Somewhere else is, in this case, a grocery warehouse. A few people are going around with forklifts or motorized carts, putting pallets of food away and pulling some for delivery orders, but it's not crowded; she can just see people between two different brands of fruit juice, they probably can't see her.

This is not where she expected to be but, at least here no one seems to have noticed her yet.

This spots here looks like a neat place to hide and also maybe this thing next to it is some sorta food? She hasn't eaten in two days, so hopefully it is food. 

The fruit juice is in bottles with sealed screwtops, but she might be able to get one open!

She's had water from a bottle before, though not any that was this color! It's really sweet! And orange! She drinks till she isn't thirsty anymore, which takes a while since it was hot out where she came from. 

The people in the next aisle move along, one getting closer to her while the other, going the opposite way, gets father away. The closer one has a shoulder-speaker clipped to her clothes and it's playing music, though it's not especially audible from vantage points other than the wearer's left ear and all Eefa can tell is that it's fast and chirpy.

Eefa has never seen someone with a music player that small before - she's only ever seen one music player at all and they stopped playing it once they noticed her. She'll listen to it a bit while she tries to find a better hiding spot, one with solid food this time.

As the grocery picker gets closer, putting various types of bottled water in the compartments in her cart, the music gets slightly more audible. Eefa can catch the occasional lyric:

"Wanna ... until the ... and ... the top of the ... higher than the ancients' towers ... flying to the ... looking out at ... all the books don't ... and it's higher than the ..."

The words sound sort of different from the sort of words she's used to, but she understands them the same way. Sounds like a song about flying onto the top of the old towers she's seen a few times or something. She's never been to any, though someone did try to take her to one once. 

Her stomach rumbles a bit, reminding her to keep looking for solid food. 

She's in the juice aisle. But if she squeezes between the sparkling cider and the four-packs of cans with fruits she's never seen before printed on them, she'll be behind the canned beans, and she can climb over the beans to be in the canned goods aisle.

She's seen cans before and knows they are pretty hard to open. Maybe one of these has a pulley thing she can use instead of needing to find a can opener?

These beans don't but a little more looking will turn up big cans of soup that have pulltabs!

This looks almost like a drink but it turns out it's actually much more filling than the juices, so she'll gulp it down too. And then another one. And then she'll start on a third, though she won't finish it now.

(She also acquires four more and puts them in some pockets her rather stained sweatshirt has.)

Someone turns the corner into the canned goods aisle. They haven't spotted her - yet.

She'll have to get out of here before they find her she supposes - even if there's food here. She starts to crawl quietly as she can along the shelves, looking for an exit.

She could fit in the space where there's supposed to be pasta sauce here but they'll sure see her if they go past the pasta sauce niche.

Hrm. Staying here won't work, she suspects. She waits till there's no one obviously watching and runs down the aisle, as quietly as she can, searching for a way out.

Unfortunately, small moving objects in a grocery store warehouse are pretty conspicuous. "Whoa! Hey who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Huh?"

"There's a - kid? - I think it's a kid - heading towards Bulk Dry -"

Another person - he has purple hair, actually they all do here - moves to intercept.

She's ... not actually in a good condition for a chase right now - she's tired and still digesting a lot of food. She freezes up instead - maybe they'll think she's just a kid and she'll be okay and get a better chance to escape soon. 

"Hey kiddo!" says the intercepting person. "You look super lost! Where'd you come from?"

Eefa doesn't actually know the answer to that - though she doubts it would be good to tell people even if she did know.

"Can you understand me?"

That sounds probably safe to answer.

... But she doesn't know what this place is, so she won't say anything. Just in case.

"Oof. Uh - hey, the kid looks really filthy, like she spilled juice on herself after rolling around in the dirt for a week, can you call Janitorial and I'll try to herd her or something?"

"Yeah, all right."

"Hey kiddo, can you get on the cart, and I can take you someplace you can get a shower and clean clothes?"

They... seem to still think she's just a kid and probably that means they won't hurt her (too much (maybe)) and she doesn't want them to change their mind so she'll get on the cart. Carefully.

"Sorry if it's chilly in there, I was on my way back from the freezer section. Shouldn't be a long ride." He turns the cart around and drives it between the rows of aisles. "Where are your parents? Did you get lost from them?"

It's cold but that's not so bad - she's been outside when it was colder than the cart is. 

Those questions don't seem safe to answer, so she will not.

"Or did you - run away, maybe - I don't think the authorities will send you back to your parents if they weren't taking good care of you."

She doesn't actually remember having parents at all but probably she should avoid people figuring that out?

"Parents weren't taking good care of me. Don't want them."

"- okay! I'm glad you can talk, that makes figuring this out much easier. I'm gonna take you to the front area of the warehouse where there's bathrooms and things, and we can get you cleaned up and call in some nice oranges who'll find you better parents."

Eefa is confused about almost every part of that, but will allow herself to be taken to the bathroom.

