"No, I- well, I had kind of a headache earlier, but I don't think it was from hitting it.  Also I speak English now."  Oh look what interesting shelf labels.  

Dana seems to miss the 'now', and will anxiously ramble on as they shelve and count and label things. It's about twenty minutes before they're out of things, and the closet is getting kind of full too even with other things already present stacked at the back.

Some background world facts mentioned during the ramble:

Taxes are going up again. Didn't they elect Republican politicians on the promise that they'd REDUCE the state debt...? It's probably President Clinton's fault somehow, even though he's the President and not the state governor.

They say that it always takes a year or two to develop a vaccine for any new disease, so there's no just waiting and getting your flu shot about the rabies epidemic.

School is out 'for the summer' right now. Dana's son is sixteen and being lazy now that he doesn't have school anymore.

There's an 'industrial park' behind the church a ways and a 'suburban neighborhood' about a mile past the pond and 'Eighty-Eight', a road that goes to city of Chicago(?) off to the south and 'Fermilab' to the north.

You need a car to get anywhere these days, what a shame, they should have more bus services.

The 'Naperville River Walk' is a really nice park. There's a university in Naperville too.

Aurora has a 'bad part of town', where you ought to carry a weapon or walk in pairs or groups in her opinion.

Khalida's clothes remind her of 'the old country', she can get something probably more comfortable at Kohl's Store for not too pricey.

"Do you need anything? It must be quite distressing to be lost and then run into rumors of trouble on top of that."

Khalida can help hand her things, and keep track of counts for her, and try to piece together things about the world from what she's saying without asking too too many super weird questions.  

"I don't think so- I was really lucky I had my bag with me when whatever it was happened.  I guess dinner, if you have enough to spare.  ...what's a vaccine?"

"We can definitely spare dinner. It'll be packaged things unless you want to wait though- I think the plan is to get an outdoor grill from Sears and a lot of charcoal, to handle cooking- A vaccine is, you know- No, you don't. Er. I don't really understand how it works, but they make a weak version of a disease, and give you that, so weak you don't even actually get sick, but the body learns how to fight it. So if you catch it again, it doesn't sink in nearly as far. They managed to get rid of smallpox completely you know, it was a big deal. Nineteen eighty. And I think polio and measles are nearly gone too, I don't remember the numbers."

"Oh huh, that's neat- completely gone?  Wow."  Stack stack stack.  "...your god of disease is probably less powerful than ours, then.  Or- could She be mad about it, and that's why the epidemic?"

"Yep, completely gone. It only exists in two places, carefully guarded labs, so people can study it just in case. -There is no god of disease, of course," she says as if speaking to a child. "Only Jesus Christ and all the angels and saints."

"Huh, how did that happen?  ...why do you still have other diseases, is there a, a saint of disease?"

"How did- What? I'm afraid I don't really know all the saints. Maybe Raphael? And we still have other diseases because we haven't got around to curing them yet in God's plan, I'm sure."

"How did you wind up with no god of disease, is what I meant, but like, I think I'm even more confused about the god situation here than I thought?  Can you tell me the, like, little-kid version?"

"...Well, long ago people thought there were many gods, and worshipped them. But over time the prophets and saints who wrote scripture realized that there were not really any other gods than God, through the words of the prophets and the miracles displayed by his followers. Some people still disagree, and think there is no god, or that there are many, but they're wrong. We know by reading the scriptures and the miracles that were recorded that there is one, who is the father, the son, and the holy spirit."

"So- you can tell because the one god gives His followers miracles, and the others don't?"  Khalida looks about as confused as if people were disagreeing over how many moons there are.  "And- nobody does, um, learned magic at all?"

"No, you can't learn magic. Some people think some things are magic, but truly they are miracles, or just normal reality that seemed like magic."

"Um.  Excuse me a moment."  

Because she thought her Detects worked earlier and there just wasn't anything to show, but she has a sudden horrible sinking feeling that somehow she was just imagining it, that this whole city/country/planet is some kind of eternal Mana Wastes- she ducks back into the main room so if she's about to have a breakdown she's not going to do it right in front of this nice lady with the lazy son.

She closes her eyes, holds onto her little wooden mask for luck, calls an old familiar spellform to the front of her mind, the first one she learned, one she's hardly ever without.  "Prestidigitation."  Can she clean some dust off a windowsill?  Turn a cushion blue?  Warm up the arm of a bench?  

She can do all of these things! Not that there's a lot of dust to clean.

Thank You Nethys.  And thank You also Jesus Christ for being chill about her doing it in Your temple.

There's an empty water tank off in a side alcove, she'll take a minute and fill it up before she goes back to talking.  (It's gorgeously carved but surprisingly small for someplace that doesn't have a full-time priest, maybe there's usually a junior cleric here and Father Ramisov rides circuit?  ...or telephones circuit?)

An orthodox baptismal font has no particular reaction to being filled.

Dana has arranged 'lunch' by opening a couple boxes of pre-packaged snacks, chips, a thing of apple juice, and a can of pears in sweet syrup. She's on the phone, talking with someone about what to buy and how to pay for it. She gestures- Khalida is welcome to graze.

She would be pretty surprised if it did!  (And then probably die of mimic.)

Oooooh pears.  ...poached pears?  She reads the can as she fishes one out- it apparently contains 0 of several things, and some numbers of some others, none of which she recognizes- oh wow that's sweet.  She helps herself to another one, and- needs to stop there, these people are offering her charity and scared and she's not going to repay them by eating all their preserved fruit.  

Instead she'll take a packet of what calls itself 'cheddar cheese on cheese sandwich crackers', some kind of travel bread?  And- actually, move to a different table so the pears are less tempting- and after a bit of puzzling over the wrapper, slices it open with her belt knife to try one.  (Salty and crumbly and not at all like any cheese she's had previously, and also not a pear.)

She may recall counting and storing 78 cans of various fruits, but that's up to her.

Dana finishes her phone call and grabs some snacks of her own. The other two pear halves from the can, and she likes the little blackish breads called Oreos, apparently.

"I've been thinking about your situation, and realized you might not be in the united states legally."

"Uh... if that's a thing, then yes?  I- actually I guess Whoever or whatever brought me here might legally be kidnapping?  Not that anybody could really arrest it or Them for it..."

"I don't know how it changes if you didn't mean to be here. Usually they would deport you back where you came, but if they can't find your home or any records related to it... I'm not sure. Maybe you would get an asylum visa, for being kidnapped here. But I'm sure it will be a legal mess. What I'm getting at is that maybe this should not come up if you can avoid it, until someone helps you look into it."

Nod.  "Would I normally need to- do something in specific, to avoid it?  I don't think I can fake being from here, I don't know- any of this stuff."

"Lots of official things require identification documents, which you don't have and can't get. It might be difficult, ah... You don't look quite like the most common type of immigrant people get suspicious of. Not actively bringing it up will help... Maybe a work visa. That is temporary permission to be here in order to do a specific job. Probably we should try to get advice from a lawyer."

"Huh, okay.  I- guess I can avoid doing official things?  I can't really start a laundry business anyway, if everybody here thinks magic is fraud...  would it help if I said I was seventeen, would they be more likely to believe I was a refugee?  I guess maybe that's a lawyer question, sorry."

"That's probably a lawyer question. I'm not sure. I'm sorry, America used to be more welcoming, I think."

Shrug.  "Not your fault.  I'm more used to countries wanting to keep people in than out, I guess.  ...I mean, like, if they wanted to send me home I'd let them, but I don't see how they could."