What's going on?

She looks down at her body.

She's… small. Maybe 3 or 4 feet tall?

That feels right, but it doesn't feel usual. She's— it: it's definitely an "it"—it's pretty sure it used to be taller than this.

And that's strange, isn't it? It should know what it's used to looking like, but it doesn't seem to have any memories of—actually, any memories at all.

Ok, time to take stock: Its name is Mae, it's—oh, now that's interesting: it can't remember anything about its life, but it knows that it's 27 years old!

So it was—arguably is—an adult, but this body definitely isn't. It's definitely feeling kind of excited about that—if a bit apprehensive.

Ok, so it's Mae, it's 27, it's in the body of a child, and it doesn't have any long-term memories of its life.

…Does it have any other sorts of memories?

It runs through an exercise, and… huh.

It appears to be able to remember the names of several memorization techniques, which it has arbitrarily memorized as a test of a different technique that's not on that list of names.

Entertaining.

Anything else stored that way?

…The pronunciation of a Japanese name, apparently…

…An ordered list of video-game-associated tarot cards…

…An index for a todo list, a mental stack, a scratchpad, and… something denoted by a spiral, but that isn't clearly labeled. None of them are attached to any long-term memories, so they must have been for shorter-term use.

…

…Ok, so it apparently hasn't memorized anything useful that way, but at least that confirms its memory is otherwise working.

Enough time in its head, though: where is it? This place doesn't look familiar.

It looks around itself.

Mae finds itself on a short block, the kind you get in one of those bigger cities with long and narrow blocks, one side of the street dominated by the fenced backyards of two large houses, the other by a set of Edwardian rowhouses in different colors, each built overtop its own garage, with stairs up to the entryway, with a porch on the right and a bay window on the left, and another floor above. The nearest one, close to the end of the block, is painted a cozy-looking dark purple, and has a little pride flag in the window. A two-door Honda Accord painted in a deep, almost black shade of purple sits in the driveway. The other houses down the block are painted light blue, or cheery yellow, or white, or cream, or beige, with everything from sedans to pickup trucks parked out front in a variety of more pedestrian colors.

No one else seems to be on the street just now.

Hmm… no people?

It walks over to the nearest house—it's really pretty, and it is now being reminded by the flag that it itself is gay—and picks up the newspaper sitting there.

…It's… oh good, it's local paper! The San Francisco Chronicle, March 17, 2008.

Wow, that… that's a while earlier than it was expecting, isn't it? That gives it so much time to— to what? The connection isn't there, and it can't remember anything about what that gives it time to do.

Damn.

There's also some sort of specific mental connection associated with the year. 2008…

…

Nope, that connection doesn't lead anywhere, either.

Damn, these blanks are annoying.

And specific: It can remember facts about itself, but it can't remember anything about its life, or anything related to the year.

That… doesn't seem to be how it thinks amnesia is supposed to work.

…Can it remember anything about earlier years?

…Yes! 2001: The twin towers fell that year, and… something else that's blanked.

These blanks are very specific, then.

Before it can think much longer, it's startled by the door suddenly opening, and an equally surprised-looking woman looks out from behind it.

Small child at the bottom of her stairs. This is new. Hope the poor dear's not in trouble.

"Well hello!" The woman's voice is warm, cheerful, and a bit bouncy, despite the noticeable hint of concern. "Are you lost, sweetie?"

She's about 5'8" tall, with purple hair tied back in a braid draping down her back, a lean frame, and modestly full but perky curves, wearing a short, swishy, dark green dress, black leggings, black boots, and a little black jacket with silver buttons that somehow accents the dress nicely.

Pretty!

Ok, no, that's really not helpful, brain.

What did she say, again? Oh, yeah, it supposes it is lost.

It sets down the newspaper.

"I think so—I suppose I know I'm in San Francisco now, but I don't know anything beyond that about where I am—I don't think I've ever been here before…"

Its words trail off contemplatively.

"Oh sweetie, that's no fun at all. Can I get you a snack or a drink or something while we figure out if there's anywhere you'd rather be than right here? Are you cold?"

Shit shit shit, okay. Lost child. 

Not going to show any of the panic on her face at all, but holy shit.

So the Officially Normal thing to do here is call the cops or take the kid to the police station.

But cops suck. She does not trust them, as an institution.

But if anyone's going to be able to figure out if this child has been reported missing, it's the cops.

But what if the kid's a runaway and the parents suck? Then the best thing for the kid is to stay put and not go back.

Aaaaa?

No, just see what the kid can tell her.

Awww, that's so nice!

Or, well, it supposes it might do something similar in this situation itself, but still!

"Oh, thank you! I'd love a snack and a drink—it is a bit cold out here. Do you have tea?"

It follows the friendly woman inside.

Inside they go! "I do! Do you have a favorite kind?"

The house is cozy and warm, with neutral tones accented by pops of purple or very dark green here and there. Immediately inside the front door is a little entry room, with a coat closet, a rack for shoes, and a little bench where Sable stops to kick off her boots and put them away. A door just off the entry room seems to lead downward, given how it's tucked underneath a staircase to the second floor just outside the entry room. To their left as they head inward is a little sitting room, with a few shelves full of books, a little seat in the bay window, a really squashy-looking armchair and a big couch set around a coffee table and across from a TV. Continuing further into the house, there's a small washroom, and then the kitchen on the right and dining room on the left. The kitchen seems to be airy and open, with big stone countertops for food prep and plenty of cabinet space to store things. The dining room seems designed to be cozy enough for meals with friends or family rather than fancy dinners. The table is currently round and covered in a lavender tablecloth (though under the tablecloth are hidden fold-out bits to expand if if there are more guests over). The back door leads out to a cute little deck, and has stairs down to the yard.

She starts fussing through the cabinets, revealing quite a selection of kinds of tea, and plenty of cocoa too, before going over to the sink to fill up the electric kettle.

It hums and pauses for a moment.

"Hmm… do you have jasmine?"

Then it sits gently down on the couch—an armchair is usually a specific person's chair, and sometimes people mind you sitting in Their Chair.

"Mhm!"

Hopefully the kid doesn't mind decaf? A lot of her teas are either herbal or decaf, because her ADHD meds conflict with caffeine.

She steps back over with a grin and plops down in the armchair. "So while we wait for the water to boil, tell me about yourself? Name, pronouns, nouns? Where you wanna be, anyone you're trying to get back to?"

Is that a bit advanced of a question for a ten-year-old? Maybe. Does she need to know it? Yes. Has she thought of a better way to ask it? Nnno. Oh well.

Oh, yes, questions! It can answer those. Probably.

"Oh, right. I'm Mae, I—" it pauses. Aww, she asked its pronouns? The rainbow green flags just keep cropping up!

"—I like to go by it/its when I can."

"Nouns? Hmm… girl is good…" it pauses, searching its head for others…

…Then blushes as it thinks of some, and quickly halts that train of thought.

"…and you'd need to know me better before you learn any others."

Quick, what was the next question?

Gosh okay. Precocious little girl. It's adorable, though. Absolutely adorable. "Mae, it/its, feminine nouns, can do. Might have to she/her you in front of officials that'd cause problems if they heard me use it/its about you, but that's just to keep them from making trouble. Does that sound reasonable?"

"Oh, of course! That sounds fine to me."

It pauses.

"…Officials?"

"Well. Usually clever girls like you don't happen just by magic, so there's a pretty good chance someone out there is missing you. And if you're missing them, too, officials would be very useful for finding them and getting in touch with them. Is there anyone you're missing, or anywhere you want to go?"

