Chapter Ten: Oscar

"Hi Scrappy," Oscar smiles at the cat on the haybale. "What have you been up to today?"

"Meow," he replies.

Oscar pauses. The cat is smug about something. "Please tell me you didn't steal anything." The 'again' is implied.

Scrappy huffs.

"Oh no. No, no, no," Oscar sets down the pitchfork and puts his hands on his hips. "We talked about this. Whatever it is, put it back."

Scrappy blinks once and is gone. After ten minutes without a return, Oscar frets he's chased off his friend. It's not until hours later, chores done, that he can shimmy up to his room and check.

The good news is Scrappy is there in all his glaring 'you took your sweet time' glory.

Bad news, there's sand all over his bed.

Worse news-

"What is that?" Oscar sags, shutting and locking his door while never turning away from the floating… lantern? It glows and is gold, so it's probably some rich person's lamp. Oscar's never seen anything so beautiful, but as much as he wants to keep it it's not his. He doesn't even remember mentioning to Scrappy that he needed a light or had a fear of the dark or, well, anything that would cause him to steal the blue and gold thing. "Scrappy, can you please take it back before I get in trouble."

Instead the cat puts a paw on it, balancing precariously as his other front paw presses a tape recorder. Why does he have a tape recorder?

"Jin-"

Holy gees, why is there a floating near-naked blue lady; Scrappy what did you do?!

The cat yowls loud and unimpressed as the giant lady floats above them. With a sigh, she snaps her fingers and is dressed in more… regal Mistral fashion. "Are you happy now?"

Scrappy yowls again, and then is down at Oscar's legs, rubbing against the boy. With the cat grounding him slightly, Oscar is able to work his mouth- "Wha?"

It's the best he can do. He's not taking this supernatural bull well.

Scrappy must say something else he can't understand, because the woman shrinks down to tall-ish height and stops floating. Oscar gulps hard and feels for the door handle when she moves a single foot forward.

"I am Jinn," the blue woman says, wisps of lighter blue coming off her hands and from under her robes as she spreads her arms wide. The chains she's hiding under her outfit rattle as the only background noise. "A being created by the God of Light to aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. I have been graced with the ability to answer three questions every one-hundred years. You're in luck, as I'm still able to answer…" Jinn pauses and rubs a hand over her face. "Well, officially, I am still able to answer one question. That robot has thrown the rules out the window when he asked me a question."

"R-robot?" Oscar stammers and looks at Jinn's feet, where Scrappy is trying to swipe at her ankles unsuccessfully. She hovers, giggling and pulling out of reach every time he moves. "Scrappy, what did you do?"

The cat and Jinn pause and look over. Scrappy meows. Jinn backpedals, "Nuh, uh."

The robot cat barely spares her a glance.

"I'm not even supposed to have favourites-"

Scrappy is giving her the same look Oscar gets when the cat wants to cuddle. (A robot cat; at least his strangeness makes sense, but where does a robot cat come from? And why always back to him?)

Jinn sighs and steps onto the floor again. Scrappy in on the bed, purring loudly and ignoring them to clean himself. "He wants me to… look after you."

"Why me?" Oscar has to pause and breathe, unsure if he even wants to know. "Why- what's so special about me? Why did he bring you here?"

Jinn softens, stepping closer. Oscar flinches back, but she only runs a hand through his hair. She's so tall, still. "You remind him of someone he knew. Really, the only thing different about that pile of nuts and bolts from a regular cat is his lack of needing to eat. Everyone is special in their own way, and…"

She leans down and gives him a secretive smile, "Well, I've already answered two of your questions. I should be back in the lamp right now." Oscar hears it, the low buzz of the world mixing into the sound of her chains. "But I'll answer your third. Scrafty went into my vault to ask a question about the whereabouts of his mechanic. When he got his answer, he decided to take my lamp out and give it to you in hopes I can be your mother figure."

A meow.

"Or friend," Jinn adds. She boops the boy's forehead. "But I'm not supposed to have favourites, you see?"

"It…" Oscar almost bites his tongue, but he is done with this situation. It's crazy. Insane. He's just some farmhand in one of Mistral's many agricultural areas, "seems like you're doing a lot of things you aren't supposed to."

Jinn smiles, wide and proud. She looks a lot younger when she stops being vaguely amused. "You're right. I look forward to getting to know you, Oscar Pine."

Then she's gone, blue wisp breezing back to the lamp. Oscar falls to his knees, Scrappy – Scrafty – purring and rubbing right there next to him.

"A robot," he mutters, petting his friend and not feeling metal under the fur. "Your name… it's actually Scrafty?"

The cat purrs louder.

Oscar shudders a bit and sits, pulling the animal into his lap to hug him. "What just happened?"

Scrafty rubs their cheeks together.

"We're in this together, right?" Oscar asks, heart racing. He gets affections as a reply. "Right. Right. We can do this. I… I can do this."

A pause.

"Wait, you stole Jinn from a vault?"

Which means someone will want her back.

"I am so screwed."

A/N: Thanks for reading. Have a great week