The warehouse purple will stick her in the shower, find a short sleeved uniform shirt that will work as a baggy dress on her on a temporary basis, and sets about getting her cleaned up. Focusing particularly on her hair. "Did you dye this yourself?" he asks eventually, on discovering that it does not wash out to reveal a deep purple or anything.

"No."

Eefa is quite confused about this cleaning process - she doesn't mind the rain machine and if these chemicals are they are putting on her are supposed to hurt they aren't working.

"Did your parents do it?" Scrubba scrubba.

Eefa is not sure what the right answer is here, so she will stay quiet.

"- I guess it doesn't matter. What color is it usually?" He gets her a towel; it's fluffy.

That is a confusing question!

"This color?"

"- okay, what caste are you?"

She is not going to answer a question like that before knowing the options. 

Well, has any of her hair conveniently fallen out during this shower such that he can check the root?

A few strands, more if the Amentan tried to untangle her hair.

The roots are black, just like the rest.

.......huh.

So above his pay grade though.

When she's toweled off he'll put her in the clean uniform shirt.

This shirt does not contain her extra cans!

"Want my shirt."

"- your shirt's dirty, kiddo."

"Has my things in it."

The guy goes and looks through the pockets. "- the soup? Uh, kiddo, this isn't yours."

"Okay, it can be yours now."

At least she's full right now.

"It's not mine either, it belongs to the - not the point, if you're hungry I can get you something while we're waiting for the oranges." He's poking his pocket everything now.

She stays quiet. 

Taking away her food and offering her different food is a rather clumsy attempt to drug her. She'll have to be on the lookout for more clever attempts. 

He stacks the cans of soup on a counter and puts her dirty outfit in a plastic bag once he's summoned the oranges. "It looks like they'll be here in about twenty minutes."

She hopes they aren't Wolves.

The purple doesn't comment on this, just does more stuff on his pocket everything when it's clear she has nothing else to say.

Prooobably that isn't a weapon he's poking at, given how it hasn't done anything weapony even when he's poked it a bunch. She keeps an eye on it, just in case.

It continues not doing anything weapony but sometimes it buzzes or beeps a little.

Eefa jumps a little at that on occasion, but doesn't say anything. 

After a while the promised oranges showed up! They do not appear to be wolves.

"Hello there," one says, squatting down to be eye-level with Eefa.

Eefa flinches when they kneel down.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. My name's Mikko," he says. "What do you like to be called?"

That first bit is not true but it's sorta nice to hear him say it anyways. 

"Eefa."

"Eefa, what a pretty name. The report I got said you didn't have people taking good care of you, is that right?"

"Yes."

She's not really sure she understands the question but that's clearly the right answer. 

"Well, I have good news for you. There are lots and lots of people who want to take care of kiddos like you who will do a good job looking after you and making sure you have plenty to eat and wear and play with and all that good stuff."

"Mmm."

"It's my job to find some people like that. Will you come with me into our car? I don't know if you've ever been in a car before, it's like a tiny train compartment."

Oh no this person is a tracker - that is not a good sign.

"What's a train?"

"- gosh. A train is a bunch of boxes on wheels, all connected to each other, that can go very fast along a track to bring a bunch of people from one place to another."

"Oh, like a wagon."

"Sort of, yes!"

Eefa will follow into the car.

The car sets off with Eefa and the two oranges in the back and a purple in the driver's seat. It goes pretty slowly and they don't have seatbelts in it. "Eefa, the warehouse worker said you weren't sure what caste you were," says Mikko.

"Yes."

"And your hair is really dark, so we can't even guess that way! What color hair did your parents have?"

Eefa does not have an answer to that! She will stare at the social worker instead. 

"Did their hair look more like mine, or like hers," the driver, "or was it blue, or yellow, or green, or grey...?"

👀

"Or did they turn theirs black like yours?"

Eefa can go surprisingly long without blinking.

"Do you know what they did for work?"

Mikko is going to try kind of a lot of angles on finding out what caste this kid is and where she came from, though he never raises his voice or hurts her.

Having gotten nowhere on this by the time they arrive at their office building and parked in the underground garage, he asks her to follow him to the elevator, which will take them up to a place she can stay while they find a home for her.

She doesn't answer him - she's not very good at lying and would probably be even worse cause she is pretty confused about these questions. Aslo, it's suspicious how he is not hurting her.

She follows him to the elevator warily - she does not like being trapped in that small a place.

The elevator goes up and lets them out in a large colorfully-decorated room that currently contains one sad grey two-year-old picking at his rice-and-beans and a pair of purples aged three and one snuggling each other on a bean bag with the three year old holding up a pocket everything so they can watch cartoons on it together.

Eefa finds herself a hidey hole between two beanbags, her tangly hair poking out.

That's okay. Mikko grabs a tray of snacks from the fridge and tells the kids it's for everybody. The little purple gets up and goes to take all the cherries and bring them back to her beanbag.

Eefa takes some food once she sees one of the others eat something, it's probably safe. She's not actually hungry but it's good to have food on her, just in case.

There once were cherries, but no longer! There remain crackers and nuts and cheese cubes and pickles.

