Evelyn was walking rather peacefully through said park on her way back from a friend's house when she noticed said girl.

… That doesn't look like she just decided to lie on the floor or something, that looks like she's actually injured, so Eva goes that direction with relative haste.

Is she okay?

It doesn't look like it. Her clothes are in tatters (and would look like she was playing a peasant at a renfaire or something even if they weren't). And... Yeah, that's blood, and what looks like a nasty burn.

Oh, shit, what the hell – right, phone, check for breathing, call 911, what the hell.

She's breathing.

She stirs, turns her head over and asks a question in - Russian? Greek? German? None of the above?

How Germanic does it sound? Ev might be able to– get something about what she's saying if it's anywhere near that; she's not totally sure how similar languages like Polish sound to German.

Meanwhile: emergency services. Yes, she needs an ambulance, she describes her approximate location, and she explains that she has a ten-ish-year-old girl who has burns and is bleeding in a park.

She talks to the girl to see if that gets a response – maybe she knows English but just isn't using it, okay, "Hey? Hey, are you– can you understand me?"

"English not... Esay. Mu- Mom is? Monsters came. Brö- Burn." Cough. "We were leave tomorrow. Too slow."

"You– what? What happened?" she asks, trying to be patient but she is burnt and bleeding, this is not okay.

"Monsters. The sl- The flying ones. Red and black and pshew, fire."

Red and black flying monsters? Okay, well, that's– horrific, poor girl seems really traumatized. … Not that it's surprising with the burns and all.

"It's okay now, you're safe," she says, trying to sound non-threatening.

Ambulance: apparently on its way.

"No, no no no, Mom not here, Errie not here. Take me back, I'll fly them away from the monsters."

She looks around briefly for other people but it doesn't seem like there are any potential mothers or– brothers? No one who looks obviously concerned for this little girl as being their own, at least; there aren't many people around at all, in fact.

There is, however, a jogger who comes along and notices the pair of them, notices the blood, and comes over to help. Ev explains the situation to him – little girl, injured, no idea why or how, ambulance has been called – and they try to seem likewise comforting.

She's given up on talking and turns herself over with a grunt. A bit surprising she can do that, injured like this. "I have to go get mom. Have to." She reaches for a tree branch laying a short ways away.

Evelyn does not think this is a good idea, because she is burnt and bleeding, so she tries to convince her not to do that – "Hey, look, what's your name?" she asks, moving to try to get her attention. "I'm Evelyn."

The jogger looks rather worried and moves to stop the girl, but Ev inserts herself in the way first.

"I'm Gren-a-dine Ny-lund. I can say it all now, even though my head hurts. Do you think the strefesa saved mom and Errie?"

"… I don't know what that is," she says. "I'm not sure you should be leaning over – can you just, lie on your side for me?"

"Are you a- Dunno word. You're not strefesa. Your clothes are weird. Mom and Errie probably died." She lies on her side as requested. "Ow."

… Okay, if she has internal injuries, maybe not the best idea, but she was already reaching over for something. Um.

"Do you– um, where did you… get these injuries?"

"The... Monsters. Neuroi. They burn everything. Everyone walking to the ocean to get away. I was gonna grow up 'n fight them."

"I… don't actually know what 'neuroi' are," she says. "But that sounds like a scary thing to talk about growing up to do."

"I'm a fesa. Other mommies need save. Gotta help..."

...She seems to be just about out of steam.

"Other mommies–?" she asks, trying to keep the girl – Grenadine? – talking.

Ambulance ambulance ambulance, where are you, oh she can hear sirens, that's wonderful.

"I'm- One person. So many people, so many mommies and daddies, big number, everyone is sad from the monsters."

Evelyn looks like she's going to say something to this when she notices the sirens are much closer than she thought, and oh look how wonderful, the ambulance is actually here. Ish.

She points the jogger to go out and show them where they are and turns back to try to make sure Grenadine doesn't– go unconscious or something in the meantime.

She went for the stick when they were distracted and is now laying on top of it, looking distressed.

