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Yeah, she doesn't have anything to say to him right now. She could maybe come up with something - "Why did you eat all those maidens", "Well, this room is a mess now", "Don't even think about trying to consummate our marriage", "So, these are called thumbs, they're useful", but. No. Just no.

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Then he will continue crying by himself amid the debris of his transformation.

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There's a bed in this room, for some idiotic reason. It has sheets. She pulls a clean sheet off of it and mops remnants of lye and milk and sweat and flecks of blood off herself.

And then she heads for the door.
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The other prince is sitting on the floor of the hall, looking nervous and upset.

He brightens when he sees her.

"You're alive! Oh good."
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"I'm alive," she says. "So's, uh, he."

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"...Is he crying?" asks Taphinieu, tilting his head to listen.

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"Yes. I mean, I might be crying too if my mother had screwed up magicking me into existence and then someone had to put me through an elaborate and painful series of steps to fix me."

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"Maybe I'd better go talk to him," he says worriedly.

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"Be my guest." She slumps against the wall. "Meanwhile can I get water, somewhere?"

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"Um. Yes. I'll find a servant," says the prince.

He fetches a maid and leaves her in the hall with the instruction, "Please get the princess anything she asks for," and then goes into the room.
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Oh right. She's a princess.

...cool.

She gets some water, and some bread and butter for breakfast, and then she wants an actual bath and a fresh dress with no blood or milk on it, and then she comes back to see what's up.
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Taphinieu is sitting among the blood and milk and lye and lizardskins and discarded shifts, hugging his brother, who is curled up half in his lap with a blanket tucked around him.

"Hello, Princess," he says when she comes back. "...Um. What's your name?"
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"Carrabella."

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"It's, um, it's good to meet you, I guess," says Taphinieu. "Welcome to the family. ...um, speaking of which, there's some things I think I should tell you if you're going to be around and married to my brother and all."

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"What?" she asks, sitting on the edge of the bed.

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He is quiet for a moment, thinking of what to say.

Eventually he settles on: "...it's not good to upset the king."
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"He isn't a nice person."

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"He did routinely kidnap people expecting them to get killed. Do you mean apart from that?"

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"Yes."

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"What else is wrong with him, and have you tried going outside and being conspicuously dismayed?"

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"Yes," he says. "When I was a child. And the mysterious old woman said, 'If you try to be kind and responsible even when it's difficult, and remember that just because you're being punished doesn't mean you've done something wrong, things will sort themselves out eventually.' I don't think she usually gives advice like that."

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"Yeah, that's weird. You didn't have to eat any non-food or combine inanimate objects in unconventional ways. Are you sure she was a real mysterious old woman and not just a well-intentioned elderly lady?"

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"I thought sometimes she might've been just the ordinary kind of old woman. But she looked very mysterious when I met her. And I think it turned out to be very good advice even if it wasn't magic."

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"I mean, that's good, then, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee that things will sort themselves out."

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