Oh right, where it wants to be, and with whom.

"I… don't really know if there's somewhere I'm supposed to be right now. I… wow, umm…"

It pauses again. It should probably have thought these questions through at all before trying to answer them for a stranger.

Where is it supposed to be? It doesn't have any memory of having a school or job, or friends, or family, or even a home… it feels like it does (or perhaps, did) have those things, but it can't seem to remember them now.

"…I think I may have amnesia?"

Okay. She's concerned. "Well that's no fun. Memories are kind of important. Also uprates my estimate of just how clever of a little girl you are, that's not something the typical kid your age knows about. Do me a favor and check your head for anything that feels tender or bruised?"

Oh right, it should probably do that.

It feels its head for tenderness.

"All clear. Do you know how to check if my pupils are dilating right?"

Sable frowns thoughtfully. "Never done it before. Could look it up, though. Wanna come upstairs to my office where I've got a computer to look it up with, or make it a nurse's problem down at urgent care?"

"Oh, that seems smart. Yeah, I guess we should go get me checked out, huh?"

It pauses.

"…Maybe after I drink that tea, though?"

"Hmmm." Sable drums her fingers on the arm of her chair. "They're going to ask for a bunch of identifying information at urgent care, and we don't have any of that for you. And that's going to get the cops involved whether we like it or not. Might as well go directly to them, then. They can bring the EMTs to us once we're there and they're trying to figure out the rest of who you are."

Then she leans in and smiles softly. "We've got plenty of time for you to have your tea, though. You don't seem to be showing any obviously concerning symptoms, so whatever's going on probably isn't that much of a rush."

Sable gets up to go pour the tea, musing to herself as she goes. Mae... continues to be a surprisingly precocious little girl. It's aware of using pupil dilation to check for concussions. Well, she's always figured you meet kids where they are, and let them show you what they're capable of.

Then she has a thought, midway to the kitchen. "You wanna pick which mug you get?"

"Oh, sure, I'd love to!" It gets up and walks to the kitchen to take a look.

Then pauses in the doorway for a moment.

"Oh, umm, what's your name? And pronouns, for that matter."

"Sable Miller, she/her, usual array of feminine nouns. You can call me Sable," she replies with a smile, opening a cabinet full of mugs. One is black with "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" printed on it. Another is purple with a swirling, liquid-seeming pattern. One has a cute fox on it. Another says "good witch" with a stylized witch's hat. One says "can be bribed with cocoa." There are a few more swirly-patterned ones in different colors. 

"Pick whichever you'd like, sweetie."

It carefully looks at each mug, then grabs the "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" mug, which is smoothest, and has the thinnest, most consistent rim.

"Sable. That's a pretty name!"

"Thank you! I like it a lot too. So's yours, by the way. Now set that on the counter for me, and we'll get your tea steeping."

She grabs the kettle and a teabag.

It dutifully sets the mug on the counter, then stands there awkwardly, hands clasped behind its back.

"Gosh you're cute. Kinda wanna ruffle your hair, but I dunno how you feel about casual touch from a weird purple lady you just met today."

She puts the teabag in the mug, pours the hot water in, and twists a little dial on her watch.

"Okay, timer set. Do you want sugar or honey or anything?"

She puts the mug onto a little plate so there'll be somewhere to put the teabag when it's done steeping.

"Oh! Umm, thank you." It smiles. "You're quite pretty yourself."

"I don't mind casual touch if you've asked, but I'd rather not have my hair messed up right now, so no thank you."

It pauses to recall the second question.

"No, nothing in the tea, please."

"Thank you," she replies with a smile.

No spoon required for stirring things in, then. Off they go back to the living room, tea in hand. Sable sets the plate down on the coffee table, and drops back into her seat.

"Can you recall any interests, or things you like?"

Back onto the couch it goes!

"Hmm… interests…" It bounces its leg as it thinks.

"…I think I quite like reading, and writing, and music…"

"I… do some computer programming, sometimes?"

Sable blinks for a moment. She's never seen a kid into programming that young before.

Then she grins.

"Well imagine that! I like those too, and I program for a living! What language do you like?"

Oh yay, this is continuing to be an excellent person!

"Well, I quite like—"

…This is 2008. When did Rust get released?

Not 2008, that's for sure.

Crap, it's been paused for a bit too long. What other languages does it like?

"—Well, C-Sharp is decent, but I do wish it had real memory management, and better error handling—I don't know much C, maybe it's more like that, but that hasn't been my experience. Something Functional would be amazing, but it doesn't feel like anyone's doing anything interesting with that lately, and I haven't learned any Lisp."

"Ooh, yeah, C-Sharp does show off some interesting features, but it absolutely doesn't have memory management worth anything. C's error-handling is definitely not very inspiring. I love Lisp, but I wish something managed to combine modern advanced data structures and functional programming with the best practices in memory management and direct integration with the kind of optimizations you can get in modern C compilers. But a Lisp like that doesn't exist, and I haven't felt motivated enough to try to make one yet."

Really impressively precocious little girl. She is surprised to have a conversation about comparative language merits with a ten-year-old. 

"Oooh, I wonder how hard that would be? I've never tried making a new low-level language."

"Never done it before, but it could be fun to learn. Have to plan it out in a lot of detail first, though."

It doesn't really talk like a child. It talks like it's on her level. Really smart kid.

And then there's a very faint chime from her watch. "Tea should be ready, I think."

"Oh, yay!"

It removes the teabag from the mug, then looks up at Sable questioningly.

"Where should I put this?"

"Edge of the plate's fine for now and I'll handle it as we get ready to head out, or I could take it back to the kitchen now if you'd rather."

"…Edge of the plate is fine."

It squeezes the bag lightly over the mug, in order to keep it from dripping, then sets it on the edge of the plate.

It then stares at the mug, occasionally blowing on it but not drinking any.

"Any thoughts for features you wanna see in a language, Mae?" she asks while it presumably waits for its tea to cool.

Oh gosh, that sure is a lot of planning ahead, for someone she's just met. She's probably just making conversation, Mae, don't overcomplicate things.

"Well, strong typing is obviously important, and there are some specific features I like from some languages, like—" wait, shit, tuples weren't in C# in 2008, were they? "—like Pythons Tuples. What I'd really love is explicit error handling, where a method either can or can't return an error, and the method calling it has to explicitly handle or propagate it, instead of awful try/catch statements. Of course, then you'd have to have a lot of language features for easily handling stuff like that—especially if you want to enforce memory-safety."

Oh look, its tea is cool enough to drink, now! It takes a sip.

"How about you? What sorts of features are important to you in a language? Or, which ones do you wish you had access to?"

She nods in agreement. "Tuples are nice, as is strong typing, and especially metaprogramming. Error handling is probably the most important thing, though, I think you're right. Heck, maybe I'll actually make this thing."

She's not going to say "we" unless she winds up keeping contact with this adorably precocious munchkin. Don't commit the kid to things it hasn't signed up for.

"I really like immutability, and flexible hashmaps, and powerful and flexible treatment of sequence types. Oh and first-class functions, gotta treat the functions properly."

"Oh, yeah, good treatment of sequences is really important.

I really like first-class functions and metaprogramming, but I also way prefer compiled languages to interpreted. Can you… do those in a compiled language? I haven't seen it done, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible…"

It is not going to notice the pronoun usage at all, and will simply assume that it gets to work on this project if she ever starts it. It is absolutely keeping in contact with this excellent person if it has any say in that.