She– why, ugh. "Hey, Grenadine? The paramedics are here," she says. "Ambulance, hospital?"

She's crying. "D- Dunno words. Can't."

If she reacts positively to touch, Ev can try to comfort her, but she's not sure that's desired.

And then the paramedics are here and she lets them do their work. They ask her if she's a close relative and she says no, but she looks distressed and she's not sure there's anybody else around to help out and she's called Grenadine and she was talking about her mother and her brother dying.

The paramedics are mainly trying to get away quickly instead of wanting to argue over whether she's able to ride along, so if Evelyn so wishes to come along, she can in fact do so.

She does in fact wish to do so. She can text her mom to let her know what she's doing, but this seems more important than 'while away the rest of the afternoon at home'.

She doesn't seem to care about being touched. She really really doesn't want to let go of her stick. If the paramedics manage to remove it she starts thrashing around trying to get it back.

If it's that important, they'll bring it with her, so long as she's willing to put it to the side so they can check her for injuries.

Evelyn waits quietly in the corner.

She'll let them move it to the side but won't actually let go of it. Her injuries are- Not actually all that bad. Definitely hospital-worthy, especially the burn that looks like a line of fire ran down her left arm, but not immediately life-threatening or anything.

"Water, pleash."

They do in fact have water available, and they offer it to her, trying to prevent her from moving much so as not to exacerbate her injuries.

They're at the hospital shortly.

She doesn't say much on the ride, muttering in that language that doesn't closely resemble something anyone can recognize, occasionally producing an English word or phrase.

One of them is, "I remembered the word fesa. Magic."

"… I'm not sure that's the right word," says Ev. "Magic what?"

"Magic girls. Fly and do shiny lights, but I'm too tired to do it I think..."

The paramedics look a little concerned at that, poor girl must be so shocked by what happened to her, but fortunately they arrive at the hospital and they roll her out to go– do variously hospital things.

Ev waits.

She is slightly malnourished. Nasty burn and cracked humerus on left arm, various contusions, possible concussion.

Eventually it sinks in that these are Doctors (she didn't know the word) and she starts cooperating and even drops the stick. Though she still insists she's magic and she wants to go 'back' and save Mom and her brother, Errie.

Apparently there are people looking around to see if they can find her mom or brother right now, but they need to focus on how she's doing at the moment. The stick will be there for her when they're done, if she's that worried about it.

"That stick doesn't matter, just any stick. When I can go back."

The doctor seems confused by this but drops it in favor of treating her wounds.

"Thank you Doc-tor." She rolls the new word around, getting used to it. "It doesn't hurt so bad though."

And then the doctor proceeds to treat the wounds anyway despite her apparently not being in too much pain, and she's kept in for a few days for observation.

Evelyn is told about this! Grenadine is asked if she wants to talk to her.

Grenadine keeps asking if they found her mom and brother.

Evelyn is the lady who found her right?

It is! Also, no word on her mom or brother yet, but they're sure they'll find them.

There were so many people leaving through Thesa-something, that city. (The word she's looking for but doesn't know is refugees.) It must be hard to find them.

Sure, she'll talk to Evelyn, Evelyn actually listened to her, kinda.

Evelyn will come in and talk to her, in that case! The doctors tell her about what Grenadine's been saying – Thesa-something and such.

"Hi there," she says.

"Hi."

"How are you doing?" she asks, then sees the stick. "I see you… still have that stick."

"Yeah, but it doesn't work yet. I got hurt, so I can't fly. And this isn't a very good flying stick, I'm gonna find a better one when I go look for mom and Errie."

"Flying stick?" she asks. "I don't think that's the right translation."

"...Dunno word. English is hard. And this place does it different for some words."

"We're in America?" she says. "I'm surprised you don't know the word for that, seeing as you're here? – Unless you just forgot it."

"Can I see a map?"

"Uh, sure," says Ev, and she gets out her phone to bring it up on Google Maps.

Her eyes go wide at the phone.

