There is a weird feeling in the room, like a distortion. If you blink you'll see afterimages of something not quite in three dimensions, not quite black and purple and a whirlpool.

It swallows her. Then it's gone.

She was sitting in a chair; now she's not. She tumbles to the ground with a surprised yelp and reflexively curls into a ball.

She is in her office. Laeres and the children are at the park; Shen is at work. The voice doesn't sound like Shen (she's very familiar, at this point), but her first assumption is that it has to do with Shen.

She comes running into the living room. There is someone there.

There is someone there, yes. A young teenage girl, very thin, in a short-sleeved shirt and sturdy blue pants, curled up in a ball on the floor.

If this has to do with Shen then there is likely a very serious problem, but it is not a serious problem she could improve by trying to go after other pieces of it. She focuses on the person in front of her. 

She takes an image and sends to Shen with context, in case. Messages Laeres in case they were heading back or would soon. Then she walks over, slowly, body language meant for unthreatingness, stops a distance away.

"Hello? I'm Heria. I'm not going to hurt you. Are you alright?"

She stays very still for a second, and then relaxes, obviously intentionally, and looks up. It's clear that she's scared; less clear whether she understood the words.

She knows what intentional relaxation looks like. She sits down, still careful with her body language. Repeats the same in her native language, then after a thought in the occupation's language. 

(Hairstyle? Jewelry and such? Something really obvious like a note?)

That doesn't seem to help, though it doesn't seem to hurt, either.

(Her hair is in a short, plain style, more suited to a child than to someone who cares about appearances. She doesn't have any jewelry, and except for the image printed on her shirt - she hasn't uncurled enough for Heria to see what it's an image of - her clothes are also very plain.)

Probably not Earan (doesn't look it, and didn't react to the occupation language).

Vision-detectable injuries? Is 'very thin' the worrying kind?

No visible injuries, but she is rather worryingly thin, yes.

Shen messages back.

Haven't heard from her since last time. I don't think I - did anything. 

I'll be right over.

That is - possibly worse, in as much as it tends to take longer to achieve.

Still with the same nonverbals she moves over to one of the cabinets, takes out a pillow and blanket.

"Would you like to move to the couch?" she points at the couch. "Would you like a pillow or blanket?" she gestures with the pillow and blanket, then lays them down between them and moves away. (In only Reynan and the local language, this time.)

She doesn't react immediately, but then she stands - holding her left arm a little stiffly, she jolted it when she fell - and takes the pillow and blanket and sits on the couch with them. (She's not making eye contact, but it's not the careful avoidance of someone who's afraid to, even though she's definitely still nervous; it seems more like it's just not a habit she's in.)

Does she seem to be using them to become more comfortable, or responding as though she is obeying a directive?

She knows people who look at the ground reflexively and are afraid not to, and she knows people who simply don't make eye contact; she recognizes the difference. 

Definitely the directive one; she hasn't unfolded the blanket at all and is watching, still carefully calm, for the next instruction.

Alright. That is - harder to deal with in conjunction with what looks to be lack of a common language, but Shen should be able to address that, if it is in fact the problem.

"Can you understand me? You can just nod or shake your head," she tries in both languages, in case.

(If she does not seem upset by the move to the couch it is probably still more comfortable.)

She still doesn't seem to understand.

And now that she's sitting up, the design on her shirt is revealed to be a simple drawing of a gemstone, with a few words in an unfamiliar language underneath.

Between that and the unfamiliar language on the shirt it is best to wait for Shen, on this.

She doesn't very much want to leave the girl alone; fortunately the house is equipped for facilitating this. On her datahook she checks safe amounts for in-case-of-possible-malnutrition (as best she can by guessing information she doesn't have, but the nutrition bars take that into account) then from a different cabinet takes a bottle of water and what looks like a food bar. Turns, visibly takes a swallow of the water, breaks a piece off the bar and swallows that too. Puts both on the table near the couch, then backs away again.

"If you want," she says, in case and anyway.

She tries not to tense up at that, and she very nearly succeeds; she continues watching for instructions.

She notices. Which could be many things, from 'expects it to be drugged anyway' to 'was punished for eating'. 

"You can take it if you want," she repeats, again in case. "And you can tell me if you need anything."

And for the moment she sits down again and reads on her datahook.

She watches for another few minutes, then moves the bedding from her lap to the couch, toes off her shoes, and arranges herself in the corner of the couch with her legs pulled up to her chest, keeping a careful eye on Heria the whole time.

Here is Heria reading. (She took a picture of the shirt and ran a search, which did not find anything).

That's fine. She stays put. (She's used to being bored.)

Does she seem to be becoming at all more comfortable?

A little; not much. She's paying enough attention to Heria to notice when she looks at her and go back to attentively watching, but before that she was staring off into space.

Shen arrives into the entrance hall. 

I'm here.

Gets a summary of what's been happening. 

I - she doesn't usually not tell me at all, when she does something. I - don't want to ask...

She agrees with respect to not asking; if this is their Acquaintance's - work, again then she will, it can be assumed, let them know when she wishes to, and if it is not then said Acquaintance does not need to be given information about - generally anyone, but certainly extra vulnerable people. 

And the person is here, either way.

"I've called my friend to come here," she says, more for the tone, now. "She won't hurt you either."

She comes in in the same careful-to-be-nonthreatening way. Reaches out senses. It doesn't seem likely the arrival is a mage or otherwise, but it's worth the check.

The language is - hard to draw, even harder then she'd expect from someone who was the only speaker around. 

"Hello. My name is Shen. I'm not going to hurt you. I'd like to help you. Are you alright?" she says, in the arrival's language. 

There's a brief pause, like she's thinking about it, and then she shrugs.

"The food and the water are for you, if you want them. You don't have to take them, but you can if you would like."

She tenses up again, just slightly, when Shen mentions the food, and again doesn't move immediately when she stops talking, but then she takes the food bar, takes a bite, and goes back to listening while she chews.

She tries to look 'that is very alright to do!' without also looking 'this is what you have to do to make me happy' but this may be a challenge on several fronts.

"Is there anything else you want or need right now?"

She really doesn't like being looked at that way. Her objection is nearly as subtle as the rest of the times she's tensed up, but definitely there.

She shrugs again.

She notices. She returns to a more neutral expression. 

They can't really offer her reading material, given the language barrier. 

"Do you like video?" she gestures at a screen on the wall. 

She considers this question slightly longer than the last, and nods.

She looks though her datahook for some variety in things that don't require language. Throws a selection - a dance, some scenic nature, a 'how it's made' of some clothes, a sporting event - onto the screen in a grid.

"Would you like to watch any of these? You can point. You can change your mind later, if you want."

Long pause; shrug.

She finds Leran's remote and sets it up. Starts the nature as a default. 