She samples each before settling on taking cheese cubes and crackers and nuts - mostly the nuts, those probably will last a while and taste filling-ish. 

She does eat an extra pickle though - it's sorta yummy.

Mikko's sitting in the corner, watching her out of the corner of his eye now and then, smiling encouragingly back at her if she looks at him.

Of course she is being watched. Hopefully they don't try to take her food this time.

Nope, that's hers to eat.

"Eefa," says Mikko, when she's slowed down on the food, "that's Shahn," the grey boy, "and over there are Timio and Anina, they're sisters."

(Most of the food ends up hidden in Eefa's new clothing actually, though she does eat some.)

"Oh, okay." 

None of them are Wolves, so that's nice.

"Kids, this is Eefa. We don't know what caste she is, isn't that odd?"

"She's probably purple 'cause most people are purple," says Timio, the elder purple.

Eefa can helpfully stare at the other kids. 

"You can come watch cartoons with us if you're purple," says Anina.

Well, now she can't watch cartoons without implying things she doesn't know the meaning of.

Anina receives a very long stare in response. 

"How old're you?" asks Shahn.

Eefa doesn't know the answer which she has figured out from other people is weird and suspicious so she will continue with the default police of staring at people closely to see if they are about to try to hurt her.

"I'm two. You look maybe also two."

Eefa does not think people her age look two? She's pretty sure. She hasn't met many two year olds though - usually people keep them away from her.

"Maybe you're one and don't know how to talk yet."

"I think Eefa can talk, she's just scared right now. But it's true we're not positive how old she is. She could be a big one year old or a small two year old. Depending where she came from, she could even be two and a half," says Mikko.

This feels like a good time to bury herself farther in-between two beanbags so no one can see her.

"Nobody's two and a half," says Timio. "Only one year olds care."

"Be that as it may, sometimes kids are born in the southern hemisphere," chuckles Mikko. "We say 'and a half' sometimes to refer to those kids. Even though a southern hemisphere kid would actually turn a year older in a couple months, not a couple seasons."

Maybe she is from the southern hemisphere and that's why these people seem so different from the people she's seen before? Though she isn't sure. 

"Shahn, do you think that today you might be ready -"

"NO," says Shahn, sobbing suddenly and burying his face in his arms.

Eefa pokes her head out just a little, so she can see what's happening. It sounds scary but it's important to know about scary things - not knowing doesn't help.

"You can have a little longer, but I think Kamki and Suamesa are really hoping to meet you soon," Mikko says.

"NO," says Shahn. "I want my REAL PARENTS."

"Shahn, that's - I wish we could do that, kiddo."

Oh no, Shahn has people who he wants and Mikko is taking him away. Eefa doesn't know what that feels like but it seems like it would be really bad. 

... she can't be hurt in this way but it is not a good sign that people in her situation are being hurt in this way.

Also Mikko seems good at pretending to be nice, which is complicated feeling.

Shahn sniffles.

Anina disengages from the cartoons during a commercial break and creeps over to Eefa. "His parents are dead," she whispers, once she's in whispering distance.

Oh.

"Why?"

"I dunno. Probably a war."

"And Mikko took him afterwards?"

She never thought about where kids go if someone kills their parents but it makes sense she guesses that people would take them.

"Yeah."

"Did he take you too?"

"Yeah."

"How long ago?"

"Couple days. Mostly nobody's here too long. Lots of people want kids."

"What for?"

"To like, hug and stuff. I think."

"Is the stuff bad?"

"...I think it's not s'posed to be."

"I dunno. Probably it's bad."

Anina shrugs.

The commercial break ends and she goes back to her sister.

Eefa considers asking Shahn if he knows what happens when they leave here but she doesn't wanna risk going out across the room right now.

Mikko breaks out some coloring supplies. Shahn and Anina are convinced to color; Timio seems to prefer to watch TV on her everything.

Eefa eventually goes over to see what Shahn and Anina are coloring.

Shahn has a sea turtle and Anina has a flower. There are plenty of coloring sheets if Eefa wants one.

Sure. Eefa will draw the Raccoon that did something nice for her and she decided she was friends with and that only bit her a little.

He was not a very healthy raccoon, she will need some red.

There are crayons in all the colors and she can draw a battered raccoon if she wants. Mikko glances at her work occasionally.

When she is done with the raccoon she tries to draw a sea turtle like Shahn, since she's not very good at drawing and maybe practicing will help. 

Shahn is coloring in a printed lineart drawing of a sea turtle but this will not impede her in trying to copy it particularly.

Eefa is trying to learn how to draw without lines, so she tries to copy Shahn's on her own. 

He's making his turtle sparkly silver and sky blue and magenta and lime green.

Eefa is not sure turtles come in those colors! She does greens and blues. 

Anina's butterfly is four shades of purple with a chunk of one wing done instead in burnt umber; realism may not be a priority.

Oh, that does look pretty actually.

Eefa tries one of her own with fancy colors, redrawing her raccoon friend with fuchsia and deep blue and purple blood.