This room doesn't contain much other tech, and she wasn't really paying attention in the ambulance.

"What is that?"

"… A phone," she says. "Do you not know about phones? … Where are you even from, anyway?"

"I don't know many things about the world yet. I'm still little. I am from Rothamdar duchy Ostmark."

"… Is that in Poland or something?"

"Ostmark is Ostmark. Map!"

She shows her the map and how to use the phone – pinch to zoom, drag to… drag. "I don't know where Ostmark is, and I'm guessing you don't know the English name for it?"

"I think it's supposed to still be Ostmark in English."

Scroll, scroll, zoom, look confused. Zoom all the way out to see the whole world.

"Your map is wrong."

"… Why do you say that?"

"This place," China. "Isn't on the maps I saw, it's just islands. And there should be more land here, and here." Southwest of California, and the east coast. "And the names are all different. Ostmark is supposed to be... Close to here?" She points to Hungary.

"Are you sure you weren't just looking at an old map? One from, I don't know, the 1700s?"

One where it'd make sense for it to be that inaccurate?

"Um. The year is 1700?"

"Nnnno, the year is 2014," she says.

… Was this girl in some sort of weird cult or something? That'd be horrible, but like, it'd explain the– various weird things.

"The year is fourteen hundred and seven."

"Or, I thought it was. Maybe I fell through a magic portal or something."

"I'm pretty sure," says Ev a bit slowly, "that magic portals do not exist."

"Lots of things exist. Every magic girl gets a different special magic."

"I'm also pretty sure that magical girls, in general, don't exist."

She takes a deep breath, and holds out one fingertip, and scrunches up her face.

Ev: waits! Slightly befuddled, since the child is, you know, making a weird face and stuff.

"-Turn off the light! I can glow." Back to concentration-face.

"… Okay," she says, and does so.

...Her fingertip is glowing. "Do you see it!"

Evelyn goes up to it to try to see where the little LED is or whatever. "I do," she says, somewhat unamused. "It's very neat."

"It's magic. Magic is real, I told you. I can fly too, once I'm not-sick enough to make a whole hand glow."

"… Okaaaay, and is there any way for me to get this–" nonexistent– "magic?"

"You gotta be a girl, and get lucky. You don't believe me."

"I mean, I'm a girl, unless you mean I have to be younger too?"

And yeah, she doesn't really believe you.

"Only some girls get it. You start getting magic when you're eleven. If you come back tomorrow I can fly and then you have to believe me."

"If you can fly, yeah, I'll probably believe you."

"I think I'm out of magic. I was flying away from the monsters and then I got hurt and then I was here. I think it'll come back. I want to go home."

"I mean, if you came from another world with magic… I'm pretty sure we don't have magic here, so I'm not sure how you'll– be able to."

Head meets pillow frustratedly. "I'll try anyway."

She shrugs. "I'll try to help if there's anything I can do?"

"Don't know what makes magic, except that being hurt and sick makes it worse. The doc-tors are helping for that... They were mad that I can't read much though. It's not like I got to go to school."

"… Uh, right, yeah, most people go to school here. We have a good education system and– things. Most people are able to read."

"We were a serf family. Farming all day for Lord Rothamdar. Most people were before the monsters."

"Ah," she says. "Um, well, we have technology and stuff to help with things like that."

"Dunno word. Things like the phone?"

"Yeah. Electricity, mechanical stuff, better tools and things?"

"Oh. We have a little of that kind of thing. Everyone got scared of the monsters, so the church stopped burning scientists and started paying them."

"Yeah. The church stopped burning scientists here, a long while back."

"Good. The threshing thingy Julius Kralus invented made harvest so much easier, I can't even think about hundreds of years of that."

"I don't actually know anything about, uh, threshing?" she says. "But yeah, there's quite a lot of technology now."

"What kind of things? Phones? The lights in here?"

"And cars – a mode of transport – and computers – devices that can calculate lots of things and show them in lots of ways, the phone is a small one of them – and the internet – linking up a bunch of computers to send information across the planet. And various other things. I think."

