"Oh, sorry!" Evelyn has been trying to track which words Iomedae does and doesn't know, but she apparently wasn't paying attention just then. She...will have to do a repeat of the Jogging On The Spot Bouncing Boobs mime routine, oh no. "If you're running, your breasts can bounce and it can hurt. Wearing a bra - especially a sports bra like the ones here, makes it not hurt. Comfortable is when something doesn't hurt, exercise is - things like running or playing sports or practicing fighting." 

The thing will...help her breasts bounce????? Probably this is a sex thing???? She thinks rich people...usually don't make their daughters be prostitutes but maybe they make their slaves be prostitutes and she's not sure which category she's in for this??? Or is Evelyn hoping she'll get married off soon???

She does not have the English to ask about this. She does not have the Spanish to ask about this. She barely has the Taldane to ask about this.

"These are clothes for breeding? Does she expect us to do that?"

" - no, no, she says this helps your breasts not hurt when you run or fight. This is not really a problem I have noticed, and you even less presumably, but that's what she's saying."

"Oh. That is better. It does not seem important, unless we are practicing fighting much?"

"It doesn't seem important to me. I have no idea if it's important to Evelyn. I plan to practice fighting as much as I can but I don't know if you'd want to, or how much 'as much as I can' will even end up being."

"I should also practice fighting because my brothers are not here and I do not know spells for fighting and also spells for fighting are probably illegal."

"I have one, for...exercise..." She sounds suspicious of the word.

Evelyn has no idea what conversation they just had or how concerning it was! ...On some level she's relieved not to know, the 'wearing a bra' conversation with teenage girls is awkward in general and she certainly would have appreciated, when she was fourteen or fifteen, being able to have a private back and forth without her mom listening in. In hopes of minimizing the self-consciousness, Evelyn is going to mostly try to act like this isn't especially interesting or a big deal. 

"Okay. You don't have to wear it, if you decide you don't like it, but we should get you one." She's done so many rounds of 'shopping for a teen girl's first bra' and can easily point out the sensible sports bra section and what she guesses would be Alfirin's size, and then point her to the changing stalls to try it on. 

Alfirin can go into the changing stalls and...eventually...figure out how to put on a bra, and try the ones Evelyn suggested which seem to fit around her breasts like they're probably supposed to, even if all the bands are weirdly tight by the standards of home.

She can pick out her favorite, then. (It's more expensive than the individual shirts or dresses.) Evelyn would also really like to get Alfirin new shoes - she, technically, has shoes, but they're not in good condition - but Walmart shoes aren't actually a particularly good deal, when you take quality and durability into account. She has a stash of outgrown shoes at home; maybe she can just suggest that both Alfirin and Iomedae check that out.) 

The entire order comes to nearly $70, despite the careful bargain shopping. Evelyn does not act like this is at all a big deal. 

That's a very low price for this many clothes. Alfirin does think it's strange that Evelyn wants to buy her a breast holder when they are more expensive than a whole dress.

(Bras are kind of weird! Evelyn remembers finding that particular shopping trip very uncomfortable when she was thirteen, and based on her experiences since, she's pretty sure this is just the generic experience of being a preteen or teenage girl and encountering bras and having to wear them. The best way to minimize that inevitable awkwardness is to just...not make a big deal of it, and move on.) 

So! How about a visit to the secondhand bike co-op? 

It's kind of weird how Evelyn asks them to affirm the next errand. Iomedae again has no objection to the next errand.

(Diel replies to Evelyn's email saying if Evelyn can schedule doctor/dentist visits that'd be awesome thanks Evelyn!)

(Evelyn is not going to see that email just yet because she doesn't get email notifications on her phone. She technically can check her email on her phone, and even reply to emails if she's motivated enough to try to type on her tiny touchscreen phone keyboard, but she hardly ever does, because email is not generally for urgent messages and they'll be home by lunchtime.) 

She knows everyone who works and/or volunteers at the bike co-op, at least by face if not by name, because of course she does. She's given them an enormous amount of business, over the years, and she's pretty confident by now that they don't resell obviously-stolen bikes (which is the reason she doesn't frequent the other secondhand bike store anymore.) 

