile at the teenager, before taking a pumpkin and placing it next to Rosie and Adrian's. He hadn't paid them much attention, and didn't through out the time he was cutting the hole in the top of the pumpkin. He used the stem to remove the lid, which he set carefully next to them.

"Here Devin," he said, stooping down to pick the toddler up. "You sit on the table, and get the seeds out." At this, Devin gave him a disgusted look.

"Not with your hands," Zee amended with a grin. "With this." He handed his son a spoon. "Once you get all of it out, we can start making it look nice."

Devin took the spoon quite gratefully. "Tank you," he mumbled, sticking the spoon into the pumpkin. Luckily, there was a plastic table cloth under them, or it would have been one big mess. Soon there were several mountains of pumpkin slime in front of them.

Naturally, Zee paid no attention to the teenage girl. He'd never gotten along with teenagers, though he resembled one, albeit a blue one. Zee tore his golden eyes from Devin for a moment, and shot Rosie a glance of pure curiousity. Had it been his imagination, or had she been looking at him? No matter. He looked inside Devin's pumpkin. "You're doing great, Devi," he said. "Soon we'll be able to make the design." He didn't seem to notice Adrian at all.

Devin did, however. He gave a cheerful smile, and poked the other boy's hand with a finger. "Hi!" He'd been distracted from his scooping, and pulled a slimed filled hand out of the pumpkin. He'd dropped the spoon in it, much to Zee's dislike. "I Devi, what your name?" Of course, Devin was too young to realize that Adrian wasn't old enough to be able to talk. He thought he'd made a friend.

Zee watched Devin for a moment, before deciding to finish scooping out the pumpkin guts himself. His son had found something more interesting. After what seemed like an hour to him, though in reality it'd only been a few minutes, he finished scooping out the pumpkin slime. Ugh. He didn't like the feel of that at all.

Devin didn't seem to understand, he stared at Adrian for a moment. "Uhbleh a weird name," he commented. He'd never heard a name like that before. "Are you thure that your name?" He asked for clarification. Was the other boy speaking a language he didn't understand? Hm. He looked up to Rosie, bright eyes sparkling. "Hi! What your name?" Hopefully she didn't speak the same language her son did.

Zee gave Adrian a smile, knowing that if Stasia had been here, it would have been what he was expected to do. He turned his attention back to his pumpkin, having finished scooping out the pumpkin guts. Ugh. He never wanted to get within ten feet of that slime again. He carefully taped the pattern to the pumpkin. He made sure it wasn't in an odd angle, before taking out the guide-tool. He started poking holes around the pattern in a bored way, though his facial expression seemed quite the opposite. There was a light in those golden eyes, they were keen and alert.

"Nice name, Rothie," said Devin with a smile. "Adrian? Why you no tell me your name? Oh... Can't talk." He'd never met anyone who wasn't able to talk to before. "Why he no talk, Rothie?" Naturally his curiousity was more advanced than his logic.

Devin tried to comprehend this fact. "I a baby," he told her, "and I talk." Well, his older siblings called him a baby, anyway. He looked at Adrian with interest, he'd never met anyone younger than he was before. "Oh, you no talk becauthe you little," Devin said, repeating basically what Rosie had just told him. "But we be friendth, kay?"

Zee could have put a palm to his forehead. He paused in his work, to look at Rosie. "Sorry about him," he muttered. "He hasn't met very many people, and doesn't know how to socialize just yet. I'd enroll him in daycare so he got the experience, if it weren't for his older sisters." That said, he went back to poking holes into the pumpkin, carefully following the pattern.

Devin seemed to understand, and put his hand out for Adrian to touch. He smiled and nodded at the younger boy. "Thee? We friendth." He was so pleased with himself for making a friend that he completely forgot the real reason they were there; to carve a pumpkin. "We play, Adrian?" Briefly forgetting that they were on a table, and that there was nothing to play with, besides each other, he glanced around. "Jutht not hide-n-theek. That game bad."

Zee frowned, he still wasn't used to human interaction. He looked at Rosie for a long moment. "Perhaps it is I who needs to practice on my socializing," he muttered. He finished following the pattern, and carefully removed the page from the pumpkin, tape first. "So Rosie, tell me. What do you do? I teach fencing, myself." He started carving around the holes he'd made.