"Um... I don't think I understand much of this."

She shrugs. "There are lots of things, basically. Uh, I'm not sure what's going to happen to you. Seeing as… you might not have any family here."

"If I can't go back to mom and Errie and I don't have to farm onions again I don't care."

"I'm pretty sure you don't have to farm onions," she says. "Unless you decide to take that up for money."

"Magic girls fly things for money a lot. It's called cou-ri-er."

"That might work," she says, "if you plan on telling people you're magic, and if you can go faster than cars, or maybe even planes. We have– lots of fast ways of getting around."

"Dunno how fast cars go. I beat a little bird in a race before, but not a big one, and magic girls get faster when we are adults until the magic goes away when you get old."

"How old?"

"Um, the strefesa are all less than thirty I think? But Lady Ilia still heals people, just lots less, and she's almost sixty."

Evelyn nods. "What other things can you do, then?"

"Um. Light, then so much light it hurts things, flying, a shield... And my special magic. Dunno what that is yet."

Shrug. "I'm not really sure what will happen to you if your family isn't around – you'll probably be looked after by, uh. Do you know what adoption is? Foster care, that sort of thing?"

"Like when Gemril's parents got divorced and banished and he moved in with Trevor's family?"

"Probably?" She shrugs. "The hospital staff will probably try to work something out, try to call the right places to have things happen."

She has some pretty mixed feelings about this prospect, but doesn't say anything.

"Is there anything you need right now? Food, or…?"

"They feed me things. They even listened to 'no onions'. I just don't know what to do next. I... I was going to follow mom and Errie, and if, if I couldn't I was going to join the magic girls army and now I can't do either of those and I don't know what to do sitting still feels like falling!"

"What do you mean– sitting feels like falling?"

"I'm magic, magic people have to help everyone it's what magic is for all the stories say so but I can't."

"You're injured, though, and it's important that you heal up?"

"I guess... If I was home they woulda had a healer come find me. Magic girls are supposed to be important."

"We have medicine and stuff, but not magical healing. Because, you know, no magic."

"You have other stuff, yeah. I don't know any of it yet but I will know it when I get to go to school."

"I think they'll probably do that quickly. You might need to be caught up on some things like reading, though."

"And more English. I've been listening to people talk."

"That's good, yeah!" she says. "I don't know what your language is like or if we have something similar to it."

"I tried that with someone else a while ago and they said I was making it up."

"I mean, we could try it now? I'm just assuming you're not making it up." She gets up and turns the light on, then gets her phone out again and opens up Google Translate. "If you say a phrase, this should be able to write it down and translate it if it's a common language we have."

"That sounds fun."

It turns out that a few words and phrases -roughly- translate. To Hungarian, to Latvian, to Greek. But overall the language she calls Ostmark doesn't match up to anything spoken here. It seems like a mish-mash of at least a dozen other languages left to stew for a few generations.

"Seems like it's Eastern European but not actually… any single language that we have." She shrugs. "I don't think we have Ostmark either. I'm not sure if there was an empire there in the past and it's just changed or what."

"The duchess I flew things for a week ago said that Ostmark only exists because of magic, but I don't know why she thought that."

She nods. "I'm not sure either."

"...I want to go back. Maybe my special magic is teleporting and that's how I got here. Mom says not to say the same thing again and again because it's annoying so I'm sorry. If they're going to put me with a family here can you tell me what it will be like?"

"It's fine," she says. "It's understandable that you want to go back." Shrug. "I'm not sure what the family will be like, I'm afraid, but you'll go to school and the family will have been checked and stuff."

"Checked for what? Also do you know when Sunday is?"

"It's Thursday today, so three days away. And… checked to make sure they're suitable to look after a kid."

"I have to find a church by then. You mean like not being mean and having enough money?"

"Yeah, that sort of thing," she says. "And– uh, there are churches around but people are, I think, less religious than they used to be?"

