"Thank you, ma'am."

Iomedae trots on over to the men unloading the truck. She is in a mood to pick up extremely heavy objects and put them in other places. It will make her feel better. 

     "The packing volunteers are over there," one of the men says. 

Iomedae picks up a sixty pound box and puts it on her head. She has good form. It is important to lift things carefully or you'll get weaker instead of stronger for it. "Where does this go?"

     " - shelving unit C, right there. I don't know if you're allowed to do that."

"To put boxes on my head?" Iomedae takes the box down from her head and carries it in her arms over to shelving unit C. "Is it illegal?"

     "...no, carrying them however you want is fine."

She picks up another box.

       "I mean you might not actually be allowed to help unpack the truck. Because they might get sued if you hurt yourself."

"What is 'sued'."

     "Uh, you or your mom might go, 'the company shouldn't have let our girl on the truck, the company owes her money for her injuries'."

"God witness I promise to you that if I hurt myself unpacking this truck I will no say you haved some duty to stop me. My mother and my father, they would not know how to do this and are too honorable anyway. But I do not know if I can promise this for Evelyn, the foster mother the government make me live with. She is kind, but she is American, so maybe do terrible things for silly reason." This box, too, lands on shelving unit C. "So I should go with other volunteers?"

     "Yeah. Sorry."

Evelyn watches this from a distance, not entirely happily. She does involuntarily wince when she sees Iomedae go in to pick up the box, it looks really heavy, but - apparently it's fine - Iomedae certainly isn't acting like it's a weight she's having to strain to carry...? (Evelyn has done enough abortive rounds of trying to start an exercise routine and seeing a personal trainer that she can recognize good lifting form when she sees it.) Iomedae is, she has learned, 190 pounds of solid muscle - she was doing manual farm labor before, maybe it's not surprising that she's kind of ridiculously strong for a girl her age... 

...Aaaaaaaand perhaps unsurprisingly, the truck-unloading staff do not seem to be on board with Iomedae lifting enormous boxes on her own, which has got to seem to Iomedae like an especially absurd America Thing. 

Evelyn sighs, and goes over. "Did they say they were worried about getting in trouble if you hurt yourself? ...I want to know if you think that's America being silly because you really definitely aren't going to hurt yourself just lifting boxes, or because even if you did you don't think it ought to be their fault."

Because this is debatably a decision she can make, that Iomedae is safe to lift things, and it sure looks like she is, but if Evelyn were wrong then, one, it would be mortifying and she would be in trouble, and two, she doesn't think she can actually sign a waiver that will make the food bank not responsible. 

"They said you maybe demand a court settle it like if they kill my horse. I no will hurt myself with the boxes, I know that God not heal people here."

“I…think Social Services probably wouldn’t take the food bank to court over it, if both of us were saying clearly that we didn't want to do that. But I would be in a lot of trouble with Diel, if I said you could do something where most teenagers your age would have a high chance of getting hurt - because most teenagers would, right, you know you're very unusually strong - and then you did get hurt. I - am willing to tell them that I'm okay with you doing it, because it looks to me like you're doing just fine and I can see you want to help." And that she desperately needs the stress relief of some hard physical exercise, Evelyn is not herself a person who finds exercise useful for that, but she has friends who are, and it makes sense to her that Iomedae would be. "But I wanted to make sure that you know to be really careful, and - that this is actually comfortable for you, and not pushing yourself hard." 

"I do not want to have you in trouble with Diel. I know I am very unusually strong, I am a holy warrior. I also know that to hurt myself is very bad, and I will not do that."

"Okay. Let me go talk to them and see if they're willing to be flexible on this." 

She goes over to the truck-unloading men. "I don't know if you're the ones who'd need to approve this, but I'm comfortable with my foster daughter unloading boxes. She's - an athlete," there, simpler than explaining 'a holy warrior who knows how to fight with a sword', "and she's very strong, and knows good lifting form, I trust her not to hurt herself. Is there a waiver or something I could sign for her?" 

"I noticed she was pretty strong," the man says. "I don't have a waiver. - if she doesn't actually get onto the truck I guess she could pick them up off the ground and put them away and I can tell my boss that's not my job to stop her doing that?"

"...Sure, works for me, if she thinks picking them up from the ground is fine." Evelyn would absolutely fuck up her back doing that but Iomedae probably knows what she's doing. "I'll go check it with Margaret too." 

And she heads back over to find the elderly lady and repeat her explanation that Iomedae is definitely safe to lift things, she's an athlete, "- and gets ants in her pants if she doesn't get enough exercise," Evelyn adds under her breath. "Is there a waiver I can sign or something?" 

"We usually just have the volunteers pack things," Margaret says. "I can look and see if there's a waiver for them to work on the trucks. Is she an Olympic athlete or something? That's very impressive."

