Genevieve followed Lenn’s instructions and turned left down the hall. Her footsteps echoed around her, and she realized all at once how eerie it was going to be walking alone through an empty underground corridor. But she was far too tired and far too strung out to let herself be afraid of something silly like the solitude of a dark, forgotten basement labyrinth. She walked forward confidently, one step after another after another, and she didn’t see the door Lenn had promised, so she walked a few steps more. And a few more after that.

Logically she knew that she hadn’t gone very far at all, but her mind was already turning to paranoia. What if she had walked past the door without realizing? There was bound to be another door past it, and anything could be in there. Maybe even something she wasn’t supposed to see. Lenn could be doing anything down here. Storing horrible monsters to devour their victims, or dismembering corpses in sick, sadistic rituals to honor some twisted version of the Pulse, or smuggling priceless stolen jewels they couldn’t afford to let anyone, even a princess, walk away knowing about. For all she knew, she had been led into a nefarious trap, and some horrible fate beyond her worst imagining was waiting for her just around the corner.

Once she actually thought about it, of course, she knew that was all ridiculous. Lenn was stern, but they seemed sincere. Genevieve couldn’t bring herself to believe they had ill intentions. And it was harder to believe Marcie had the capacity to trick anybody. She was as guileless and goofily charming as a well-loved hound, and that wasn’t an insult. Genevieve quite liked dogs. Marcie just didn’t seem inclined to lead someone into a murder basement, let alone a murder catacomb. As strange and unlikely as the day’s events had been, it would only be even stranger if it was all somehow an elaborate ruse to capture her in… what? What would there even be down here?

So her fears were unfounded, when she actually thought about them. But that required her to think about them, which did not, as it turned out, do much to quell the irrational part of her brain trying to find something to be afraid of down here in the cold and the dark. Even after she dismissed her most sensationalist fantasies, a part of her started to worry there was a chance, however slim, that this hallway went on forever and there were no doors to leave it. That voice only went silent once she yanked herself out of her head and realized there was in fact a door directly to her left.

“You can be a very silly girl sometimes, Genevieve,” she muttered before she gripped the door handle and stepped inside.

Any fears she had about the room itself were equally unfounded, as it was just another dormitory like the one she had come from, albeit one filled with a few more cots. There wasn’t any light inside, but that was easily remedied by picking up a candle near the door and lighting it with one of the torches outside. Once she had a bit of light to see by and a moment to gather her thoughts, she took a deep breath and threw the paranoid anxieties of her exhausted mind aside. There was no point being afraid of monsters in the dark. She had a real monster to face. It was finally time to deal with the damn gown.

The accursed thing wasn’t meant to be removed by the wearer on their own. Genevieve chose to take that as a challenge. After everything that had happened through the day, her failure to save herself, all of the running around and relying on the kindness of strangers, she needed catharsis. She needed a struggle. She needed to tear the pile of rags apart with her own two hands.

First she tried to slip it off over her head, but it was too snug around her shoulders to just come off. She grabbed and tugged at the back of the collar to try and undo the zipper forcefully, but it was secure enough she only managed to move it down a few teeth. Pulling her arms in through the sleeves was briefly successful, but it all fell apart once she realized she’d just gotten herself stuck with her arms pinned inside the gown. She fell over onto one of the cots, struggling and flailing, a wild animal caught in a bundle of sheets, until finally, after a great amount of effort and a few busted seams, she managed to get her arms free and throw the beast off. It fell to the ground in a tattered, unceremonious pile, and that’s where it was going to stay.

Genevieve gave herself a few minutes to let the adrenaline fade. It was even chillier now, wearing only the lacy undergarments she’d been made to wear under her wedding gown. She was going to need to do something about those, but that was a problem for another day. For now she unlaced her corset and tossed it aside–more than happy to be done with it–and undid the garters on her legs, casting them onto the top of the dress pile.

Finally, she put on the clothes Lenn had prepared for her. The shirt was plain wool, sort of a creamy off-white, and a little bit big on her, but it was comfortable and very welcome in the chilly underground. She had to take her shoes off for a moment to put on her pants, but she slipped them back on as soon as she could. You didn't truly appreciate a pair of shoes until you spent the better part of an hour running barefoot through the city streets.

I must look like a mess, she thought to herself. All the running and tumbling would have ruined her hair, and the ridiculous makeup they put on her was bound to be runny and absolutely grotesque. She took a moment to bury her face in the gown and wipe off as much of it as she possibly could, which might have helped, but it couldn’t have been by much. She was still covered in smeared makeup and partially-melted hair product, standing in some kind of abandoned conservatory wearing dirty second-hand men’s clothes.

It was the most herself she had felt since she arrived in Gryst.