Evelyn parks the car, and walks the girls over, and then nudges in through the doorway and grins and waves at - who's on shift today -

"Juan! Hi! These are my new foster daughters, Iomedae and Alfirin. We'd like to look at bikes for them."

She definitely wants to buy one for Iomedae, and is unsure whether it makes sense to get one for Alfirin when she's never ridden a bike before and hasn't explicitly expressed interest in owning one. (She also knows that Juan speaks fluent Spanish, and would be tempted to mention something about this, except for how she's kind of exhausted right now about conversations she can't follow, and she can speak Spanish, sort of, but cannot in fact understand spoken Spanish very well when native speakers are talking fast.) 

Juan knows Evelyn and - can tell when she's tense, though honestly he's never seen her this tense before. 

He smiles back. "Hi! Great, let's go back and have a look at what we've got this week -" 

The back room of the shop is unfinished and garage-like and has a large number of bikes, of varying degrees of scruffiness, parked in bike racks or mounted on wall racks. Juan seems to know his way around. 

"- How tall are you, do you know?" he asks Iomedae. Evelyn seemed to be looking at her more, and the second foster kid - what's-her-name - seems a bit shyer. 

How would one not know how tall one is. "I am this tall."

Oh no that's such a reasonable answer if you've never gotten measured before. The measurement will happen at the doctor's appointment that will at some point get scheduled, but for now Evelyn only has her best guess, which is that Iomedae is a bit taller than her - not exactly rare, she's 5'5" with her shoes on - but not shockingly taller than her. 

"Five-six or five-seven," she tells Juan. "Long in the legs." 

He'll go survey their bike selection! ...Iomedae looks really fit, so he's not going to bother with the one-speeds, she'll probably want gears that can do hills and he knows Evelyn can afford it. 

"Here, have a look at this one."

It's not a women's bike, but Iomedae does not come across as the sort of teenage girl who cares about being able to bike in skirts. It's not a lightweight bike - it's a mountain-bike frame, steel rather than aluminum - but she looks like she could bench-press him, she can heft this bike if she needs to. It has beefy tires, for off-road riding. The seat is probably set too low for her but that's better than too high, for trying it out. 

"I not know how to tell if it a good breed of bike."

(This is kind of adorable, as mistranslations-to-English go, and Evelyn does not snicker but it takes her a bit of effort.) 

...Juan does giggle. 

"It's a mountain-bike frame, so it's heavy. You should make sure you can pick it up and don't mind the weight, but it's cheaper than a commuter bike or hybrid, and - honestly, you don't look like it'd slow you down. Best way to get to know a bike is to hop on and give it a spin - in here's fine, we've got space - and I can give you some others to try after, just to compare." 

...Evelyn would offer to translate, but that would be much less awkward if she had a private language she shared with Iomedae that Juan didn't speak, and also she's...not entirely sure of the technical difference between 'mountain' and 'commuter' and 'hybrid' bikes. 

"He's suggesting you just try to ride it around the room," she says, gesturing. "See how it feels compared to my bike, when you borrowed it." 

She does not mind the weight of the bike. She will attempt to ride it around but she's still quite bad at riding a bike.

That is super unsurprising, Evelyn often brings in kids who had clearly never ridden a bike before they lived with her. This particular kid is at least not requiring a lot of coaxing and encouragement to even try riding the bike around, and she doesn't crash into anything or wipe out on the floor, so that's doing pretty well. The seat is obviously too low, but that's for later. If anything, overly-low seats make it easier to try lots of bikes in a row.

Juan waves to catch her attention and get her to stop - catching the handlebars if she looks like she's going to topple over otherwise, but actually she seems to be doing okay - and then takes the bike from her and casually shoves it into one of the floor-racks.

"Right. You did great on that one, but have a go on this one too - I don't think it's the one you'll want," because it costs three times as much and he knows Evelyn, "but just give it a try, to see how it feels." Since she wants to know how to compare different 'breeds' of bike, and he's so curious. 

He'll casually swing down one of the fanciest commuter bikes they have in the shop, and - the seat is actually going to be too high for Iomedae, it's a bigger frame, but Juan has an allen-wrench set in his pocket and can very quickly adjust it as far down as it goes. 

"Here you go!" He holds the handlebars steady until Iomedae is ready.