Meelia waves her hand from the side of the road, trying to get the attention of a car or bus going in the right direction.

One of the buses comes to a halt. The driver leans out. "You lost, kiddo?"

"No! I'm on an adventure. I think your bus is going in the right direction, can I get on?"

"- uh - where are you going -"

"Cheep is bringing me somewhere he found."

She holds out Cheep to demonstrate.

Cheep continues looking like a mouse. He is not really certain what else is expected of him here.

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't have any?"

Oh wait, she can guess what is confusing him.

"I'm an amalien, not an Amentan or an animal."

"- oh. Uh, yeah, you can ride the bus, sure." He opens the door for her.

Meelia will ride the bus! Zoooom.

The bus actually goes between cities but he will stop between stops for her if she asks.

Cheep wants to get off here!

Meelia indeed asks to be left in-between stops, where Cheep wants her to go.

Okay. "Next time bring a bus pass or somebody who's got one!" the driver advises, letting her off.

Meelia doesn't know what that means but will figure it out later! Right now she will follow Cheep a bit off road to their final destination.

This takes her past a hospital and some government housing and a supplemented daycare and a purple school and some apartments and little stores, all a bit less nice than the ones she saw hanging out with Tish in the city yesterday, and then there is the fork in the road marked bright crimson. A delivery truck is trundling in.

None of those things seem very different, so they probably aren't the place Cheep was leading. She follows the crimson marked road, excited about adventure in a new place.

This isn't a highly trafficked area - there's a storage unit over there, a water treatment plant over there, bus garage with a lone fuel attendant in it this time of day. The delivery driver isn't checking her rearview.

Nobody spots Meelia going in, at least not if she finds a good hiding place right away. How about behind that big container full of boxes of shoe covers, conveniently right by the entrance?

That big container doesn't really look interesting to her so she's gonna walk past it.

She isn't trying to hide - people usually aren't scared of her like they are of Cheep.

Then several people will detect her in short order but not the deliverypurple, not right away, not before she has dropped a carton full of flour right on a red's foot and shouted at him to back off; he hops away, tears springing to his eyes. Then she unloads another carton and then she spots Meelia. "Hey, is that kid one of yours whose parents are looking to get arrested or did a clean kid wander in -"

"Not ours ma'am," someone says hastily, after a confused look at Meelia.

"Oh no, are you okay?"

Meelia is focusing on the person who is hurt, the other stuff doesn't seem that important.

The injured red looks at her in alarmed confusion and doesn't answer.

"Kid, you've gotta go that way, through that door there, the white door," says the purple, pointing. "That's the shower exit, it's got instructions on the wall. Do your parents know you're missing?"

"I'm not a kid and I don't have parents. I'm an amalien. And I don't want to shower right now."

Meelia knows a lot about hurt feet, is this one broken?

Hard to tell with the shoe on, but it looks plausibly broken insofar as she can discern information about it.

"Okay, well, amalien, you have to shower whether you feel like it or not," says the purple. "This is the red district and you aren't even wearing shoe covers, it's the law you have to decontam on your way out. I dunno who lost track of you but they'll tell you the same."

"I can shower on my way out I guess. But I'm not going out right now, I'm going in."

To the Amentan with the hurt foot: "I think your foot might be broken. I could help with that if you'd like? I've helped with a lot of broken feet before." Usually her own.