"If you'd like to watch one of the others, you can change them like this." She demonstrates the remote. "You can also pause, or start it again, or turn it off and on, or make it louder or quieter. You can also tell us you need something." She demonstrates all these buttons. They have symbols on them but the symbols may not be ones familiar to her. (If the arrival looks confused or unsure she can demonstrate a few more times.) 

She's still watching attentively, not giving any sign of whether she understands or not.

Repeated demonstration has diminishing returns, and it might be clearer to the arrival if she can play around with it a little too. After a few demonstrations she puts the remote on the table and steps away.

She takes it - not hesitantly, exactly, but with repeated glances at Shen to check for a disapproving reaction - and examines it for a moment before pressing a button, apparently at random.

Complete lack of disproving reactions. 

Which button is it?

Well, a random one. But the one to select the next show, as it turns out.

Then the screen will switch to the next show. 

(Does she react at all to that?)

She glances at the TV when the show changes, but she's not really watching it, she's watching Shen.

Shen isn't really doing anything. If the arrival doesn't seem actively upset she'll go sit down with Heria. 

She's not upset. (See how not upset she is? She's perfectly calm. The calm of someone who has lots of practice at it.)

After a minute, she puts the remote down on the table and begins watching the TV.

She knows that one. But, not something that can just be fixed by some simple operation.

She'll wait a minute or two.

TV: she watches it. (And glances over at Shen every once in a while, still.)

This can - serve as a local resting state for the moment, then.

More applied magical sense-work works better if she can be closer, or touch, but she's not doing that. She has a spellframe for enhancement. She holds it; she focuses into the new arrival.

Invisible injuries and the like (especially dangerous ones)? Other information that might give information as to her origin? Anything generally unusual? (How old does she look, by the way?) Greater specifics on the malnutrition? ('literally just starved' vs 'not given enough to eat for a while', etc; lack of particular nutrients)?

She looks to be about twelve, maybe thirteen - probably thirteen, in fact, given the malnutrition. She has a couple minor injuries - her left arm, where she jarred it falling earlier, and a bruise on the opposite leg - but no major ones. Her joints are in poor shape, though, in a way that suggests a congenital condition, and she has a heart murmur, mild enough that it won't be affecting her, but still a little concerning. It seems like she's hasn't had enough to eat for a long time, possibly her entire life; she's a little low on protein - on the low side of normal, not enough to be cause for significant concern - but otherwise she's suspiciously well-off in terms of nutrients.

Given lack of acute emergency she will currently refrain from offering magical painkillers or further magical medicine - they don't seem to have a good level of preference communication they can rely on at the moment, and 'and now I'll do some magic on you' would be a common thing for potential fraughtness. 

That is - not a good sign. And also indication that while L might still be involved, this is not a matter of her as the be-all. 

She passes the information to Heria. The arrival is not under illusions; she takes the information of her appearance and sense of presence and sends an (encrypted) message to Marchess. May have been spending life in some sort of no-one-should-have-to; can you find anything? Feeds the nutrition information into her datahook and tells it to send Laeres a shopping request for more personalized food bars and the like.

Including the sense-work this should all take more than a few minutes - how is the arrival doing?

The TV is doing a pretty good job of holding her interest.

Alright, give that some time before they possibly start asking distressing questions. 

She checks every communication method she has for anything from L (nothing). She and Heria silently go over emergency services procedures in case she is - called away and then something happens; plan coordination of things like Laeres and the children coming back; check their respective schedules and the like to be able to begin coordination if needed. Discuss whether she should try scrying (not at the moment; wait a little in case L does reach out after all).

And, how's the arrival?

Keeping an eye on them, but still mostly watching the TV.

They consult some more. Remaining in the living room is probably better than trying to move, for now. What else might she want or need in the short term? (Tesse, of course, knits, but that might not be safe without precautions if Shen might have to suddenly leave). 

"I'll be right back," she says (with Shen's instruction on how to say this in the right language). Leaves. Comes back some minutes later with a writing tablet, some hand-held puzzles, а building toy kit, some pretty paper and drawing utensils, and some napkin-or-handkerchief looking things.  

She takes the items, puts them on the table one by one.

"These are for you if you want them. This can be for writing or drawing, and these you can play with in your hands, and this you can build with, and this you can draw on or fold, and these you can fold or tie in knots. Or other things you want to do with them. If you want to. You can also just leave them here, if you don't, or put them down, or pick them up later."

She examines the items, one at a time. She seems confused at the tablet, and sets it aside, followed by the paper; she nudges the pencils over to join the pile rather than picking them up. She lingers briefly over the fabric scraps, feeling the texture of them, but leaves them where they are and instead takes a few blocks from the building kit to hold while she watches TV.

That is hopefully good to some extent, then. 

Should have explained the tablet. Won't pick it up to do that now, by default they're not taking anything they've given her back in any way unless they really need to. She sets the tablet to playing a basic 'how to use me' - you can draw/write with the attached pen or some different pen-like thing or your finger! You can save something you did like this! You can clear like this! You can turn if off, turn it on, lock or unlock the surface.

She notices the pencil nudging, remembers Shen noting the joints. Also notices the fabric-touching.

"I'll be right back again." 

She comes back with some better-for-holding drawing utensils and more fabric scraps of different kinds, puts them on the table.

She is prepared to explain the new items and say another 'for you if you want them'.

She watches the tablet play its tutorial. When Heria comes back with the utensils, she looks to Shen, confused and concerned and a little overwhelmed.

That was a worry, and a hard thing to balance against providing her with what might be needed.

"I'm sorry, this must be really overwhelming. These are also for you, if you want them. The pens can be easier to hold for some people. You can look at them at your own time, if you want, or just keep watching the video. They're not going to go anywhere and there's no hurry, and you don't have to look at them at all if you don't want to or it's hard."

(She's worse at this kind of thing than Heria, but she does know it and she can do it and it's not very practical to try to hand over talking to Heria given the language barrier. (And Heria is right here, if that ends up needed).)

That doesn't actually help.

She looks away as her breathing goes ragged, tensing for whatever might happen next - she's terrified; she's still making a very good attempt to minimize the signs of it, but quickly losing that battle.

Her self helpfully lets her know that this is bad and not a thing she should be allowing to happen in front of her and she needs to do something about it right now.

This is, of course, not very helpful. She's also of course rather used to it, and making her brain continue being actually useful is an entirely familiar use of it. (None of this will show on her externally more than very slightly.)

She can tell, reaches out to take Shen's hand. 

Let me do it?

Sitting, nonthreatening body language, careful tone, Shen feeds her words. (Having done prayers in other languages looks like it gives her some experience in pronouncing them right despite not knowing them herself. She is glad, for that.)

