???????

So she's from somewhere poor because she didn't learn English and there's a lot of sexism and she's maybe genuinely just this religious, but somewhere rich enough that teenagers with swordfighting hobbies can afford to have actual training with a steel sword, and Scripture says what now?

"Soy de Ujue, en Menador, en Taldor. Me sé todas las escrituras de memoria, aunque no en este idioma. Una vez pasé un año hablando solo con versículos de las escrituras. Estoy segura de que esto es lo que dice. También me enseñaron que las mujeres no tienen las virtudes marciales que tienen los hombres, y que las mujeres son más débiles que los hombres, y que las mujeres no están hechas para liderar a los hombres, y creo que estas cosas son verdad, y ninguna verdad es enemiga del Cielo; pero está permitido que las mujeres peleen, o Dios no me habría elegido, y la civilización exige muchas virtudes y algunas de ellas las poseen las mujeres. Decir que las mujeres son iguales a los hombres suena tan absurdo como decir que las mujeres son tan altas como los hombres, pero si lo que dice es que las virtudes estadounidense los hombres y las mujeres poseen las mismas, entonces me alegra y no me sorprende oírlo, porque las Escrituras dijeron que así sería."

"Hey, uh, were you fitting Iomedae for protective gear?" Because that is what she was told he was doing, and then instead he switched to Spanish to have some kind of emotionally intense conversation with her and someone who runs youth sports should really be aware that's not exactly appropriate!

"Yep! Just making sure she understands all the safety rules. We wouldn't want to risk her doing something dangerous because she didn't understand!" he lies because that is something that everyone will agree is important and appropriate.

He has never heard of Ujue, or Menador, or Taldor. He is also beginning to suspect that while this kid has definitely not actually been told about the entire system of magic and the various good reasons to keep it secret, she quite possibly has been exposed to magic and - maybe she got lost in a fey realm? That can happen very occasionally but he can't imagine the fey then giving the child back up to the American foster care system. He so badly wants to ask more questions in Spanish but Jenny is giving him a look and he definitely cannot ask those questions in a language that Robert or Jenny understand.

"So Iomedae, do those vambraces fit you okay?" 

Did he just lie. Iomedae cannot be complicit in that no matter how angry with her he is -

"Yes, sir. - we talked Spanish Scripture and women no safety rules."

Jenny's smile is slightly frozen.

WHY ON EARTH IS SHE - oh Jesus she probably was raised by the fey, can she not lie? 

"Right - and I told her we consider women equal here - apparently there's Scripture that says she isn't where she comes from? And I don't want her to worry about that!"

Switching the charm back on. Playing the sports coach role, right, yes. He slipped up but he knows how to play this part when he's not distracted by a mystery. "It's really important that girls learn they can hit as hard as boys - so, Iomedae, you and Lucy aren't exempt from the rules and you need to wear helmets if you want to hit each other, because you could do real damage otherwise, just like boys could."

Iomedae nods seriously. 

"That's great! And if Iomedae has classmates who want to speak Spanish with her, other kids in the kids' fighting class, of course that's fine too, it makes perfect sense that a kid might want to talk to her friends without her parents overhearing." Pointedly. 

Iomedae has absolutely no idea what's going on but she is pretty confident Jenny just insulted the knight in steel armor. "Please, sir, I and Jenny and Robert so glad all of us of this order, its holy work."

"I think Lucy studied it in high school, so if anything comes up we can definitely see if she can translate for Iomedae!" he says cheerfully, like someone who is absolutely certain that he's never done anything wrong in his life and has no idea why anyone would ever suspect him of even thinking about lying and is just gracefully accepting a correction on safety-conscious behaviour.

He's good at maintaining the masquerade, and at this point he's fairly convinced that some sort of magic is involved and he needs to talk to other people and figure out what to do before making any further progress on that particular mystery. If she's been exposed to magic and the fey is going around telling people about it insistently, they'll either have to bring her in on the secret of magic or they'll have to use memory magic. Jenny and Robert are definitely not the kind of people who should know about his secret double life involving slaying dragons and throwing fireballs. 

"So, Iomedae - the elbows fit?"

