Once again Genevieve found herself considering Marcie, even just on a physical level. The girl had scales, of all things in the Pulse. A tail. Those little nubby horns. She was a little on the small side, but quick and athletic, fit, toned. Even attractive, if Genevieve was being completely, fully objective about it. Certainly in the way that any fleet-footed tomboy with sharp claws and sharper teeth would be attractive.

While Genevieve was doing her best not to look like she was staring, Marcie surprised her by suddenly stretching out with a big yawn. "Ah, geeze," she muttered to herself. She leaned down to pull her boots off of her feet, a slow and careful process, since she had to slip them around those large, sharp claws. Once they were off she kicked them absent-mindedly across the floor, and threw herself back to flop on the cot, almost jumping into a perfect supine landing with just a little bounce. She laced her hands together behind her head to lay on them, but a frown crossed her face and she grumbled to herself. "Ugh. Gotta take this thing off."

With only some minor fumbling she detached the straps holding the leather padding around her right arm in place, and dropped it off to her side. Then she slipped off the sleeve, revealing that her entire arm was covered in hard black spikes. Genevieve wasn't sure if they were bone or keratin or something else, but they came out at a sharp angle, curving to be almost but not quite flush with Marcie's arm, and traveled up from just above her wrist until halfway past her elbow, growing gradually but noticeably larger the further up her arm they went. The way they jutted out of her body looked uncomfortable, but Marcie didn't seem bothered by them as she ran her hand along the underside of her arm and shook it out lazily.

It was an unexpected sight, and Genevieve found herself openly staring, forgetting to be polite while she tried to imagine what it would feel like to have something like that growing out of you.

Eventually the gawking was conspicuous enough even Marcie had to notice it. "Oh, uh… yeah." She held up her arm with a little grimace. "This one's like, spiky. It's kind of a pain, cuz they get caught on stuff a lot, so, uh." She picked up the armguard and dangled it from one claw. "The padding." With a slight tilt of her hand she tossed it aside again. "But it's kinda restrictive and it gets all sweaty and stuff–I do sweat, I'm not a reptile, just for the record–so, it's, y'know, there's no real winning with it, just gotta deal."

Genevieve kept looking at her, trying to make sense of her. "Marcie…" she began to say, but once she considered the question she wanted to ask, she stopped herself and shook her head. "No, nevermind."

"Something wrong?" Marcie asked.

"Nothing's wrong, no.”

"So why'd you start saying something and then just stop?"

"It was just–I just realized it was a rude question to ask."

"Well, go for it anyway. It's one thing to be polite but at some point you're not being polite you're just being fake." Marcie rolled onto her side, her spiked arm up so as not to stab the cot, and almost hung off the bed as she leaned to look at Genevieve. "And besides, you can't really be rude if you're just askin' an honest question, far as I figure."

"Fine, then," Genevieve said, and she took a deep breath to steel herself before blurting it out. "Marcelle Silver… are you… human?"

"Ah. Yeah, all right, I guess that one is a little bit rude." Marcie sat up on the cot, scooching herself back so she wasn't dangling off it so precariously. "S'fair enough, though. Might as well address th' scaly blue devil in the room."

As she spoke Marcie reached around her back, arching herself slightly, and scratched an itch between her shoulder blades with a grunt. Crass as it was, Genevieve found herself again impressed and slightly disconcerted by her flexibility

"So, the answer's, uh… mostly?" Marcie shrugged. "My dad's all the way human. And 'cording to him my other dad was half human an' half devil. So that makes me a good three-fourths human. Passing grade, just about." She tilted her head and rubbed her chin awkwardly. "Not that there's, like. Actually a grade. Or that I'd need to pass it or anything. It's just, like, a turn of phrase, y'know?" Her hand went back down on the cot. "Point is I'm more human than not, so I figure I should count. If folks think otherwise that's their problem."

"I guess that's… fair enough." Genevieve really didn't know what to make of everything Marcie was saying. "Your… other father?" she asked, picking at the first of many questions floating through her mind.

"It's a long story.” Marcie’s eyes darted away from Genevieve’s face. She rarely made eye contact while she was talking, Genevieve had noticed, but she usually made an effort to look more or less in her direction. At least until something came up that made her uncomfortable. "I never met the guy. Dad says he stayed the night, left in the morning, and then a good ten months later there I was all bundled up on the doorstep."

"Oh." Genevieve wasn't sure if that made things more or less clear. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Why?" Marcie said, cocking an eyebrow. "I told it to ya. And I had a good home and a loving parent and all so I'm not about to complain. Lotsa folks got it way worse."

"That’s… a good way to look at it. I think." It felt improper to keep digging, so Genevieve tried to come up with some way to change the subject. There was something floating around in the back of her head she just couldn't shake free from, though. And before she realized what she was saying, she asked out loud, "but, your other father, how did he–?"

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"The same way anyone does," Marcie said, cutting her off before she could finish the question. "I'd rather not explain how givin' birth works, if that's all right."

"N-no, no, you definitely don't need to don't that," Genevieve said, waving her arms emphatically. "I'm so sorry. That was a terribly awkward thing to ask."

"Eh… yeah. Kinda." Marcie leaned back on her palms. "But it's fine. Don't sweat it. I know my whole situation's not exactly, y'know. Typical. I mean, c'mon, I got horns and shit, awkward questions just kinda come with being alive."

"I guess they would have to." A wave of shame washed over Genevieve, flowing into her cheeks. She could feel them burning as she tried to save face. "I am sorry I contributed to that. I didn’t mean to pry into your personal business. I just… well…"

"You were curious," Marcie said with a shrug. "People's curious. Just how they are. And everyone's heard some story or another 'bout some soul who was born from a devil, but nobody's ever seen one. So every time I meet folks, there you go. I'm that one. I'd be curious if I were in your place, too. So, like… it's really fine. I'm not gonna hold it against you."

