Running an hour, right, of course, of course they are going to run for an hour straight, what else would they possibly be doing, Haley hates her life.

Right now it seems like Iomedae trusts her. Does she want to risk that?

Nicole might actually never forgive Haley if Iomedae successfully gets lost and then it later comes out that she actually had any genuine reason to believe her foster parents actually might kill her. Also Aleksei would never forgive her and she's pretty sure Lucy would never forgive her either and.... yeah okay she can't actually let this kid get away. 

She will, very reluctantly and not very quickly, run. 

"I don't know where she might be headed," Jenny tells the police responder. "No, I don't think she has any friends. No, she doesn't have a phone...no, she doesn't have a credit card..."

Nicole explains the situation concisely and quietly to Ludmila while Jenny is on the phone and she's de-armouring. It turns out Ludmila is the event steward, and Nicole is very glad to discover that it is someone she trusts to not panic. 

Ludmila knows the exact address of the site and can give it to Jenny! She is also getting her phone out so she can take notes for the incident report that she will have to file later. And making sure that Jenny seems like she's staying calm.

"Alright, I think I'm going to actually get my car so I can check the nearby roads more efficiently. Jenny, would you prefer to stay here with Ludmila or come with me to look for her?" 

"Ill come with you to look for her," Jenny mouths, still on the phone. "No, she doesn't have a history of this - I don't think she saw anybody she knew but maybe -"

Very well then!

Nicole will detour quickly back to her dayshade to drop her armour and get her car key, and then she can lead the way to her car. It is a very very nice car and Nicole is suddenly anxious about whether she will feel very bad if Jenny is clearly judging her for it. Nothing she can really do about that now. She's not going to make any kind of deflecting remark while Jenny's on the phone with the police. 

She will take the time to take the convertible's top down, though, because it seems pretty convenient to be able to drive slowly around the back roads shouting Iomedae's name in all directions, and the roof would be an impediment.

"Go ahead and hop in," she says to Jenny, gesturing at the passenger seat.

(She grabs a towel from the back and puts it over her own chair before she gets in the driver's seat, because she is absolutely drenched in armour-sweat and she doesn't want to ruin the leather.) 

"Thank you. Yes." Jenny hangs up. "They think she'll probably come back in a couple minutes," she says doubtfully. "I guess they probably see this stuff a lot."

Nicole feels immediately so much better behind the wheel of her car. It's so much less effort to radiate calm when you're actually feeling remotely calm and not secretly a tense brick of anxiety!

"They probably do," she reassures Jenny as she starts the car. "Lots of teenagers have emotional outbursts, but she's probably not going to find her answers in a big empty field."

She carefully navigates the car out of the parking lot, which is really just a field where people have collectively done their best to arrange cars in straight lines and leave gaps in all the necessary places. Luckily Nicole was one of the earliest arrivals, so she's already parked pretty close to the entrance/exit. 

"Yeah," says Jenny. "And she probably doesn't realize that since she's in care it's a big deal if she storms off. I'm so sorry for all the trouble."

"She probably doesn't. Please, really, don't even worry about it. She's nowhere near as much trouble as the worst we've had," Nicole carefully doesn't say Roger's name but she wouldn't even be surprised if Jenny could guess, "and goodness knows we might all be a bit emotional in her situation. I mean, one year at Pennsic, probably, gosh, more than twenty years ago, when I was a few years older than her, I stormed off into the woods and only came back when I realised I was hungry. Being at a camping event with all these different things going on, spending so much time with the same people, it can be a lot even if you're not in care."

"I think it's been hard on her," says Jenny. "She's very far behind in school, and - they dropped charges against the man, and - I don't mind if she needs some time to herself, but we need to know she's safe -"

"We'll make sure she's safe," she promises. "Haley - oh, by the way, if you need to give any of our names to the police, just check with me if you don't know anyone's mundane name. I'm only Duchess Nicole at an SCA event, I'm just Cahaya anywhere else. Sorry, just occurred to me since Haley hasn't really got an SCA name just yet. Anyway, Haley went after her right away, so we'll probably just be catching up. I can't believe they dropped charges," she can unfortunately absolutely believe it due to extensive exposure to the myriad flaws of the system, "but I suppose at least Iomedae won't have to go through testifying in court? I can imagine that being really stressful for her."