It takes another sip. This tea is lovely.

"Common Lisp can be both compiled and interpreted, and has macros for metaprogramming. Does it through iterative compilation, I think."

"Oh wow, I didn't know that! That does sound like a good way to do it, though."

It ponders that for a moment, before finishing off its tea and setting down the mug.

"Thank you for the tea—it was lovely"

"I'm so glad you enjoyed it!"

Now for the less fun part.

"Okay. Next step is going to see if the cops can help us. I'll take care of the dishes. Anything you want for the road, like a snack?"

Sable takes the mug and plate, walking into the kitchen. She throws out the teabag, rinses the dishes, and puts them in the dishwasher.

Right. That whole thing. Its face falls a little.

"Oh, yeah, I guess we should do that, huh?"

…Does it need a snack? Kids' metabolisms are… faster than adults', so… that's probably a good idea?

"A snack sounds nice," it says, smiling.

She glances thoughtfully at Mae while she opens her snack cabinet.

"Any allergies, Mae?"

The cabinet appears to contain a variety of cereal bars, fruit bars, some cookies, toasted nori, popcorn, nut/berry trail mix, and snappea crisps.

"Oh! Umm… no dairy, ideally?"

…And she feels some resistance against eggs too…?

Oh, she's vegan. Right, that makes sense.

"Or other animal products, if I can avoid it."

Blink blink.

Okay that makes sense, and she respects the principles behind veganism but she's always been too much of a slacker and too fond of the taste of meat to bother. 

But.

Apparently she's feeding a little vegan today. 

Okay what of this is vegan?

After a bit of rustling through the cabinet, most of the cookies are ruled out, as are two of the cereal bars. She points out the remaining vegan options.

These snap-pea crisps look tasty—and stuff like that almost never has animal stuff in it.

It points to the package.

"These, maybe?"

Sable smiles fondly. "Good choice. Those are one of my favorites, too."

She reaches into the cabinet and grabs a bag for Mae, putting the snack right in front of it on the counter.

A handful of paper napkins get stuffed into her purse, and then she starts toward the entry room, only to pause.

"We should maybe get you something more to wear than just that nightgown, actually."

"…Oh."

Mae pauses and looks down at itself.

"Right."

It looks at the older woman appraisingly.

"Do you… have anything that might fit me?"

She looks Mae up and down.

"...No, on second thought I don't. And now I'm torn between going to the cops first to get you EMTs faster, or to the store to get you clothes first."

She hums thoughtfully. "I think probably clothes first. It's not exactly warm out." 

Mae hums, thinking.

"…Do you have a coat I could borrow? It wouldn't matter if it's too big, as long as it doesn't drag on the ground."

It looks down at its feet.

"…I'll probably still need shoes, though…"

"Got a pair of flip-flops you can use, and a coat that should work. I can manage that. Wanna follow me upstairs, or wait here?"

Mae cocks its head to the side, thinking for a moment.

"If it's not too much of an intrusion, I think I'd enjoy seeing the upstairs of your house."

"Sounds like a plan," she replies with a smile.

Up the stairs she goes, leading the way to reveal a guest bedroom, an office, and a master bedroom. The master bedroom again features a very big bed with dark purple sheets and a silver duvet, and has a decent-sized closet. There, Sable fishes around and pulls out a pair of flip-flops that don't look like they've been worn in a while, before shuffling hangers around to reveal a few coats. One looks like it would only come down to Sable's waist, which means it stops mid-thigh on Mae, while another seems like it would reach Mae's calves. The smaller coat seems to have shorter sleeves, as well. It's black wool, with silver buttons.

"What d'you think?"

"The shorter one, I think? I don't wanna trip on the longer one"

The longer one goes back onto the rack, and the shorter one gets pulled off its hanger.

Sable holds it out by the shoulders to make it easier for Mae to slip its arms in.

It carefully slips into the coat, standing on its tip-toes to get its arms in.

Mmm, it's warm! It likes it.

"Thank you!" It slides on the flip-flops as well.

"Glad to, sweetie."

She stands.

"Okay, now I think we're ready. I just need to look up the address of the local police station, then off we go."

It puts on the flip-flops, then waits patiently as she rifles through a phone book.

Gosh, it really got lucky, happening on this woman, huh?

She nods firmly, still smiling. "Okay. I know where we're going. C'mon, li'l bit. Let's see if you've got parents out there somewhere."

She offers it her hand and walks to the entry room to put her boots back on, lacing them up smoothly.

It smiles and follows along behind her, taking the offered hand. Somehow, it doubts it has anyone to find.

Perhaps not, but they're certainly going to try. She takes Mae to the car, helps it into the front passenger seat, and then gets in to the driver's seat, making sure to buckle up before pulling out of the driveway. 

"Wanna listen to music as we go?"

"Oh, yes please! What do you have?"

It bounces happily.

She reaches over and pops the glovebox, then pulls out a CD binder full of everything from Metric to Rage Against the Machine and more. "Lots of stuff! What kind of music do you like?"

Oh, Metric? It likes Metric! Hurray for artists that exist in Current Year™!

It points out the CD, and sits back to to enjoy the music as "IOU" starts playing.

Once they're both buckled in, Sable dances a bit in her seat as she drives off to the police station, eventually finding a parking spot and helping Mae out of its seat. 

"Ready to talk to some cops, kiddo?"

Not a question it'd usually say yes to, but it nods its head anyway. The sooner they talk to the police, the sooner it can get looked at by a doctor. Missing memories are concerning—let alone the rest of whatever's going on.

She nods, expression set, and takes Mae's hand. "Yeah, I don't like it either. But they're our best shot at getting answers, especially about your amnesia or your parents. We've got this, though."

It nods solemnly and takes her hand, squeezing it for reassurance as they make their way across the parking lot to the station.

She leads the way inside, managing a bit of a smile for politeness' sake, and walks up to the front desk.

"Hi there," she greets the cop behind the glass.

The officer smiles his best friendly smile and greets her back.

"Hello, miss. What can I help you with?"

"Well, Mae and I," she gestures with her free hand to indicate the little girl next to her, "need to talk to someone about any missing child reports, and maybe see a nurse while we're here. She turned up on my front step in just her nightgown, and has no memory of where she's from or who her parents are."

Doesn't feel great saying she/her about Mae when it prefers it/its, but she'll just have to say the things that get the most productive cooperation from the cops, rather than expecting them to understand that a small child can have pronoun preferences. Cops gonna cop.

It definitely understands. Frankly, calling random children "it" would be, without context, rather concerning.

Oh wow, that is all kinds of concerning. His smile falters slightly, and he picks up his notebook to start jotting down details.

"Oh. Alright, when was this?"

He'll start writing a message to Missing Persons, and look up the external numbers he'll need to call.

"Found her there maybe half an hour ago, give or take, when I stepped out to run an errand. Brought her inside, gave her a drink and a snack, and tried to figure out where she needed to be, then ran into the memory issue, loaned her a spare coat and sandals, and came here."

She thinks that's about the right timeframe? Time is an illusion anyway.

"Well, I'm glad she found someone friendly." He smiles, mostly just making conversation while he sorts through this and takes notes.

Ok… EMS for the memory issues, Missing Persons to see if they can find her parents, and Social Services in case they can't, or in case she shouldn't go back to them.

He fires of several emails and messages, then directs them to sit down while he takes a call.

"Me too," Sable agrees.

Off they go to take a seat. Sable is not really planning to let go of Mae's hand unless Mae wants that, or when it's time for the social workers to take it aside and ask whether she's been good to it or not.