"We're not going to hurt you. If we've done something that hurts you we're sorry and we'd want to stop. No one here is going to hurt you. It's alright to be afraid of things but no one here is going to hurt you..."

She curls in on herself, flopping sideways onto the arm of the couch, when Heria starts talking.

It takes a few minutes for her words to register, and longer for them to have any real effect, but eventually the girl calms. She doesn't uncurl, makes no attempt to wipe away the tears drying on her cheeks, but opens her eyes to peer confusedly at her - there's no hope in her face, but there is a little less fear.

No one is going to attempt to make her uncurl or try to obligate her to do something about tears.

"...We're not going to hurt you. If someone tries to come hurt you we're not going to let them..."

She closes her eyes again and tries to relax.

(She very much wants a hug, right now, but no matter how nice they're being, these adults are staff, and you don't hug staff, not voluntarily. It'd destroy her, in the end, to let them in like that, even for a moment. The thought doesn't even cross her mind.)

She has some amount of emotion-and-such senses which she could turn on the arrival if she wanted to, but she isn't doing that - not an uncommon thing to have very bad experiences with, that, and they're definitely not at a point where she might ask and get an answer she could rely on to use. Outside of that, neither of them are mind-readers.

(And may be somewhat miscalibrated, on this - of the trauma they've been closest to and seen most, touch being very fraught at best is disproportionally common. Not something they'd be looking into as an immediate.)

They continue their best not to do anything threatening.

Well. She'll move when they tell her to, open her eyes when they seem to want her attention again. For now, this is... 'nice' would be a stretch. Fine. It's fine.

They're not going to tell her to move or demand attention. 

If she seems calmer, or else if continuing the murmured lines seems counterproductive, Heria will fall silent. 

She's as calm as she seems to get, anyway. (It's not entirely obvious whether she's even still awake.)

That, Shen can check.

She's awake, just resting.

OK. Rest is good. 

They consider about trying to leave her alone a bit, and if so whether or not to explicitly say she can call them. 

No, not for now. 

Consult on schedules and arranging things. (Could one person be less overwhelming?) Yes, trying that. Shen slips out.

Heria stays and takes out a sewing project.

She goes back to watching the TV, after a while. She doesn't uncurl, though, or make a sound.

Neither uncurling or making sounds are at all required of her.

That's probably for the best, yeah.

Well it certainly wouldn't be good to require it.

She'll stay sitting and in the room, sew or set up her datahook so she can work a little.

It seems like the girl intends to stay curled up on the couch indefinitely. (The half-eaten food bar is on the table, where she put it down to take the remote; it's within easy reach, but she's not even looking at it, much less making a move to take it again.)

She is not in danger of actual acute starvation and could have reason to not like the bar. Laeres will bring back more selection, and then they can try to ask. 

If nothing else has happened after a few hours, she'll reach out for Shen to come back.

Yeah, she's pretty set on not moving. A few hours will pass entirely uneventfully.

Shen comes back in. 

"Hey," she tries, pitched for least-startling-possible (Shen tells her words again). "Do you think you might be able to try to answer a few questions for us?"

She doesn't startle, but she does tense up a little, and then sits up.

"Eh." It's pretty noncommittal, but she's not disagreeing or arguing.

"Ok." They don't want to push her, but it matter, to know something.

"We think you were in some kind of bad place before you came here. Is that true?" 

She seems confused by the question, and after a few seconds she shrugs.

Assuming she understood them at all that's... rather informative.

"Did they do things that hurt you, or not give you enough to eat that you weren't hungry, or keep you somewhere and not let you leave, or not let you do things you like? Did they do anything like that?"

She gives them a suspicious look, but stays calm, and when she nods, it's very matter-of-fact.

"I'm sorry.

Did they tell you that it was alright for them to treat you like that?'

And, back to confusion.

"Did it seem like that was something they might think?"

She shrugs, and then nods, as if it's not something she's ever thought about before.

For her, just that much is encouraging. (Not that anyone is ever to blame for not being able to say or think even that.)

"I'm sorry.

We don't think that's true at all. But it's very alright if you don't believe that just because I said it."

That gets another shrug. (She's maybe not the sharpest crayon, this one.)

(Not really the kind of thing you can tell, this way. Wouldn't be even without everything else.

("He keeps count of the stitches," someone had said about Tesse.
"Yeah."))

She pauses a moment.

"Did anyone let you know they were going to send you somewhere else, before you got sent here? Or did you notice anything that seemed like they were planning it?"

She thinks about it, and then shakes her head.

"It happened by surprise?"

She nods.

(She checks potential sources of messages from L again. There continue not to be any.)

Nod. Moment's pause.

"You've been nodding and shaking your head and that's very alright. I have some friends who don't talk outloud at all, and I have some friends who sometimes do but not other times. Is that something you sometimes do? Either way is alright, and you don't have to talk now even if you sometimes do."

She shakes her head.

"Alright.

Are there any other ways you like to use for talking to people? Some of my friends write, or type, or pick pictures."

(She spent some of the time away working on a translator for Heria, has been using the speaking to contribute to it. She takes Heria's hand to hand it over, lets it start to take over the translation while she checks it.)

(In other magic she is not doing - it is in fact perfectly possible to use truth-spells on nods and headshakes. She doesn't do that, now. 'What the arrival wants then to know' is good information to work on, and truth spells are another thing rather fraught for many (as she would have reason to know.))

She seems dubious, and shakes her head again.

"You only nod and shake your head? That's very alright, if that's what you do."

Shrug.

"Have you done any other things before? That doesn't mean you have to now, if you did."

And now she's confused again, and tense.

Most likely then she either did and it was bad, or she didn't and was expected to and it was bad.

"That's alright. This is very alright. You can nod and shake your head; you don't have to do anything else if you can't or don't want to."

She sighs, and stares off into space for a moment before looking back to Heria.

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. Is there something you want to tell me?"

Shrug.

"OK.

Is there anything you need right now that you don't have?"

She gives another shrug.

"OK. If there is, we'd want to try to help get it for you."

Shrug, nod.

Nod.

They will leave her alone again.

She goes back to watching the TV.

They consult.

And have forgotten at least one question, which, it is not possible to work, certainly not in strange areas, and not make mistakes, even as they sadden.

"Have you spent most of your life in the same place? As opposed to moving around more, for instance living somewhere and then being taken somewhere else?"

She puzzles over this one for a minute.

She does not at all mind waiting patiently.

"Eeeh?" she offers, eventually.

"Ok. That's alright.

Do you know if you recently went or were moved from one place to live to another?"

She thinks about this one, too, and then shakes her head.

Nod.

"Did anything unusual happen recently before you got transported here?"

She shrugs.

Nod. As in general, body language meant to convey as well as it can do so that this is a very alright response. 

