While she had her back turned, Lily somehow pulled down a hot-pink lacy pushup bra with padded foam cups and draped it over herself. "Mummy! Am Awwel!" 

Evelyn will do her best to look blandly cheerful. "You're right, love, Ariel does wear things a bit like that when she's a mermaid." This shopping trip is so draining and she's not even sure why. Probably it's mostly imaginary Iomedae subtext again and she's letting it get to her more than she should because it's been a long day. 

Iomedae is also feeling very stressed and strained. It's probably the bright lights and bright colors and weird place and Lily's tantrum and the fact she's discouraged from carrying even a normal camping knife and the dinner with Evelyn's grown son and the fear things will be like this for months because that's how long it will take the magistrate to evaluate the attempted rape and the fact she is not allowed to earn money until she has her papers and no one has said how long that will take.

Evelyn is...not going to explain to Lily that you should not wear neon pink padded undergarments, apparently? Probably Iomedae wouldn't try getting into that with a four year old like she's supposed to imagine Lily is, though she wouldn't hesitate to tell a seven-year-old sister that she's pretty sure those are for prostitutes and that's why Evelyn is suppressing such a face. 

(Iomedae is not a sheltered child. One of the great vices of the Empire's cities are prostitutes, women who lie with men for money, and get sick from it and die young and make the men sick too and if everyone involved is very lucky give their babies up to the Church to be raised out of the generosity of responsible people. Armies, too, are followed by prostitutes to entertain the soldiers. This is among the reasons Iomedae's family was opposed to her becoming a holy warrior. She told them she would have a sword, and Aroden's power to defend herself, and she had not meant for that to be a lie because she had not imagined anyone would ask her to go around unarmed.)

"Let go back your house," she says to Evelyn.

Evelyn has the Little Mermaid Bra interaction with Lily every. single. time. they go through the Walmart clothing section, and the first several times she would add that, of course, once Ariel was a little girl like Lily and not a mermaid she wore shirts and dresses, but she's very tired and instead she just reminds Lily to make sure she puts it back exactly where she found it rather than throwing it on the floor. 

They can go. She's worried about Iomedae but the Walmart checkout line, with Lily's limited self-control running low, is a terrible place to have a "are you doing okay" conversation. She's relieved just to make it out without any awkward incidents. 

It's 5 pm by the time they get home. Evelyn texts Jeremy to tell him to come at 6 instead of 5:30, it seems like Iomedae needs a break or something. Probably the 'or something' but Evelyn has no idea what.

She'll get Lily settled watching cartoons and suggest in a friendly way that they have a whole hour before Jeremy gets here (so Iomedae doesn't have to be on tenterhooks for it) and maybe Iomedae can help her make dinner? 

(She would text Jeremy to tell him to be very nonthreatening and definitely avoid ever being alone in a room with Iomedae, but Jeremy is the son of a foster carer willing to take "difficult" teens. He is very used to being careful.) 

Iomedae is very willing to help make dinner. She doesn't seem totally okay but she seems a little more so than she was at Walmart.

...How about they make ratatouille, it's high effort enough that Evelyn doesn't usually manage and they all like it (and, though she doesn't say this, it has cheap ingredients.) They can companionably chop onions to sauté, once she asks Iomedae to make sure to quickly hide the knife if she hears Lily coming. Evelyn doesn't trust herself on this but Iomedae has great reflexes, which is...mildly concerning when you wonder why...but useful. 

Aaaaaaaand then she needs to just take a deep breath and Actually Communicate. "Iomedae, love, you seem kind of nervous, and I don't know if it's just that today was a lot of things, or if you're worried about something tonight?" 

"I do not like that I cannot keep me or other people safe, ma'am." This seems like a safer complaint to express than the one about Jeremy. "Even woman my age not holy warrior carry knife. I feel mad it take months law think about Martin and I have stay here months."

Oh no. What an understandable tragic messy fraught situation. She could try again to explain that suburban Reno is a very different kind of place from...wherever Iomedae is used to...but, well, it's not like Reno-the-city is the lowest-crime region one might think of. And if Iomedae does end up harassed by a guy in the street - not impossible, she may be built like like a brick wall but she's pretty and some people have terrible judgement when they've had too much to drink - then she's never going to forgive Evelyn or feel safe here. 

"- Wait here one moment." 

She collects her handbag from the top of the hall cabinet and comes back and carefully slides the Swiss Army multitool out of its pouch. Shows Iomedae how the blade flicks out. It's maybe two inches long but at least it's metal and has an edge. 

"You can have this and keep it in your pocket, I am pretty sure it can't possibly be illegal since I was carrying it around with me before and Jeremy had one since he was twelve. Don't ever let Lily see it, she - we think she remembers a scary thing happening with knives when she lived with her old parents, but like you saw before, even talking about it upsets her a lot. That's why I was trying not to say the word 'knife' but I think I just confused you before." 

"Oh. Yes, I was confused." - she distracts herself somewhat trying to figure out the mechanical mechanism. It is hard to imagine taking down a serious threat with this but it is clever, and a lot better than nothing. "I no show Lily. 

Do you know how long to get papers?"

"I think a year or two, maybe. I can email the social worker and ask."

Yeah, Iomedae looks about as unimpressed with the multitool as you would expect of someone used to carrying a SWORD for self-defense, but - hopefully it's at least an indication that Evelyn is trying, that she hasn't written off Iomedae's worry as a child's foolishness. Kids can tell when adults are doing that and they hate it even when it is an unreasonable thing to be worried about. 

