While Lenn and Marcie bantered, Genevieve was already throwing herself across the closer of the two cots. It was so good to finally be off her feet. She wasn’t going to spend a single moment longer standing around.

She laid there for a few moments, letting the bickering fade into the background, until a stray thought came through her mind that made her sit back up. “Ah… I’m sorry,” she said, looking over to Lenn. “You said before that you… provide care? You practice medicine down here?”

“As best as I can,” Lenn responded. They looked at Genevieve gravely. “Why, are you injured?”

“No,” Genevieve said, shrinking back just a bit. “I’m fine. A little scraped up, probably, but fine. One of the metal men caught Marcie’s leg, though. I tried to bandage it for her, but I would be relieved if someone who knew more medicine than I do could take another look.”

Lenn looked at Marcie with their eyebrow raised as if to say, well there you have it. “That’s what I mean about being tough, Marcie. You should have mentioned this to me sooner.”

“Honestly I forgot all about that.” Marcie shrugged. “That wasn’t me bein’ tough, that’s just me bein’ dumb.”

“Medically, I can’t advise that either.” Lenn took a chair that was left beside one of the desks and brought it to Marcie’s cot. They sat down beside her and rolled up their sleeves. “Put up your leg,” they told her. “Let me see the injury.”

Despite her grumbling and griping, Marcie held her leg out towards Lenn. She rolled her pants up to reveal the scrap of cloth Genevieve had tied around the wound. It was thoroughly bloodstained but not quite soaked through. Lenn looked over it for a moment, and then they undid the knot with a few quick, careful tugs. "This is too tight,” they said bluntly as they took away the bloody rag. “Much longer and she might have lost the foot." They glanced up at Marcie and considered for a moment. "Well, maybe Marcie wouldn't have. It's hard to know with her. But somebody else probably would."

“Oh,” Genevieve said, turning red in the cheeks. “I–I’m very sorry. I was just trying to do the best I could with what I had. I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t sweat it,” Marcie said, waving her hand. “My foot was asleep for a bit there, but it’s fine. Right, Lenn?”

“It’s bleeding, Marcie, so it isn’t fine,” Lenn chided. “But yes, it should heal well enough.” They glanced over to Genevieve. “And you shouldn’t be ashamed for trying to help. I’m sure it was an unfavorable situation, and you needed to improvise. You were right not to let it bleed.”

Genevieve just nodded quietly. "Thank you," she half-mumbled, barely audible.

"For what?" Lenn asked. Genevieve withered under their stare. "You did what you could, and now you know how important it is to be prepared for these situations. Even the most basic training is helpful. Tomorrow I can teach you a small bit of first aid, and you will do better next time.” They stood, placing Marcie's leg on their chair, and crossed the room to a metal cabinet mounted on the wall. "I have some gauze here," they said. "Give me a moment to clean the wound and prepare a bandage."

"Yeah, yeah," Marcie muttered dismissively. "Do your worst, doc."

"I generally believe my patients deserve better than my worst," Lenn said. They returned to Marcie carrying a sheet of thick gauze, a bandage roll, and a hand towel wrapped around something small and cylindrical. "Even you, Ms. Silver."

"Aw, shucks," Marcie said sarcastically. She glanced over to Genevieve's cot. "Ain't they such a charmer, Jen?" She waved her hand towards Lenn, like she was brushing them off. "You hack."

Lenn rolled their eyes, indulging in a little bit of theatrical exaggeration. "You are making me rapidly reconsider my position," they deadpanned, even as they carefully and conscientiously cleaned the wound. "This is going to sting a little," they added, and they uncorked the vial that had been tucked inside the towel.

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They carefully splashed a little bit of the liquid inside onto Marcie's leg and she sucked air through her sharp teeth, making a noise like a balloon being inflated. "Man, you weren't kidding," she said through tightly clenched fangs.

"I only rarely am," Lenn responded.

While they placed the gauze over her leg and expertly bandaged it in place, Marcie looked away from them. Her expression had fallen to a contrite frown. "Ah… sorry about giving you a hard time, though. I did it and then immediately kinda felt bad. It's just sorta, you know, a reflex."

"You are nothing if not a creature of reflex," Lenn said.

"I have no idea how to take that."

