Amuné nodded when Ethan said they were safe, but his assurances about the Machina elicited only an unhappy sniffle as the girl nestled herself between her two protectors.  She knew better, her mommy was a healer and she'd seen people when what made them who they were was gone, and that was what Cecil looked like now.  Ethan was just doing what a lot of people did, because they wanted someone to stay.  /She/ wanted Cecil to stay too, and she kept having to remind herself that he was gone, that if the Saints had taken him he was with them now.  The thought that at least he had his answers now was little reassurance.

The route was a scenic one, winding through the start of the foothills.  Their destination came into view suddenly after a bend in the road, a city curled against a bend in the river to one side and sheltered by the first of the real mountains on the other.  By then Amuné was in a somewhat better mood, at least, though a gloomy cloud still hung over her.  But the sight of Mutebo, bright in the afternoon sun, made her feel at least a little hopeful.  The place was as big as the biggest of the towns she'd been to with her father, the times he'd had them go travelling with his tribe.  Ethan thought Cecil could be repaired and in a city like that, there had to be someone who knew about Machina, right?  The child gave herself a shake.  She didn't want to hope if it wasn't so.  Hope was already stretching thin, believing she could find her parents after weeks, and so far from home.  They were safe, of course, of that there was no doubt, but they had to be worried about her and she really had no idea how to find them.  She missed them terribly.  "Ethan?"  She tugged at his sleeve, actually managing a smile at his dumbfounded expression despite the awful events of earlier.  "Do you think...do you think maybe someone in town will know something about my parents?"  Amuné looked up at him, her grey eyes worried.  She was desperately in need of some good news.

It was a surprise to hear that Mutebo accepted magi.  Amuné glanced warily at Ethan, then Nymira, wondering how they'd react.  But she still had no intention of saying anything about her own gift.  Her daddy had told her that even among  magi the Sight was rare, and she needed to be careful of other magi as well as those without magic.

She let out a wide-eye squeak when the new lady said Asta had summoned the lizard-dogs.  She had?  Why?  Those things were bad, and scary.  When Ethan asked her what she though of the other Ydran's anctions, the girl shook her head, frowning.  "No!  She summoned scary things and they might have killed everyone, and they're big and scary and /bad/!  She's bad!!"