circumnutation

“Ellie,” she says, a gentler version of her usual command but no less firm. “You can’t just drag him away. I need to talk to him first.”The little girl–Ellie–rolls her eyes in a gesture that looks far too old to be coming from such a small child, but she releases him, though she tugs on his shirt when he looks back to Marlene, partially sure he’s having a stroke.“Come play with me after, okay?” She asks with the same sense of command Marlene speaks in.Before he can say anything at all in response to that, she’s scampering off around the corner.He looks back to Marlene, begging for her to make some kind of sense out of this. Marlene smiles a little wryly–a smile that looks a little tired at the same time–and gestures for him to sit. On slightly halting legs, he does.“That’s Ellie,” Marlene says, unnecessarily. “And she’s your new assignment.”(after joining the fireflies, tommy is brought in for a special assignment) (the assignment, as it turns out, is a 4 year old ellie who's being raised in the fireflies)