She's worried about the kid. And protective. And only trusts cops about as far as she can throw them.

The officer takes a few calls—two not related to them, but at least one from Missing Persons and another from the EMS.

The paramedics arrive after a short wait, and take Mae to a side room to examine her.

While her partner checks Mae's basic vitals, the ginger-haired EMT crouches down across from Mae. "Hi there, sweetie. I'm EMT Joy. I'm gonna check to see if anything happened to your head to explain what happened to your memories, okay? Can you tell me your name?"

"Thank you, miss. I'm Mae."

It always helps to be polite—people tend to treat children better if they're polite.

She smiles. "Good to meet you. Do you know where we are right now?"

It nods.

"In a Police station, miss."

Oh, but that's evident from the surroundings—more detail might be helpful.

"In San Francisco, California, in the United States."

It does not have more specifics than that, so it hopes that's the most she needs in that regard.

Okay. Aware of her surroundings and broader location, that's good.

"Great. What day is it today?"

Oh dear. It does not remember that, actually.

"Umm, it's March 2008, but I don't actually remember the day. I only saw it the once, on a newspaper."

EMT Joy nods along, making a bit of a mental note. No awareness of the date beyond having seen it on a newspaper. "And when did you see that newspaper?"

"Earlier today, before meeting miss Miller. Maybe a bit over an hour ago, now?"

She nods. Okay, that's promising for memories from today at least.

"Okay, good. Can you remember how you got here?"

"To the police station, ma'am? We drove here.

Before that, I don't know."

She nods, frowning a bit. "What's the first thing you remember?"

Technically it has some memories that have probably existed for longer than today's, but that question implies she wants the earliest memory attached to an actual date or time. This is very good, because it means Mae can answer without lying or confusing the woman.

"Walking around on the street, near Ms. Miller's house, ma'am."

EMT Joy nods again. "Thank you, Mae. Do you remember what you did after that?"

"I looked around for any adults, or a newspaper, or something to tell me where I was. There was no one around, but I found a newspaper in front of Ms. Miller's door."

Okay. The little girl appears to have clear episodic memory from arriving on Miller's street forward, and nothing before that. Okay, pivot.

"Good job. Now, can you tell me who's here with you today?"

It wonders what that could be intended to assess.

"Miss Sable Miller, the nice lady who brought me here after she found me in front of her house."

Ability to recognize familiar people, Joy would answer if asked.

"Good, I'm glad it was someone nice who found you. And do you know the names of your parents or caregivers?"

It smiles.

"I am too."

And here they start to get into the questions it does not have answers for.

"No ma'am. No idea."

"And what about the names of your friends or teachers?"

"No ma'am."

Hm. That's not good.

EMT Joy has gotten really good at spotting signs of lies, and small children are even easier than adults here. Any signs of evasiveness, any shifts to Mae's expression?

No signs of evasiveness whatsoever, though it does appear slightly uncomfortable with either the question or its answer.

Concerning. Well, on to possible injury questions.

"Can you remember anything that might've happened to you, before you found yourself on Ms. Miller's street?"

It thinks for a moment, just to be sure…

"…Nothing at all, ma'am, no."

She frowns and nods. "That's okay. Can you count to ten for me?"

"Sure!"

It counts to ten.

"Great. Can you tell me what you had for breakfast?"

…

"…The last thing I remember eating was some of miss Miller's snap-pea crisps on the way over here. I don't remember any meals before that."

She's consistent, and shows no signs of evasion. No angles to get at something from earlier. Continue with the cognitive and emotional questions.

"Thank you, Mae. And without looking, what color is the nightgown you're wearing?"

"White, ma'am."

It can guess what sort of thing this one's intended to test, but it hadn't occurred to it that it was something they tested. Interesting!

"Good job. And how are you feeling right now?"

"…A tiny bit tired, and a little bit thirsty, I think?"

She signals to her partner, who has finished checking all Mae's normal vitals and inspecting Mae's head for any contusions, to grab a cup of water, which he does. "Well, this won't take much longer. If you could choose one thing to do today, what would it be?"

It thinks for a moment.

"Umm, I was talking to miss Miller about programming languages earlier? That was very fun, and I'd enjoy doing some more of that."

Smart kid, huh. "Well, maybe you should ask her about that when you get done here. Last thing we want to check, Mae, is your blood sugar. I'll need to prick your finger for that, and it'll sting just a bit. Can you hold your hand out for me?"

Oh dear, well that doesn't sound very fun. It holds its finger out, but looks away so it doesn't have to see.

She sticks Mae's finger, and there's a sharp sting briefly, then she collects the sample carefully and lets her partner finish the testing while she puts a bandaid on Mae's finger. "There we go, all done. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Why do people say that? It was almost exactly as bad as it was expecting!

It does its best to make an agreeable-sounding noise.

In hopes of distracting the kid, usually. And in hopes of the mind rewriting the past slightly so it stops hurting as much. And especially because many kids aren't as clever as Mae and tend to assume things will be worse than they actually are.

Or at least that's what grown-ups think.

Either way, it's done now.

"Okay. And since you were good and brave for that, would you like a sticker?"

Oh, stickers are nice. It doesn't really have anything to put one on, but they're still fun.

"Sure!"

She reaches into one of her bags and pulls out a few sheets. "Do you have a favorite pokémon, Mae?"

Huh, good question actually.

…It's suddenly very glad it doesn't remember any pokémon from later than the '90s. It's pretty sure that's not even an effect of the amnesia.

"…Flareon?"

EMT Joy grins warmly. "Flareon's really cute, and a lot of fun."

She pulls out a pair of snips and cuts a Flareon sticker out of the sheet, leaving the backing attached, so Mae can choose where to put it later, and hands it over.

"Here you go!"

Aww, she left the backing on? Mae is very happy about this.

It takes the sticker.

"Anyone you wanna talk to or see now?"

"Ms. Miller, I suppose? And I think we were expecting me to need to talk to Social Services or Missing Persons or something."

It's not entirely sure what that process is supposed to look like, but it assumes the EMTs aren't the last people she needs to talk to, here.

She nods and leads the way outside, back to the waiting area, where Ms. Miller and the cops presumably are waiting.

"Welcome back, hun," she greets Mae. "How're you doing?" she asks, before turning to the EMTs curiously.

It giggles.

"Well, my finger hurts, but I got a sticker, so it could be worse."

"Good girl for working with the EMTs."

There's no biological cause for the amnesia. If she'd shown even a hint of evasion, Joy would've figured the kid was lying and running away — and honestly, if a kid is trying that hard not to go home, she might be inclined to let them — but Mae wasn't evasive at all. It's a bit of a mystery.

"She's got no sign of any injuries, no concussion symptoms, blood sugar is normal, but her memories before this morning are pretty thoroughly gone, as best I can tell. Near-complete retrograde amnesia with no apparent cause."

"Is there any special care she needs, or anything to help her recover?"

"I recommend getting some neurological tests at some point, and monitoring her mental state and how well she can keep forming new memories, but for the most part she just needs to take it easy."

Huh. Well, good to know it isn't physically injured in some way, at least.

Given the memories it isn't mentioning to anyone, this is drastically increasing its odds for "something fucky is going on".

Missing Persons haven't found anything for a girl matching her description yet, but Social Services have turned up something useful.

He walks over.

"Ms. Miller, may I have a moment?"

She looks up at Officer Moore and nods. "What is it, Officer?"

He takes her aside, out of earshot of the child.

