A truck screams out of nowhere, moving so fast that it may, possibly, be rocket-propelled, or at least it feels that way in the very brief final moments of Evelyn's consciousness within the physical continuum of Earth.

Evelyn is now inside some sort of elaborately drawn glowing magical circle inside an obvious pseudo-medieval castle chamber, but she's not going to have very much time to look at that because an obvious king is immediately grabbing her arm and talking very quickly as she's hustled off toward a huge metal door-gate!  "Sorry summoned hero no time to explain anything disaster imminent you're supposed to somehow be able to solve our problems and we need you to do that right now last hero failed and we're all about to die -"

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh that is not how getting hit by suddenly-appearing-maybe-rocket-propelled trucks is supposed to work! Also Evelyn is TOO OLD for this and some very ridiculous part of her brain is gibbering that there's a REASON mysteriously being summoned to other worlds to save them from great danger is a thing in YOUNG ADULT books!! She's not a hero! Or, well, she's occasionally been the recipient of, like, appreciation cards with that 'not all superheroes wear capes' inspirational quote, but it SURE LOOKS like they were aiming for the sort of hero who can fight dragons with a powerful magic sword! 

...She does not manage to assemble her objections enough to interrupt the king or prevent her from hustling her toward the enormous metal gate. That seems like a really awkward thing to do to someone who's clearly having a really bad day, and is probably about to have a WORSE day because he tried to summon the, you know, actually-heroic kind of hero and instead got a fifty-year-old foster mom. 

There's a titanic howl and crash which is clearly coming from the other side of those heavy gates, even as a couple of generic royal guards are frantically undoing bars so it can be opened.

Oh dear. 

"I'm sorry but I - really - think maybe you got the wrong person by mistake?" Evelyn finally manages, feeling incredibly mortified. "I'm a mom. I can't, like, fight monsters. It's not that I don't want to help, I, just..." 

Maybe it's a baby dragon having tantrums? Evelyn is still pretty sure she's about to get turned into a small smear on the ground, but - she feels really bad for this poor medieval-kingdom-out-of-a-young-adult-novel and the king who looks like he's having the worst of days already.

"Eh - but -"  The king looks like he's trying to decide which of four possible rejoinders to give to this.

And since time doesn't actually go on hold while all that happens, the GATES ARE NOW OPEN.

The young girl standing in front of the now-opened gates, with flame and craters behind her, is looking around in what seems like blank surprise and maybe sadness.

Oh no she's so young and sad and probably so confused and - well, might have something to do with the flames and craters, but Evelyn did not actually SEE it happen and you always give kids the benefit of the doubt. 

She would kind of really like more background here! Being thrown in the deep end by having a child show up on her doorstep with half an hour's warning and two sentences of background from the social worker isn't exactly an unfamiliar experience, but this is taking it to a new and fairly ridiculous level. She's not about to turn around and ask the king or the generic guards in FRONT of the poor kid, though. 

Right. How to approach this? There are a lot of reasons why kids act out, and that must include kids whose tantrums can level cities. (Medieval cities, she reminds herself, they're probably a lot more flammable.) Generally it doesn't help to yell about how what they just did is unacceptable, especially when you didn't see it happen and don't actually know how it happened. Evelyn's default strategy, when she doesn't know anything about a child and is going in blind, is to be very calm and kind of just - ignore the misbehavior and move ahead like she would otherwise. 

She's freaked out, but honestly this has kind of gone past the point of absurdity where she can muster actual emotions about it. She pastes a pleasant but not too excessively bright smile on her face and takes a few steps toward the girl, moving slowly and in as nonthreatening a way as she can manage. Coughs slightly on the smoke. The ground is noticeably warm under her feet. 

"Hi," she says levelly. "My name is Evelyn. What's your name?" 

The blank-looking girl slowly turns to stare at Evelyn.

"...name," she says in a voice like she's singing the word off-key.