She just keeps talking in a calming conversational tone while she drives (very carefully) down the dirt road that leads to the actual road off site. Let Jenny see that she feels in control of the situation. 

 Haley is not a very fast runner, but you are not allowed to leave people to die just because they are not very fast runners. They're making progress. Iomedae is scouting out barns that might be a safe place to hide from the helicopters, which she infers are flying creatures, and keeping an eye out for pursuit, and praying fervently for Aroden.

When she hears the car approaching she tackles Haley and pulls her down flat into the very limited cover offered by the soybeans.

Nicole pulls the car out onto the main road and does a very slow circuit of the roads around the event site. Midway through the first big field, she pulls up by the side of the road and cuts the engine so she and Jenny can listen out for responses.

"IOMEDAE!" she yells. She's no herald, but she has enough singing training to know how to project. "You're not in trouble! We just want to know you're safe! Please shout if you can hear me!"

No response. 

Haley, being miles away from Nicole by now, hears nothing.

She's just noticing the existence of a car in the distance, and considering whether it's worth trying to persuade Iomedae that most people are basically friendly and likely to help them if they flag a car down, when - ow

Being tackled by someone twice her body weight is sufficient to knock all the air out of her body.

The car zooms past before Haley recovers the ability to make any noise. The roads around here are mostly 55mph speed limits, and it's easy to not notice much at those speeds. 

Haley makes a soft sort of "heeee" sound as she tries to unstick all her rib muscles and convince them to give her some oxygen.

"Why," is all she can manage to get out. 

It does not even occur to Iomedae to apologize. She lies there tensely until the car passes, watching through the soybeans. When it's gone she stands and offers Haley her hand. "God with us," she says encouragingly. "No one see us. Not too more, then we find a barn."

"You know we don't have to hide from everyone, right?" 

At this point Haley is starting to wonder if Iomedae was raised in some kind of cult, and assumes her foster parents are also connected to whoever hurt her before she was taken into care, and has concluded that all of society is out to get her. But clearly Iomedae trusts that she's not scary enough to run from, so... maybe she will let Haley go talk to a farmer? Maybe they can persuade someone to let them in and have a nice chat over sweet tea rather than hiding in a barn? She wants these things to be true because she is not sure how much more she can deal with after being tackled face first into a soybean field. She's got a bruise rapidly developing on her hip where she fell on the mug hanging from her belt, she's got mud on her handsewn garb, and she is super not into marathon running!

"If you tell me who you're trying to run from, I could go talk to the car people and then you could come out if they're safe." 

"When I sayed the name of my god, Katherine was angry, and goed to tell the Baronness - the woman in the dress I think? And she is evil. But now I run from all people, because foster childs are no allowed to run, and any person help a foster child run, Nicole kill them too?"

Haley has a lot of very confused thoughts.

Why would Katherine be angry about the name of Iomedae's God? Haley is pretty sure Katherine is the chill lowkey kind of Christian. Also how did the bake sale go badly enough that the volunteers were debating theology anyway? 

Lots of women were in dresses! This does not really narrow down whether Iomedae correctly identified a baroness, let alone which baroness she might have spotted!

Does she mean Elynor? Their local territorial Baroness is a chill person but she swears a lot and maybe Iomedae is religious enough to find that a damning moral flaw? But no, Iomedae said nothing about Haley swearing earlier.

Why the hell would -

"Um. Did you think Nicole was going to literally kill me?" 

Iomedae has not the faintest idea what 'literally' means. "You sayed, Nicole kill you. That is why you are running with me."

"Not literally! She's just a really intimidating person. She always makes me feel like she's quietly judging me for not being as polished as she is. I have my fair share of peer fear but she's not going to hurt you, she's just going to make you have nightmares about her disliking your Facebook posts." 

"I think if they find me, they kill me. Literally kill me. Because - no can have foster childs, if you do not kill the ones who run away. If they only take my hand I not sorry I tried."