"Our records show that you're a registered foster parent, is that right?"

She nods. "I am. Got through the process six months back. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I don't want to put any pressure on you here, but—well, we haven't found anything about the girl's parents yet, and we don't know how long it might take…"

He pauses.

"You two seem to get along well. If you both agree… I think it might be easiest for everyone if she stayed with you, for the time-being."

Oh good, this is the better of the possible reasons the cop would pull her aside. "Well, I'd be delighted to. Let's see what she thinks about it, though, her opinion's the one that really counts here."

"That it is."

He leaves the woman standing where she is, and takes the child aside in a similar manner.

"Hey kid," he says, leaning down in a manner he hopes is friendly.

"If I told you we were going to have to find a place for you to stay while we look for your parents, what would you say?"

This is very obviously not a real hypothetical, but sure, it can play along.

"I'd say that makes sense?"

Good kid—he really hates dealing with the less-understanding ones.

"And if I said that Ms. Miller was a person we could choose for that…?"

Oh! She is?

"She is?"

"Well, let's say she is…"

Fine. Right. 'Hypothetical'.

"I'd say that sounds very nice?"

Oh good.

"Then I think I'd say we've found a good place for you." He smiles.

He'll let the two talk that over, then, and go deal with the paperwork.

She sits down next to Mae. "Hey li'l bit. What d'you think of coming to stay with me for a while?" she asks gently. "You'd go back to your parents if they turned up — well if they showed up and turned out to suck I'd pitch a fit — and if you didn't like it we could find someone else to look after you, but barring that, what do you think?"

…

…Okay, so it thought it was going to have a reasonable and well-worded response to this, but actually what it's going to do now is hug her very tight.

Well that gets a grin and a tight hug in return. Also some gentle petting of its back.

"I take it that's a yes, sweetie?"

She's happy to hug it as long as it likes, it's the priority here. If the cops want their chairs back before Mae's good and done, they can fight her.

It nods, still hugging her for what will be a slightly embarrassing amount of time once it's done.

It— just— it thought it wasn't gonna get to see her anymore after this! And it was mostly trying to avoid thinking about it for now, but she's really nice, and then it gets to live with her?

Ok, yeah, it is apparently still not quite done hugging her yet.

Eventually, it will dry its face—apparently it started crying a bit at some point? And somewhat embarrassedly compose itself.

Y'see, this is what she loves about purses. She can just keep napkins and tissue and whatnot tucked into various pockets and pull one out for any eventuality. Out comes a tissue, and she wipes its face and dries its eyes.

Oh, yes please! It gratefully accepts the help drying its face.

"Sorry about that—I didn't mean to…"

It trails off.

She arches an eyebrow and smiles. "You get a pass. Complicated, stressful situation. Strong reactions are normal, sweetie."

She pets its hair gently, careful not to mess anything up. "Since it seems you like this idea, we're gonna have to do some paperwork, and then we're going shopping to get you a whole closet's worth of essentials. Sound like a plan, kiddo?"

It grins and nods.

"Yes please!"

"What do you think of being scooped, Mae? Not dignified enough and you'd rather walk, or fun and cozy?"

It thinks about that for a moment.

"…Maybe not in public, in a police station?"

…It looks down at itself and blushes.

"Particularly if I'm not wearing pants…"

"Very reasonable."

She offers Mae a hand, and off they go to do paperwork.

There's a lot to go over, all told. The child needs a legal name and identity, since they can't seem to track down any information on her. She gives "Mabel" as a full first name, but doesn't appear to have any idea what her last name is, so they give her "Smith" as a temporary one.

They put the kid down as 9 years old, after a bit of questioning reveals she apparently remembers her birthday.

Ms. Miller is registered as the child's foster parent, and they take down her contact information in case they find the kid's parents, giving her some contact information for the local schools in return.

The paperwork takes a bit over an hour, and it's feeling a bit tired and hungry by the time they're done—it unfortunately ran out of crisps partway through.

Sable notices the discomfort and pets its hair encouragingly, but soon enough they're done and she tucks everything into a folder and that under an arm.

"Okay, thanks for all your help, Officer Moore. We'll be in touch if there's anything we need from y'all, and I assume you'll reach out if the parents turn up. Now I've got to go get my cute new foster-daughter an entire wardrobe, and also a proper meal. Have a great day!"

He waves goodbye as they leave, glad to have that situation reasonably sorted. Whether or not they find the kid's parents, it's somebody else's problem now.

Sable smiles down at Mae — her new foster-daughter! She gets to have one of those! And such a cute and clever one, too! — and takes her hand, walking out of the station and back to the car.

Yeah, Mae feels pretty similarly excited about this situation!

Apparently it gave a good enough first impression that Sable likes it well enough for it to live with her, so that's… really nice.

It squeezes her hand happily, before letting go to clamber up into the car.

Once the door is closed, she lets out a breath, leaning back in the seat. "Whew. Just between you and me, cops make me a bit nervous. That went even better than I'd hoped, though."

Mae winces.

"Yeah, me either."

It pauses, trying to remember if there's any particular reason for that, but fails.

…

"…Right after getting you as a foster parent might be a weird time to mention this, but… I generally have a lot of trouble trusting people in positions of authority over me."

That says... less-than-great things about its theoretical parents. Or hypothetically some other event in its life, but usually the source of this sort of thing is the parents. Not always, though.

"I'm not the biggest fan of what that implies about how authorities in your life must've treated you, for that tendency to show up, but all I can do about it is try to be as open, honest, and trustworthy as I can, and hope you'll tell me if anything bothers you."

"…I don't think they have to have been all that bad for it to be a reasonable tendency, but… yeah, I've probably had some bad experiences.

If it makes you feel any better, you seem pretty trustworthy so far? Barring the amount of control and authority you now have over me."

Mae is apparently somewhat incapable of just not saying the uncomfortable caveat. Oops.

Yeah, that's about the conclusion she came to as well. And Sable honestly isn't going to complain about the uncomfortable caveat, she's fully aware of how much power she has here and firmly committed to using it as sparingly and responsibly as she can.

"Well, it's not like I expected my potential foster kid not to come with some kind of trust problem, so 'seems pretty trustworthy given the givens' sounds like a pretty good start! For now, do you want lunch or clothes first?"

Mae looks down at itself, taking stock of what it's wearing.

"…Lunch first, I think."

She nods and starts the car, heading for the exit of the parking lot.

"I think lunch at home, unless you have an objection, and then shopping, and then dinner out as a treat when we're done."

"I'm fine with lunch at home. What sorts of food do you like to make?"

It very much hopes she has vegan options. She definitely isn't, herself, so there's a possibility that her default is, like, burgers.

"Hmm! Good question. I think I'm feeling something rice-based, maybe with some stir-fried veggies and some kind of protein. Normally I'd go for beef or chicken, there, but I think I have some tofu in the fridge? I'll have to learn a bunch of new recipes, eggs are a big go-to for breakfast foods for me and I don't know nearly enough options that avoid them. No time like the present, though. Might as well pick up more tofu on the way just in case, given we're going to be using so much more of it."

She shakes her head. "Anyway, how's stir-fried tofu and veggies on rice sound?"

"Sounds delicious!"

Mmm, it'll have to teach her how to cook tofu—

—Oh, that's definitely going to trip her 'Mae might've been abused' sensors, isn't it?

Oh well, at this point, it's pretty sure it doesn't have parents to worry about the reputations of, so that's not as bad as it could be.