That's a very confusing answer! Her name is...'name'? Or maybe she doesn't speak English and is just repeating the last word Evelyn said in confusion. Come to think of it, it's weird that anyone speaks English in a medieval kingdom out of a YA novel. 

Evelyn takes another step closer. (She's still not very close in absolute terms; the kid has no reason to trust the weird lady she just met, that's usual, and it's also usual for kids to need space when they just had a tantrum. Also maybe the girl will set her on fire, but Evelyn is trying not to focus on that because it has not once, in her entire fostering career, ever been helpful for a kid to observe her being scared of them, and kids are like radar dishes for that kind of thing. So she's mostly not focusing on it.) 

She points at herself and says 'Evelyn' again, very clearly, and then points at the girl and makes a questioning face and hand gesture. 

She'll stare at Evelyn for another few seconds, then point at herself and clearly say "Evelyn," and then point at Evelyn and imitate the hand gesture, but not the facial expression.

Okay, this goes beyond not speaking English and is starting to look like not understanding the general concept of communication. It's not that Evelyn has never encountered kids this unable to, well, engage, but usually the reason they didn't understand the concept of communication is that they were one. This girl is not one, and also not severely developmentally delayed, probably, given that she's a) standing up and able to repeat sounds and gestures, and b) probably managed to cause an enormous disaster. (Evelyn is going to continue not focusing on the enormous disaster part, that's the kind of thing you address AFTER you've built some trust and are sure the child is calm.)

Maybe she's very autistic? Maybe she's one of those feral children raised by wolves and has never encountered a fellow human being before? 

...Evelyn is Making Assumptions and has to stop and remind herself that she has no idea, actually. She can try to get more background LATER, from one of the grownups who presumably did not just wake up mysteriously in this medieval city and can thus fill her in on the leadup to them, uh, apparently summoning her. To be a hero. To solve their problems. Which so far do appear to include a confused, sad young girl, which is at least vaguely in Evelyn's skillset. 

Evelyn is feeling pretty unsure of how to best handle this, but she ALSO knows that looking unsure of yourself in front of children is a great way to get them to act up MORE rather than less. She needs the girl to see her TAKING CHARGE here. 

She walks confidently over - though still not very fast, and still trying to move in a non-threatening way - and holds out her hand. "Do you want to come with me, and we can find somewhere more comfortable to sit? I bet you could use a drink of water." 

The girl looks DEEPLY CONFUSED but will try to (apparently) take her head off her shoulders, and when this fails after a brief moment, carefully step forward and tilt her neck to place her head in Evelyn's hand.

....Well. That was absolutely bizarre but - if you've never encountered another human being before then maybe you legitimately don't know that 'holding an adult's hand' is a thing.

At least the little girl is relatively calm and not screaming. Evelyn appreciates the lack of screaming. 

"Not like that, dear," Evelyn says gently, "you won't be able to see where you're going, will you?" She takes the girl's head in both hands and straightens her up again, then reaches to hold her smaller hand. "Like this. Is that all right?" 

She stares at where Evelyn is holding her hand, then says "See where I'm going" and wildly looks around in all directions before her head becomes still again.

Awwwwwwwww. Also concern, to be clear! Though it's reassuring that the young girl does seem to understand some English, or - who knows, maybe Evelyn isn't even speaking English right now and there's weird YA novel magic. 

"That's it. But you don't need to look around everywhere all at once, you'll make yourself dizzy." 

She...does not incredibly want to take the child back into the ??palace?? or whatever it is she just left, at least not without first having the chance for a private conversation with the king or guards about who this child is and exactly what was happening before she got here.

Is there any direction where it looks like things are less on fire and they could maybe go find some unburned grass or something to sit on? She appears to still have her handbag and shopping bag, which is convenient, it means she can offer the girl some water and maybe even a lollypop, she thinks she still has one or two from the last time she restocked her emergency Lily bribes.

(Lily, oh no– not going to dwell on that right now. THIS young girl needs her.)  

