Dot settled in, finding a place to sit and wait. She watched the one the King had called a Queen, and she licked her wounds, both real and metaphorical. She wished she was interesting enough in design to lick her own heart.

Something, a huff of pain, a wheezing breath, a scuffle, it made the Queen look.

The pair locked eyes.

“We got a warning about you,” the Red Queen said. “You’re not getting up to trouble, are you?”

Dot shook her head.

“You’re hurt. Come here.”

Dot hesitated. Then she crept closer. She flinched as the Queen moved her hand.

“It’s okay. Move your hair aside. I’ll touch the side of your neck.”

Dot pawed at her hair, moving it. She felt the touch at her neck.

The pain around the cuts and the bites faded. The aches and sore joints sang with euphoria as they became normal and the endorphins that had flooded her body to help remained.

She reached out, with arms and tail, and wrapped herself around the Red Queen’s arm. She stared at the tattoos, black and red, tracing one hand along the ray of a sun. Not colorful enough, but… not bad. She had spots, too, but of a very different sort.

“Why are you sad?” the Red Queen whispered.

“My king doesn’t want me,” Dot said.

“Can I?” the Red Queen asked, moving her hand, and Dot saw. Dot nodded, and closed her eyes as the Red Queen stroked her. A different, lighter touch.

“I’m stuck too,” the Red Queen said. “I’ve finished my work for the day, but someone I’m supposed to stay away from is just downstairs. I think I know how it feels.”

“If I could have one thing only, I would have him close.”

“Yeah.”

“As a friend or a master or a King or anything.”

“Yeah.”

“But I can’t.”

“And that anger of yours? What are we going to do about that?”

Dot might have been surprised, but King Rinke had called this woman a Queen and Queens were supposed to be capable of great things.

She kept her mouth shut. Amazed as she was, she wasn’t dumb.

“How about… in exchange for that healing I just gave you, you keep me company for a little while?”

Carefully, slowly, Dot crawled into the Red Queen’s lap.

The Red Queen stroked her, and each stroke was like the inhalation, the exhalation, the single step toward feeling a little bit better.

Even when the hand stopped moving, and rested on Dot’s shoulder, when Dot stared at the missing fingertips, she felt a little more okay.