"Oh, that's a good idea.  We've got some time, I think."

"Yeah. Hopefully enough to refine this at least some. And since Emma knows about the whole," she waves her hand vaguely, "thing, we can stick around longer if we need to."

Time to play Magical Girl Hide and Seek, then.

Lianne's pretty good at hiding physically - but she's fairly obvious, magically, once Kaylee figures out how to look. She's not good at hiding her magic.

Kaylee's about the same!  It's a bit tricky to pick up the knack of sensing magical girls instead of witches, but once they figure it out it's not too hard to do.

"So. Guess it's time to start looking?"

"Yep."

Sweeping out in a loose spiral from their motel seems the most reasonable path. Lianne stays alert, and out of her raiment for now - it might be a long night, and they don't need to risk attracting attention or using too much magic.

It probably will be a long night.

But after a while, they'll pick up traces of somebody.  Some distance away.  Unless whoever-it-is also learned this trick and happens to be employing it right now, she probably doesn't know they're there.

"Ready to head out?" she asks Kaylee, trying to pinpoint the girl's location. "Any ideas on how we should approach her?"

"I'm trying to imagine, if I were paranoid and maybe a little sketchy, like the girl we met in Tennessee with the grappling hook... maybe in-raiment so it's obvious we're magical girls, but - as conspicuously unarmed as we can be?  ...What if we just offered a spare grief seed, first thing, no strings attached, as a show of good faith?  Do you have spares, I think I do..."

"That seems show of good faith but - I'm bad at modeling paranoid people, but... It might be almost too show of good faith? Because it's such a coveted resource. It's - like someone offering you a million dollars as a show of good faith? Maybe if you're a nation, but an individual high school girl..."

"That makes sense.  We could offer to clear their soul gem... but then that's kinda, come hang out in stabbing range - come present your soul gem for easy access while hanging out in stabbing range..."

"Yeah. I think just - talking? I'm not sure there's any - gestures of good faith that're the right size?"

"Yeah, probably.  Let's transform?"

"Let's." Her raiment forms around her, shimmering. She doesn't summon her weapon.

Kaylee follows suit.

Following the trail, it's not long before they come upon the magical girl.  And girl is accurate - she looks barely older than twelve, dressed in a bubblegum-pink costume even more Magical Girl Classic than Kaylee's, and wielding an enormous hammer that looks straight out of hammerspace.  Her back is to them, and she doesn't seem to have noticed them.

There's a Kyubey on her shoulder.

She knows that there's more than one, by now, so that's not too surprising, though it's still a bit jarring - she's never actually met one of the others' Kyubeys. (Twelve year olds: should not be fighting.)

She'll clear her throat, say a soft, "Hello?"

She turns - looks scared, takes a step back.

"Hey - you're okay, we're not here to fight."

She doesn't move, but doesn't relax either, her eyes flicking between Lianne and her Kyubey.

"We're not after your territory - we're with a group trying to improve coordination between magical girls. Give each other excuses to be out late, information on witches too dangerous for one girl, heads ups about aggressive nomads, share tips for doing magic, share strategies we've noticed work well..."

Her Kyubey hops off down off of her shoulder and plants himself on the ground in between her and Lianne.  'She wants you to go.'

She nods, and sets a grief seed down on the ground.

"We will, but - if you want to seek us out later, we're the League of Magical Girls, down in Jackson, Tennessee."

She steps back, half turning.