Oh dear, all this tofu might turn her into another stereotype: the colorful-haired vegan girl.

Well, could be worse.

She drives toward the little neighborhood grocery nearest home and turns the stereo back on.

Mae smiles and lies back as the album plays, relaxing back into its seat, and starting to let the thrum of the car's engine lull it to sleep.

Awwwwwwwwww.

It's adorable.

She reaches the grocery store just a bit after Mae falls asleep, and she doesn't wake it.

Into the store, buy a few packs of extra-firm tofu, and heads back to the car, gently setting the bag in the back seat and hoping not to wake her cute new d—foster-daughter.

She carefully starts the car back up as quietly and smoothly as her little Accord will give her, and pulls out gently, before heading the rest of the way home.

Once she pulls into the driveway, she gets out, opens Mae's door, and looks to see if it's started to wake up on its own yet.

Mae is still snoring softly in its seat, curled up with its head resting gently on the console between itself and Sable's seat.

Cute. So cute.

Now, to wake it or not.

Hmmm....

Probably wake it, it's unsure about being scooped and this questionably counts as public and it doesn't have sufficient clothes yet, and she's trying to build trust with it.

Okay then.

She sets a hand gently on its shoulder and gives it a little nudge.

"Mae, sweetie? We're home. Time to go inside and make some food."

"Mmmmghf?"

It stirs after a moment, looking up blearily.

"Mmmwhat?"

"…Oh. Inside?"

Wow it must've been sleepy.

"Mhm! Restocked on tofu, so it's time to get a meal in you."

She steps back from the door and offers a hand out of the car.

Oh. Yes, a hand would definitely be good.

"Oh, thank you."

It accepts her hand and climbs down out of the car.

And Sable leads the way up the stairs and back inside, bag of tofu in hand. She stops in the entryway to unlace her boots and take them off, smiling at Mae.

"I feel pretty lucky right about now, honestly."

Oh?

"You do?" it asks, smiling a bit.

"Pretty sure I just lucked into a really cute and smart foster-daughter, all because you happened to turn up outside my door instead of someone else's."

Oh. Umm. It does not entirely know how to react to that.

It's going to blush a bit, and perhaps stim with its hands as it fails to have words about that.

Sable giggles fondly and ruffles its hair. "C'mon, cutie. Out of those flip-flops and and into the kitchen with us. We've got stir-fry to make."

Aww, ok yeah, that's definitely a thing they should do. It's feeling rather hungry now.

It nods and does as she says, slipping off its flip-flops and setting its coat down inside.

And into the kitchen they go. The packs of tofu go into the fridge, where there does turn out to be a pack of tofu still. That one comes out, as do some frozen veggies. She cuts open the pack, drains the water, and then plops the tofu onto the cutting board, carefully cutting the tofu before putting the slices between a pair of paper towels and then setting another cutting board and a book on top. Then it's time to start making the rice. "Hmm. I don't have veggie bouillon cubes, need to get something vegan there. What do you think about coconut milk in the rice?"

Hmm…

"I don't love it, but I don't hate it? So you may as well add it for the nutritional value."

…The bouillon cubes are a bit of a loss, though.

"What spices do you have? We might be able to make up for the bouillon."

She opens a cabinet with a smile, revealing a large spice-rack with all the spice jars on their sides, labels on the lids. She seems to have basically everything.

"Quicker to list what I don't, probably."

A neighboring cabinet holds sauces and condiments of varying sorts.

Oh, excellent!

It— oh, it's too short.

"Umm, may I have a stool, please?"

People generally consider it rude to stand barefoot on their countertops.

She leans over to tug a folding stepstool out from where it was hidden between the fridge and the countertop, kicks it open, and slides it to a stop right in front of Mae with a smile. "How's that, sweetie?"

"Perfect, thank you!"

It grins and climbs onto the stool, then begins rummaging through the cabinets, setting spices on the counter, and taking stock of the condiments.

Soy sauce is an obvious yes, but what else? If there's no bouillon cubes, it'll need some other sources of tasty vegetal flavor. Powdered garlic, powdered onion, MSG (which Sable has just gained another few Excellent Person Points for having)… hmm… oh! Cayenne powder for spice, probably… oh, unless she has gochujang or chili crisp?

It mumbles under its breath as it continues picking out spices and sauces, now oblivious to its foster mother as it loses itself in flavor-space.

She doesn't have either of those, but could be persuaded to buy them if asked.

At the moment, however, she's a bit taken aback at the clear sense of purpose Mae is moving with here, the visible knowledge of all these spices.

Who taught it all this at nine? She is maybe a bit concerned. Appreciative of the skill, but concerned.

Mae is entirely too preoccupied with spices to have any idea that Sable would be worried about this. Probably the thought should have occurred to it, but it hasn't, so on it goes.

After a few minutes, it has a small horde of little spice bottles assembled next to a few bottles of condiment, and is beaming happily up at Sable from beside the stepstool.

By the time it finishes sorting everything, Sable has finished processing the fact that someone made her foster-daughter learn to cook far too young. Why does that feel weirdly familiar? It shouldn't.

She's quite firmly back to a warm, impressed smile, and she ruffles Mae's hair. "Great picks, cutie. Am I right in thinking that these ones you want for the rice, and those ones for the veggies?" She gestures indicatively at various bottles.

It nods happily.

"Mhm! And these on both." It points out a few more.

"Good girl. Okay, since you clearly know what you're doing, how about you mix up a seasoning blend for the rice while I get the pot and pan ready and make sure the veggies thaw?"

She pulls down a prep bowl and a spoon.

"Can do!"

It is actually much less experienced at putting together a seasoning blend beforehand than just winging it while cooking, but if it doesn't mention that, it looks more competent when it succeeds, and people thinking it is competent is always good!

Also, it would suggest letting it spice things as they go, but that would involve it interacting with a hot stove, which it thinks Sable would probably prefer it not do.

It helpfully measures arbitrary-but-probably-tasty quantities of various spices into the bowl.

Meanwhile, Sable has gotten water on to boil for rice, thawed the veggies, and is checking on the tofu. Yeah, everything's coming along nicely here. 

(Sable had secret bonus reasons for having Mae mix the spices in a bowl: if it got them wrong, she could adjust before they got added to the food. Less risk.)

"Haven't cooked with someone since I was a kid. It's nice. Wanna put some music on while we work?"

"Oh, absolutely! Yes please!"

It wiggle happily. It loves listening to music while cooking: it means you can dance when you aren't busy!

Out to the living room they go, turn on the TV, and it turns out to be controlled by a little Linux computer running xbmc. She taps the remote a few times to switch over to music library, which is even fuller than the CD binder, and also has some local radio stations.

Sable looks down at Mae with a smile. "More Metric, or something else?"

Ooooh, good question!

It's slightly worried it'll ask for something from the wrong decade, so…

"How about you pick?"

"Hmmm."

She flips through artists for a moment, then turns back to Mae. "Have you heard any No Doubt?"

"I have not! Is it good?"

It does love being introduced to new music!

"I like them!"

She puts on Tragic Kingdom.

Oh! It recognizes some of these songs! Fun! It likes it when that happens.

It happily begins dancing to the music as they cook.

So does Sable! And stir-fry steadily happens. Rice cooks, veggies and tofu fry, and before long everything's going onto plates.

"Where's cutlery?"

Mae moves to set the table. Helping makes it happy!

She points at a drawer full of utensils, next to the sink.

Perfect! It grabs forks and places them at the table, flopping down on one of the seats.

And Sable sets a plate in front of her, before sitting down next to her.

