He thought back to the poor mangled squirrel that lay a few feet away.

“Well, Ms. Allie, I appeared to have ruined that poor creature. Thus I will have no choice but to attempt the making of stew… The carrots were likely to go bad however.”

As he spoke he had picked out the last of the carrots and potatoes from a basket covered by cloth to keep bugs away. He frowned at his lack of planning this time around, he had left Fuo in a rush a week before with a cart half full with flour.

His ill planning would likely lead to disaster one day. Perhaps he was not meant to be a merchant after all. Even in his youth his father thought him just terrible at his ability to plan anything that didn’t involve a book. However, had he become a farmer of a black smith, or even a stall store clerk, when on Earth would he find time to read?

He began to collect sticks from the area around him and made a fire with one of the last matches - realizing he needed to restock before leaving Kowa in a day and a half or so. He had hoped his delay would not lead to a shift in the schedule.

As the fire started, Noah realized something, he had no clue how to put the pot over the fire so it would cook. He thought to ask Ms. Allie if she knew, but the thought quickly abandoned his mind as he realized how awful he would be to ask an injured woman how to put the pot over the fire.

However, what had saved him was his love of reading. He recalled reading once in a novel about… werewolves, in order to hang a pot over a fire you must make a circle of sticks pointing in a direction toward the fire, but they stood upwards. Or at least that’s how he understood it.

He walked around a few meters from the area to collect long and thick branches that had fallen off of large trees. And within ten minutes as Allie watched with a concerned expression, he managed to hang up the pot in the middle of a circle-cone-shape of branches around the fire.

Then, he collected water from the pond, both for the pot and for two cups, not convinced one would use water as the base of a stew, but did so anyways, and before he knew it, he was cutting off the good meat from the squirrel, the carrots, and the potatoes, and throwing it into the pot of boiling water. It had been indeed a miracle that Noah had lasted so long in the wilderness.

It had occurred to him that beef broth and chicken stock tins should have been on his list of things to always buy just in case he encountered a strange maid in the middle of nowhere.

As it cooked he had turned back to see that Allie had fallen asleep sitting up leaning against the front of the wagon. Perhaps out of boredom, or more likely, exhaustion. Her arms lay perfectly at her sides, and her hair brushed across her face. The thought crossed his mind again that she may be an indentured servant. After the war, many noble families were arrested for conspiring with the Union, resulting in executions and prison sentencing.

Perhaps Allie was the daughter of a high up wealthy family that faced such effects, but had run away from her posting. Again, he thought perhaps that was the case… the money he might receive as a reward for bringing her to the authorities would be worth considering.