Not everything is on fire YET, and if you move away at an angle from the approach to the gate, you can find a section of palace garden with no fire particularly close to it, sure, with enough grass to sit on and also some fancy metal-wooden benches too.

Evelyn is not a firefighter or equipped for dealing with this in any way - she's never carried a fire extinguisher in her handbag even the time she had a child who liked to shoplift lighters and start little fires, though she does still have a mini one in her car, unfortunately not present with her. Hopefully someone else is going to deal with the fire. She will deal with the thing she's even slightly qualified for. 

She leads the girl over to the benches and guides her to a sitting position. Sits down beside her, not quite touching her, and offers her the water bottle. "Here. You'll probably feel better after you have a drink." 

...Does the kid seem to know in any way what to do with a water bottle, or does she need more prompting? 

She will hold the water bottle in front of herself.  "I have a drink.  I don't feel better."

Oh no cute and concerning. (Evelyn is definitely making a note of the apparently over-literal speech and comprehension, which is vaguely autism-flavored, she thinks? Though it's way too early to jump to any conclusions yet.) 

"You're allowed to drink it," she says, reaching over and unscrewing the cap in case that's one of the confusing parts. "You put the top in your mouth and tip it like this until some goes in your mouth, and then you swallow it. If I were you I think I'd be feeling thirsty by now, with all this heat and smoke." 

The child looks VERY DUBIOUS and like she is starting to feel GENERALLY SKEPTICAL OF THIS ADULT.

That's probably kind of fair from her perspective! Evelyn just showed up out of nowhere and is trying to mom at her! She's plausibly never been mothered in her life and Evelyn is aware that being treated nicely by an adult when that's not within a child's past experience can actually be unsettling or confusing for them. 

...Does it help if she takes a sip of the water first and then offers it back? (She is mildly ehhh about germs but that feels like NOT THE TOP PRIORITY right now.) 

She'll try to stand on the bench and then look into Evelyn's mouth, appearing EVEN MORE CONFUSED.

....What. Maybe she's never seen someone drink out of a container before and doesn't realize it works the same as drinking from, what, a...pond? River? (Surely she's consumed water before.) 

Evelyn cooperatively opens her mouth wide so the young girl can see that she swallowed the water! "See?" she says brightly. "It's okay. It's just water, like you find in a river or lake. I was thirsty and now I'm less thirsty and I feel better. Do you want to try some now?" 

The girl will very slowly and carefully take the bottle and tip some water into her mouth, close her mouth, and then open it to show that there isn't any water in it anymore.  She has not, visibly, swallowed.

"I don't feel better."

"Oh. Well, I suppose maybe you weren't thirsty, then." 

Evelyn is sooooort of not sure where to go from here but she's pretty sure she has to keep the girl talking. 

"Can you tell me what feels bad, then? You look sad. Are you lost?" 

"Lost is... not knowing where something is.  I know I am here.  Where are the other things?  They are lost."

"I think the buildings look very hard to move and they were probably here already. Did you come here from a different place that wasn't here?"

She wants to ask the girl if she had parents before but it feels too early for that, it's a sensitive topic, and also the child is not ACTING like she was parented in any manner or fashion whatsoever. 

"I came here from a different place that is here."

Does this child understand how...places...work. Evelyn is not going to say that out loud, it would be so rude. Maybe she's just confused about how to use language. Sometimes autistic kids use vocabulary in strange ways, right? 

"Were there different things in the other here? What were the things like?" 

"Same things but I could see them.  Here, everything I can see is being very HERE at me and I'M a THING."

...Yeah, no, she's got nothing actually. Her best guess is that the child thinks 'here' means 'where I am' and isn't used to...buildings? Man-made things in general, maybe? And maybe hadn't really realized she was a person until she saw other people? That doesn't really feel like it fits but it's her going theory for now. 

