They don't try to separate her from Durc. She can sit right next to him in the space inside the back of their metal beast - which turns out to be comfortable, its insides soft and padded and covered with a fuzzy nap of very short fur. One of the officers offers her a bottle of water, and then they thank Debbie and promise to take care of things from here, and drive out along the stone river. 

The world goes by very fast on the other side of the clear hard not-skin of the beast, which vibrates and makes a humming roar as it moves; one of the men seems to be directing it by turning a circle he grips in both hands. The terrain where she first woke up was very flat and dry-looking with nothing much else except rocks and shrubs, but soon they're rushing past strange boxy structures - stationary and fixed to the ground, unlike the beasts, some of them flat stone and some made of a lot of smaller very regular stones, some with similar clear squares like the one Ayla can see out through. There are tall tree-like poles with globes of light on top of them. The stone river is getting more crowded with other beasts, and if Ayla looks closely, all of them have a person or people inside.

Ayla will make herself small and keep her hand on Durc and watch the strange things out the window unless something interrupts her. 

The officers mostly don't try to talk to her; it doesn't seem like there's much point. The man who isn't driving explains when they get into the city that it's going to be about five more minutes. There are SO MANY of the metal beasts around them now, and some of the boxy structures are very tall, taller than the biggest trees she's seen, and shiny on the outside like water catching sunlight. 

Eventually they pull up in front of a less tall but quite wide blocky structure, and the front of it opens and the beast goes inside, where it's open like a cave except everything is very regular and square, and the box closes up again behind them. It's not dark, though; there are lights on the inside of the top, very white and not really like firelight or sunlight. The beast stops moving and stops vibrating, and one of the men gets out and opens Ayla's door for her and then goes around to take Durc out of the car seat. 

Ayla races around the car to take Durc from him, and tucks Durc back inside her wrap.  Being moved rouses Durc again, and she feeds him when he begins to fuss.  The familiar motions and sensations are calming, and Ayla looks around.

Nothing is familiar.  The people are strange and their clothing is strange and the not-cave is strange.  Everything is clearly constructed, but what is it even made of? She doesn't see anything she recognizes.

They lead her into the station itself, which has ugly industrial beige carpet, grey and worn down in the middle by years of footsteps, and chipping beige-painted walls and fluorescent ceiling lights. Eventually there's a metal door, and a boxy room on the other side of it, with no windows and different-colored carpet - blue and brown patterned, this time - and some chairs and a dingy sofa.

Ayla will be pointed in the direction of the sofa. Someone brings her a Styrofoam cup of water, and says some more incomprehensible words. (They're trying to tell her that an officer will be by shortly to talk to her, and ask if she's hungry.) 

This is VERY strange.  Nothing looks at all familiar.  The people are pointing? Do they want her to go over there?

Ayla walks over to the strange lumpy shape and stands in front of it.  She clutches Durc closer to her chest, and looks back over her shoulder at the people who brought her in.

Has she never seen...a sofa...before? Does she think she's not allowed to make herself comfortable? Someone will demonstrate sitting down and then try to beckon her and pat the sofa beside them to indicate that she's allowed to sit. 

A couple of minutes later, a female officer - the one on duty today with the most experience with children - comes over. She's wearing plainclothes rather than a uniform, which will hopefully be less intimidating. 

She also has a slice of pizza on a paper plate, reheated from the leftovers they ordered last night for the overnight duty officers. Kids like pizza, right? She offers it to the girl, mimes rubbing her belly and then eating. "Are you hungry?" 

Ayla will sit on the object? It is so soft! It is as soft as if she piled three people's sleeping furs together!

The woman who is coming and sitting next to her seems to be indicating that this is food.  She picks it up and takes a cautious nibble.

It is SO GOOD!  She has never had anything like it before.  There are so many flavors and it is rich and savory with fat and unidentifiable substances.

Ayla eats quickly but neatly, licking her fingers when she finishes.

Awwwwwww. The officer smiles warmly at her. 

"Nicole," she says, pointing at herself. "You're Eyy-lah?" She pronounces it separated into two very distinct syllables. 

This seems like an exchange of names.  Ayla nods and taps her own chest and says "Ayla", then taps Durc and says "Durc"

She points at the woman and says "Nih-gull?" questioningly

"Nicole!" Nicole confirms brightly. "Yes." Nodding vigorously. 

...And now she needs to convey "where are your parents?" to a kid who speaks neither English nor Spanish, apparently not even a few words! Which is really weird in itself. 

"Why don't we do some drawing?" Nicole was planning for this, and brought paper and colorful crayons. She drags the slightly sticky coffee table closer and starts drawing. "This is Nicole." A stick figure with a puff of curly brown hair like Nicole's. "And this is Ayla." Smaller stick figure with long straight yellow hair. "This is Durc. Durc is Ayla's baby." She emphasizes the word 'baby' and draws a baby figure in the Ayla figure's arms. "Yes?" 