They consult again. 

If it is L it doesn't sound like she ever actually kept the arrival to herself. Just moved her from - wherever she was before. Which is, absolutely, the kind of game she might play. Even 'make Shen be the one to reach out' - might be. (There are still no messages).

I'm - going to try scrying. Might be something important we need to know... ('And if she doesn't like it maybe she'll like punishing me for it', she doesn't say).

She doesn't need her to say it. She squeezes her hand.

(And how is the arrival?)

Watching them. Stressed, and trying to hide it.

She notices, takes attention away from the consultation.

"We're not going to hurt you. You don't have to believe that, it makes sense that you wouldn't. But we're not. 

We're not sure how it happened that you got here, but we're trying to figure it out. And if we find out and you don't want to go back there, you don't have to. You can stay here, or go somewhere else. And we won't let them come hurt you."

She shrugs, again. It's pretty clear she doesn't believe it.

This is not surprising. 

"You don't have to believe me, when I say any of that. It makes sense that you wouldn't. But if something's wrong and we could make it better, we'd want to make it better."

She flops sideways and curls up again.

"...is something wrong right now?"

She doesn't answer.

"Ok. Well, if it is and you want to try to tell me, that's alright. And if you don't that's also alright."

She curls up a little tighter and closes her eyes.

She will read this as a 'the safest assumption is that she does not want to' and let her be.

She doesn't uncurl. (She does relax a little, after a few minutes pass without anything happening to her.)

Nothing is going to happen to her. Being curled up is perfectly fine.

And, her datahook is already equipped to be a scrying tool. She works.

To start - the place the arrival comes from, what it is? Nothing inside, nothing private that would bounce her out or within the bounds that is likely warded, but - if she was traveling and got as close as one could get that way to it, what would she see/perceive?

A large three-story building, painted a nondescript white and studded with windows, with a wire fence surrounding it at a bit of a distance, and light forest surrounding that. It could be a prison, except for the fact that, aside from a few apparently-guards, all the people visible through the large window at the front of the building are children of various ages.

Many of the children are thin, similarly to their visitor; one has his hands attached to a belt at his waist by short ropes, significantly limiting his range of motion. Most of them seem vacant, possibly drugged, possibly just the hopelessness that comes of being trapped someplace horrible.

Well, it's not that they're surprised that there's more. But.

(She relays to Heria).

(She is somewhat surprised that she can see through the windows.)

And - public information about the location? Is it publicly known as something, is it mentioned somewhere, would it be marked on a map, would it be written about, would there be news stories about it...

There isn't much public information, but there's some. It's marked on maps as White Willow Youth Asylum - it's not close to anything else, but there's a road nearby and a large town a few days' foot travel away. There's a pamphlet about it, all bright and glossy, assuring parents that the best care and treatment will be given to children sent there, decorated with pictures of smiling children hugging each other and sitting attentively in a classroom, and a web site, similarly arranged.

...

(Reading under the translation spell seems to go smoother than talking did, which she notices and notes.)

(She relays to Heria.)

...blessed earth.

...I wish I could be optimistic that this would mean all we would have to do is report them...

She agrees with the sentiment. And the lack of optimism.

...do the pamphlets or website say why parents might think to send children there? Is it something like a state home? Something like a boarding school? (Is an admission price of some sort mentioned?)

Neither the pamphlet nor the website states that openly; they seem to assume that anyone reading them would already know why they might be considering it. But a list of what seems to be mental health diagnoses on the web site is suggestive, at least. And neither of them mentions an admission price, but both assure the reader that they accept something health-related which in context seems to be about funding.

She relays that to Heria also.

(With only one young and likely isolated person to work from, it is not surprising there are words and concepts the translation is not giving her. She saves their appearance in the arrival's language, for later searching.)

And, information about this - 'Asylum' seems rather important. She scries again. Public history? Establishment, any events that would have been noted...

Again, not much. There was a minor newspaper article about it when it opened, several decades ago, and it's mentioned a few more times in articles calling for it and a couple other local ones to be closed down, a few decades after that. There's also an obituary that mentions it: a fifteen-year-old boy died there about a year and a half ago; the cause of death isn't mentioned.

(Decades).

What did the article say? The articles? 'A couple other local ones'? What else does the obituary say? 

(At this point this is rather a hard energy drain. She barely notices.)

The article about the facility's opening is short, without much detail, but enthusiastic about the new, scientific treatments it was expected to offer. The articles calling for its closure (and the closures of two others, Spring Forest State Hospital and West Pine Therapeutic Home) are longer, describing a conflict between activists who claim that confining people to institutions is inherently inhumane and family and workers who are concerned that the institutionalized people won't get the care they need in any other setting.

The obituary is short and generic, without much detail: The boy's name was Robert Greene; he was living at White Willow when he died; his parents were alive at the time, as were a younger brother and an older sister.

This does not make it look very probable that the problem can be improved by reporting.

('Inherently inhumane' is certainly important, but it seems fairly negligent to entirely leave out details such as 'starving their charges').

She says the brief form of the prayer for the dead.

She squeezes Shen's hand again. I think that's enough hard scrying for now.

With her attention called to it, she does notice. ...yeah.

Maybe we can find her some books, if she might like to read.

Yeah.

She feeds the alphabet into the datahook, looking for what language this is, and some available books.

...nope.

...?

She tries a few more times and approaches. 

(Meanwhile, how is the arrival doing?)

She's still curled up, and watching the TV again.

The datahook continues not to be able to find anything.

That's rather bizarre. And not even something she can guess L might have done. Maybe it's some kind of technological difficulty. She'll try again from the information center, later.

And, less high-intensity but important scrying:

...it's a long shot, but if she ended up considered some kind of second class citizen, maybe they weren't protecting her records properly. Anything about the arrival? Public records, identify documents...

...birth announcement.

Proud parents Chris and Teresa Dimas are happy to announce the birth of their daughter, Denice June Dimas, born May 10, 2005 at Grandview General Hospital. She weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces and was 21 inches in length. She is their first child.

...well, she's not impressed with the relevant government, but it isn't as though she was before. 

The date format is not familiar. She feeds that into the datahook, looking for where uses those dates. 

Her datahook still has no idea what she's talking about.

This is really bizarre. 

Somewhere isolated that refused network-connection? (She sends Marchess some updated information and questions.)

And, not the most immediate concern, however. ...they've shown themselves to not always be good about public warding; any medical records that might show her? (She's not optimistic, again. It's obviously not good if anyone sufficiently good at scrying can find someone's birth announcement just from being near said person, but medical records are quite a step up in seriousness. But she'll make the attempt.)

She can absolutely get Denice's medical records.

(There's kind of a lot of them, too. Apparently whatever 'treatment' they were doing to her counts.)

Oh, great.