Iomedae is happy to pick boxes up off the ground. They're really not that heavy. Soldiers have to carry a pack of this weight on a march all day; soldiers who wear armor have to do that on top of their armor which weighs as much. It's just a matter of making sure the weight is where you can handle it. 

In that case, and as long as she's careful with her body and takes breaks when she's tired, Evelyn is happy for her to get going! 

"Not exactly," she tells Margaret, "though maybe someday! She's certainly got the genetics for it! She's - from an underprivileged background - and was doing farm labor before this. Though probably a lot of it is just how her body is, I couldn't be that fit even if I did crossfit every day." 

Iomedae, if she heard that, would object that her family is rich; a poor person wouldn't, in fact, be as strong as her. There's a reason nearly all holy warriors are of noble birth. (Some people say that the reason is that people of noble birth are intrinsically better, but there is a digression in Scripture about childhood nutrition which Iomedae interprets as saying otherwise.)

Evelyn is not in fact speaking loud enough that Iomedae, who she's shooed back over to the truck-unloading guys, would be able to hear, though if Iomedae did object, Evelyn would point out that growing up without electricity or running water is, by American standards, an underprivileged background, and this is how Margaret is going to interpret it. 

Does Alfirin seem to be settling in okay? 

She is helping with packing things into boxes rather than making an attempt at the men's and/or paladins' work which she is obviously unqualified for. She seems to be doing fine. It's not hard labor and it's not being interrogated by the government.

Evelyn will sit down at the little table in the corner and stay politely out of the way, watching with a pleasant smile, until both girls seem settled. She'll sign a waiver if Margaret finds one but isn't going to make a huge fuss about it if not, she's been watching Iomedae at it for a while and Iomedae is clearly fine. (How is she that strong???? Evelyn's brain is oddly quick to jump to 'miraculous holy warrior strength from God' which is not how things work.) 

That's absolutely how things work. Americans are just too educated to know it. 

Iomedae, as she expected, feels better once she has moved a bunch of heavy objects. Also the men unloading the truck are feeling competitive, now, not to be outlifted by a teenage girl, and are doing their own work faster to give her more boxes to move. It is a dynamic she has encountered before and it feels like being at home. 

"I don't see a waiver for it," Margaret tells Evelyn apologetically. "I suppose it's fine as long as she's not on the truck."

"It's fine with me! She looks like she's having a great time." Bright smile. "Okay if I head out and leave you guys to it? I'll go let the girls know that I'll be back at five-fifteen or so. My cell number is on the paperwork, if anything comes up." 

She leaves their packed snacks behind the counter, and goes to gently inform Alfirin and Iomedae that she's going to head out and do errands now, if that's okay with them?

"Yes, ma'am!" This is a happy paladin. Someone had a problem that required being strong and, if she stretches her interpretation of events, also required credibly promising not to demand payment if she injures herself foolishly. She likes it when those are the kinds of problems the world has.

Evelyn is also very happy when her kids are happy! She feels like she's finally getting something, just one thing, right. 

(She should definitely try to get Iomedae more intense workouts. Her friend Clementine, who does crossfit six days a week and runs marathons in the summer, starts getting kind of ridiculous if she doesn't have her regular exercise. ...Though, also, Iomedae would probably roll her eyes so hard at lifting weights in a gym and setting them down again; she's used to productive physical labor – and the issue is that, with the exception of actual literal farm work, teens under eighteen and especially under sixteen are - kind of locked out of a lot of physical jobs? Since it tends to correlate with dangerous jobs. Well, she'll see what she can think of - maybe there are wilderness rescue programs that take volunteers...?) 

She bids goodbye to Alfirin too, and heads out. 

Iomedae desperately wants to catch up with Alfirin about the interrogations but she is now in a contest of honor with the truck unloaders and is determined to remain until she's put everything away. They're all going as fast as they can, though, so they're done after less than an hour. 

Then she will jog over to join Alfirin at the box packing.

Iomedae looks happy. Alfirin is happy too. Packing boxes might not be the most fun thing in the world but it's almost a normal thing and there haven't been any normal normal things besides singing since she was made a foster child.

Iomedae will observe Alfirin and learn how to pack boxes and then do it. 

"They assigned me to therapy as Emily claimed they would," she says. "And said I am a person consumed by fear and anger but that this is ordinary for a new slave and so they do not need to do anything about it."

"There is no therapy for me but I think they think my real parents are bad parents and will steal my brothers and sisters about it - I think they cannot find my family so it is not so bad but I am not sure."

"I'm so sorry. I think they cannot find Undarin because if they could find our world at all then they would know the gods are real. 

Evelyn might be able to help, either with convincing them to not do that or with getting your brothers and sisters if they do do that? The nurse asked Evelyn if my fear and anger was making me disobedient at home, and they would have done something much worse to me if it was, but she said I was well-behaved and did not need them to do things. Maybe she could do it for you too."