"What kinda fence do you need for the okzo to leave you alone?"

"They use a moat, not a fence; okzo can fly but apparently don't like crossing water."

He looks really, really unhappy, for some reason. "If you leave I'll put on the clothes."

"...okay." She points out where they are (folded up at the foot of his bed) and closes the door behind her.

He changes. And paces.

She's still talking to someone in Greek.

Eventually he comes on out.

"Hello, Theodore. Your fried chicken is here." She points it out; it's another covered dish on a narrow table lining the ornate hallway.

For some reason this seems to make him even less happy but he heads over and eats it. He does seem a little less miserable by the time he's done.

"I'm happy to buy you some food that will keep okay if you want to risk the okzo."

"Not a very permanent solution, though, is it? Eventually I will have eaten it all."

"Yes, eventually you'd need to come back and pick up more."

" - you said you knew me, so d'you, uh, understand -"

"Yes. Tyelcormo lives on a less managed planet so he can hike around in the wilderness constantly with his pet dog-shaped Maia. We don't see much of him. This is not an ideal environment for it but I wasn't expecting you to look out the window and notice the town is pretty and decide to stay."

"I don't want to run around doing nothing and then show up so you can feed me like a stray dog for no reason but I don't think I can do this place. It's horrible."

"I'm sorry."

"Is there anything other than - like, do they have farms, do they have people who live far away from everything -"

"They have farms; you were asleep when we crossed the ring of farms. I can ask."

Greek Greek Greek Greek.

"- some people go on, uh, she's calling them artistic retreats, and there are little houses within the moat and in food-shopping distance of farms that aren't in the main town area."

Nod.

"I do not have an artistic retreat cottage amount of money but she says they have very low unemployment. So I might be able to make enough to afford one for you soon."

"I don't wanna take your money. It's really - it's fine. It doesn't matter."

"Maybe it will be easy to make a lot, I don't know yet what they need but they seem interested in us being from other planets enough to provide a free hotel room. I don't want you crawling out of your skin because the only way to eat is to be in a town."

"The complete list of things that have me crawling out of my skin also includes depending on other people. - actually it's primarily depending on other people. For towns to work everyone is depending on everyone else to be civil and predictable and a bunch of other stuff and that's particularly noticeable but it's not -" shrug. 

"Well, you'd know better than I would - I don't know how much to generalize from Tyelcormo and anyway we haven't been close since he was little."

"Cause you know the rest of his family, right?"