“We connect the nerves through this processor,” the engineer explained and showed me a metal armband looking thing. That was going to sit permanently on my arm. “It’s a bigger procedure, but it’s… Procedure. I’ve done it many times. All I do is connect the nerves to this, and then we can put an arm on it. Or a leg for that matter. Hell, I could connect a tentacle.”

Dy cleared her throat, and the engineer glanced up at her. He was way younger than I had expected. He couldn’t be much older than me. But he did look like an engineer. He was pale compared to Dy, indicating he didn’t get out much. And he was skinny. Thick round glasses sat on almost the tip of his nose, and he had one and a half eyebrows. Burn scars had taken half of one and curved around his eye.

“An arm will do,” I said a little meekly and took a sip of my tea.

“My point was that it’s just a processor. So it’ll register any kind of tech. I developed it myself.” He looked very proud of that. I wasn’t sure I understood half of what he was even saying, but I was guessing it didn’t matter much.

“How long before I have a fully functioning arm?”

“Well, it takes time. Also, I haven’t seen the state of your stump, yet...”

I held it out for him, and he met my eyes with him before he quickly looked down. He unwrapped the bandages around it, removed the cotton pad that was at the end and inhaled sharply through his teeth.

“Okay. Who did this?” He looked back at Dy.

“My aunt. There was an infection.”

“Gods, okay.” He frowned. “We’ll have to see how this heals. If there are too many wrinkles in the skin, it’s not gonna be easy to attach the processor. But for now, I’d leave this for two months before I’d try anything.”

“I don’t have two months,” I said coolly.

“Yeah well, the scabs need to disappear. And it needs to not bleed when we unwrap it. Which it is right now.”

Dy pushed him aside and very gently grabbed my upper arm, way above where the wound was. She sighed and went to the small dresser, getting new bandages from it. And something to clean the wound with, it appeared.

“It’s gonna sting a little,” she said softly and dapped something from a little flask on a strip of cotton. She gently put it against the stump, and I clenched my jaw hard to not cry out. She removed the cotton again, it now coloured blue by my blood.

She had big hands. Big rough hands but they were so gentle. And it came as a surprise to me. I hadn’t expected someone of her size to be so gentle. Even when she tattooed me, she had been gentle and I just… Kept getting surprised.

“Two months?” I gritted out between my clenched teeth and looked back up at the engineer.

“Yeah, approximately.” He shrugged and looked a little apologetic. “If we start too early the infection could come back under all the metal and we’d have to take it off again and-”

“Right,” I interrupted. I really didn’t need that mental image in my head.

Dy finished up the bandages and carefully pinned them down with plaster. “Maybe we should check the rest too. It’s been a couple of days since we changed them.”

I nodded.

Dy was about to start, but then she stopped and glanced up at the engineer. “Huck, it’s time to leave.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Anyways uh… Here’s a little literature on roprothesthics.” He left a pamphlet on the bedside table and quickly shoved all the parts he had shown me into his satchel. He left as if demons were on his tail.

“You make him nervous,” Dy said as she removed the blanket, exposing my legs. She clenched her jaw, and she was staring at the big plaster on my thigh. Half of it was covered by my borrowed nightgown. I lifted it up for her, and she swallowed hard.

“I’m used to it,” I gritted out between my teeth.

She didn’t linger too long but just started working, removing the plaster very gently. I had forty stitches, running in a crooked line down my leg.

“It’s not gonna be pretty is it?” I asked.

She swallowed again. “I think it’s gonna be fine. We managed to get it closed pretty neatly. So the scar shouldn’t be too ugly.”

“What about the one on my ribs?”

“That was more gnarly.” She cleared her throat as she wiped the stitches with more cotton and rewrapped my leg. “Let me see the one on your ribs.”

I pulled the blanket over my legs and then pulled the nightgown up, exposing my side.

“I think this one will be okay,” she said after she had removed the plaster. “It doesn’t feel hot.”

“No, it just itches.”

“Good, that means it’s healing.”

I pulled my nightgown back down again.

“And how does your arm feel?”

I looked back at the stump. “I can feel my fingers moving right now. I keep trying to scratch my nose or something, and then I realise it’s not there anymore. But it doesn’t hurt.”

“We numbed it with painkillers.” She nodded towards the tea.

I snorted. “Thanks.”

“It’ll be painful with the roprothesthics,” she said then.

“Yes. But I need an arm.”

“Why is that so important? You know you’ll get used to this right? You lost it less than a month ago. It’ll get better.”

“Sure, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be known as the One-Armed Queen.”

“You’ll be one-armed regardless. A prosthetic is not an arm.”

“No, but it’ll be a good illusion of one. That’s what it’s all about: illusions and how people perceive you. What’s real doesn’t matter.”

Dy sat back down on the chair and sighed. “Sounds exhausting.”

“There is power in no one knowing who you truly are,” I murmured.

“And loneliness.”

I arched a brow at her. “I’m the queen. I don’t have the luxury of feeling lonely.”

“But you do still, though. Right?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and shrugged. “No. Not right now.”

She smiled. “You should’ve seen the dress I wore to your coronation. I never wear dresses.”

I leaned back against the headboard of the bed and smiled. “I bet you looked pretty.”

Every time I had seen Dy, she had been dressed in simple trousers, an even simpler shirt and maybe a jacket thrown over it. She did have a nice jacket. It was long and had pretty buttons on it. Not a single button matched. Just judging from her clothes, I would guess this was how she expressed herself. Through a jacket with different buttons on it.

“I liked your dress. I’m sorry it got ruined.”

“Oh, by the explosion?” I snorted. I tried to make things fun. To not make it this big heavy taboo subject. We could talk about it. I needed to talk about it.

“Yeah. Unless you tripped right before it and ripped it.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I was born with grace in my body. I don’t trip.”

“I bet that’s not true.”

“Take me out, and I’ll show you. I’m getting tired of staring at these walls, anyways.”

“Okay. I’ll take you out. Tomorrow though. Okay?”

I nodded and scooted further down. She smiled again and opened her book.