"That sounds like it must be very confusing and scary," Evelyn says, which seems true almost regardless of what the girl means by any of that. "I wish I could answer your questions and help you be less confused, but I just got here, and it's also very new and kind of scary for me. So maybe we'll just have to figure it out together. ...Do you want a lollypop? They're quite tasty."

She takes it out of her handbag. ...And peels off the wrapper and demonstrates putting it into her mouth (without actually letting any of her mouth touch it) before handing it over, she's learned her lesson about this poor girl being VERY CONFUSED about ALL OBJECTS. "You lick it and it tastes sweet." 

"You just got here?  Like me?"  The girl puts the lollipop in her mouth, also carefully not letting it touch her mouth, exactly the way Evelyn did.

"- No, you can close your mouth on it. I just didn't want to get my mouth germs on it." Evelyn smiles at the girl. "I think so, yeah! I was somewhere else, and then all of a sudden I was here - well, over there -" she points, "and the," this child is not going to have any idea what a king is, is she, "a man said there was something they needed my help with. So I think maybe I'm supposed to help you be less confused." 

"Why is -" the girl starts to say around the lollipop in her mouth, but this apparently brings the lollipop into contact with her tongue, because the girl suddenly drops everything else and mushes the lollipop all around her mouth, and then, with laserlike focus, just on rubbing it all over her tongue.  From the look of transfixed monomaniacal utter DELIGHT on her face, she's clearly the sort of poor kid who has never had access to this level of concentrated sugary flavor before!

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! ....Also sad and concerning, but at least there's the concentrated adorableness to offset it, and it makes Evelyn really really happy to see kids having a normal fun childhood experience for the first time. 

- also she is pretty sure she isn't going to want to leave this child unsupervised for a while, so - maybe now, while she's clearly distracted, is a good time to stand up and take a few steps away - while still watching the girl closely - and wave to try to get the attention of someone, anyone, standing outside, so she can ask for literally any background on what they know about the city being on fire. And also, like, make sure there's a plan for the city to stop being on fire. If not she probably needs to get out of here - possibly that's a thought Evelyn should have had much sooner but to be fair there's kind of a lot going on. 

The palace grounds and neighboring areas are relatively sparser and made more out of stone and metal and less out of wood, so some very sensible mages are prioritizing putting out other parts of the city that are on fire.  Evelyn will probably notice some people flying around and conjuring water splashes, in the distance, as soon as she properly focuses on carefully looking over her surroundings.

The king and some obvious mages and obvious palace guards are all watching her from the palace gate she came from.  After Evelyn waves, there's some rapid hushed discussion and then one of the older-looking mages will head on over, their steps reluctant but steady.

Oh wow magic. Why is she in a YA fantasy novel setting again??? ...This is very overwhelming but if Evelyn has one skill, it's the skill of literally never getting visibly frazzled by absurd overwhelming situations. 

She takes another step closer and lowers her voice. "I'm sorry to bother you, and, well," gesture at the child, "I don't want to leave her alone just yet, so - well." Hopefully that is enough to convey the message that they should be discreet and careful. "I just got here and I'm very confused and could use a little more to go on here." 

"We're... not very much less confused.  What did you do?"

"...Talked to her and was calm? I don't actually know if she," vague gesture at the still-on-fire area behind them, "but getting mad wasn't going to help in any case, kids generally calm down best if you're calm with them and talk to them nicely. She seems to like the lollipop. I...probably need somewhere more comfortable to take her, if you have any advice on that." 

"It is well for all of us that you have such a talent with children.  My own have always terrorized me, I must confess.  Would it possibly be all right for us to escort you and the young lass to a... comfortable place... in a somewhat less... populated area?  Do you think you could hold her still for a thirty-minute carpet trip?"

Yeahhhhhhhhhh that pretty much confirms that the girl is some kind of...untrained wizard student? or something?...and responsible for the city being on fire. Poor thing. 

- carpet trip? Oh, right, YA novel fantasy setting, magic flying carpet. Great. Hopefully she doesn't get motion sick. 