Frown. "You have to go to church on Sunday. People from the south or Orussia sometimes don't but in Ostmark you have to. I guess I'm in a different country now."

"We're in America – I don't know if I showed you on the map." She brings up the map again and centers in on the particular area, showing her where it is. "There are other religions too, not just – I assume you're Christian? – not just Christianity, and also some people who just don't believe in it."

"Yeah I think that's what it's called. That makes sense. Oh, this is the continent of Albion! Or I would have called it that."

"...Thanks for visiting me and actually listening and saying you'll believe me if I fly tomorrow instead of saying how I'm so confused and does my head hurt."

She shrugs and smiles. "I don't think it's too harmful to play pretend if you are, anyway."

She gives a little huff and extends her finger again, focusing. The light is a little brighter this time, noticeable even with the lights on. She drops it after a moment. "You are coming back tomorrow right?"

"Yeah," she says, looking at Grenadine's finger again. "And I'm not totally sure you're lying, because I'm not really sure how I'd go about doing that, but still."

She's annoyed now, at the reminder that nobody believes her. In an effort to put Ev out of her mind, "I'm gonna read. They gave me some books."

"So – you do know how to read? Just not very well?"

"I know letters have sounds I had the nurse write a few things and do it that way."

She nods. "Do you want me to leave you to do that, then?"

"Yeah."

"I'll see you tomorrow," she says, going to the door. "Bye."

"Bye."

She reads things two or three times, not really understanding much but determined to try, guessing when she's reading something wrong and when something is spelled strangely for some reason. She answers the doctors' questions and nods happily at the news that her burn should be gone in a week.

The next day, Evelyn is back at the hospital! Approximately midday, because it's currently summer vacation – woo.

"Hey there," she says as she enters the room.

"Hi!" Grin, grin, grin.

"You feeling better, then?"

"Well kinda, but mostly watch this!"

She steps over her stick, ragged end pointing back, looking like an old witch's broom....

And hovers.

Ev's just gonna have a look to make sure she actually is hovering and it's not just, like, a trick of the light.

Her feet aren't touching the ground. She's kind of wobbling, though.

She leans forward and moves across the room before dropping back onto the floor with a sharp huff.

"Okay," she says. "I'm gonna take that as a 'you can probably do magic or at least I should act like that for now.'"

"Told you so."

"I was suspending judgement," she says. "Since magic doesn't typically exist."

"Now you know. I think my magic is coming back from being hurt, I can fly for an hour at a time usually and I'm getting stronger because I'm getting older."

"Well, that's good?" she says. "I think?"

"Yeah. And now we can talk about doing magic things to make money without you thinking it's silly!"

"Yeah," she agrees. "Courier might work, depending on what your range is and how fast you can fly."

"Brooms and sticks aren't great for flying, I know how to make a better one, kinda, and the really cool ones I don't know how to make can let a magic girl go ten times as fast as a horse and keep flying all day. I can also do shields and blow things up."

"I'm not sure we need things to be blown up, but I guess that could be used at a quarry or something?"

"I guess. And whatever my special magic is. It's supposed to be easy to tell but I can't tell yet."

She nods. "How did the reading go?"

"I don't know a lot of words but I wrote down which. And a lot of words aren't spelled like they sound so I guessed what they actually mean."

"I can say them to you if you want? There are typical combinations that you pronounce certain ways, though, I think there's a thing called phonics that they usually use to teach kids?"

"Ooh, thank you!"

She produces her list from one of the bedside tables... Her handwriting is terrible.

That's fine, she can work on that at school! Ev might need to ask her to spell out some of the words, though, so she can actually 'read' the handwriting.

She can definitely spell out words. Her mistakes are the kind that one would expect from someone with spotty vocabulary painstakingly reading by sound.

It seems like she's spent hours and hours reading from the length of her list.

It does! Evelyn's encouraging about her effort, if that seems like it doesn't get a negative response at least, and she pronounces all the words for her, trying to define them if necessary.

A lot of defining is necessary. "Can I use one of the find things like the phone map to find words so you don't have to?"