Genevieve crossed her legs on the thin, lightweight mattress under her and turned around to face Marcie’s cot. “I do feel badly, though, being so impolite after you’ve gone so far out of your way for my sake. I’d share some of my own deep dark secrets in return, but I don’t know that I have much of interest to tell. Castle life is rather more dull than people imagine, I’m afraid.”

“Huh.” Marcie cocked her head. “Don’t y’all have newsmen down, uh… south, isn’t it? Verdane? Am I remembering that right?”

“No, that’s correct,” Genevieve said. “And we have newsmen, of course. Plenty of them, putting out boot-licking rags every single day.”

“Not a fan of the free press or whatever?” Marcie asked, leaning back against the wall behind her.

“If anything I wish they were more free. Or rather, more interested in printing anything of worth.” Genevieve’s lips puckered at the sour taste in her mouth. “My father is quite popular, at least with the comfortable classes. And he isn’t a bad king, I would not go so far as to say that. But he’s… unimaginative, or at least, uninterested in changing much. Our kingdom has a measure of peace, and it’s easy enough for him to repress any conflicts that do arise. The farmers or the artisans or the dockworkers make a fuss about being taxed too much, working too many hours, being injured or mistreated, all sorts of things. They strike about it a while, the managing committees refuse to budge, and it gets dragged out just long enough that when father comes in to suggest a five percent pay increase and abbreviated Sunday hours everyone accepts it as some grand benevolent gesture and the whole thing gets forgotten.”

“Gotcha. Gotcha. Riveting stuff.” Marcie looked at Genevieve without turning her head, looking at her out of the corner of her eye. “I guess your papers really don’t have any big crazy scandals to write about, huh?”

The comment took Genevieve off guard, and after a second of stunned silence she began to laugh. “No… I suppose not. Not like you must have around here, with that ghoul Prince making a show of himself. But they try to drum up what they can.” She sighed softly. “Still, that’s precisely what I mean, do you see? Nobody cares to cover what mere workers are concerned about. There’s not much scandal in ‘the King brought the strike to the end in an underwhelming manner. Underlying issues failed to be resolved! Read the evening edition for all the juicy details!’” She chuckled again. “No, much more lucrative to find some minor social faux pas I made to blare across the front pages. ‘Princess Genevieve wiped her mouth with her hand napkin at royal banquet–has any girl ever been more disrespectful?’”

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” Marcie said. Her deadpan voice made it a little hard to tell she was joking, but Genevieve had to believe she was. “Use the wrong… napkin?” Her brow furrowed in vague consternation. “Is that a thing? Mouth napkins?”

“That’s not a thing,” Genevieve reassured her. “But they would probably make it into something, just to have an excuse to yell at me for it. And then they’d find some scholar of etiquette who dug up a 300 year old manuscript from the catacombs beneath the royal library, all about how the napkin rule is a deeply integral, fundamental pillar of our kingdom’s culture and history.” She sighed and allowed herself to fall over onto the cot. “It all got very tedious, to say the least. But it’s a little silly of me to complain about something like that, given I’ve found myself with much larger problems.”

“Eh, I mean, it sounds like a pain in the ass. And I definitely wouldn’t want to live in a world where I had to worry about napkin rules or whatever. People make up enough dumbass rules just for like regular person stuff, all that courtly bullshit seems like a living hell far as I’m concerned.”

“I couldn’t call it a living hell,” Genevieve said. “Pain in the ass, certainly. But I try to keep perspective on the life I’ve lead. And it’s a small price to pay, in the end, for all that luxury.”

“Maybe it’s just cuz I don’t know from fancy,” Marcie said, picking idly at her teeth. “But you couldn’t pay me enough to deal with luxury. Doesn’t seem like all it’s cracked up to be. And it’s all fucking complicated, too. Give me hardtack and gunpowder any day, at least that’s nice and simple.”

“Well, I can’t say I fully miss all the vagaries of palace life,” Genevieve admitted with a sigh. “But I do miss home. Quite a lot.”

“A little homesick’s normal, I think. ‘Specially when you don’t wanna be where you are. Hell, I don’t mind where I am all that much, but every now and then I think about my dad’s workshop and I can’t pretend I don’t miss the place. I knew where the tools were and they were all just the way I liked ‘em, you know? Or at least I knew how to adjust ‘em back from whatever goofy ass thing dad was doing.”

“That’s true, but it’s deeper than just missing the familiar things I knew at home.” Genevieve pulled herself up to sit back on the cot again and looked down at her hands, remembering how it felt to have that vital, pulsing, invigorating sensation of life bouncing between her fingers. “I had a bit of a green thumb, back home–a knack for our sylvan magic. But this land doesn’t have magic, and it certainly doesn’t have forests. It’s left me feeling… dry. Empty, somehow. Useless. I never imagined, before I came here, that there was a place in this world where you couldn’t feel the life all around you. Being separated from it was the biggest shock I had ever felt, when I got shipped off to this place. To this Prince.”

Genevieve pulled her legs up to her chest and stared down at the cot. She was quiet for a long, long moment. And Marcie spent the whole time being quiet too, except for the rustling of her clothes as she awkwardly fidgeted in her place. Finally, after enough time in silence that she must have been going a little bit mad, Marcie spoke up to say, “That, uh… that sounds like it really sucks.”

Genevieve chuckled darkly. “Yeah. It kind of does.”