She 'looks' through them. 

They seem to be under the impression that training her like a dog is the only way to get anything done. And not even the sort of dog training that starts with the assumption that dogs are smart enough to figure things out; the kind that assumes that they have to be rewarded or punished every step of the way.

They weren't shy with the punishments, either; a few years ago it became illegal for them to use some of the methods they had been - playing loud noises at her when she misbehaved, or spraying unpleasant-tasting chemicals in her mouth, or slapping her hands - and they used them right up to the very last day it was legal.

They don't know that she can read. They aren't entirely sure whether she understands when they talk. Apparently it's been ambiguous.

...

...what where they trying to 'train' her to do, anyway?

(Trying not to let their body language show any of their feelings so as not to scare Denice stopped being a very good solution at some point. She's been fading it instead - magic to make it unnoticed).

Act normal. Act happy. Not flap her hands, or fidget. Stay in her seat. Be quiet. Make eye contact. Talk - not 'talk about what she wants to', but 'give the correct scripted responses to questions'. Follow instructions, including very arbitrary instructions.

They got some actual education in there, too, but the records say she's at least five years behind compared to what they'd expect of a normal child her age.

...

(Her self thinks she needs to help anyone and everyone this is happening to, right now.

This is of course not very practical. That of course doesn't make it less anything else.)

...anything else in the records?

They have in fact been keeping track of her nutrition and weight - they want her hungry enough that food is a compelling reward, but not malnourished enough to be in danger.

She has ever seen a doctor - it seems like she gets a fairly perfunctory and entirely nonmagical yearly checkup, which hasn't picked up on the heart problem or joint issues.

There are records of her having been drugged, restrained, and/or sent to seclusion for 'agitation' and 'noncompliance'. (Again, no mention of magic being used in any way.)

She was admitted to White Willow when she was five, with a diagnosis of... some word she's not familiar with... with intellectual disability.

Oh, is that why they're doing it wonderful.

And didn't care to pick up on anything else looks like. And yes they seem all around unwilling to pay mages to bother with their charges, here. Though at the least doesn't look like they were using any magic against the kids either. That's - nowhere near enough, but. Better than the alternative.

She pushes on her self to continue to do practical things rather than less useful things-in-the-genre-of-screaming.

And - if they don't even ward their medical records can she get any more less general-public-facing materials? 

Yep.

In fact it seems like they don't ward anything whatsoever.

Well, it's not like she has any good opinion of them to lose but she can think poorly of them in this area as well as think - horribly - of them in others.

Scrying, scrying. Anything more about Denice? About the 'Asylum' in general?

Admission records, financial records relating to her care, general notes about her behavior, logs of recreational activities (she watches a lot of TV, and is read to by one of the other children fairly often; she occasionally plays games or makes art, but not regularly; she doesn't seem to get much physical activity, or ever go outside), a few random notes about room changes and staff interactions and such; a detailed report of an incident some months ago where she successfully hid part of her lunch a few times, got staff to replace it, and passed the food along to another resident later. (She was, of course, punished when she was caught, and separated from the kid she'd helped.)

The asylum doesn't ward its own records, either, and keeps plenty of them. Anything Shen wants to look for is available; not just things relating to the children kept there, but staff records, payroll, administrative notes...

(Bless/goodness, Denice...) (She squeezes Shen's hand again.)

That is very bizarre. 

She restrains herself from beginning to form more theories; better to wait till she has more information about something like their government and such.

She will skim through for anything else that seems strongly or immediately relevant to information about Denice and what she might need, and note the rest to investigate later.

A list of dietary restrictions has her, and several other children, down as being on a finger-food diet; there's nothing else of particular interest.

Any indication if this is a punishment or manipulation type restriction, or something else?

None of the other things on the list seem to be punishments, at least to casual reading, and food-based rewards and punishments are listed elsewhere in her paperwork; it's probably something else.

Alright. (Well, of course they have a section for it...)

What else is on the list?

Food restrictions, mostly: some of the children are allergic to peanuts, or fish, or eggs, and there's a smattering of other allergies listed; some are on special diets, with the type of diet noted in the list and the diets' restrictions listed at the end; a few are on a type of restriction that's described with a word Denice doesn't know, which isn't explained.

Alright. She recalls the pencils; having thought of it takes another look at records for any other mention of related things. 

(She messages the updated food-needs information to Laeres.)

- yep, her motor skills are pretty bad. They've tried to work with her on it, but for this, at least, they didn't push when it didn't seem to help.

Well, preferable to the alternative. (She vaguely wonders how they make decisions about what to 'value' forced performance of; not that that's in any way of general high importance.)

Anything like metrics? And, any more things of similar sorts they should be keeping in mind?

She mostly has trouble with small things; she can hold thick crayons or markers but not regular ones, for example, though she's not very good with them in any case. The notes here also explain why she's on the finger food diet: she can't use utensils well enough to avoid making a mess, even if they're thickened so that she can hold them.

Heria pulls up where she can feed this into her datahook to get appropriate further product recommendations and the like. She doesn't suppose they tried any kinds of typing or other such things?

(And, how is Denice doing meanwhile?)

(Still watching TV, or possibly staring off into space in its general direction.)

They don't seem to have tried to get her to type at all; some of the exercises when they were trying to get her to be able to use writing implements involved tracing letters in their alphabet, but that wasn't a focus, most of them used shapes or simple drawings. When they tried to teach her to read, they didn't get that far; they started by trying to get her to identify letters by pointing, and according to their notes she wasn't able to do it reliably, even after several months of trying.

...not that it would not be more than understandable and legitimate to hide things from or deceive 'them' without any further reason, but do the records have anything that would be a more specific reason to hide reading abilities? Would showing them have been dangerous or led to negative consequences in some way?

Nothing obvious. Possibly there'd be something in one of the other kids' records.

She'll look at general records first - policies, scheduling...

They do demand more academic work of children who are more able to do it.

She's assuming even worse meanings to 'demand' than the general ones. Should she be reading the same into 'academic work'?

Not especially, actually. There are laws about what benchmarks children are expected to meet, when they can; they don't seem to care about surpassing that standard.

Alright. And, she thinks she knows enough that there's not current call to be looking at should-be-warded records of people who aren't here in front of her.

It looks like she might be wary of reading if she knows they'll see her doing it (with good reason...). Which would be easier to arrange something for if they could find books in her language...

But, as the meanwhile is -

She consults silently with Shen again. (Denice has seemed to be doing well enough, acutely, and time without watchers in the room is an important thing, and knowing she may leave it is also.)

"We're going to go do some things out of this room for a little. You're welcome to stay here, or to also look around the house, if you want. If you need us again, that button on the remote will call us back." (House is already warded - for children, but there's no reason it should be dangerous to Denice.)