Since she is not very good at drawing and raccoons do not exist on this planet in quite that form with any color scheme no one immediately notices how concerning a subject this is.

Anina gets put down for a nap after coloring time. Mikko's colleague sings her a lullaby about watching stars come out one at a time. Mikko asks Eefa if she would like to see where she will sleep tonight; she doesn't have to take a nap, she's a little old for it, that's just an Anina thing.

Eefa will follow to where she is being put for the night.

It's a little room with a low bed, almost right on the floor except for one layer of drawers beneath. Mikko's colleague has gotten her original clothes washed and put them away, folded neatly, in one of these drawers; Mikko shows her. There is a kidsized squashy swivel-armchair and a bunch of childrens' magazines and a stuffed bat and posters of spaceships and colorful fruits and a school of fish. There's a window, which doesn't open and is made of plastic but offers a view of a busy city of tall skyscrapers. There's a fluffy all-white rug on the floor over the tile.

"This is your room for as long as you're here with us," says Mikko.

She does not get this room. It is hard to escape but also not dirty, which is not a combination she is used to. It also doesn't help her figure out whether they are planning on hurting her or won't until they find out more. 

Also, the cans are gone from her jacket, but she guesses that's not surprising. Later when Mikko isn't there she'll put the food she snuck out of the other room into the pockets. 

... The carpet is very fluffy and a good place to sleep, so at least there's that.

(She knows what the bed is but the fluffy floor seems better.)

"Mostly kids aren't here very long. They go home with new families. But you might be here a bit longer since we don't know what caste you are, so let me or Chioss - the other orange grownup who's singing to Anina - know if there's anything you think the room needs."

A way out, she doesn't say.

... if they aren't going to let her go until they figure out what caste she is then maybe she can figure out whether she wants to go to a "new family" and then say a caste if she does.

"You'll go here at bedtime, but you can also hang out here during the day if you want space to yourself."

"Other people won't come in?"

"You can shut the door if you want to keep the other kids out. Me and Chioss and the night shift oranges won't come in without knocking unless there's an emergency, like if you hurt yourself somehow or there's a fire."

She wonders why they knock. Or why they think she would hurt herself. She is not going to ask him those questions though.

"Are there a lot of fires?"

"Nope! But when there are fires they're really bad and happen fast, so we have plans to keep everybody safe just in case."

It makes sense that fires would be bad when they've trapped everyone inside.

"Okay."

"Do you need anything right now?"

Eefa shakes her head.

"Okay! Dinner will be in two hours. We're having noodle soup with sausage in it."

"Oh."

"Could I have some of it?"

"Of course! Do you know if you'll want it spicy?"

Eefa has had spicy food before, it hurt.

"Not if I don't have to?"

"You don't have to. Timio and Chioss likes theirs spicy, so we'll have some of it each way."

"I'd like it not spicy if there's enough."

"There's plenty! And if you're hungry before dinner there's snacks out still."

Eefa has already eaten twice a day, how could she still be hungry. 

... She just stares as a reply.

"Okay, I'm getting the impression you want some alone time. Totally okay. Let me or Chioss know if you think of anything you need." And he leaves her in her room.

Time to hide her food, good! 

... Actually she waits a bit first, just in case they are watching her or something bad happens.

Nothing happens. She can hear the other kids setting up a board game.

Food hidden in her old clothes! 

... And then she plops on the floor for a bit to nap, since the rug is so comfy.

The rug has no opinion on this at all and neither does anyone else. She will get called for dinner at dinner time.

Eefa rubs sleeps out of her eyes and heads to dinner - it was a very good nap and there were nice soft clouds in the otherwise scary* dream she was having.

*Eefa does not really have a concept for non-scary dream.

Dinner is as advertised! "Hello Eefa!" says Chioss. "This is your chair. Do you want the placemat with the stars or the one with the leaves?"

"The stars one?" she replies.

She is suspicious about why they want to know this.

It's so he can give her the stars placemat and put her bowl on it! "You'll probably want to blow on your soup, it's hot," she tells her.

"Oh. Yeah that makes sense."

Blow! And then slurp slurp. This soup is very tasty 

(No small amount of soup ends up on Eefa in the process.)

"Whoopsie, looks like you and the spoon didn't agree on all the details there," says Mikko when she's done eating. "Do you prefer baths or showers?" Also he's going to whisk her shirt off.

Eefa just got that shirt!

... She will not hold on to it though, maybe they'll give her a new one.

"I don't know?"

"Well, you tried a shower before, we can try a bath now."

The bathtub has two basins, one for washing and one for rinsing. Mikko gets them both filled up and plops her in the washing one once the rest of her clothes are off. There are bubbles and floating fish toys and the water is warm.

Eefa pokes some bubbles tentatively.

This is very confusing. Not bad but. Very confusing. 

"Are the fish things also being washed?"

"Nope, they're there for you to play with while you're in the tub! I'm going to wash your hair for you, okay?"

"Okay?"

