Mhinasukambre glances over at the girl beside her, and says to Emi: "I'm sorry it happened this way, but... you know she was going to find out eventually?"

"No! She wasn't. She was going to get off at the next town we passed through, safe, carefree, with nothing but happy memories about us!"

Mhinasukambre raises an incredulous eyebrow, looking to their stowaway expectantly.

"Were you?"

She shrugs.

"Yes. She would've. And she still will, less the carefree and happy memories bit."

Mhinasukambre remains a little unsure about this assertion of Emi's, but doesn't challenge it further.

Instead, she hunches down against the wall of the wagon and motions for the girl to step up into the space as well so that they can be approximately eye-to-eye.

"What you saw last night was really scary, wasn't it?"

"If you want, we can pretend it never happened. That's fine. That works for some people. Alternately, if you ask me to, I can explain better what's going on. For some other people, that makes things less scary?"

"No."

She seems skeptical of the idea of pretending it never happened even before Mhina offers to explain. But when Emi objects, she pauses, waiting to see if she'll explain.

Further words from Emi do not seem to be forthcoming.

And Emi's advice hasn't been all that good.

She nods.

"Koshnak thinks that folks should be able to do pretty much whatever they want, if they're strong enough to? And some of the things that he likes doing... they hurt people." Mhinasukambre does an admirable job of keeping her tone level and her words clear of revulsion. "Almost all the adults in this camp have been hurt by him before. Me included."

Welp.

"You're only going to frighten her more with talk like that."

"There are two important things for you to understand here--"

Mhina pauses long enough for Emi to finish being contrary, and then resumes speaking to the young stowaway.

"The first is that you're not going to get hurt like that. Not by Koshnak. And not by anyone else, either, if I'm around to have a say in the matter."

Emi makes a protective sound, and nods along to what Mhinasukambre just said.

"The second thing is that... this isn't your fault. What's happening to us won't be your fault if you leave at the next town, and it won't be your fault if you stay either. Do you understand that?"