"That was fun," she says with a smile, digging in. "And good choices of spices."

Mae smiles. "Thank you!"

It takes a happy first bite of its food—she's right, the spices are good!

It hopes she doesn't mind it resting its elbows on the table: some people do, and it's apparently never learned not to.

Judging how she seems to be doing it too, it looks unlikely that she does.

"So, let's talk clothing styles and shopping options. Any ideas what sorts of things you want to wear?"

Oh gosh, what a good question! Mae queries its internal sense of fashion and what it aught to be wearing…

…And comes up with: "…Short shorts and crop tops in the summer, long, old-fashioned flowy skirts and blouses in the winter?"

"Adorable. Accessory preferences?"

Oh, not a problem? Great! Sable has gained more Excellent Person Points.

"…I don't really like hats, but barrettes and other hairclips are nice sometimes?

Sunglasses are good, if I can find cute ones? Especially if they're heart-shaped, but those are hard to find properly UV-coated.

I guess the main accessory I'd expect to want is painted nails? Not that that totally counts as an 'accessory', but it's what comes to mind…"

"Well. I both have a pretty solid collection of polish colors, and know two great nail salons around here. If there are any colors you want us to keep on-hand that I don't have, we can pick those up., but also mother-daughter salon visits sound like fun."

"As for the sunglasses, I'm not sure if anywhere is going to carry those with decent protection. We can try a couple little boutique places if the big chain stores don't have 'em, though. All told, it's sounding like we need to hit a big department store or Walmart, a beauty supply place if we're still missing any polish colors at that point, a couple glasses or accessory places to try for the shades you want, and then re-check to see if there's anything we're missing that wants another store."

"Oh, yeah the clothes are the important thing. The rest are just potential nice-to-haves."

Mother-daughter salon trips do sound nice. It smiles.

"We probably wanna focus on clothes first, and the rest can come later or if we happen to see something nice?"

Mae is apparently much more used to thrift shopping, where you find random assortments of everything wherever you go.

"That's what I'm thinking, yeah. I figure we start with maybe a department store, or one of the bigger brand clothing stores, and then divert from there to the little specialized stores if there are things we can't find."

Mae nods affirmatively.

"That makes sense to me. Should I get my coat back on?"

"Lemme get the dishes into the dishwasher, then sure. You can go start on that if you want, and I'll meet you in the entryway."

She picks up the plates and heads to the sink and the dishwasher.

"Sure!"

It takes a moment to get the coat on anyway: it's a long coat on the small girl.

Pretty soon Sable joins it in the entryway, pulling on her own coat and boots, before leading the way to the car.

"I should really replace the stereo in here, get one with an auxiliary port so I can have the whole music library, rather than just what I have on CDs. Oh well, something for another day. You wanna pick out a CD for the drive?"

"Oh yeah, that would be convenient!"

It thinks for a moment.

"…Your choice again, I think?"

Mae doesn't know this music library nearly as well as Sable, and it's still a bit scared of accidentally asking for something that doesn't exist yet.

She pulls the CD binder into her lap and starts flipping through it, a soft look on her face. "You worried about picking something I don't like, or something like that? I promise, you can try anything in this binder and I'll like it, and if you don't you can switch to another CD and that won't bother me either. I won't mind if we try ten different discs on the way from here to the store."

Flip flip goes the CD binder, what is she going to pick out?

Dammit, it's been read like a book! She's not totally right, but also yes she absolutely is.

Mae sighs and nods. "…Something like that. Here, let me take a look…"

And it begins peering over Sable's shoulder to see if there's anything it would like.

Wow, so the first thing that jumps out to it is that a lot of these are burned, rather than store-bought.

It grins. Its new mother might be a bit of a pirate~

A few CDs jump out at it towards the beginning.

"Ooh, you have Against Me?"

It grabs out "Searching for a Former Clarity" and puts it into the CD player, removing the previous CD and placing it back into the binder.

"Oho? My cute little foster-daughter likes punk? Fun!"

And they can enjoy that all the way to the departnent store.

Sable is curious who introduced a nine-year-old to punk music, but she's not too concerned. She's always figured it's better to prioritize being someone the kids can come to with questions than to control what they're exposed to.

It doesn't actually think it knows very many punk bands, but it supposes it does like the genre.

It wiggles and taps its feet to the music all the way to the store.

Soon enough they arrive, Sable finds a parking spot, and she takes Mae's hand to lead the way inside.

Mae looks curiously up at the store as it follows Sable inside. It's a larger store than it was expecting, and Mae finds itself looking forward to trying things on.

It's well-lit, but not as harshly so as some other stores, and not very crowded, a faint susurration of conversation mostly drowned out by the soft music. Sable finds the department for younger girls' clothes easily enough, and leads Mae to the underwear first. "Undies and socks and such first, li'l bit. Not necessarily as fun as pretty skirts and dresses and blouses, but best we get the foundational stuff out of the way."

Mae loves quiet stores! Most places (god, let alone restaurants) are always too loud and crowded so it's always happy when it goes somewhere and it isn't.

"That seems reasonable to me!"

It pauses.

"Oh, but I don't know my si—zes…
…Could you help me figure them out?"

"Sure, sweetie. Two ways we can go about it: measure you and then ask an employee what size that corresponds to, or eyeball it and just have you try things on. I know how to measure for my own sizes, so I'm sure I can figure out how to do yours, or we can get an employee to do it if one of them knows, and we'd have to borrow a tape from them anyway. So it's down to whichever you're comfier with, Mae."

"Lets try eyeballing it first, and then ask for help if we still need it?"

It picks up a few dark-colored pairs of panties—mostly blacks and purples.

"…Do you think I need bras? I don't have a lot there—unless any of the tops we find are scratchy…"

She gives it an appraising look for a moment, humming softly. "Probably don't need them, but might be a good idea to get them anyway, just in case? I'd rather you have them and not need them than need them and not have them."

That's fair, it supposes.

It picks up a few bras as well, then begins placing the panties against itself, checking which seem like better fits.

Sable helps gauge the fit as well, and soon enough they work out Mae's approximate size and switch to checking the bras, then walk it to a fitting room so it can check the fit while Sable waits outside.

Mae returns from the fitting room happy. One of the pairs of panties doesn't fit quite right, but the rest do, as do the bras.

It passes the pair that didn't fit to Sable, smiling up at her and cocking its head.

"Where to next?"

Sable sets the pair that didn't fit into the basket the staff have set up for stuff going back, and turns to Mae with a grin. "Skirts and dresses! Delightful spinny fabric in a whole bunch of colors."

Oh lovely! It does love a cute skirt.

It smiles and offers its hand to its new foster mother, following her further into the store.

And they find lots of cute skirts and dresses. After they've got lots of both, she has Mae pick out a dress it likes well enough, then flags down an associate to ask about letting it wear the dress out of the store, and gets told that's fine as long as she saves the tags to ring up later, so she sends Mae back to the fitting room with a pat to its back and has it change into its new dress and underthings.

From there, on to shorts, then blouses, and some tank tops for the summer, and then finally the shoe department for socks and shoes both.

"In my opinion, every girl needs a good pair of boots, some casual tennies for exercising and playing around, at least one pair of flats, and at least one pair of sandals. The rest, like heels and such, is optional, and probably not something you want to get into yet. Learning to walk in heels is a lot of practice."

Somehow, it expects it wouldn't have as much trouble with heels as she thinks, but it keeps that thought to itself.

"What're the sandals for?" It inquires as it begins trying on another pair, "Going to the beach?"

