....There are a lot of things that Evelyn wants to say. But - well, none of them are really things that she can say, right now. Not across this language barrier and culture barrier and - well, power dynamic. 

"You - don't owe it to me to talk to me," she says quietly, making a lot of effort to speak slowly and clearly. "I hope that you'll keep - asking me questions, when you're confused - but it's okay if they're only questions about what words mean in English. I think things will be a lot less confusing once you know English better, and - can go read things about America."

She stands up, carries her empty hot chocolate mug to the counter. "Don't forget that we're going to the doctor tomorrow, once Lily is at school. - Also, just to make sure I've said it - if you get up with Lily tomorrow, I'll pay you five dollars again for an hour of babysitting. You don't have to - you never have to - but it makes my morning a lot easier, and I appreciate it." 

She'll also try to catch Alfirin's eye, not that she expects Alfirin to want to say anything to her directly, it's been clear all along that Alfirin is - less inclined to trust adults, and more practiced at keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself.

(Evelyn doesn't find this reassuring. It's normal for fifteen-year-olds to speak before they think. The wariness is something you see in traumatized kids, and it was actually pretty reassuring, that Iomedae isn't like that. ...The fact that Iomedae is getting more like that is pretty upsetting, and does make it feel like she's doing something horribly wrong, but that's Evelyn's problem and she's absolutely not going to put it on Iomedae.) 

Iomedae will go to her room and pray.

There is this world, and there is her world. How many worlds are there? Worlds go around stars in the sky. Is there a world around every star in the sky?

It's a very important question, because it affects how many people need her to end the Evil afterlives. 

Alfirin doesn't say anything. It might be wise for her to at some point talk to Evelyn about how she feels about the situation she's in - so that Evelyn does not feel a need to involve a professional talking-about-feelings-to-help-people-who-don't-want-your-help person - but right now she's tired and wants a rest before doing anything else involving the English language.

She considers asking Iomedae for help with the spellbook but she's not really up for reading either.

She tries sitting in the room that's supposedly hers, in the dark and the quiet, thinking. She thinks about the world being a ball, and about this world being a different ball. She wonders how far she is from home, if the two ball-worlds are close together or very far away. She thinks about women marrying each other and using magic to lay eggs like birds; It certainly seems more convenient, if women can have babies without sex. And not have babies if they are raped. She thinks about combine harvesters, and how they are probably machines and not monsters, though if they're machines she has no idea how they work.

It's lonely.

Evelyn....will go to the study, and open an email, and stare at it in blank misery for several minutes. This is not an experience that normally happens to her! It's confusing.

...She'll write some rather bland log notes.

Iomedae and Alfirin are getting along well and, she thinks, providing valuable support for each other. They're still facing a lot of culture shock, but Evelyn is sure their questions will be easier to answer once they're more fluent in English. They did a lot of English practice today, at home. They visited the food bank and arranged for both girls to do some volunteering, at least for now while they're not in school and could benefit from more daytime activities. Evelyn thinks it will be valuable for language practice and cultural exposure.

Evelyn discussed chores and allowance with them, and plans to increase their allowance for extra chores, including playing with Lily. They went shopping and got clothes for Alfirin and a bike for Iomedae. Alfirin didn't want a bike, and in any case hasn't even started learning to ride one. They had company over for dinner and it went fine. They have doctor's appointments for tomorrow morning and dentist appointments booked for further in the future.

Overall, the girls are adjusting as well as anyone can expect. Evelyn hasn't brought up the issue of Martin being deported with Iomedae, yet, she was waiting for a good time, but she expects it to go fine. 

(Evelyn does not expect it to go fine, but - she does, overall, expect that it won't go wrong in ways she could easily explain to Diel, so - that's more or less the same thing, right?)

(She doesn't go into specifics about the company they had over. She has no idea how to convey to Diel why it seemed like a good idea or what she was hoping for, and - well, it's not like she even knows the details of what was discussed. It's perhaps misleading to say it went well, but Iomedae did say it was helpful.) 

Evelyn rewrites the notes, including splitting out the Parts About Iomedae and the Parts About Alfirin into separate emails, and sends them, and goes to bed. She does not, immediately, go to sleep. 

Alfirin gets up and walks across the hall to knock on Iomedae's door.

She gets the door. 

"Is everything all right?"

"Everything is all right. Can I sleep on the floor in here tonight? The other room is too big and too empty and the bed is too soft."

"Isn't it? I don't understand why you'd even want such a soft bed. It feels like being suffocated. There's room on the floor in here, though you should bring in your own bedding." She will push her bed to the side to make there be more of it.

This house doesn't change temperatures very much at night, bedding seems kind of unnecessary. Alfirin goes back to her room for a thin blanket and the least wrong pillow, though, and finds a spot for them on Iomedae's floor.