"I understand. I - think that would be all right, but if you don't mind, I would want to see the, uh, carpet first, and explain it to her? I think she's finds all of - around here - pretty confusing and scary, and kids are a lot calmer if they feel more in control of what's happening to them." 

"Your will, summoned hero.  I shall have one obtained immediately."  He bows to her and strides off back towards the other gathered watchers, moving away with much more alacrity than he moved towards.

...Well, okay then. This continues to be very weird but Evelyn will focus on the part of it she has any skills for dealing with, which is the confused child who apparently has powerful magic, that may or may not be totally uncontrolled but which she's definitely capable of wielding during a tantrum. Or just in terrified 'self-defense', maybe, she must have been very scared and confused when no one was explaining anything to her. (When they were fighting her, maybe? Evelyn wasn't there and didn't see it but she would be so annoyed with them if they tried to fight a little girl.) 

She sits down on the bench again and watches the girl enjoy the rest of the lollipop. 

She doesn't seem to actually be swallowing the melted sugar and saliva that's accumulating in her mouth.  It's leaking out around the edges.

Well, that's disgusting, but how is this poor girl supposed to have ever learned manners? Fostering is a line of work that trains you not to be squeamish, though, and it's a practically a law of physics that kids get sticky. (Evelyn will...just not leap ahead to asking herself whether the kid is likely to be potty-trained, how about she doesn't borrow trouble before it's even showed up.) Maybe she just doesn't want to swallow it, because then all the sugariness won't be in her mouth anymore? That is not an issue Evelyn has exactly seen previously-very-deprived kids have before - usually they gobble their candy and are disappointed when it's gone - but it's not shocking to her. 

She has wet wipes in her handbag, those are one of the must-haves. She pulls one out. "Here, love, let me clean some of that up. ...You should swallow so it doesn't make a mess." ...She will try to very vividly demonstrate swallowing, in case the issue is that the girl doesn't know the English word. 

The girl looks SUSPICIOUS, but swallows, and then looks STARTLED.

"It went inside my thing!" she says.

Huh??? 

- this is much more the style of bizarre and baffling conversation one tends to have with toddlers, but Evelyn is rolling with all sorts of weird things right now and she's going to roll with this too. 

"Yeah, you swallowed it!" she says cheerfully. "And it went to your stomach, which means it's not in your mouth anymore where you can taste it. But you need to swallow candy at some point or it's going to make a mess." Evelyn will wipe up the part of the mess that has already leaked out. 

They are now approached by a woman wearing an IMPRESSIVE HAT; also, she is rapidly approaching them on board a four-meter-wide circular rug hovering a meter or so off the ground.  This presumed Carpet Rider bears a fixed and somewhat manic smile.

"Hey," she calls as she draws near, "I hear the summoned hero and her, uh, kid, wanted a flying carpet demonstration?"  The carpet picks that moment to abruptly swoop up, over, and back down in a vertical circle.  "Because I've got the best carpet there is.  That's.  Why they sent me.  Because I have the best carpet."

Evelyn feels like she's in an unexpected front-row seat to watch the circus. And she didn't even mean to, or want to, buy a ticket to the circus. And her surprise foster child is maybe going to be scared of the circus. ...This is probably taking a silly metaphor way too far, isn't it. 

She waves. "Hi! I'm Evelyn!" 

Glance over at...damn it she never did manage to figure out the poor kid's name, did she. Eye contact will have to be enough. "We're going to see how flying carpets work, okay? Apparently this is the best one! And then, once you're okay with it and not confused or scared, we're going to go on a flying carpet ride to the place we'll stay tonight." 

"I know how flying carpets work!  The magic goes AROUND and the carpet stays UP!  But I'm still confused and scared."

"Wow! You know more about magic carpets than I do, I couldn't tell you the first thing about where the magic goes. ...Are you confused and scared about getting on the magic carpet, or about other things?" 

"Yes!"