She'd had to all but climb over him to reach and so there's no escape. Her eyes have that wild foxlike quality right up until Guts seizes her and they go wide. Nerine yowls in some incoherent combination of victory and outrage, her tight-set braids coming undone, and waves her prize in a dirty fist. She is getting mud all over him. After a bit of fruitless struggling she goes limp, flushed and breathing hard from all that effort.

"No, I mean it," one of the Healer-twins says with deliberate patience, addressing not the combatants but the unfortunate Hesri. "What would have happened if either of them broke their spine? What would we do with them?"

"They would have learned to live with it," Hesri says, her cheeks red. "People survive worse. We've supported people through worse."

Galli steps in to take some heat from her, though her shoulders sag as both Twins turn expressionless faces on her. "It's not like they asked permission. Nerine just finally found someone who wouldn't stay on the ground and call her an idiot."

"Galli, why are you here at leisure?" the other twin asks, and Galli absolutely wilts in place as she keeps talking. "Don't you know what danger you brought on yourself and all the rest of us yesterday? If Lashan had died..."

"Here's where you describe my funeral," Lashan says, leaning against the fence and getting some of the weight off her bad knee. "It'd better start with a feast. Children," she says more loudly and sternly, addressing the assorted Sisters, who've done a lot of straightening up and acting like sober, interested parties. "Afternoon entertainment's over. Time to go back to whatever you all are supposed to do."

They disperse, looking back over their shoulders. Huo waves as he's led away. "Bye, Mister Boy!"