She doesn't actually come back for another twenty minutes. 

"Are you okay?"

"M'fine," she says, and then has to dig her nails into her hands to keep from crying again.

"It was kind of an unhelpful book."

Nod. "'s okay. We have some time. - because I told the kitchen to burn dinner. Do you want to read something else, you think?"

Headshake. She hugs her knees.

"Sorry.

"Is he gonna be mad at the kitchen people - "

"I don't know. Usually they don't think about it in much detail. Should I not tell you about stuff like that - so you can say you didn't know, if it ever comes up -"

"I don't know. I'm not - thinking well."

She sits down on the bed. "We can take care of ourselves. We've been doing it for a long time. You should worry about you. - and I don't think those advice books are very good, the palace isn't like the rest of the world."

"No, that's not even it, they're horrible for the rest of the world, but - I don't actually know how to do any other things, not here, not - with him. And it's just - I dunno. Reminded me of how horrible the situation is. How high the costs of anything I try are gonna be. I don't even - ugh."

She's crying again. She doesn't want to. Doesn't know how to make it stop.

"'m sorry. It'll be okay. I'm so sorry."

"I think... it's probably gonna take a really long time to be even a little bit okay."

"Well, that's life for you. Nothing to this one except earning the next one. But the next one's much, much, much longer."

...she tries to say something about that but actually just starts crying harder.

She will...stop saying things, then.

She focuses on getting control of her breathing and crying less. Takes maybe another thirty seconds for her to be able to talk again.

"I'm sorry."

"'s okay. Do you want me to leave -"

"I dunno. - need to stop crying, and I can't remember how to make it stay stopped - "

"Mmhmm. It's okay."

Nodnod.

"Just - don't wanna cry in front of him. Not when he hasn't done anything."

"Mmhmm."

With enough focus on breathing and some comparatively gentle biting herself - can't afford to waste her healing - she can eventually get back down to a pretty neutral visible emotional state. It's still kind of fragile but it's what she has.

"You still want to try dinner?"

Nodnod. "Don't wanna - explain skipping."

"Okay. I can do makeup, if you want, so it doesn't look like you've been crying -"

"Might look weird? If you can do it so it doesn't look - obvious - then yeah - "

"Do it all the time." She can open her kit and start trying to figure out Korva's skin color.