Washing her hair really isn't any weirder than any of the other things that've been happening. Eefa doesn't think she's ever cleaned up twice in the same day, or the same week for that matter.

She pokes at the fish tentatively while her hair is cleaned.

The fish float! Some of them squish! One of them is a sponge!

Eefa does not get these. She experiments with soaking up water in the sponge one and squeezing it out on top of the floating ones to see what happens. It's sorta nice. The squish ones are nice feeling too. 

This is not how she expected being captured and dunked in water to go.

The bath is pretty quick - it was just soup, after all - and then she gets rinsed off in the rinse tub. Chioss brings in another outfit to replace the souped one while Mikko is wrapping her up in a towel.

"How many clothes do you have?"

This is just so many clothes.

"Lots! You'll get the ones with soup on them back when they've gone through the laundry and don't have soup on them any more." Did he manage to get enough tangles out of her hair while he was washing it that she can now be combed?

Nope! He might be able to comb the ends sort of.

He will do his best. "I think you might need your hair trimmed! It's such a pretty color, but it doesn't look like it's been maintained."

"Maintained?"

She does not like the sound of hair trimming. It sounds .. bad.

"You saw Timio's hair, right? She has curly hair too - or, actually, I'm not even sure if yours is naturally curly, but she does have curly hair - and every morning and every evening and sometimes even in the middle of the day, she combs it, so none of it can get into knots. I'll try to get this neatened up if you really don't want it cut, but it looks like it'll be pretty time consuming."

"Why?" 

She doesn't have a very specific question, it's a very general why.

"There's lots of knots. The knots have knots! Which have knots! But I can work on it if you want to keep your hair long, and then once it's all brushed out once, it'll be easier to keep it that way." New clothes go on kiddo and he will try harder with the comb. Gently, pinching the hair above a particular knot hard while he works on it so he doesn't pull at the scalp.

Eefa is confused about why the knots are bad but will allow him to continue with the probably-not-hurting-her thing. 

If she'll put up with it he will continue working on getting the tangles out of her hair for quite a long time.

Eefa fidgets a bit but when she moves her head it gets her hair pulled so she does her best to stay still 

Pick pick comb comb pick pick.

Eefa will not mention that that pick hurt! Otherwise they might try to repeat it.

He's doing his level best not to hurt! At some point his goal becomes less to untangle her whole head and more to separate some sections of tangle from other sections, so that at least the sections can be braided together overnight and not get worse and he can pick up where he left off in the morning.

He eventually succeeds at the separating! 

Eefa is very still throughout, somewhat unnaturally so.

"I think I'm not going to get this all done tonight, but if I braid it like so," he can do this very fast, he has practice, "then when you sleep on it it shouldn't get worse, and over the next day or two we can work on the rest of it. And with that I think we should let Anina have the bath," here is Chioss with Anina, "and we can get your teeth brushed..."

The sink is over there, he opens a brand new toothbrush, and offers her choice of cinnamon or raspberry toothpaste.

"Raspberry?" she's not even hungry but it doesn't occur to her to say no to food, even if it's paste.

"Okay!" He puts a little dollop on the toothbrush and -

"- huh. Is - have your teeth always been like that?"

"Yes?"

"Huh. Well - the doctor's going to come by tomorrow morning, first thing, to give you a checkup. Do you know what that is?"

"No? Maybe?"

"It hurts a lot?"

"- it shouldn't hurt a lot. It might hurt a little if he's very worried about you and needs to find out more, or give you vaccinations you may have skipped. He'll warn you if that's going to happen and it'll be over quick. If you want he can demonstrate on me first so you can see how it works and that I'm okay."

"Oh....kay."

Eefa does not like where this is going. But there isn't any obvious way out right now.

"But mostly what he'll be here for is to figure out if you're healthy and, if you're not, what we need to do to help you get that way. He'll have questions about what you've been eating, and if you're sleeping well, and he might poke you a little to make sure your elbows bend like they're supposed to and things like that but that part isn't supposed to hurt even a little. And I'm going to have to ask him what's up with your hair and your teeth! They're very special and I don't know why they'd be like that."

"I don't think they're special?"

On second thought, the people she's seen here do all seem to have different teeth from the people she's seen before.

... If the doctor looks at her he might figure out she's not normal and she doesn't want that but no one has realized that from her teeth before so. Maybe it won't go wrong?? But Mikko seems to have noticed something. 

She might have to escape during the night. Or at least soon after the doctor visit.

"I guess you're used to them! Anyway, it's bedtime. Do you want me to introduce you to the night shift oranges now or just go to bed? I can read you a story if you want."

Oh there are night guards. That makes sense.

"Um... Story doesn't sound bad?"

"Do you want to pick one or would you like to hear one of my favorites?"

"You can tell me the one you want to."

So he will tuck her into bed and read her a story about a talking bunny who is learning to gather medicinal herbs for all the other talking animals in her village.

"I didn't know bunnies could talk."

"Oh, they can't, not in real life. It's just part of the story." He makes sure she is all ready for bed. "Do you want a night-light on or are you okay in the dark?"

