Unfortunately, not everyone in the campground feels the same way as Koshnak about her unaccompanied status.

She gets no music lessons that night, since Emi is off with Koshnak, but the next morning as the wagons are loading up she overhears an exchange between Emi and another woman:

"--he says that she's traveling alone. Does that mean... did he--?"

"No. No. I've known Kosh for a long time and he would never--"

The two of them get interrupted by another couple of passing nomads, but their correspondence picks back up again a few seconds later.

"--she's probably an orphan or a runaway looking for food or a way to travel?"

"But this *still* isn't any sort of place for an unaccompanied minor! The roads aren't safe and... even if you're sure Koshnak wouldn't hurt a child, can you say the same for all the other ruffians in this band? He lets anyone in, Mhina."

"You're right." The other woman pauses at the edge of the wagon. "We should make sure she's okay."

"--how? I don't even know where she gets off to during the day? I assumed she was with her parents but now I'm worried--" Emi steps into the vehicle overhead, passing within inches of the girl's hiding place in the process. Emi and the other woman exchange a few more muffled words, then the doors close and the wagons set off along the parched wilderness trail.

...that's going to be unpleasant to deal with.

She stays in her hammock that evening, until most everyone has gone to bed, and then creeps out to get a meal from dinner's leftovers.

Emi's waiting out there, patiently, right beside the food.

Darn.

She makes sure she has an escape route, but approaches anyway.

"Hey. So I think you and I need to talk about something."

Emi holds out some food for her, making no moves to bar her escape route while doing so.

"Mmm?"

She takes the food.

"Koshnak says you don't actually have parents traveling with you. Is that true?"

Sigh.

Nod.

"Do you understand why I would find that concerning?"

Shrug.

(That people find it concerning, yeah, she's noticed. It doesn't really make sense, though. She's fine. It's not like sending her back would make anything any better.)

"I want you to be okay." Emi wishes the girl would be more talkative, but she tries her best not to let her frustration slip through. She thinks back to what Mhinasukambre said about their stowaway's likely background. "And I understand if you don't have somewhere else to be okay. I... I kind of don't either, in a way?"

Then what's the problem?

Be an adult, Emi chastises herself, and articulate this clearly.

"I don't like that you were pretending you had someone looking after you when you don't, though. It's dangerous out here, and nobody should be alone, least of all a child?"

That last bit gets a skeptical squint, like she thinks Emi is confused about something.

"Yeah. I feel like I'm not getting something here." She sighs. "Sorry... is there any way you can explain?"

"Mmm."

She considers, and then hums the first few bars of one of the songs Emi's been teaching her, about an adventurer who made it safely through a troll band's territory by pretending to be one.

"Oh. That makes sense."

...

"I'm not upset with you for hiding that at first." It's a good song. Her grandma used to sing it to her, back when she was little. "But I'd like it if you could be honest with me from now on? I... I'd like to look out for you, while you're here, and I can't do that if I don't know what's going on."

She rocks back a step and looks down, thinking about it.

Emi conjures up some dancing lights.

It takes the girl a second to notice them; when she does, she scowls.

She puts the lights away.

And waits.

She comes to a conclusion after a few more seconds; looks up, nods, turns, and takes a few steps towards the wagons, then looks back over her shoulder to see if Emi is following.