The Princess and the Human

With a nod, Githaiy confirmed the contents of the last crate and marked the final set of her imports complete. Some of the substances had been quite expensive but, well, she wasn't the one paying for them. She had been tasked to prepare for any medical emergency the Tystrie visitors might end up having. Sure, one would expect them to arrive with their own medical emergency kits - after all, that was just common sense when visiting another planet with different resources - but still, the princess wanted to make sure. Not to mention that one might also argue that it was the duty of a host to properly accommodate their guests. Especially since the Tystrie had a history of getting accidentally insulted by the king and queen before the princess took over. And as long as one could afford it, overpreparing was better than underpreparing.

"Bring the boxes into my office, I will sort everything myself there," she ordered the servants and went back inside.

Thank the First Ones we haven't had any serious medical emergencies with Nadine so far.

While her incredibly long life allowed the small alien to have knowledge in a vast array of fields, Githaiy doubted that her understanding of "general education" included detailed medical training. Of course, there was still the issue with her "nightmares", but the princess had mentioned she might've made some progress in that regard.

A shame we couldn't take her escape pod with us, our engineers would've loved that. Wait, if her pod was built with any competency, shouldn't it have included a first-aid kit? Damn it, why do I only think of that now? That could've been invaluable!

"Doctor Githaiy?"

Upon hearing her name getting called, the doctor turned to find one of the palace's maids standing next to her.

"Lady Nadine requests your presence."

"I'm coming. Did she specify the problem?"

"No, but it's not about her. It's something with Her Highness. Though it didn't appear to be an emergency, it would probably still be better to not let them wait for too long. They await your presence in the bathhouse."

The bathhouse?? Was there an accident? No, she said it wasn't an emergency. But why... well, only one way to find out.

Even though the baths themself were not in use at the moment, the air inside the bathhouse was fairly warm and damp, and she soon found out the reason why. Nadine was in one of the rooms, and next to her was a line of wet towels that seemed to cover something. Also, Nadine looked wet as well for some reason.

"What are you doing?" the doctor inquired, curious about the scenery in front of her.

The alien girl looked up.

"Ah, Doc! It's about Her Highness, she seems to have partial molting. I had an idea how to help her, but I wanted to make sure it was just that, that's why I called you."

Not seeing how that related to the situation at hand, Githaiy decided to first stay on topic with her questions.

"How come you know about partial molting? I thought your species doesn't molt?"

"Yes, but some animals on my homeworld do. It's a bit different, they shed their old skin instead of melting it off, but the principle should be the same. I think. Anyway, I read that partial molting happens when the animal is under a lot of stress, which Her Highness definitely is. The hot towels apparently help, so I tried it."

The doctor glanced at the towels.

"So Her Highness is..."

"Yes."

"I see."

She sighed.

"You can come out of there, Your Highness, this isn't gonna do anything."

Nadine's cheerful expression shifted into one that appeared... disheartened? Her face truly had a lot of muscles, Githaiy needed to record all of these expressions at some point.

"Was I wrong?" the small alien asked in an apologetic voice.

"Fascinatingly, no. At least not entirely. Stress-induced partial molting is indeed a thing, and yes, Her Highness certainly is a prime candidate for that. The thing you got wrong is that the stress causes some parts to melt too LATE, not early. And... give me a moment..."

Githaiy pulled out her datapad and opened the princess's medical record.

"Yes, Her Highness molted 3 cycles and 147 days ago, meaning while it is due soon, it shouldn't happen until 40 days from now at its earliest, probably a bit later than that. Some body parts melting early can happen in old age when our shell as a whole has gotten softer, but she is way too young for that. I don't even know what could cause that at her age, I need to examine that."

"Oh. I see," she said in a dejected tone. "And I thought I could finally do something in return. Guess the towels won't help then."

"I at least never heard of that method. We treat partial molting by artificially melting the hard parts with a very mild acid. Some even use it to intentionally molt early. It's debatable whether or not that is healthy, but sometimes people want to prevent it from happening during an inconvenient time. The new shell is usually developed far enough around one-third of a cycle before the molting occurs naturally, but one should still wait until... it..."

The bathhouse got silent, except for the background noise of the servants working. A thought began to form in Githaiy's mind as she recalled the results of some of her tests.

"Doc? Still there?" Nadine's voice pulled her back into reality.

"You... wouldn't happen to have recently had extensive physical contact with Her Highness, would you?"

The alien girl cocked her head.

"Yesterday night, yes. Why?"

"And were you secreting while you did that?"

She blinked.

"...was I what?"

"The tissues I analyzed, one of your discharges was slightly acidic. If that soaked in long enough... her current shell should be old enough, it could have the same effect as a molting tincture."

Back then she had simply been intrigued by it, but in hindsight, she should've paid more attention to it. There were some plants that produced acid as a defense mechanism, but while she had never heard of animals doing the same, it wasn't impossible.

That seemed to click with Nadine, whose facial color got slightly redder.

"Ah, the snot. Yes, I... was crying a bit. But the cavity covered half her abdomen, I didn't... ah shit!"

"You remembered something?"

Before answering, Nadine swept her hand over her forehead and showed her the liquid that had accumulated there.

"Sweat. My body uses it to regulate its temperature. I don't know what factors influence its ph, but on average, it's slightly acidic if I recall correctly. Depending on what your shell is made of, it could actually dissolve it. And last night, I woke up drenched."

"I... don't know the scale of the numbers you are referring to, but what you are basically saying is..."

"... that I'm more or less covered in acid, yes. Uhm, b-but not that strong, as you said, probably just because her molting was close! I mean, nothing happened when you touched me."

It sounded more like Nadine was trying to convince herself instead of the doctor, but Githaiy still nodded in affirmation.

"True, but our contact was brief. Therefore we shouldn't take any chances. I need you to give me some samples of all three of the secretions mentioned so we can be sure. And, Your Highness, I would like to ask you to come to my office so that I can examine the effects that were caused on your shell."

She then realized that the princess was still lying under the towels.

"Your Highness, as I said, this isn't going to help. You can stand up."

"..."

"...Your Highness?"

After receiving no reaction, Nadine approached her and lifted the towel covering the princess's head.

"I think she's asleep."

"Oh. Well, in that case, I take back what I said. While doing nothing regarding the molting, it did help her in some way."