Does she respond in any way?

She looks up, a second after Heria starts talking, and nods slightly and goes back to watching the TV when she's done.

They leave.

She stays on the couch for a while - about fifteen minutes - in case this is a test, and then she gets up to check out the room's exits.

The room has one of those! It leads out into an entrance-hall type thing. 

...yeah, no, she's not going out there.

Anything else interesting in the room?

Aside from the couch, chairs, and wallscreen, there's bookshelves with spines in languages she won't recognize, drawers she won't be able to open, decorations on the walls and some of the shelves. One corner has various children's toys and games.  

She doesn't try to open the drawers, or touch the books. She does take a closer look at the toys.

There's a variety. Dolls of various sorts, some costumes, little tool and craft kits, some table games and some floor games, construction sets, what she may or may not recognize as little spaceships and little flying-transport looking things. 

Nothing very interesting, and anyway she'll probably be introduced to them soon enough. (...probably. These adults are very strange.)

Does this room have any windows?

It does. Large windows, with curtains that are currently open.

And what's outside?

More houses. Apartment building-looking, if she know what that looks like. A street in between. No cars anywhere to be seen. 

...that's new. That's very new. And a little alarming. She stays there, watching.

If she keeps watching, she might see people! Three adults and a kid go into one of the buildings together. A teenage-looking person comes out of one of the other ones. They have an unfamiliar-to-her square thing slung over their back. They take it off, step onto it, and fly away on it.

The TV coming to the end of one show and beginning another startles her out of her daze, after a while. She considers her situation: this isn't the kind of thing it'll be hard to refuse, if they try to use it to manipulate her, it's safe enough that way. But it is something she wants to keep being able to do - people, gosh, outside people, people who are probably not staff, and they're just right there somehow - and there's a chance they'll take it away just on general principle, if they see that she cares about it. On the other hand, there's not a huge risk of that, and if she limits herself to only watching out the window when they can't see her, that's almost as bad as not being able to do it at all, probably. (Surely they aren't going to leave her alone like this on a regular basis; it doesn't even occur to her to consider that they might.) So the answer is pretty straightforward.

She goes and gets the food bar, quickly finishes the rest of it, and finds somewhere comfortable to sit and people-watch.

Then she will see some more people. 

People come in down the street and enter buildings, or exit buildings and walk away down the street. Some kids meet up outside and race around the street on wheeled contraptions. Two people appear out of nowhere outside of one of the buildings, have what looks like an argument, then go inside. 

People appearing out of nowhere is. new. though she supposes it happened to her, too. It's still deeply weird that she hadn't heard of it before, if it's as commonplace as they're treating it.

She keeps watching.

About the same patterns continue. After a while the same two people come back out of the building and disappear again. 

Yeah. That's not surprising, really, but she still has feelings about it. She curls up a little - it's so weird being the only kid here. (She still wants a hug.)

After a little more time, there's a knock on the outside of the (open) living room doorway, and Heria is standing there. 

She startles at the sound, and immediately forces herself to relax again before looking up.

"Hey, sorry to startle you.

It's absolutely alright if you don't want to look around the house, but I thought there were a few things you could want to know, still."

(Had the files Shen found said anything about whether she needed assistance in restroom use?)

(She has staff assigned to her for showers, a few times a week; no mention either way about anything else.)

She watches; it's obvious that she's a little nervous.

"Do you usually need support in the restroom? It is absolutely alright either way."

From her reaction it's clear that she doesn't want help, but also that she won't resist if they decide to accompany her. Whether she needs it is less clear.

What she wants is as important as it can be, here. 

"Ok." And she explains how to reach the restroom from this room. "Do you think you'd be able to find it and go there, if you needed? It's alright if not, we won't be upset, and we'd see what we could do to help."

(She should have thought of this much earlier. Distracted by worry is a reason, but not excuse. She's taken on this work, she needs to do it well. But she is a human also, and in this way it is. Understand, and remember, and try better.)

She looks not just dubious but alarmed, when Heria starts giving directions.

"Ok. I'm sorry. Does that sound too complicated, or something you're not sure you'd be able to do? Or is there some other problem? Nod if it's the first one?"

"There's some other problem?"

"Eeh?"

"Ok. Would it help if one of us walked with you to go there?"

She's not happy about that suggestion, but she doesn't tense back up, either.

"Ok. Well, if you realize you need to use a restroom, and you call us, we can walk over with you. And if you don't want to do that, and you want to do it yourself, or try to, that's absolutely alright. And if you realize in the middle you need help, or something goes wrong, that's still alright, and we can come try to help then."

She shrugs, and then nods.

"Ok. 

Is there anything else you think you need right now?"

She shakes her head.

"Ok. Do you want company, or would you rather be on your own some more? Nod if you'd want me to stay, or Shen to come back. We won't mind either way."

(This is so weird, this is not how anything works, any moment now she's going to give a wrong answer and... she can handle it, whatever happens, she knows she can, but not knowing what will happen, or when, is scary.

Whatever. She'll deal with it when it happens. Relax, relax, everything goes so much worse if you let them get to you...)

She shrugs.

She can tell Denice is tense, but that kind of help needs more knowing about her than they have. She keeps her body language and tone as reassuring as she can.

And, she doesn't seem wanting-but-pushing-it-down, and asking them to come back later can be easier done than asking them to leave later. 

"OK. If you want us or need something, just push the signal button or call and we'll be right there."

And she leaves again.

Hopefully it won't be too awful when this finally blows up in her face.

She goes back to watching out the window.

Even if they knew about it more exactly, this is a sort of problem that is hard to address directly. Except by not blowing up, and keeping anything else from it, and waiting.

Life outside the window continues about as before.

Even if she wasn't incredibly good at handling boredom, this is new. She'll watch as long as she's allowed.

(Yes, it's approaching dinnertime. Yes, she's hungry. No, she's not going to do anything about that. They'll feed her or they won't, and thinking about it is not to her benefit.)

And before too much longer she will see a man walking down the street toward the building she is in, holding a young boy's hand while a girl skips ahead. Depending on angle, she may or may not see them go inside. Soon after that may or may not hear the door, and then talking in the entrance hallway.

She comes out to hug Laeres and the kids, explain what is better done so in person, warn Zasi and Leran not to go into the living room for now. 

Then she goes back to the living room.

"Hey, my husband just came home; we asked him to pick up some food that might be better for you than what we just already had. We have some new food bars or drinks, or we can make something more meal-like for you.

Do you know what you might want better?"

She doesn't quite manage to hide the alarm that this question evokes, but she makes a good attempt, and shrugs.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.

Nod if you want a bar, and I'll bring you some, and if not we can get a meal together for you?"

She looks for a moment like she's going to curl up and stop responding again, but instead just turns away.