The sticks make bright colors on the flat thing! What is the flat thing? It doesn't look like a hide.  She picks it up and turns it around.  It maybe feels a little like a leaf?

She puts the paper down and points at each figure in turn. "Nih-gul, Ayla, Durc. Baby?" 

She gestures with her arms as though she were rocking a baby.

"Yes! Durc is a baby." Warm smile. "Nicole has a baby too!" She's continuing to try to put a lot of emphasis on the key words, assuming Ayla won't understand the connective words. "Nicole's baby is at Nicole's house." Well, technically Ralphie is almost four, but close enough. 

She draws a road - two parallel squiggly lines in black crayon, a yellow dotted line down the middle - and then a house, the stylized square-with-triangle-roof shape. She draws a square for a crib and another baby figure, standing up to indicate that he's a big bigger and older. She points at the baby-figure and house-figure in turn. "Nicole's baby, at Nicole's house. Yes?" 

Ayla points to the relevant stick figure and says "Nih-gul baby"

She has no idea what the square and triangle shape is supposed to be, so she doesn't comment.

"Yes!" This kid is clearly bright, Nicole thinks, even if she doesn't speak a word of English and seems kind of baffled by almost everything. 

- okay, that's still not getting her to the vocabulary for 'where are your parents'. This isn't the first time that Nicole has dealt with a child welfare case involving a kid who didn't speak much English, but she's never had this little shared vocabulary to start from. 

She gets out a fresh sheet of paper, and draws another stick figure with Nicole-hair, this time with a round pregnant belly. "Before, Nicole's baby was in Nicole's tummy." She adds a progression of shorter stick figures with Nicole hair, down to child-size and then baby size. "Before before before, Nicole was a baby!" She draws two big adult figures. "Nicole's parents. Mummy," the one with long hair and a skirt, which is maybe sexist but sue her she's trying to communicate, "and daddy," the taller one with short hair and pants. "Mummy, daddy, baby Nicole." Then she points at the Ayla figure again. "Durc's mummy is Ayla. Yes?" 

She thinks...maybe "mummy" means mother? Ayla tries making the sign for mother while saying "mummy."

Nicole does, actually, manage to notice that this is a hand sign and not just a random gesture. ...Huh, does she speak ASL? Unfortunately, Nicole doesn't speak ASL and can't confirm if Ayla's guess about the word-correspondence is right. 

"Baby in mummy," she says, pointing to the pregnant-Nicole figure and her belly. "Before before before before," she adds a pregnant Nicole-mom figure, "baby Nicole in Nicole's mummy." Hopefully that's pretty clear? 

She takes another sheet of paper and draws - less carefully, she's hurrying - a pregnant-Ayla, a smaller Ayla, a tiny toddler Ayla, and a baby Ayla. "Before before before, Ayla baby." Two stick figures, which she doesn't bother to give particular features. "Ayla's mummy and daddy?" 

Nicole is asking about Ayla's mother? She has no idea how to even begin to express that.  The woman seemed to notice her sign for mother, though.

She says "I do not know who my mother was. I do not remember her.  The only mother I have ever known was Iza of the Clan."

There are a few gutteral words interspersed with the signs, including the name "Iza".

Nicole makes a note of it. She's...not really sure what to make of it? She's pretty sure that Ayla understood the question - which is impressive in itself - but she can't interpret any of the maybe-ASL answer. Ayla's body language is - apologetic, she thinks. 

"Iza Ayla's mummy?" she tries. She points at one of the adult-figures with baby-Ayla in the picture. "Iza?" 

Iza was not the woman who gave birth to her.  Iza and Creb told her she was probably four years old when they found her.  She picks one of the intermediate smaller Ayla-figures and draws a new stick figure next to it, which she points to and says "Iza mummy."  She signs "mother" again for good measure.

This kid is impressively quick on the mark and good at figuring out communication across a language barrier! ...The fact that Nicole is now fairly sure that Iza is Ayla's adoptive mother does not actually get her incredibly far, aside from opening a few additional questions. 

She points at the house figure. "Nicole's house. Nicole sleeps there," she mimes putting her head down on pillowed hands and closing her eyes. "Nicole cooks," miming stirring, "and eats," miming eating with a spoon, "there. Nicole here," she points at the ground under them, "now. Before, Nicole was at Nicole's house." She finger-walks along the drawing of the road and points at the house-drawing again. 

"- Ayla's house?" 

Ayla thinks she might understand some of these words.  "Ayla eats?" she says, pointing to the pizza plate.

"Yes! Ayla eats here." Gesture around them at the room. Then she quickly scribbles another house-shape and road-line on the Ayla piece of paper. "Before, Ayla eats at Ayla's house?" She points at the road and the house in the picture, then points outside.

What does this woman want? Is...is she asking where Ayla *usually* eats?

She draws a big circle for the cave, and then smaller circles for the hearths of the Clan.  She points to Creb's hearth.

She says "Ayla eat Creb" and makes the sign for "hearth".