"Uh, yeah," she says, "but I've only got this one phone on me right now, so you won't be able to do it while I'm not here. … Unless you just mean a dictionary, but that wouldn't give the definition aloud, it'd be written down."

She brings up the definition for one of the words through Google and has it play the definition aloud.

"If a dictionary has enough small words it will be okay. I know technology costs a lot sometimes."

"There are some cheap old-ish phones? I could probably get one of those, and I think they do internet fine, but yeah, a dictionary would probably be good. Maybe a young learners' dictionary or something, I think that sort of thing exists?"

"If you think it does maybe? Do you know what's happening with the doctors putting me in a family?"

"I don't, actually," she says. "I'm guessing a police officer or something will come talk to you today?"

"I don't know what to want about that. I like you you're nice and I don't really know anyone else yet but you're not old enough to be a mom and I don't think you have a husband and adoptions go to families with a mom and a dad. Or if you haven't left your mom and dad and they want to help me but I've never met them and they probably don't want a new kid."

"I'm not sure my mom's really able to take in a new kid," she shrugs. "Sorry."

"Yeah I thought so. Thinking about this makes me want to run away to a forest. I know how to make a fire and cook nuts and, and, squirrils."

"… I think it's probably easier for you, and uh, everyone, if you stay part of the system. I think if you tried to run away, they'd try to stop you – you're only, what, like maybe twelve?"

"Twelve and some."

She nods. "Yeah, I think it's probably better for you if you, you know, stay here and get educated and stuff? You don't really get schools in forests, and– there aren't really many big forests for you to go run away to, I don't think? Not here, at least."

Huff. "I know. It's just so many things change so fast."

Shrug. "They do, but it's probably better to be a part of it rather than just staying with the old – a lot of the changes are improvements."

"That depends on what you say is better. I can't grow up to help people who really need saving from the Neuroi here."

"The what?"

"The monsters I told you about. Maybe evil magic, maybe space aliens, there's so many rumors. All I saw myself is that they look creepy, fly, and shoot red light that blows things up."

"Oh right, when you were– injured." Shrug. "I don't know, I'm afraid – we don't have magical girls, we don't have Neuroi. But you should be safe for now, anyway."

"Yeah, maybe." She picks up a book. "I think I do want a dictionary and some books about technology if you can do that. Or I can ask the nurse, they want to help even if they don't actually listen."

"I think I should be able to do that," she says. "I'll try to get the dictionary for tomorrow but I'm not sure about the technology books."

"Thank you!"

She seems to decide something, and hugs Ev's arm.

Awwwh.

Ev hugs her back, smiling.

Hugs are nice. Such as this one that might indicate Grenadine is considering Ev a replacement for her brother, which could turn into a problem.

Evelyn doesn't actually have any direct knowledge of the internals of Grenadine's head! She's just hugging her because she seems like a cute and slightly lost child, so, you know, hugs are typical.

"So, did you want to get any more reading done today?"

"Sure! You don't need to stay and help to though I can make my list longer and use the dictionary tomorrow."

"If you're sure?"

"I can definitely do it."

"Ok," she says. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"See you tomorrow. Maybe I can show you better flying by then."

She smiles. "Maybe."

Then she leaves.

Gren eventually runs out of children's books to read. So she starts writing the story of the evacuation of Greece as she saw it using her terrible handwriting and small vocabulary.

Someone comes in to talk to her about next-of-kin and familial connections and things – they apologize for taking so long, hospital inefficiency, you– probably don't know because you're a kid but still.

Her dad has been dead for years. Her mom is Sandalay Nylund. Her brother is Errol Nylund. They probably won't find either of them. She has no idea where any of her cousins or extended family are but can name many of them. She likes Evelyn who keeps visiting her.

She keeps the talk of magic and other worlds to a minimum. It would just raise a fuss about making things up.

That's probably very wise of her! They take notes of the names and promise that they'll try to get in contact with them. Is there anything she needs right now, or is she okay with the things she already has?

