There is not a dedicated ticket machine at the station but there is a convenience store right by it.

Yeah this is going to be really hard without a common language, but she's not desperate enough yet to try magically acquiring a language.

She'll head over to the convenience store (Bright now walking and holding her hand).

There's a purple haired person there stocking the shelves; when he sees them he hops behind the register and says something, smiling.

She is going to be a charmingly lost English tourist who likely doesn't have a common language! Or a weird glowing rectangle. Or money.

(She'd rather not try sneaking onto a train with her child in tow.)

The cashier gets out his own glowing rectangle and attempts to have her translated into the local language, which does not work at all. He's confused.

So is she! Weird how glowing rectangles don't do their magic glowing thing? She does not know what he's doing.

(The child has gotten bored and since she's standing behind mom she starts slowly changing her hair color. Very slowly. This is a game, if she's noticed she loses.)

(Her hair's still purple but maybe a bit of a bluer purple... Maybe a bit darker... And it's a funner game if she only changes it when no one's looking.)

The cashier does not seem to think he can help her, when his rectangle won't do the thing. He's actually looking at Nausicaa kind of a lot but doesn't obviously notice the hair right away.

She'll sigh and thank him with a small smile.

"Come along, Nausicaa," she says in English. (She hasn't noticed the hair color thing yet.)

(She also doesn't have their currency; she'll have to wait until they have a shift change, and decide between sneaking onto a train and risking magic by then.)

"Okay! Bye mister, sorry your weird magic light wasn't working!" she says, waving at him. (Her hair's only managed to go from mauve to lavender so far.)

The cashier waves and smiles at Nausicaa.

A train arrives! It has two cars. One person gets off. It waits to see if Anna and Nausicaa will be boarding.

She'll try. Maybe she can bluff her way through any need for a ticket.

The doorframe is lit in white but when she steps on it turns red and makes a buzzing noise. The people on the train notice this and look up at her expectantly, a little impatient.

She'll step back off and make a show of patting her pockets frantically.

They seem to find that satisfactory. A couple of them push buttons near their seats. The door closes and the train zooms off.

Well, crap.

She'll lead Bright behind the convenience store, out of anyone's sight, and say, softly in their native tongue, "There's no humans around, so you can be whatever you want. But stay quiet, okay? We're camping tonight, and we need to not get caught."

Those trains looked very fancy and would notice if she stowed away so probably she should actually bite the bullet on the magic thing.

She turns into a large dog (she can't actually move like a dog, and will only pass for one in the low light), and stays awake to watch if the convenience store closes anytime soon.

She'll be a puppy and run around sniffing things very nearby, then.

The convenience store has a shift change. People come and go from it on bicycles and scooters.

If they're not closing...

Once it's a bit of a darker part of night, she tells Bright to super seriously stay here, then pads off as a very strange dog to go find as best a hollow as she can, far enough that bad smells are unlikely to wake anyone in their farm houses.

There's a bit of rocky ground with some divots suitable for hiding in.

Then she draws a specific set of elder signs, and begins to chant, lowly...

And a fox, but not a fox - rather a nightmare of someone who had once heard of foxes, and who dreams only in the bizarre angles beyond the spheres - appears in a foul-smelling cloud of smoke.

"You dare summon me?" he demands - though fortunately, his voice does not carry.

"Yes. I need to know where I am, and what languages are spoken here, and how to survive in this place."

"In trade I will give you the right to know what my eyes have seen."

"Why should I bargain with my jailer? You will fail, as the one before you failed, and I will be free in time and shall know those sights myself."

"My mother held you for thousands upon thousands of years. Will you wait that many more turnings, for even another glimpse of freedom?"