...yeah. She puts the empty plate down there and peeks out the other end of the alley.

Another street. There are some people on it, walking from place to place.

And she is not messing with some strange cape; if he's that far away it's presumably because he doesn't need to be any closer to do whatever it is he's waiting to do. (Why is he waiting? Good question. But she wants to find out how this trap works somehow other than just walking into it, thanks.) She returns to her hiding place.

Her hiding place continues to exist.

Someone steps out the back of a building into the alley and wanders off, taking no notice of her.

Good, her hiding place is working as intended.

She sleeps.

The golden light remains.

When she wakes up, there's a package sitting tucked against a wall at one end of the alley, the end facing the street she appeared in. A bundle of cloth with a note pinned to it in an unfamiliar script.

She doesn't notice it.

She stays in her hiding place again and waits for nightfall, eating sparsely from her supplies - she has one, maybe two more day's worth of food.

Once it's dark and the crowds have thinned a little, she checks the street again.

The person who made the light isn't there - but there's someone else in his spot, reading a different book, wearing a different necklace that says different but broadly similar things about him when looked at.

Cape family. Lovely. She'll give it one more day and see if she can come up with an escape plan.

Evidence against the 'cape family' theory: those two people walking down the street holding hands, both wearing personality-broadcast necklaces, neither one masked, with a pen and paper levitating beside them scribbling notes about their indecipherable conversation. The personalities being broadcast are substantially different from the two she's seen, as are the faces of the people.

That's, uh... uh?

Uh.

Well, it doesn't change the facts of the matter, which is that at least two people with unknown powers are staking out her hiding place. Hiding and escape plan still sounds like the best idea.

Midmorning of the next day, the golden light fades.

...ow ow ow ow ow ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

She lies down and breathes and waits to get used to the pain.

It stays out for about six hours, and then it comes back, and the person who made it walks into her alley.

He looks...

Well, he looks like he just woke up from six hours of sleep after several days without any.

She uncurls and sits up and peeks out and sees him.

After a moment's consideration, she goes and stands in the entrance to the hiding place, looking bewildered.

"Uh, I have a translation power now so I guess you don't speak Nuimena?" he says. "Hi, sorry about losing the healing aura on you, I haven't figured out how to keep it going while I sleep yet."

This doesn't seem to be any less bewildering, and after a few moments her confusion gives way to dawning horror and despair and her gaze drops to the ground.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't - I don't really know what to do - I can't stay in this town forever, the rest of the continent needs me, but I don't want to just leave you with whatever's hurting you while I go off and heal everyone else, but it seems like you don't want anything to do with me, so..."

She sits, leaning heavily on the wall next to her, and looks up at him, confused and concerned and frightened, not quite making eye contact.

"...what?"

"...I have this healing aura," he says. "So when you appeared out of nowhere and collapsed screaming, some people went and got me to see if I could help. And I can help but only temporarily - I don't know what's wrong but I know I'm not fixing the underlying problem, just making it feel better as long as you're in my aura. And I went to talk to you and you freaked out. So I waited to see if you'd come talk to me once you had some time to calm down. But you didn't. And I fell asleep. And I should go heal more people because it's a big continent and there's only one of me and lots of people need help, but I'm afraid if I do that you'll just collapse again, and that seems bad."

She looks at the ground again: "okay." She pulls her legs to her chest and takes a deep, ragged breath. "I'll be good." Her voice breaks and she starts crying, hiding her face against her knees.

????????????

"What... I'm sorry..."

She's not really in a state to respond.

Yeah. That's.

What is going on.

Well, it doesn't seem like she's going to stop crying anytime soon to be asked.

There really isn't much about the situation that looks good, though. She's young, apparently alone, apparently terrified of people; the strange baggy clothes hide it some, but she's thin, too - not malnourished, but there's the distinct impression that regular meals haven't been a feature of her life recently, or perhaps ever. And she has trouble speaking, and doesn't seem to be moving around all that well, either, even with the healing aura going.