Other than her family and going home? She likes books, but Evelyn has been bringing her some to borrow. The hospital gives her food. She doesn't seem to consider clothes at all important.

She still wants to go to church in two days on Sunday but otherwise she's good.

Oh! They have a chapel in the hospital if she'd like to use that? He's willing to show her the way there, if she wants and feels up to it, or someone could come show her on Sunday instead?

"Sunday is fine. I don't need to be in a church to pray, but you go to mass on Sundays."

That should work. If that's all, he'll leave her to continue with her reading and such.

The things she wants, they can't get her. So they can just leave and keep in mind that a new family is not the same as Mom and Errie...

They're trying to find them but unfortunately they haven't had any luck yet. If she'd like to speak to a counsellor about this, that can be arranged…?

"What's a counseller? Dunno much English."

"A therapist? Someone you talk to to go through your thoughts on a topic and who tries to help you if you're feeling down or worried."

"I can't talk about four of five things I'm worried about because nobody believes me about it."

"Well, the therapist is available if you decide you need them," he says, "but if you don't, we won't force you to talk to them."

She shakes her head, skeptical of the value of being scoffed at and told magic isn't real some more.

"Okay," he says, shrugging. "Just tell a nurse if you need anything." Then he leaves.

Back to writing the story of a little girl running from monsters, getting magic, then getting lost in a weird country where nobody believes anything she says.

Someone will totally read this at some point and think she's making it up again but she doesn't care.

Evelyn is back the next day with a few books! "Hi there," she says, coming into the room.

"Ooh, books. Hi. I ran out of things to read so I wrote a book too. Real short though."

"Oh? What's it about?"

"...Everything that happened to me. But I gave the family different names and made some things up and said it's just a story so nobody says I'm lying about magic again."

"Mm." She thinks a bit. "Most people don't believe in magic existing, because it hasn't and doesn't as far as most people know, but if you show them the light thing and the flight, they might believe you?" She shrugs. "It's probably not a good idea to do that with everyone, though – I don't know how they'll all react."

"Huh. Well how do I choose some between nobody and everybody?"

"How do you choose who, you mean? Um. … I'm not really sure? I mean, I reacted okay, I think, and your magic seems like it could be useful, but some people might be mean about it or something – people can react badly when unexpected things happen."

"Specials are sometimes really really useful so I'm looking forward to figuring mine out. Healing. Magic, um, promises. Super senses. Maybe it's teleporting."

"...Maybe I only tell people about magic if I need to. I don't want to scare everyone."

"I think if it were handled carefully it could be used for things without telling many people, or people could find out in a slow, controlled manner. Depending on what-all your magic can do – I think you told me some things, but I don't remember?"

She places the books on a table by the bed. There are two early-learner dictionaries and a few 'how stuff works' books

"Fly, faster than hawks and carrying things when I grow up. Make light. Blow things up. Make shields, don't know much about them. I think magic girls are stronger. Whatever my special is."

She eagerly grabs the top 'how things work' book.

"Depending on how that all works with other people, if you can protect them and stuff, it could be quite useful? And depending on what your special is, too."

"The shields are big circles I can put in front of me. I don't know how strong they are, I'd have to test myself."

"What sorts of things do they block? People trying to break through them, people throwing stuff at you…?"

"Um yeah, and bullets and Neuroi's light bullets and other magic girls' blow-things-up and rocks and things. I pushed a wolf into a river with one once."

"Explosions, I think, is the blow-things-up thing? And light bullets, um, lasers? But yeah, that sounds like it might be useful."

"That's good, somewhere I can be useful probably."

Nod. "I'm sure there are other places too, not just that, but yeah."

"No sitting around feeling sorry, Errie says. Stop, think, then work on something or nothing will get better."

"That sounds like advice that might be useful in life, but right now you're only twelve years old, and you're also safe here, so you shouldn't need to worry about that so much?"