Are there any other self-defense weapons legal for minors? - no, tasers are allowed but not for minors, pepper spray is banned for minors. Evelyn...can kind of follow the reasoning why but also it kind of does feel like the state of Nevada just doesn't want kids to be able to defend themselves. And, seriously, has anyone ever used pepper spray to mug someone rather than fend off a mugger? 

"- I wonder if you should take a training class in how to fight with no weapons? I know it's not the same, but it might make it less scary, if you know that you know what to do." Evelyn is pretty sure a lot of martial arts studios aimed at kids are...kind of stupid...but surely she can find one that does genuine realistic unarmed self-defense. 

"That sound good! Also want learn other kinds weapons, even if no can carry them in the city."

Nod. "Yeah. There are probably places you can train that keep the weapons locked up at the school, that would allow you in? I'll search for places." And...probably beg them to reduce their fee for an underprivileged but very talented kid, because that's got to be pricy and wow she is not going begging to Diel for social services funding so Iomedae can learn archery. 

"Thank you. 

How I call Jeremy, when he come for dinner?"

"...Just Jeremy is fine? We're not a very formal family."

She is not going to bring up that Jeremy is Iomedae's big brother while she's here and will look out for her like one, because wow that will not help and also Iomedae probably has a very concerning set of expectations about what it means for a big brother to look out for you. She wants to say that Jeremy is safe and trustworthy and has been for dozens of other foster children, but that's not really the sort of thing you can just say in words and expect to be believed. 

Jeremy is not Iomedae's big brother. Iomedae has two living big brothers and both of them would give her a good hunting knife and need restraining from going to yell at the magistrate for taking months to settle the case.

"I also angry it take years get papers. I think maybe I go different place where people can work without papers."

Well. This is really not going well, is it. 

"Iomedae, you're a clever girl and a determined girl and you know I can't stop you. I think you next year will be happier if you stay long enough to learn more about - what the places where they let you work without papers - are like. ...Actually, I should look this up, but I think there might not be very many places like that, just - places where the government isn't very good at government things and so they won't notice if someone is breaking the law." 

"I pretty sure there many places where legal work without papers. That a evil America thing. No where else do that."

It's not that Evelyn is even unsympathetic to the whole "ICE is evil" viewpoint! It's just that - gah. 

"We can go look it up on the computer after dinner, I'm sure Wikipedia must have a page on immigration law in different countries. But - Iomedae, are you sure you would have known, where you grew up, if the big city was far away and you had never been there and everyone you knew was born there, what the rules were for people coming from a different country who wanted to be paid in money to do a job in the city?" 

"I not sure I have known the big city. But if people needed papers, my father have had papers. My father an obedient man, he want Heaven. The priest have had papers. Priests have be obedient."

And of course you can't just tell a kid who clearly loved and admired her father that it's quite possible he had no way of knowing either. (Though she said her parents were literate, which makes it more confusing...) 

Sigh. 

"I don't know, love. I'm sorry that every time we talk it's so - like this. It's just - it feels like we know completely different worlds, and everything I think is obvious seems insane to you, and everything you think is obvious seems - often very bad and worrying to me, though I'm glad all the priests you knew were - good people." 

"They have to be. God not pick bad people be priests. - evil gods pick bad people be priests, I guess, but God who was person once and return in glory, he not pick evil priests."

Guess what Evelyn does not feel like getting into right now: Catholic priest child sex abuse scandals! There might or might not be a time in the future when that would be a good thing to explain to Iomedae but now is NOT that time. Also: people can just decide to go to minister school or whatever and be priests, she doesn't think Gods vets their admissions. Not useful to say right now.

One ridiculous part of her is muttering that she didn't know Satan was supposed to have priests, but there's a whole Satanic church and everything, right, even if she thinks it's mostly pretty...fake. ALSO not useful to say right now. Evelyn's brain should do a better job of coming up with something to say that isn't incredibly tone-deaf and/or a hook into a big messy upsetting conversation that's a terrible idea to have while hanging out in the kitchen around a frypan of onions. 

...She fails to think of anything productive to say and just nods in an empathetic sort of way instead. 

"I know maybe I should stay here because school is free and learn more make me better holy warrior. I don't see now story from go school end Hell, but I will try it, and if it teach how end Hell I stick with it."

"...Yeah. I think school won't - give you a plan of how to end Hell - I don't think anyone has a plan that would work, and it sounds like no one did where you come from either. But I think one of the things school is for is making you - better at planning, and better at knowing how to go find things out that you need to understand for your plan to work, and better at convincing other people to work with you."

Evelyn is dizzyingly unsure whether she's taking Iomedae's entire - thing - about Hell way too seriously, or somehow failing to take it seriously enough. Feeling this thoroughly disoriented, off-balance and unsure which of her assumptions are reasonable and whether she's being fair or awful, isn't an entirely new experience for her, with fostering, but - usually it's a pretty different kind of thing. Kids who are traumatized and - she hates the word 'manipulative', but kids who've learned lots of different little scripts to press the adults' buttons - and the thing she heard a therapist call 'unstable identity formation' once (she likes that word way better than many words that get used instead), kids who aren't sure themselves where they stand or what they want or who they want to be.

Iomedae is incredibly sure of herself and what she wants, possibly more sure of that than anyone Evelyn has ever met, and conversations with her feel like repeatedly being shoved off her metaphorical feet by a very polite, very grateful slowly advancing truck. 

(She's still not mad. Or even annoyed, really. Iomedae isn't the one being unreasonable. If anyone here is being unreasonable it's Diel and Social Services stop it. Maybe it's just the world.) 

"God have a plan." 

But somehow this has been a relaxing conversation, and she does the rest of the dinner preparations in a better mood.