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]

"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.