"Beach, summer walks, hot weather in general. That sort of thing."

It giggles. "Makes sense."

It leaves the store in a long, old-fashioned teal skirt and a white blouse, along with a pair of short black platform boots, smiling with its hand in Sable's.

"You look adorable, sweetie. We've still got to hit a beauty supply place for all the hygiene stuff, and you can keep out for any polish colors that really call out to you while we're there. After that, we still need to hit a fancy sunglasses place to see if we can find the shades you want. Any more-specific clothing wishes we haven't found so far?"

It blushes at the compliment.

"Maybe a book from the library, if there's time? Something to read before bed and in the morning."

"Absolutely! We'll hit the branch library on the way home. Libraries are great."

And she loads all the clothes into the trunk, helps Mae into its seat, and then drives off to a beauty supply store, enjoying more Against Me along the way. When they first get there, she examines Mae's hair closely, checking how tightly it curls, before nodding to herself with a brief mutter of, "Three-A or Three-B then," and pulling her foster-daughter down the aisles to find a few specific products. "You can use roughly the same types of stuff as me, since we have similar kinds of curls. We're going to pick out a reset shampoo for getting off whatever might've been built up from worse hair products in the misty past, use that every few months, then a gentle shampoo that doesn't hurt your curls for use on wash days, twice a week, and a conditioner for using two to four times a week. And I want you to tell me which scent you like the best out of each of these, okay?"

Oh, that's a really good point! It has no idea what product it's been using its hair until today.

But…

"…Two-to-four times a week? That feels like… a lot more often than I'd expect. Are you sure?"

"It depends. Curly hair is finicky and needs special treatment. If your hair's pretty healthy, just conditioning on wash days is fine. If it needs some help recovering from damage, extra conditioning days can help improve or repair it a little bit."

Oh, right! Of course, that makes more sense. It nods sheepishly.

"Right, not to wash it that often."

"Sounds good to me then!"

And it'll see if it can find something jasmine-scented: it knows it really likes jasmine.

There are Reasons Sable keeps coming to this beauty supply place, their selection among them. Jasmine is not terribly hard to find.

"Ooh, that smells nice. Smells like it suits you."

She'd almost be tempted if she wasn't so fond of the way her violet and honey conditioner played off of the honey and ash notes in her perfume.

Mae smiles.

"Thanks! I'm looking forward to trying it."

Now then, where was next on their list?

Next, Sable grabs a few other products, and then brings Mae by the nail polish in case there are any colors that really call out to it.

Oooh, there's a lovely teal it'd enjoy wearing! It happily points the shade out.

"Ooh, I don't think I have any good teals at home."

Into the basket it goes, and Mae gets a fond hand-squeeze. While they're there, Sable grabs an iridescent one that seems to shimmer between purple and black, and an almost-black purple that's got gold glitter mixed in.

And unless there's something else Mae wants, that's it for the beauty supply place. Off to a little eyeglasses and sunglasses boutique!

Oh my, it completely forgot about the sunglasses! It happily follows her to see if they can find any nice-looking ones.

The store has a pretty wide selection of frames, though not as many in Mae's size. Most of the heart-shaped ones seem to be fashion over function. They definitely have the basic plastic ones, but if Mae looks carefully, the more elegant frames (which make up the bulk of this shop's selection) do include a couple heart-shaped options.

Mae giggles when it sees the red plastic pairs.

"Oh, of course they have the classic lolita glasses!"

Sable blinks.

Wait. Did it say lolita glasses?

"Y'know, they got nicknamed that after one of the movie adaptations of the book—the one that kinda forgot that—oh, what's his name? The male lead—is supposed to be the bad guy, and ended up heavily sexualizing the girl playing Lolita."

It sighs.

"And of course then one of the producers had sex with her during the shooting—not that that gets talked about much."

Sable has not seen any of the Lolita movies, nor read the book. She meant to get around to it at some point, but never really made it a priority.

She did, however, absorb basically all of what it was about.

She has acquired Additional Questions.

"Mae, sweetie, could you come get something from the car with me for a minute or so? I promise we can come right back after."

She suspects Mae would prefer this conversation not have an audience.

Frankly, she would prefer this conversation not have an audience.

Huh? What could they possibly need to get from the car right now?

That feels weird, but sure.

Mae nods and carefully sets the pair of sunglasses it was looking at back on the display, then dutifully follows Sable out to the car.

She helps it into the car seat, gets into the driver's side, closes the door, and doesn't start the car.

"Okay. I'm curious how you know so much about Lolita, concerned who showed the movies or book to a nine-year-old girl, doubtful that your amnesia will let us have an answer, and not interested in any of this chat having an audience. Sorry about the little fib about getting something from the car, I figured that was the least problematic way to get you here that didn't imply you were in trouble and didn't imply we weren't going back in."

Oh. Well that explains the weirdness at least.

"…Umm.

Okay, so that seems like a reasonable thing to be concerned about, but can I first ask that you please avoid lying to me in the future?

I appreciate the apology, but even for little things, I'd really rather not be lied to."

She nods. "Yeah, I didn't really like doing it. Maybe for the future we should have a code that sounds normal to other people but you and I both know means 'can we go talk in the car away from observers,' to prevent this happening again."

"That sounds like a worthwhile thing to have, yeah."

That can wait until later, though.

Oh dear—okay so it has guesses about why it knows more about that story than most 9-year-olds might, but unfortunately those guesses include "I have the internal sense that I might be nearly two decades older than I look", and it has not actually had time yet to figure out whether Sable is a safe person to say that to.

Should it… try to figure that out now?

Hmm… no, not on the shopping trip, but maybe after they get back?

"Umm… I might have a hint of an idea how and why I've read that book, but do you mind if we wait until we're home before I tell you? You seem really great, but I haven't really… thought about whether or not I should tell you that yet?"

Okay, right, that actually kinda sounds like it was abused or something.

"God, okay, that sounds bad—I don't think it's anything bad."

Sable has additional questions.

But.

"Sure, sweetie. Thanks for telling me that there's a thing at all, and considering telling me later. Does liking Lolita have something to do with why you want heart-shaped sunglasses?"

"Oh, I mean, the aesthetic is fun, but I don't actually think I liked Lolita that much—or at least, I don't remember it very well.

I think I like the glasses because of something else that was referencing Lolita, but now I'm drawing a blank on what that was, so who knows."

It pauses.

"Pretty sure I've never actually seen either of the movie adaptations, though. I'm pretty everything I know about them comes from reading about them."

"Hm. Okay. That..."

She takes a breath.

"So I'm pretty sure that sooner or later someone better-read and better-watched than I am will guess the glasses reference the movie, and have Questions for us about that. If these sunglasses make you feel more like yourself, then I will back you to the hilt on this, and we'll just have to take some time to figure out what we tell that hypothetical person to avoid getting me into trouble and you into a new circuit of the foster system. They don't even have to be essential, they just have to... matter, I guess you could say. I just want you to make that choice knowingly, with all the knowledge I can give you about it. Does that make sense, Mae?"

Aww, that's so sweet!

But…

"Oh! So. I don't actually like the plasticky types like the girl wore in that movie. I prefer the thin-rimmed ones, like that other pair next to them in the store.

I'd still be okay with not wearing them around social workers and the like, but I don't think it'll matter much."

Well. That's simpler. Less similarity, less chance of questions. "Okay, that's fine then. Probably those won't get questions, and usually we're not going to be running into social workers in a really sunny environment anyway."