A few more days have passed and now Avelina is almost completely sure she is not dreaming - and still the fireflies linger. The days grow shorter and she worries about what will happen to them in the winter. Should she drift further south to keep them alive? Or will they slumber through the snow and find her again in the spring? Will these ones die and all new ones find her, freshly hatched or grown?

There’s one in particular that often lands on the end of her dark muzzle, and Avelina worries she’s grown too attached to these little insects without knowing anything about their life cycle.

She’s wrapped in these thoughts as the day breaks and she walks on frost-crisp grass near the river. She’s padding along as a black panther - a shape she only takes when Agetta is not around because of the face her mother made when she first saw it.  A blinking halo of fireflies cause her cat-ears to twitch when they land and she laughs in the silent autumn morning air as she playfully tries to outrun them only to skid to a stop so that they surround her in a cloud of light.