It had been living in New York for what, six or eight of their years now? And it still hadn't got the hang of autumn. Winter was even worse, naturally, but that at least was a season that didn't hold out any false hope. No deceptively warm days followed by biting evenings, dark creeping over the face of the city just a little earlier every day. No treacherous gifts of rain that fell so cold that it sapped its warmth and gave only a meager amount of moisture. If it could have sighed, it would have.<br/><br/>"Why so glum, my friend?" Cullen said as he trickled water into the orchid pots. "You look positively dour."<br/><br/>It thought for a while, considering the possibilities, before settling on a shrug. Wait, there was another motion that went with that ... ah, right, the hand wave. It turned one grasper in a small circle.<br/><br/>How could it explain? Cullen was a sympathetic man to be sure, but it wasn't sure he would grasp the funereal aspect that autumn held for it. To watch its kin, however distant, fall into that terrible stupor in which they spent half their lives; to feel their shed remains crushed with each step; and yet to remain awake, aware - and alone.<br/><br/>The kettle began to whistle and Cullen put down his watering can. "A good cuppa will sort you out, I think." He turned off the hotplate, poured two good mugs of water, and brought them over to the table at which it sat. Into his own cup, he dropped a bag of oolong sapchong tea. Into its, he stirred three heaping tablespoons of blood meal and gave a vigorous stir. Cullen handed it the mug and clinked his against it. "Put 'er south," he said, and drank.<br/><br/>- Thanks, Will, signed the Thing From Another World, and poured a dram of the hot reconstituted blood into its, for lack of a better word, mouth. Cullen was right, it reflected. It felt better already.