"Easier to see people if there's a light on."

(Which obviously works in both directions, but anyone who is coming in here at night is going to be doing it knowing she is here anyways.)

"Yup, some kids like being able to see a bit while they're trying to go to sleep, so they can check what's around, and some like it to be all dark, because that helps their eyes closed and their bodies relax so they can sleep. Which kind are you?"

Is this a trick question.

"I like to be able to see things before they get to me?"

"Nothing's going to get you, but if you're worried about it and want to be able to see and make sure, nightlight it is." He flicks it on; it glows a dull orange. "Good night, Eefa, I'll see you in the morning."

Eefa shakes her head at the obvious lie (or mistake. could just be a mistake) about how nothing is going to get her. 

Still, she eventually sleeps.

(Very very lightly.)

(With very small snoring sounds sometimes. Though she isn't aware of that part.)

Nobody can even hear her because she has her own room. Nothing gets her, all night.

This is good, but bad in terms of figuring out what will eventually get her.

Once she wakes up she tentatively scouts around to see what is happening. It's pretty early in the morning, but that's normal for her.

There's an orange stirring a pot of oatmeal on the stove - not one of the ones she met, a new orange, presumably night shift. There's a little directional light allowing him to see the stove but otherwise it's dark throughout the area where she's being kept.

Eefa is content to stay in the shadows and stare closely at the new orange for the time being.

After a little while the door opens quietly and Chioss and Mikko come in. Chioss takes over monitoring the oatmeal and Mikko notices Eefa and waves at her.

She has been found! 

... This is not very surprising, but she still tries to lean further back into the dark corner. Just in case.

Mikko smiles and lets her get on with the hiding. He takes a handoff report from the overnighters, who then leave, and starts setting the table for breakfast; there's fruit for the oatmeal, and sugar, and nuts, and cream, and spices.

Eefa would like some of this food! 

... maybeee asking would work? She does keep getting food. And she is hungry.

"Could I have some?"

"Sure! Usually we wait till everybody's up but since you're such an early riser no reason you can't have yours now, it looks just about cooked." Mikko ladles some into a bowl for her and sets it down at the same placemat she had before. Gestures invitingly at the toppings.

Eefa is going to keep adding different toppings until he tells her to stop. They look yummy.

(Or until she runs out of toppings, but she doesn't expect that.)

"You're gonna overflow your bowl there," Mikko remarks when she goes back for another helping of nuts. "Also I think we're actually a little low on the dried cranberries so leave some for the other kids, okay - everything else we have refills. You can have seconds after you finish that, if you're still hungry."

That took a really long time!

.... is the food safe to eat. Is Mikkos eating it. 

Mikko is not yet sitting down to eat but there are enough placemats and bowls for all the kids she saw yesterday and both of the day shift oranges.

Eefa is going to wait until she can see someone else eating.

Just to be sure. 

"Too hot?" Chioss asks her, starting to ladle oatmeal into the other bowls.

Eefa stares at Chioss.

"If you stir it up it'll cool off faster," she says. No other comment.

The other kids are starting to pad out of their rooms at this point.

Eefa re-locates away from the kids, onto the floor a little bit away from the table, with the bowl in her lap.

Mikko looks at her and almost asks why but decides to let her be.

The other kids top and eat their oatmeal.

Eefa does not want to be too close to lots of other people if she doesn't have to be right now.

... Probably it's okay to eat these things? Do the children look okay?

(She stares at them intensely while they eat.)

Not only do they look okay, the adults also take and eat oatmeal once all the kids are served and don't need things.

In that case Eefa will scarf down the oatmeal! She has been waiting a while and it did smell really good and more it is all in her stomach. Or her mouth still. Or on her face.

"Wow, once that cooled off enough you couldn't wait another second!" remarks Mikko, coming over to wipe off her mouth.

He should not come up and touch her mouth all of a sudden! She is over hear now! Under the table.

"Whoops! Didn't mean to spook you. You got some of your breakfast on your chin. Do you want to clean it up yourself?"

Yes! She can use her fingers and mouth to do so. And get shirt to get the last bit of they are going to care that much.

"And now we can get you into a fresh shirt and you'll be all set. Do you want to go pick it out on your own?"

... 

"Why?"

"- there's some oatmeal on that one and you should be wearing clean clothes. We can get this one washed but in the meantime there's plenty of clean shirts to wear."

"... You have a lot of shirts."

She takes a bit to figure out if there's some trick with all the shirts.

"Yup! It's so all the kiddos can have clean clothes to wear all the time."

"Why?"

"Just because the kids here aren't living with families right now doesn't mean you shouldn't have nice things like clean clothes and tasty oatmeal, so we make sure you all have those things."

"But. Why?"

Those things don't seem at all important. Even if the food is nice and tasty.

"It's our job to take care of kiddos who are between families, like you. Let's get you a fresh shirt." He's attempting to herd her to her room.

Eefa is unaware what families she is between but will allow herself to be herded and will change into new clothes. Again.

