Finally, the time to go home had come, but Oscar and Jael were not out of surprises for the day. As they walked up the hill to their house, they could smell a fire, which was a surprising smell for them both considering neither had been home all day. However, they didn’t think much of it until they arrived at the gate of their garden, at which point they had a clear view of their shed - and the fire lit in the fire pit in front of it. 

There stood Ten, crouched by the fire as she seemed to be seasoning the bucket where she had previously stored the worms. All around her was a complicated array of tools, mostly knives, that seemed to have been used in one intense cooking session. She did not rise her gaze when Oscar planted his two feet firmly in the ground before her, Jael in tow. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. 

Ten looked up from her work, but she was still powdering the mixture over the bucket right in front of her. She didn’t seem particularly alarmed that the owners of the home had come back while she was using their place for her own benefit. 

“Have you never seen someone cook?” she asked. Her tone was not mocking, but instead sounded genuine. 

“What—” Oscar was taken aback by how calm she was. “You’re cooking— You’re cooking on our fire pit! You didn’t ask.” 

“Ah, is it about the wood I used?” said Ten. 

“No— Well, yes, but not just that!” 

“Don’t worry, I brought my own wood,” she said. “I didn’t steal anything either, so there is no need to worry about that.” 

“You’re joking, right?” asked Oscar. 

He wanted to get mad and chase off the rude… fire pit squatter? Shed squatter? But her genuine confusion at his anger was already disarming him completely. That is why, when he spoke again, he did so in a softer tone. 

“This is our fire pit, and you’re using it without permission?” 

“Oh— Well, I figured that it would be fine if I brought my own wood and my own food, and if I cooked for you.” 

“Cooked for us?” asked Jael. “What do you mean, cook for us?” 

“Well, the worms.” 

Jael looked at Oscar, and it was clear on her fact that she certainly did not want to eat worms… even “good worms” from their own field. He wasn’t sure himself if he wanted that, but the situation was so strange and unusual that he didn’t even really know how to navigate it. 

“Don’t worry, you’re not forced to eat any,” she said. 

She covered the bucket with a lid and suspended it over the fire without further ado. Oscar remained standing there for a few moments, desperately trying to gather his thoughts, before… just giving up, really. He turned to his daughter, and went, 

“Let’s go inside.” 

“But…” 

Jael looked at Ten, then at her father, and also came to the conclusion that there was indeed nothing they could really do other than try to reason with what was obviously some sort of madwoman. So they went inside to clean up after their long day of work, but Jael would still look at the window at Ten by the fire pit. She seemed to be doing other things as the worms were cooking.

“Should we call someone to make her go away?” she asked. 

“It’s fine,” said Oscar. “She’s not harming anyone. She doesn’t seem all right in the head, maybe she’s homeless.”

“Not all right in the head?” 

Oscar sighed. “Sometimes, some Fenroos are born… a little different. They have trouble fitting among mobilities when they do that… Sometimes they even have to travel on their own because they just don’t fit in anywhere else.” 

That made Jael a little sad; she returned to watching Ten through the window, wondering how many hours she must have spent on her own, or if she cried when she was left behind… Strangely enough, neither of those images, conjured in Jael’s head, seemed to quite fit the strange “lady traveler”, but Jael chalked it up to the fact that she didn’t even know Ten all that well. 

Regardless of that, Jael eventually went outside again to sit at her spot near the fire place - and across Ten. She did so in silence, as she didn’t really know how to start the conversation with the stranger, and Ten seemed content with ignoring her for a while. That was, of course, until Jael finally mustered the courage to start talking to the other. 

“Are you all alone?” she asked. 

“No,” said Ten. 

“Oh!” Had her father been mistaken? “Who’s with you?” 

“Well, there’s you,” said Ten. 

“Oh— No, I meant, when I am not here— When you are travelling.” 

“Ah, I see. Well, no, because then I have Bug with me.”

She reached under her coat and pulled out a whole feesh from under there, displaying it proudly as it was suspended by the skin of the back of its neck. Bug, as the feesh seemed to be called, vigorously squeaked and wiggled its little legs in protest. 

“Bug doesn’t like being alone,” said Ten. 

“Does Bug like being, erm… carried like that?” 

“Not really. But you saw him now, so I won’t be doing it again.” 

Ten returned Bug to its spot under her coat, where it had come from; it seemed that she probably had some sort of pocket or bag where she kept the feesh. Jael did not dare ask any more question about the feesh; she had noticed that, throughout the whole exchange, Ten had not looked at her in the face, not even once, choosing instead to focus on minute but meaningless tasks like rubbing a knife clean with a rag or scratching at a rock. Only once, when the silence prolonged itself, did Ten glance up at Jael, and it was only briefly.  This was not something Jael was used to when talking to people, as her father had always told her to look at him when she spoke. 