"OK. I'm going to get your tablet to show you some meal options. If you find one you like, you can touch it on the screen, and we'll get you that one. Otherwise we'll just get a selection and you can pick from that.

Whatever you pick is alright, we're just as glad to get you whatever it is you might like."

"I'm sorry. Is there something about that that will hurt you, or that won't work?"

And now she does curl up.

"I'm sorry.

You don't have to believe me, but it's ok, whatever problem there is we won't be upset at you and we'll do our best to help and whatever you need is ok..."

Uh-huh. She doesn't uncurl.

"Ok.

If you'd like me to stay with you, nod or do something like that? And if not I can leave you alone again."

"Mrh." Noncommittal and grumpy; 'do whatever you want', perhaps.

That is not something like nodding, and this is the best she can do with what she has right now.

"Ok. The tablet will show you the meal ideas - you don't have to look at them. You can call us any time."

And she leaves.

She waits, again; uncurls; looks, carefully avoiding touching it, at the tablet.

It is inviting her to look at some meal varieties!

She is not in fact going to touch it, no matter what it's inviting her to do.

After a little bit it'll start paging through them itself. 

She flinches, a little, when it starts, but keeps watching - she's not expecting to learn much from what's on offer and what they end up giving her, but she might learn something, and it might be important.

In what she may or may not find odd, basically all the food items are not going to look familiar to her.

There's familiar types of things - what look like fruits and vegetables, what look like cooked grains. And there's things one probably can't notice it with at this level of detail - bread and soup and and dumplings and such look pretty much like bread and soup dumplings and don't obviously display their ingredients. But the fruits, vegetables, grains, and so on are not going to be anything she's seen before.

That's weird. And alarming. Very alarming, in fact. She'd assumed - it had really seemed to be the case - that books and television were a reliable and relatively uncensored window to the outside world. But if they weren't - if they'd managed to keep something this basic from her, if they'd bothered to keep something this basic from her - then there's very little of what she knows that she can actually trust.

She curls up again. To think about it, supposedly.

Heria, meanwhile, is consulting with Shen again. 

If she was guessing from Denice's responses she might have guessed something like 'punished for eating', but that didn't seem to be in the documentation?

Shen double-checks.

(Shen has monitoring going for things like alarming vital sign changes, but just curling up the body position won't send off alerts.)

Nothing in the documentation about being punished for eating, no.

Her heart rate is a little alarming. Breathing's not looking so hot, either. Panic attack, looks like.

That will send off alerts. 

She'll come running but not actually go inside - stay outside the door and out of sight. It's guessing and she wishes it wasn't, but Denice has generally seemed more nervous of them than lonely for them and calmed by them. 

But if it keeps going on she'll try intervening. 

Yeah, it's not going to stop that fast.

She's curled up in the chair by the window, still and quiet but very tense, her breaths quick and ragged.

She comes into the room, carefully.

"Hey,

It's ok, we're not going to hurt you - 

Did something happen that hurts you?"

She doesn't move, doesn't respond. Tries to slow her breathing, doesn't get very far on that.

"It's ok to be upset, I'm not going to be mad at you, I only want to try to help..."

She tries to think - the food topic had obviously been fraught - but she was starved, of course it is likely to be, and the details she still doesn't know. But this hadn't happened until she'd left the room...

She looks at the tablet - untouched, still paging through foods. She has it stop that.

"Was there something upsetting on any of the food slides?"

She whimpers. It sounds vaguely positive.

Meanwhile - Heria is sharing with her, updates as she sees or thinks them.

hadn't happened until she'd left the room

and oh, oh hell, if it is - 

She casts to the house's ward monitor, runs through it, runs through it again, runs through the actual wards - nothing, nothing, but -

She used to say things to me in my head at work sometimes she sends back to Heria (who knows that) just - out of nothing, if she wanted to. I wouldn't have panicked at it, I didn't, but -

I checked all the wards, there's nothing, but if she wanted to get in and leave nothing enough she could do it -

She doesn't flinch, because that would not be the body language she's holding.

"Ok.

I'm so sorry, I didn't think of this, Shen just reminded me - did you hear someone saying things your head, or something like that?" (Denice doesn't seem to have the actual word - has a word ('telepathy') for something like fictional kinds of mental communication, but not the actual one. Not necessarily strange, that, and documentation's already told them limited magic exposure.)

She curls up tighter, and stops even trying to stay calm.

"It's ok, it wouldn't be your fault, we wouldn't be mad at you, we - " (what and how much does she say...) "we think we know who'd be doing it, and Shen will try very, very hard to get her to stop and never bother you again, we won't give you to her..."

(There's still no messages there's nothing in the wards did she do something to bring this on what did she do how does she fix it -)

The very quiet panic attack continues.

"Can you - nod if you heard someone in your head, shake your head if you didn't? If you can't it's alright, we won't be angry with you."

Headshake. Headshake headshake headshake. Trembling.

For this she'll do the truthspell.

Truth?

Yup.

Thank Heaven.

"OK. I'm sorry. If you did it would be ok, we wouldn't be angry with you, it wouldn't be your fault, we'd want to get her to stop if she was hurting you..."

She doesn't uncurl. She's still trembling. Her breathing evens out just the slightest bit, maybe.

And questions can make things worse in ways they didn't predict...

"Ok. 

I can - keep trying to understand what hurt you, now, or I can try to help in some other way, or I can - go away again. All of those are alright.

Nod if you want me to stay and maybe try, shake your head if you want me to leave for now?"

Headshake headshake headshake. She tries to curl up tighter but it's not really physically possible.

"Ok. I'm sorry." She leaves.

It takes a while for her to calm down even a little.

She would help if she could, but that isn't what they have, and she isn't staying against Denice's wishes.

She briefly checks on Laeres and the kids, then goes and hugs Shen.

"I keep thinking I should just - call her. But if this is a - game - or if she didn't even do it at all -"

Hug.

She pays attention to the monitor, and to alerts of anything getting worse again.

It doesn't get worse overall. It doesn't get better, really, either; she keeps calming down slightly and then freaking out again. (And this can't be great for her heart.)

Eventually, she seems to wear herself out; if they have a way of monitoring her mood, or her stress level, they'll be able to tell she's not really calm, but she stops actively panicking and just lays there.

She is not coming in when she was empathetically told to leave; there is magic for physiological calming but they are not doing that without consent or serious danger.

The monitors are physiological. They can tell. (She needs to do something she needs to do something it's still happening she's still letting it happen -)

(Heria hugs her.)

She lays there, and before too long she falls asleep.

They discuss potential causers of the distress -

One of the particular foods shown has bad associations? Holders would do something like offer them 'extra' food and then taunt or punish them for wanting it? Punishment for interest in choosing food?

