kitchen_maid | (no subject)

(no subject)

Susan is not happy.

She doesn't like this room, she doesn't like being able to go outside, she wants to see Daddy, she wants to see Mama, all the grown-ups are whispering all the time and no one will tell her anything.

Merry is boring. Susan is bored.

People keep calling her poor child and Susan is not a poor child; she is the Princess Royal of Ambergeldar.

She's also pouting in a way that princesses are not supposed to pout. And no one is telling her to stop.

Clearly, something is very wrong.

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Ingress remembers times when Door was gone, or Tom was away, and she didn't know whether they would come back home or not. Sometimes their other friends went away, and sometimes, like with Susan Delgado, they never came back. Sometimes your mummy and daddy went away and never came back, and that hurts most of all.

Ingress knows what it's like to be scared and small and missing your family. She also knows how important it was to have friends around when that happened.

"Hi, Susan," she says, peeking her head in through the door. "Would you like to do something fun?"

"Ingress!"

Seconds later, Ingress will find herself the recepient of a very tight hug.

She is able to set down the stack of blankets and quilts just in time for a little kid hug. She feels like such a big sis right now.

"I brought some stuff to make a blanket fort! Have you ever made one before?"

On top of the stack is a coil of washing line rope. Ingress is ready for construction!

Edited 2009-03-17 16:08 (UTC)

Susan shakes her head.

"Uh-uh. What's a blanket fort?"

And what's the rope for?

"It's like a little city we make for ourselves. We use the blankets to make the walls."

She picks up the rope and starts wrapping an end around a chair.

"So I'll tie one end of the rope here, and we'll tie the other end somewhere else in the room, and then we'll drape the blanket over it. And it will be the first wall! Where should we tie the other end?"

Susan looks around.

Fortunately, her Daddy has been using the war room as something of a storage closet, so there are some strange odds and ends in here.

"To the armor?" she suggests.

Well, it's just standing there.

"Good idea! He can be our guard, too, and watch for us when we're inside our city."

She loops the rope around the waist of the suit of armor. Then she pulls out her pocket knife and slices it in two, so the rest of the rope can be used later. She ties the end in a nice tight knot (she's been practicing) and then reaches for a blanket.

Hopefully nothing will fall over once she drapes it on the line. "Um, Susan, why don't you come stand by me?"

Just in case.

"All right," says Susan.

She comes over and stands by Ingress.

This is the most interesting thing that has happened all day.

"You have a dagger."

"What? This? No, it's just a pocket knife."

No one knows she's been carrying it for a few months now. It's not that sharp, but it works for cutting rope!

She drapes the blanket over the rope and aside from the chair scooting over a little everything holds. She straightens it out.

"There! That's the first wall. Where should we do the next one? One to the table would be easy, and then we can make the table have walls."

Susan looks, very impressed, at the first wall.

"Yes, table," she says.

"And we have to name our city."

Cities have names, after all.

She's already got one more end tied around the knight's waist and she's heading for a table leg.

"Oh, yes, we sure do. What should we call it? You get to pick."

Susan's eyes get very big.

Naming a whole city is a great responsibility.

Ingress should see how hard it is for Mama just to come up with a name for a ship, and cities are ever so very much more important than ships.

So this is given a great deal of consideration.

"Susaningressford."

The rope is tied to a table leg and Ingress laughs.

"Susaningressford, it is."

She puts a flowered blanket over one end and then hands a baby blue blanket to Susan. "Do you want to make a wall?"

The end by the table is low enough that the smaller girl will be able to reach.

"All right!"

Susan has never maid a wall before.

She takes the blue blanket very earnestly and hangs it on the rope, then turns to Ingress, beaming.

"Is that right?"

"That is exactly right. Now we need heavy stuff for the top of the table."

Ingress looks around. There is an iron doorstop that looks promising. It's in the shape of a lion.

"Like that!" She walks over to it and picks it up, placing it back on the table. "We need three more heavy things."

Edited 2009-03-23 01:37 (UTC)

Susan looks around.

Oooooh, a book entitled Being a Detailed History of the Glorious Monachs of the Right Honorable Kingdom of Ambergeldar, and Their Contributions to the Laws That Govern Its Fair People.

That's good and properly heavy.

Susan struggles for a bit to pull it onto the table.

Ingress helps her towards the end. It is a very heavy book.

"That's perfect, Susan. Okay, let's see, this should work."

She adds a large sphere from the shelf. Maybe it's a paper weight. It's heavy no matter what it is, so it'll be just the thing.

"One more thing," Susan says.

She looks around again.

"Marta," she calls, finally, "we need something heavy."

Her nurse, who has been half-keeping an eye on all this while also half-keeping an eye on her dozing brother and half-keeping an eye on the door, looks over.

"Goodness me," the nurse says, "let's see." She gets up and looks at the shelves, pulling down a large brass pitcher. "What about this, Princess Susan? Would it work?"

Susan starts to nod, then turns to wait for Ingress's verdict.

"That will be grand. Thank you, Marta."

She gives the nurse a big smile as she scoots the pitcher into a corner. She then moves the other three items into the other corners.

"Okay, Susan, now we have to tuck the blankets with the heavy things weighing them down on each corner. You can help me keep them from slipping."

Ingress' tongue sticks out a little as she focuses on raising the book and sliding the two ends of blanket underneath them.

"This will be the best blanket fort ever."

Well, of course.

"Because it's our blanket fort."

What other one could possibly be better?

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