“It’s soon ready,” said Ten. 

She pulled the bucket off the fire, took off the lid, and Jael was hit with a wave of delicious smell, the sort that brought water to her mouth almost instantly. She leaned over to take a look and that they were still the “good worms” that Ten had gathered earlier, but this time they had become almost entirely white, with the herbs the only specks of colour among them… that somehow made them less disguisting, but only by a little. But that smell… 

“Please go get your father,” said Ten. “They are ready, they just need to cool.” 

Jael wasn’t sure if her father would be happy, but she went to get him anyway; surprisingly, he seemed open to the idea and happy that there was something for him to try. They sat down, and Ten handed them a small bowl of cooked worms each. She seemed to have already served herself her own portion, which was larger, but there was still some left in her bucket - her cooking bucket? 

“Please enjoy” said Ten. “This is a thank you for growing good harvest and taking care of the land.” 

“I—” Oscar cleared his throat. “A thank you?” 

“On behalf of the ground, that gave you good worms for the care you put into it.” 

Oscar looked at Jael. Jael looked back, and she could tell that her father’s head was full of questions, but she didn’t say a thing. She wouldn’t have known how to formulate it herself. What was Ten talking about now? 

“You should try,” said Ten. “I hope you like it.” 

Jael… did not like the texture. It was spongy and squishy and the worm had not faded, but that taste— despite her reservations, the taste was delicious, slightly sugary and the blend of spices that Ten had used perfectly suited. Her father seemed to think the same. 

“That’s delicious,” he said. “Ten, you’re a really good cook.” 

Ten nodded. “Food is important.” 

“You did say you were a cook, do you work professionally?” 

“When it matters,” said Ten. “But I have to be good at cooking, because if I don’t eat I will be going back to the stars.” 

Jael noticed that her father stopped checking at that, his ears shifting from side to side. 

“How come?” he asked. 

“Well, you know, I was not born from parents, but from a meteorite. That’s that the others said anyway, when I started remembering… You can see it from my fur.” 

She pulled down some of her collar, exposing the fur on her neck to their sight. Her face was yellow, but that colour changed to a warm orange on her neck, and so the effect she wanted to show them was more visible there. Her fur was glossy, and when she shifted her head from side to side the strands could catch and reflect the light in small rainbow shards. Jael gasped. It was so pretty! 

“Star-touched,” said Oscar. 

“That’s what they said too,” said Ten. “And when I don’t eat enough… it’s like… hmm. Like a tether to the ground is being weakened, and I start floating back towards where I came from, the stars.” 

Oscar laughed. “That’s impossible!” 

Ten stared at him unblinkingly, her fork suspended halfway from her bowl to her mouth. 

“There’s no such things as Fenroos floating away when they are too light,” said Oscar. “Not even when the wind is blowing very strongly.” 

“It’s not about being light or the wind,” said Ten. “What comes from the stars will have to go back one day. But I don’t want to, I want to stay a while longer to see what happens next.” 

“Oh, if you say so,” said Oscar. But Jael could tell that he still didn’t believe Ten. 

They finished up their meal, and as a thank you Oscar even shared some of his own food with Ten. She stashed it on a small chariot that seemed meant to be dragged behind as she travelled, thanked them profusely, and Oscar said that he knew that this food was in good hands with her. Then she rose her nose and said she best get going before it rained, but refused to stay the night. So, father and daughter saw her off, and Jael kept looking at the strange fenroo in a yellow coat until she had vanished over the hills. 

“Dad,” she asked her father. “Can it be true? That a Fenroo can float away if they don’t eat enough?” 

“No,” said Oscar. “That’s impossible.” 

“So why does she think so? She’s a grown Fenroo, she’s too old to believe in tales.” 

“That’s the thing with this sort of people,” said Oscar with a shrug. “She might be convinced of strange stuff, but you saw that she was nice otherwise, and her points won’t be harming anyone anyway. If you think about it, she’s right that people that don’t eat eventually starve and, well, go back… up there, to the sky. If she choses to believe that it happens very literally to her, that’s up to her.”  

Jael didn’t answer; she nodded, then simply carried on with what she had been doing until another question struck her. She turned to her father once more. 

“Dad, how did she know where our house was? We never told her, but she was right here when we came back.” 

He stopped, then put down what he was doing himself. 

“That’s a good question,” he said. “Erm… maybe… maybe she saw us leave our home this morning?” 

Jael nodded, but they both knew, in their hearts of hearts, that this wasn’t true. But they both pretended to be content with the more logical explanation. After all, the other alternative, that she would have somehow sensed it or guessed it, sounded just as absurd as a Fenroo floating off into space if she didn’t eat enough.