They're just going to keep doing it every time she gets something on her clothes, yep!

Back out in the main room Chioss is sitting on the floor with the other kids and they've got a whole dollhouse situation with multiple buildings and a dozen dolls going on.

That is an intimidating amount of dolls and houses! Eefa chooses one of the kids to watch and tries to figure out what they are doing.

They are pretending that their dolls are fixing one of the houses which was damaged in a thunderstorm.

Well that makes sense.

If Eefa can find a doll she will help pretend to fix an area that no one else is fixing.

The other kids accommodate this just fine; she can have a doll working on the foundation of the house while the rest are fixing the roof. Has she taken an unattended purple doll, or is she using another color?

If everyone else is using purple and there is a purple leftover she will use one, otherwise she picks another color like orange or yellow or red.

Everyone else is using purple and about half the dolls are purple so there are some spares.

Purple it is! 

She does her best to copy the fixing of the others, though she's not really sure how this is done.

They're not terribly sophisticated about it, except for the oldest kid who is actually talking about drill bits and drywall anchors and stud finders. The little one is just bopping her doll up and down going "fix fix fix!"

"fix? fix?"

Is this how it is done.

"It's all fix now!" declares Anina after some while, and Timio puts down her doll, pats her on the head, and goes back to watching TV on her everything. Shahn and Timio start negotiating hide and seek (he's accustomed to a shorter count than she is and she wants the bathroom out of bounds).

Eefa goes back to her prior activity of sitting apart and staring at people, choosing one at a time to look at closely.

Timio is flopped on a beanbag, looking listlessly at her TV show. She shakes her head when Chioss leans in to ask her a question; Chioss leaves her alone. Sometimes she twirls a lock of her dark purple hair around one finger.

Eefa positions herself to check what Timio is watching from a distance.

It's a show about a hairdressing salon. The hairdresser ensemble cast is arguing over who gets the new client, who is blue.

Eefa has absolutely no idea what this is about but will keep watching to see if she can figure it out. She is good at that.

They narrow down the possibilities and the two top contenders decide to compete on who makes the most in tips that day. For the rest of the episode one of them gives child clients extra complimentary lollipops and the other seeds his own tip jar when no one is looking and the one has a cancellation and calls someone to reschedule for the open slot and the other has a no-show and poaches a client from a noncompeting co-worker. By the end of the episode everyone else is thoroughly sick of this and then the blue shows up and asks to be styled by a different character after all, having apparently heard good things.

.... Eefa has not become less confused.

Are any of the other children doing more understandable things?

Shahn is playing with a puzzle toy. Anina is building with blocks.

Eefa can help with the blocks if Anina doesn't mind?

Anina will accept this with only moderate bossiness about what blocks Eefa may have.

Bossiness is use-ful since otherwise she wouldn't know! Much better than people just punishing her later. Or trying to get her to take other people's things which has happ-ened before.

Then they will successfully build a series of wobbly towers and castles and apartment complexes that fall down only to be promptly recycled and remade.

"Oh, I'm sorry that mine fell down."

"That's how blocks," says Anina wisely.

Good, because Eefa does not know how to make blocks not while building them like Anina.

The oranges prepare lunch for everybody. It's sandwiches. Mikko comes over to ask Eefa what she likes on sandwiches.

"Don't like eating meat unless I'm really hungry."

"And how hungry are you right now?"

"Not very but do want to eat if that's allowed when not-very and there's enough for everyone else too."

"- there's plenty, I just wanted to know if you wanted meat on your sandwich or not. Egg salad all right?"

"Mhm, s'long as the egg isn't old."

"Nope! Fresh egg salad from the store."

Everybody's sandwich orders are taken and the sandwiches are assembled and everybody congregates to eat them. Eefa is the only person with no meat but some people have egg salad on top of their meat.

Eefa is used to people eating meat round her.

Nom nom nom. She has figured out to not be too messy bout it but she's still probably messier than Amentans.

If her clothes make it unscathed they won't make her change them!

In addition to sandwiches there are chips and a vegetable dip that the adults eat and the kids are suspicious of.

Her clothes due, though her face and her fingers don't entirely.

She is really confused about the vegetable dip - why would the adults eat the dip but not the kids? She watches closely for signs.

Mikko wants her face and hands cleaned but will let her do it herself if she prefers!

Timio actually tries the dip but doesn't seem to like it.

"Why'd you try it?" Eefa whispers to Timio after she has cleaned herself. Again. For the thousandth time or something.

"Try what?" says Timio, by now absorbed in more TV.

"The dip thing with the green bits in it."

"Oh. I wanted to see if I'd like it."

"Liked the taste?"

She supposes someone could eat food just for the taste.

"Yeah. Liked the chips better without it."

The sauce looks like it would make her feel better if she ate lots of it. But this was apparently not what Timio was deciding based upon.

Eefa doesn't know what to say now so she's just gonna stare at Timio instead.

"Like how you don't like meat, I guess? Weird thing not to like."