He doesn't want to put hands on her to show her how to put the elbow on - even with her permission he bets that will make her uncomfortable. So instead he'll slip his own elbow armour off - it's the same fundamental design, just in much shinier materials - and put it back on again with exaggeratedly careful movements, to show her how it works. There's two straps that buckle around the forearm and one that goes straight across the inside of the elbow. 

The elbows fit! She will show him her range of motion in case he has any concerns about it but she thinks it's reasonably unrestrictive as being armored goes.

"Reynhard! You have the spare demi, right? And those loaner chest pieces?" 

Reynhard has a gigantic and very messy gym bag of spare bits and pieces tucked behind his folding chair. He will throw pieces haphazardly onto the grass (his stance is that you don't have to be careful with armour because if you can break it then it wasn't doing you any good anyway) until he locates a demi and a plausible looking chest piece.

The demigauntlet is a ring of black plastic, sloped slightly into a cone-like shape, attached by a small piece of paracord to a semicircle of plastic that covers the back of the hand, kept in place by another piece of paracord that goes around the palm. The wrist protector ought to slip over a vambrace to keep force from being transferred into the delicate bones of the wrist. 

He also has a larger piece for the chest and back - two large curved plastic sheets connected by two straps that go over the shoulders and two that buckle around the sides.

"We don't actually require armour on the whole torso - it's required specifically for the kidneys - but since Iomedae is new and young I'd like to make sure she always has protection on her chest and stomach," he explains for Jenny and Robert's sake as he brings the pieces over.

"Iomedae, are you right or left handed? You'll only need a demi on your sword hand. The shield hand doesn't need one."

Are there people who hold swords in the other hand when dueling? What a concept. If you got good enough at it it'd probably be an advantage because people weren't used to countering it. Now that she's thought of it she wants to try it - no. She needs to show them that she is worth training further, not try silly things. "Sword hand is this one." It's her right. 

Reynhard will hold out the demigauntlet and try to help Iomedae get her hand into it, but it doesn't quite want to go over the vambrace that Gabriel's picked out. He sighs with frustration and goes back to the bin to pull out two more - one with a similar black plastic design, the other a single piece of wax-hardened leather that flares out onto both the back of the hand and the back of the wrist.

The third one will fit. 

The cuirass needs to be lifted over her head first and then buckled at the sides; if she expresses noticeable discomfort at being helped with the demigauntlets then he will stand back and let her try this herself. 

Gabriel is on edge about Iomedae's personal space but mostly thinks it will be helpful to radiate calm untroubledness. 

Iomedae does not want to be flinchy about being fitted for armor. Aroden wouldn't be. She is still very slightly flinchy about being fitted for armor. It doesn't help that Jenny is absolutely watching with the affect that Iomedae's chastity is in fact in question.

(This is not how Jenny would've phrased the concern!)

If Iomedae is noticeably flinchy about being helped with a demigauntlet he will stand back and get her to put the cuirass on herself!

"You will probably have to take the helmet off both for this and for a gorget. It'll go over your head easier if you're not wearing the helmet." 

In the background, a superhumanly elegant woman is pulling up to the church in a really, really nice car.

She gets out, hefts a gym bag over one shoulder, puts a folding chair on her other hip, slides a grocery bag over the end of the folding chair, and strides up the slope from the car park to the lawn with a bright smile on her face. Once she sets up her chair and organises her things, she waves to Reynhard and Gabriel and goes over to find out what is going on with the anxious-looking new people hovering around. 

"Reynhard, where can I put some extra snacks?" 

The way these people address each other is VERY CONFUSING. 

Iomedae is buckling the cuirass. It'll bite at her in a few places but it's honestly very good for armor not fitted to her.

"Does that fit okay, Iomedae? Feels comfortable to move in?" 

"....I'm pretty sure I have something better in my car."

Nicole is casting a very critical eye over the places where the cuirass might fit a boy who had a narrower straighter torso but doesn't look like it fits Iomedae; she bets it is uncomfortable around the chest and the sides pinch into her hips.

She wouldn't normally just interrupt but Sir Reynhard knows how annoyed she is about female fighters getting put in the same gear as male fighters and nobody telling them that armour isn't inherently supposed to be uncomfortable and ill-fitting. 

"I can fight in it, sir." And she nods her head to the approaching woman, who moves like she is important. "Ma'am."