In Room 203

[kitchen_maid]

The Ordinary Princess is sitting on the windowsill again, in her petticoat, something she's been lectured about a time or two back home. Her dress is spread over her lap, and she's trying to patch the latest holes, but she's sewing patches to patches, and the needle is enough to make the homespun fabric fall to bits.

"It's no use, Mr. Pemberthy," she says. "This is not going work."

Well, this is a problem.

Comments

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"Right," Anne says.

"Well, when you've finished tracing out the pieces, they can be cut out, and then there's quite a bit of sewing to do. I can help with that, if you'd like."

[kitchen_maid]

"Please," says the Ordinary Princess. Since they have now reduced her only dress to a pattern, finishing this one as quickly as possible is probably not a bad idea.

There's a flurry of cutting, and piecing, and basting, and hemming, and rather a lot of laughing.

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

Anne looks up with a smile, a measuring tape in her mouth, as she pins up the hem as Amy tries the pieced-together dress on.

"This will be lovely, Amy," she says, admiringly. "You have the same coloring as my Diana, and this color is just perfect for you."

[kitchen_maid]

The Ordinary Princess looks down at the half finished dress, and smiles. "I love it already," she says. "You'll have to tell me about your Diana."

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"Oh," Anne says, with a fond smile, "Diana is my dearest of all dear friends." She looks up at Amy. "Youare dear, too, and so is Gil, but Diana is different. She was my very first real friend, and we swore to be bosom friends and love each other forever, and we've never had even one fight to mar it."

[kitchen_maid]

The Ordinary Princess smiles. "She sounds delightful. You're blessed to have such a friend." Anne is the first such friend she has ever had.

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

Anne stands from pinning the dress, and hugs Amy, careful of the pins sticking out in all directions.

"I truly am," she says, seriously. "And I miss Diana a good deal, but I have you, and you're my best friend, aren't you?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Oh, yes," the Ordinary Princess agrees, hugging Anne every bit as carefully.

"I'm truly glad I met you. And I think we should try never to have a fight, either," she says.

She may sound a little odd, there, talking about having a fight with someone.

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"We never will," she says, firmly, but looks concerned.

"Amy? Dear, is everything quite alright?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Of course," she says, a little too brightly. And then the very fast subject change. "So, what do we do now? Surely, these pins need to come out."

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"Oh, right," she says, and helps take the dress off.

"We have to sew very closely, and carefully, along the pins, and eventually we can tunr it inside out and it will be a dress!...I hope."

[kitchen_maid]

"I have the utmost faith in us," the Ordinary Princess says. "Well, I have the utmost faith in you. But I do know how to make small careful stitches."

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"Good," Anne says, laughing, "because I am terrible with them. They're fine for a bit, until my mind starts to wander."

[kitchen_maid]

"And where does it wander to, when it goes?" the Ordinary Princess asks, beginning to carefully sew the panels of the skirt together.

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"Oh, everywhere," Anne says, dreamily, her gaze moving far away.

"Countries I've never seen, people I've never met, myself in ways I'll never be."

She sighs, a bit.

[kitchen_maid]

"I wouldn't change you a bit, Anne," says the Ordinary Princess, quite loyally. And utterly truthfully.

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

Anne looks over at her with a smile.

"That's lovely of you to say, Amy," she says, fondly. "I'd not change you, either."

[kitchen_maid]

The Ordinary Princess looks up from the seam she is stitching, and gives Anne a slightly shaky smile. "Thank you, Anne."

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

Anne looks mildly surprised.

"Didn't you ever imagine yourself as different from you are?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Some, I suppose. But, then, everyone else did that for me. All the time."

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"That's true," Anne concedes easily.

"Whereas no one ever had any expectations for me at all, except when they expected me to fix the meals or feed the children or do the chores."

[kitchen_maid]

"Oh, Anne, I'm sorry," she says. Because it seems childish to be hurt the fact that people who loved you didn't care for your freckles, when the person you're talking to didn't have anyone who cared for her at all.

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"It's alright," she says, with a warm smile. "I had my imagination, didn't I? And it makes having my little family and a home of my own all the sweeter."

[kitchen_maid]

The Ordinary Princess smiles at Anne, quite warmly. "I always feel better when I talk to you, Anne. You can always see the good side."

Under ordinary circumstances, the Ordinary Princess is good at it, too.

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

"Well, it's more helpful than the bad side, isn't it?"

Anne looks out the window, thoughtfully.

[kitchen_maid]

"Yes," the Ordinary Princess says. "It is."

And then she begins to laugh, which she hasn't done in a few days. She holds out the skirt. "Anne, I think I'm doing something very wrong here."

[avonlea-girl.livejournal.com]

Anne breaks out of her reverie and comes over laughing.

"All right. Let's see what we're doing, here."

[kitchen_maid]

It doesn't take Anne long to get the Ordinary Princess sorted out, threads untangles and fabric smoothed.

They're up most of the night, talking mostly nonsense, but silly and giddy and young and happy.

By the time they fall into their beds, the sun is only hours from being up, and they're both very tired.

But the dress is finished.