"It used to be animals and I don't like hurting animals even when people think I should."

"... I do have to eat them sometimes though." Eefa whispers.

"But once it's meat it doesn't hurt them to eat them."

"Feels sorta like it's a little bit my fault for them becoming meat if I eat them."

"Weird."

Eefa is used to other people finding this weird. She stares in response.

Timio goes back to paying attention to her TV show.

A couple hours later, Mikko informs Anina and Timio that they've tracked down their great-great-grandparents three provinces away and they're happy to take them both, and they should pack up to go. Timio and Anina get on that.

"That's a lot of greats."

"Well, yeah," says Timio, shoving clothes into a bag, "if there was anybody closer we'd be there already."

"Are you scared?"

Shrug.

Not a very informative answer.

Eefa sits quietly away from people and watches.

Timio and Anina are picked up by another orange and they go, leaving just Mikko and Chioss and Eefa and Shahn in the living space.

Hopefully Timio and Anina don't die or get hurt a lot. Eefa doesn't like it when that happens to people.

Chioss spends most of the evening trying to coax Shahn into listening to the letter the interested adoptive parents sent him. Eventually he doesn't object too much to at least be in earshot while she reads it to him. Mikko fixes picklepot for dinner.

The letter doesn't seem too bad? But also seems like Shahn didn't want to listen at first, so Eefa isn't sure.

The letter describes their house and yard and pets and the school they're in district for and says they're eager to meet him.

Eefa wonders why they're eager to meet him. Usually when people are eager to meet her it's not for good reasons at all - it's cause they want to hurt her or use her to hurt other people. But she knows it's not always like that for other people.

The letter doesn't specify!

Shahn apparently really likes picklepot and goes to town on it.

The picklepot is food and Eefa is happy about that. She eats it dutifully.

And then it's bathtime! Again!

"Is there somethin' that the cleaning is doing?"

"- well, it's getting you clean!" says Mikko. "That's a reason all by itself."

"Oh."

"Is it really?"

"Of course! Every day you sweat, and some of your skin retires and isn't quite attached any more, and you have some oils that keep you from drying out but can also trap dirt, so every day we get you all clean."

Eeep!

Eefa would like to not be in the room where they are going to TAKE HER SKIN!

She bolts, looking for her a hiding place.

"Eefa! What's wrong?" exclaims Mikko.

Replying does not sound useful for hiding in this hiding spot she has found.

It's not a great hiding spot. Mikko finds her and squats across the room from her, not getting in her space, just down to her level. "Eefa, you had a bath last night. That was okay, right?"

Eefa does not want to be found! When Mikko starts heading towards her hiding spot Eefa instinctively reaches for the silvery place she can sometimes see... not enough to go anywhere but just enough so Mikko won't see her anymore...

She vanishes.

Mikko screams!

Eefa is only 50% on the same plane of existence as Mikko but she can still make out that he screamed and this is not encouraging her to become at all more visible!

Chioss comes running. Can Eefa hear or see them well enough to make out the conversation?

Yeah, she can. So long as there aren't too many people speaking at once and they aren't talking too fast.

"She vanished!"

"Okay, so, let's check under the -"

"No, she didn't hide - well, sort of, she was hiding there, I don't even know why, she had a bath last night - she didn't hide she disappeared."

"Go sit down, drink some water, I'll look for her."

"She disappeared."

"If you're right you're right and if you're not you'll feel better after sitting down and getting some water," says Chioss, waving him out of the room. She starts casing all of the possible nooks and crannies, patting down surfaces and opening compartments and lifting the mattress.

Eefa... is not ready to run yet. She is confused and doesn't know what's going on and outside here might actually be worse, she doesn't know.

... she forces herself to phase back, becoming visible to Chioss all of a sudden when he's about to pat her anyways.

Chioss startles and pulls her hand back.

"Eefa?"

Eefa attempts to push herself further back into the hidey hole but stays visible.

"Eefa, how - how did you -"

She is staring very intently and keeping quiet, all tensed up to run.

"How did you - do that."

"Don't wanna say."

People usually get mad when they realize that she's not like them and so she's getting ready to run but she's scared and....

"I want to keep my skin."

She's not quite hyperventilating but is close to doing so.

"- your - skin? Why wouldn't you keep your skin?"

"Mikko said he was gonna clean it off me."

"- oh, no, Eefa, that's not what he meant. Skin has lots and lots of little tiny parts. It's always growing new ones. The old ones are worn out and no good any more. They come off if you just sit there, too. It's just better to do that in the bath. It'll be just like your last bath, nothing extra. - but how did you disappear."

She does not remember her skin coming off in the last bath...

She also isn't going to answer the question. Instead she keeps sorta almost hyperventilating but not quite as much as before.

"Would you rather talk to Mikko instead of me?"

"No."

She still doesn't trust Mikko about her skin. Though whether or not she trusts him probably doesn't matter.

"Can you - vanish whenever you want to?"

No, but telling someone that doesn't seem very smart so she stays quiet.

"Is this the first time you've done it?"