"Why would I not be doing things when I could be doing things? Wait, that doesn't sound right... I like playing yeah but you can't just not do anything productive, you'll get used to not doing things and then be so far behind on everything you wanted to do earlier. Um. Like this place's English and reading and writing, I have to figure it out because it will make everything else, learning technology or going to school or having a new family easier."

"Well, yeah, learning English is a good idea, but– I meant more about the, uh, you need to be able to have fun sometimes? If only to make it so you don't burn out."

"No I need to always get things done if I don't wanna be a no-good lazy- Uh, bad person. The village and mom and Errie and all my cousins and aunts and uncles don't like lazies."

"… You need to get things done even while having fun, or do you mean you can never have fun because you have to be doing things?"

"I can't keep not doing things. Fun has to wait until you did some work today, every day except Saturday and Sunday and sometimes then too. Today's not Saturday yet."

"Well no, it's not, and it's good that you're studying English anyway because that's important, but you don't need to be doing things all the time, and I'm just trying to make sure you, you know, get that."

"I like making myself need to do things. People who do that end up much better than people who don't."

She shrugs. "I try to do things too, but if I don't because I'm having a bad day, I try not to beat myself up over it too much."

She processes the idiom, then, "I think I understand."

Smile. "Anyway – was there anything you wanted to do today? Go through some more words or something, or is the dictionary okay for that, or…?"

"Can you tell me all the things you usually do for a day of school? Like, b-before the Neuroi, in summer we wake up with the sun and let out the chickens and I cleaned it and took the eggs while Errie got hay for them and mom washed clothes for the day, then we all cooked and ate breakfast and relaxed for a bit, then it was all day harvesting at least until lunch... Like that. Grownup school is fine maybe."

"Uh, it's three hours of class, an hour of lunch, then two hours of class? You'd probably do math, English, geography, history, maybe a language, science, maybe something like music or art? Also gym at some point? I'm not sure how it works everywhere, but at my school they rotated what classes you had each day – it didn't change from week to week, but like, on Monday I had math, English, French, chemistry and gym, but then Tuesday was French, history, English, geography, government?"

"What's a class like?"

"Uh, like thirty people in a room listening to a teacher? Lasts an hour, you often do stuff on worksheets – bits of paper with questions and things – and sometimes do group work, sometimes you have tests?"

"Not like apprenticing then, that sounds neat." She's (slowly) reading about generators in the 'how things work' book now.

Ooh, generators. "It's pretty good," she says. "Do you want to just continue reading? I'm not sure if you want to, like, both talk and read or just read while I'm around or…?"

She thinks for a moment. "If you're here and don't mind I will ask a lot of questions. I was thinking of doing it like the other words, writing down all my questions and asking later, but if you're here already I can just ask?"

"Yeah, that should be fine?" she says. "I might not know all the answers, though, depending on what you ask."

Her questions are mostly relatively basic misunderstandings that Ev can easily correct, or the sort of thing that Ev can answer with "I don't think it works that way."

If Grenadine has her way there will be several hours of interesting Q&A about science where she is pretty clearly driving herself to do it- But also actually enjoying the learning, more or less.

Well, after a couple of hours, Ev's gonna go grab lunch, but then it can continue after that, so long as she seems to be enjoying herself.

She does get distracted by an abortive attempt to make her own steam engine with a few empty cans, which rather predictably doesn't work.

But if she's having fun, that's good.

Poor kid.

She is having fun.

She still cries quietly about her mom and brother later, when most everyone's gone for the night.

Soon the hospital and whoever else will get their act together and move her in with a family. She adjusts well, though she keeps being surprised by things (movies, how wrestling gets called 'fighting' by the school).

She excels but is not an instant prodigy at science and does acceptably in the other subjects. She doesn't show off her magic, restricting herself to practicing it and trying to figure out her special in her room after school.

Fortunately, Ev gave her a contact number before she left the hospital and was also given an opportunity to speak with Grenadine's new caretakers, not that she had much to say on account of not really knowing her, so if Grenadine wishes to contact her at any point that should be relatively straightforward.

She visits every so often, too, if permitted.