Documentation search for suggestive things? Of these or anything else?

There's a lot of focus on food, and one of the steps in their training method is to offer a variety of foods and see which ones a kid is interested in so that they can offer them later. The method they use isn't much like what Heria did, but that might not matter. (Denice in particular likes chocolate, apparently, whatever that is.) There are a few mentions in some of the records of staff taunting residents with food, but it seems to be rare and not approved of; they're reprimanded for it whenever it's reported.

"so that they can offer them later" how, exactly?

(What was their method?)

Their method was to sit a kid down at a table and offer small amounts of different foods, one at a time, and record how the kid reacted to them; then later when they were trying to train a kid to do something they'd give them a little bit of a food that they liked as a reward for doing it correctly. In theory, a kid could earn up to a normal diet's amount of food that way; if they earned below a certain amount on a given day they'd get a little more to eat at mealtime to make sure they were getting enough to keep them healthy.

Blessed earth. 

Should have looked before

Hug. Familiar comforts. They try, and they learn, and they go on.

(They loop in Laeres to the most recent things.)

Shudder

Alright. Given the Asylum's - approach, do they have existing records of what kinds of food Denice likes?

If they want to trust them, yep. Sweets, mostly: chocolate, marshmallows, gummy candy, pancakes, strawberries, and chocolate milk.

Anything with respect to meal-type foods?

They don't have notes on that for her, since it isn't part of the training. They can see the menu for the whole facility, though, to get an idea of what she'd be familiar with in general: it's a fairly uninspired collection of kid-friendly foods, with at least one entree that can be eaten by hand available for each meal and lots of sandwiches.

Alright. 

(Some of the foods don't translate in words, but that's not too strange. (Certainly not comparatively).)

Shen does a search on the strange foods, in case that's more helpful than searching the alphabet was.

Nope. One of them comes up, but it's an obscure linguistic term, not a food.

So not by alphabet and not by concept-of-item or by pronounced word either (in case it was just the particular alphabet that's this obscure). That continues to be increasingly bizarre...

They consult on food plans. Asking her to choose is, now that they know, not very much something they want to do anymore. The actual identified foods could be more likely to have bad associations. If they had more they could have tried to use features to identify more foods she might like, but that is not what they do have.

(Is Denice herself still asleep?)

Yep.

Reading more documentation to avoid missing things like this again.

Spending time with other family members as well as planning and such like.

They've already read about the aversives, and the general punishments; that's all there is in that vein. (Being punished for being agitated certainly explains why she wanted to be left alone while panicking.) Much of her early training was focused on getting her to stop stimming (a technical term, but she knows it: fidgeting, in the ways that kids like her fidget as opposed to the ways adults or other kinds of kids fidget; in particular rocking and hand-flapping), follow instructions, make eye contact, and be generally quiet and still, and more recently it's been focused on simple academic work and attempting to get her to talk more.

...yes, that would

('early training', blessed earth.)

That first might be clarifying on her possibly belonging to a group they didn't like where she was from... (Some of the rest seems more their-convenience oriented.)

I wish I was at all confident we could get them brought up on charges...

Hug.

She's had a break; she will try scrying the country Denice is from. 

It's... entirely unfamiliar. And large, and powerful.

It's a large universe. 

Hm, republic, several hundred million people...

Space traffic for the last... month? Extranet signature?

Nothing launched past the planet's moon, and nothing manned sent even that far, and no extranet signature whatsoever.

That would support the 'isolated and refused network connection'.

(What was L even doing there? Why -)

She stops looking - might not be something she's supposed to be doing. (Still nothing in any messages...)

And they will all discuss plans and do various other work and watch for if Denice wakes up.

She does, after a long nap: she startles, looks around the room without moving, and nestles a little further back into the chair.

She'll come in again, quietly.

"Hey.

I'm really sorry, we should have known this earlier. In the place where you were before, if you let them know foods you liked, they used it to hurt you?

We're not going to do that, but you don't have to believe me, and I'm sorry to have done something that looked like we were doing that.

And it wasn't something bad you did to be upset, and we're not going to be mad at you for being upset."

She watches and listens, and when Heria's done talking, she shrugs, exhaustedly noncommittal, and then winces and, after a few moments' pause, extracts herself carefully from the chair. She pauses again when she stands, swaying slightly - it's not great to go this long on this little food, but she'll manage, she always does - and heads for the door; she stops well shy of what would be considered being near it and checks Heria's response to this.

She gets out of the way so Denice can walk through. 

She tenses up anyway, approaching closer, and stops again to steel herself before actually stepping through the doorway. Fortunately the restroom is nearby, and simple enough to get to that she remembers the instructions; she stops again outside the closed door.

If Denice doesn't open if for more than a few moments, she'll have her datahook get it to open.

She'll wait a minute.

She peers in. Are the facilities recognizable, at least?

They're not identical but there's a sink and the other thing is identifiable enough as the toilet-type-thing.

Close enough. In she goes, closing the door behind her.

She'll wait around in case Denice turns out to need anything.

She's not quick about it, but the door opens again before a particularly unreasonable amount of time has passed.

No need for her to hurry.

Well, here she is, anyway, looking tense, nervous, and a little shaky, but at least much improved from the earlier panic. Now what?

Is she going back to the room?

Nope. She seems to be waiting to see what Heria is going to do.

"Is there anything you need? You can walk around the house if you want."

"Eat?"

"I'm so sorry, yes, of course. Do you want to go to the dining room - there's a table," (she gestures in a direction) "- or shall I bring it to the room?"

Shrug.

"Ok. If you want to follow me I'll be going by the dining room, and if not I'll bring the food to the room. Either one is very alright and I won't mind if you change your mind later." She goes toward the kitchen.

She follows.

Here is the dining room. It has a table and chairs. She can stay there, or follow Heria to the kitchen.

Standing is not actually something she wants to be doing right now; it's a bit of an effort not to collapse. She sits at the table and looks around the room.

Dining room! More windows, and decorations on the walls, and its own toy corner. Various extra chairs around the walls. 

And presently Heria comes in with some food and more water. It's all non-utensil food - there's soup but it's equipped to be drunk. It's set out to be customizable - various things you can put or not put on a sandwich, that kind of thing. Portion-controlled for the careful-with-amount-post-malnutrition issue. 

"If you would rather be able to choose more, I can bring more options. Nod if you want that. Otherwise, if you don't want to eat something here I'll just replace it."

She doesn't respond to that, but starts eating, methodically: she doesn't seem to realize that the extra ingredients are meant to go on the sandwiches, but eats them anyway once the sandwiches are gone, finishing each before moving on to the next; she seems to think that the soup is a beverage.

She doesn't rush, but she doesn't stop, either, until her plate is clean.

Those are fine ways to eat. And when she's done?