"Do you know the song of rebuilding after Azlant was lost?"

"No." She knows some songs about the ten-thousand-winter night but those are probably not the one Iomedae is thinking of. Not much rebuilding, in those.

"May I sing it?'

"I would enjoy that."

She closes her eyes and sings, in Taldane, though Taldane was not yet spoken when Aroden composed this song, and everyone agrees his original was better and the translations are all grossly inadequate. 

The careful text-books measure
 - Let all who build beware!
The load, the shock, the pressure
Material can bear.
So, when the shattered girder
Lets down the grinding span,
The blame of loss, or murder,
Is laid upon the man.
Not on the steel —the Man!

But in our daily dealing
With stone and steel, we find
The Gods have no such feeling
Of justice toward mankind.
With no set strength they made us -
For no purpose prepared -
In time they overtake us
With loads we cannot bear:
Too merciless to bear.  

We hold all lands to plunder—
All distant planes as well—
Too wonder-stale to wonder
At each new miracle;
Till, in the mid-illusion
Of Godhood 'neath our hand
Falls multiple confusion
On all we did or planned—
The mighty works we planned.  

We only in Creation
How much luckier the screw and nail
Abide the twin damnation—
To fail and know we fail.
Yet we - by which sole token
We know we once were Gods—
Take shame in being broken
However great the odds—
The burden of the Odds.

Oh, veiled and secret Power
Whose paths we seek in vain,
Be with us in our hour
Of overthrow and pain;
That we - by which sure token
We know Thy ways are true—
In spite of being broken,
Or because of being broken
Rise up and build anew

Stand up and build anew.

Alfirin is not really parsing all the words, because she has been speaking foreign languages all day long and she is tired and they're being sung instead of spoken clearly. She gets the gist of it, though, and it's pretty, and there's something comfortingly normal about someone singing at night.

....Yeah Evelyn is not actually asleep yet and can definitely overhear the singing happening. Also she's pretty sure that Alfirin crept over to Iomedae's room. She has a lot of practice at interpreting the sounds of footsteps and door-creaks. 

It's fine. It's - probably good for them, that they have each other. 

It's a pretty song. A sad song, she thinks? She wishes she could understand the words. 

Iomedae knows a lot of other ones, but that's the one that has brought her the most comfort since she became a slave. If you'd asked her a week ago she'd have said it's about how mortals are tougher than anything you throw at them, and she's pretty sure now that that's not it, actually, but it's about how if your most catastrophic mistakes do happen to leave you standing you can choose to be the sort of person who gets stronger from them, who learns your breaking point and does not break of it.

She will lie down next to Alfirin but not so close it seems like she's trying to be excessively friendly, and sing a silly children's song about cats chasing ducks chasing insects down a hill.

When Iomedae's done with that one Alfirin can take a turn, singing the one about a goat and the one about a woman who gets kidnapped by fairies and the one about the woman who almost but not quite gets kidnapped by fairies. They're all in Hallit because all the songs Alfirin knows are in Hallit.

Iomedae cannot understand those and her head is too full of new words to even want to pick up any Hallit but it is nice, to hear someone singing, to feel like they might be free people in an ordinary place under an ordinary roof. ...when everyone else is out of the house for some reason. And it smells weird. 

She will try to sing Alfirin the song of how men bent plants to their will but she's getting sleepy.

Yeah her too.

It's been a kind of exhausting and upsetting day for Lily.

She was very good at school, but being good at school is tiring, and then she got home and the big sisters were sad, and Mummy was sad, and nobody was talking about it so she didn't know what was wrong. And then she didn't even get to play with the big girls who visited, and Mummy took her to the park but was sort of preoccupied - which is wrongbadscary, Mummy shouldn't be like that - and then she got back and the big girls were upset too and Iomedae was angry. She wasn't doing any of the scary angry things like shouting or hitting, but Lily is not a baby and she has EYES and can TELL when people are angry. She can tell when something is wrong, and it's almost worse that there's no shouting or throwing or hitting, then at least she wouldn't be waiting for it. 

She's still exhausted enough to fall asleep immediately, and sleep through the singing, but it's perhaps not entirely surprising that she has a nightmare, and at 2:30 am a bloodcurdling shriek can be heard from her room. 

Ooooof Evelyn just got properly to sleep and her head is pounding. She stumbles out of bed, grabbing for her dressing-gown, and staggers blearily for the door. 

Iomedae's faster. Detect Evil?

Oh no????? Alfirin is up and stumbling after Iomedae and - she doesn't have a weapon she left it in the locked drawer - she shouldn't have done that she slept with it under her pillow the night before for a reason -