"Take it as it is. A simple observation, no more or less." They tied the bandage off with a precise knot and double checked to make sure it was set properly in place. "There," they said, standing up. "Try to stay off it as much as you can until it's healed on its own. And yes, I know that will come quickly. But I don't care to gamble on whether you can heal gangrenous tissue, so we are going to keep the wound clean and the bandage on regardless."

"C'mon, Lenn, I'm not that dumb." Marcie crosses her arms. "Seen my share of nasty flesh stuff, bandaged plenty of my own. I don't like testing my luck just to test if. I'm just not interested in getting all fussed and worried about stuff. Lotta energy to waste making yourself feel like shit, if you ask me."

Genevieve, having spent a while quietly listening and reflecting, lifted her head up to stare at Marcie. "Wait a second," she said. "You've bandaged plenty of your own wounds?"

"Well, not just my own. But I mean, every now and then, yeah. I'm not an expert or nothin', far from it, but, y'know… stuff happens. Y'get hurt, folks get hurt, your dad blows his damn finger off. And you wanna get a proper doctor type to deal with it A.S.A.P. but, like, in the meantime, you just gotta patch up what y'can and hope it works out."

"Then why the hell did you let me do it before?" Genevieve demanded, red in the face all over again.

"Oh. Uh." Marcie looked at Genevieve, then at her bandaged leg. The gears in her brain turned and turned and rattled and tried to shake themselves loose. Her expression said it all: why did I let her do that? Why did this question never occur to me? How am I even supposed to remember?

"...I dunno," she finally said. "In the moment you seemed like you really needed to be in charge of things. So I guess I just sorta went along with it?"

Awkward silence fell over the room. Lenn glanced between the two girls, and then they stood up from their chair. "I am going to pull out some clothes for you," they said to Genevieve. "You should be about… hm." They approached Genevieve, placed one hand palm up on the bed next to her, and then put their other hand by her shoulder. "Yes, I should have something that will fit, or at least near enough to it." With the same curt yet dedicated manner they had shown Marcie, they turned around and headed briskly towards the door. "I'll be back shortly. You can keep resting here until then."

Once they left the room fell quiet, and it took a few moments before Marcie decided to break the silence. "Uh… sorry if you're, like, mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you, Marcie," Genevieve said, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling. "I'm only mad at myself." She rocked her foot against the cot, which made a quiet squealing sound in protest. "Typical royal behavior, isn't it? Taking command of a situation, thinking that you know better, when in truth you know nothing at all?"

"Ah… I don't think it's like that." Marcie frowned and stared at the floor under her cot. "I mean, I figure, if I put myself in your shoes, like. You got that whole wedding situation you didn't ask for, probably didn't get a say in the whole thing at all if I had to guess, I know princesses don’t usually get a lot of say when they’re married off. And then in the end you only got away 'cause some stranger happened to drop in and decide it was her place to meddle with other people's problems."

"I never said you were meddling.”

"Nah, you didn't, I'm just saying, it was meddling. I did meddle." Marcie shrugged nonchalantly. "Sometimes you need to meddle. Minding your own business is well and good, but at some point you gotta step off the line a little and lend a hand where one's needed. I got no qualms about that." She glanced again in Genevieve's direction. "Point is just, like, all that stuff was out of your hands. And I gotta imagine that's awful miserable, right? If it were me I'd feel pretty powerless and probably a little pissed off. So, like, trying to take a bit of control back, insistin' that you're gonna help someone–I get it. It's not like there's anything wrong with wanting a little say in your own fate, or whatever. That's not royal behavior, that's just, like… person who wants to live their own life behavior. Least that's how it seems to me."

Genevieve considered for a moment, and then shook her head with a little smile. "And you're a psychologist, too?" she joked.

"What? Naw. No. I'm just, like… calling it the way I see it." Marcie frowned, still avoiding Genevieve’s eyes. "Sorry if I'm being. Like. Presumptuous."

"No, no, it's fine," Genevieve said. "I'm only teasing." She looked at Marcie and smiled bigger, warmly. "Thank you for meddling in my business."

"Oh. You're… welcome?" Marcie said. The conversation seemed to have lost her a bit. Genevieve could practically see the question mark drawn in the air above her head. But in its own way, that was kind of charming.