Marian in Ambergeldar

[kitchen_maid]

Amy ran into Marian when she took Mal -- er, Captain Sir Malcolm Reynolds -- back to Milliways after his visit.

And, after hearing about the goings on there, had invited Marian back for a short visit to Ambergeldar. (She would have invited Marian for an extended visit, especially as Marian cannot get back to her own world, but Marian has security duties, and Amy respects that. Still, even security members need breaks.)

After what happened with Mal, Amy gives Marian a letter of introduction, just in case she winds up in Loddingtop or some such place. And she takes the very simple and practical precaution of holding carefully and tightly to Marian's hand as they step out of the bar and into Amy's wardrobe.

"It's not, I fear, the most exciting first view of the kingdom. Do mind the shoes."

It's not the most convenient thing, having a doorway in your wardrobe. Things will get in the way of coming and going.

Once they're safely into Amy's dressing room, she lets go of Marian's hand. "Welcome to Ambergeldar."

Comments

[queenofmay]

Her father had a room like this, once upon a time, and it had been one of her favorites. Not a receiving room, but where you did the actual work. Where you oversaw what needed to be of your duties. Something of her thoughts and mingled memories makes her smile fond, as she looks around.

Respectful, hands folded together in front of her, never getting closer than a few feet from anything in the room just quite yet. She recognize one the children, but her eyes rested on the other painting longer.

Considering it breath longer, before asking. "Your husband?"

[kitchen_maid]

Amy nods, smile very fond. "Perry.

"The poor Court Painter was not at all happy about that painting. He wanted to do something kingly with crowns and ermine. But that's not Perry, that's Algernon. That's for the State Rooms. I wanted a portrait of my husband, not my king."

Though the clothes are still grand and he still looks rather royal. There's no getting around that. Perry's been King Algernon since he was ten.

"Our Court Painter doesn't like having to paint my freckles into things, either," Amy adds. "I'm afraid we are a trial for him."

[queenofmay]

In a room where you have to work, Marian can see the point. You don't want to look up and see more work. You want to look up and see the heart of the reasons for all of it. The real person, not the mask they were or role they walk.

And if for a moment, she wonders how long that's really been...

Marian shook her head, bemused. "They have a very different view of what is proper than the people who are requesting the services of them, don't they?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Well, freckles really aren't quite proper," Amy says, laughing.

"And I can see why, when you're painting a king, you expect to paint a king.

"Besides, most people probably like to be flattered by their portraits."

Amy looks up at the painting again. "But he got the smile just right."

And the crinkles it puts at the corners of Perry's eyes.

[queenofmay]

Marian really didn't seem to agree with any of this by the way she wrinkled her nose. "He looks..." Marian tilted her head, considering. A little more commonly down to Earth than most would expect, but also. "Kind. Relaxed -- no, approachable. And maybe, just the slightest bit silly. Maybe just there around the eyes only."

She knew another boy like that.



"There are far worse things a king could be."

[kitchen_maid]

"Rather a lot of them," Amy agrees.

Stuffy. Humorless.

Cruel.

"He's a very good king, really."

She grins.

"But yes, just the slightest bit silly."

Sometimes more than the slightest bit.

[queenofmay]

"Good," Marian grinned. And her gaze move to the other picture. Susan, who looked every radiant, with her sunny hair, beside her little brother. "And he is ever much bigger than I last saw him in Milliways."

[kitchen_maid]

"He'll be three this summer," Amy says. "That was over the winter.

"We've not had a portrait of the twins done yet, but we'll have to do that soon.

"Or one of the four of them.

"Or both.

"Most likely both."

Perry has a study, too, after all.

[queenofmay]

"I'm sure your painters will be so glad to be called on again," Marian said, with laughter in her tone. "Maybe they'll convince you to paint your children as small angels of the truest perfection."

[kitchen_maid]

"Only if we hire one who has never had to ge them to hold still that long before," Amy says. "Anyone who has painted Susan before knows better."

Amy's smile gets very bright.

"Do you want to see what we look like when they are allowed to paint us as royally as they can manage?"

[queenofmay]

"Oh, dear." Marian's mouth said, but her blue-grey eyes are mischievously sparkling with laughter already. "That doesn't sound good at all. We absolutely must, mustn't we?"

[kitchen_maid]

Amy links her arm through Marian's.

"My dear Lady Marian," she says, "we really must."

Though that takes them out of the family's suites of rooms and down several corridors and a very grand flight of stairs and into the State Rooms.

[queenofmay]

"One does not argue with the Queen, so if we must, we must."



Though Marian does get a little sidetracked looking at all the wall hangings, glimpsing doors they pass and openings to other areas. It is entirely foreign, and it is for High Royalty, and yet there is something ultimately familiar about it all, touching a well-known place inside of her.

Except that you can tell, just wandering it, that people are happy here.

[kitchen_maid]

As a general rule, yes, they are.

And they can wander as slowly as Marian likes -- Amy knows this is a lot to take in and look at.

But eventually they reach the grandly carved door of the Mauve State Drawing Room.

"Ready?" Amy asks, and smiles at the footman who jumps to open the door for them. "Thank you."

This is a room for formally receiving the people who will never be invited to see the Queen's Study. It's all done in gold and mauve, and it's dominated by two huge portraits. The King in Ermine and Robes of State and the Most Impressive of Crowns is clearly Perry (or at least, clearly Algernon).

The other is of a young woman in a very grand pale purple gown. She has hair just slightly darker than gold, and a perfectly straight nose, and nary a freckle in sight. She looks almost, but not quite entirely, completely unlike Amy. (She doesn't even look like Amethyst.)

[queenofmay]

Marian released Amy's arm to walked across the room and stand before the portrait. Taking a half minute to simply look up at it. Before looking over her shoulder. It's amazing she's managing not to smile.

"This is positively....horrid." The last word tremors with an only barely repressed laugh.

[kitchen_maid]

"My engagement portrait," Amy says.

"Since no one knew that Perry and I had already met, when he sent an envoy to ask for my hand. Mama didn't want to take any chances until it was too late for him to change his mind. So she told the court painter to flatter me as much as possible.

"I'm fairly certain Herr Van Turpentine painted my sister Pearl from memory and then made the hair a tiny bit darker.

"I'm still sorry I didn't get to see the look on Perry face when it arrived."

Amy looks up at it and them over to Marian and grins. "The dress is accurately rendered, though."

[queenofmay]

"It would have been a priceless face." Perry's. Marian was still trying to keep her own expression straight by any measure. Failing more than succeeding because Amy seemed to be enjoying herself, and the reaction. "This could not be you, unless they attached it to you."

The faintest of her features. No turned up nose, and no freckles, and they had utterly missed they her eyes light up when she was looking at or talking about that she loved or that made her happy.

[kitchen_maid]

"There's a reason Perry had them hang it in a room he almost never has to come into."

Amy sits in the chair beneath the portrait and attempts to adopt the same pose she had to hold when it was being made.

Which is rather hopeless because it makes her giggle.

[queenofmay]

Which makes it impossible not to join in. Marian can't help wondering what the poor footman must think, but the thought doesn't stay long. "What interesting people they must have been."

Her voice was teasing, as she looked from Amy's trembling shoulders, to the portrait above her and the matching one too far away from them, as well. "This Amethyst and Algernon. To have gotten a whole room to themselves."

[kitchen_maid]

The footmen are kind of used to it.

Amy sits up very straight, her entire bearing changing more or less instantly.

"We daresay we find Their Majesties to be quite dull, but we admit they have their uses," she says, regally as you please.

And then Amethyst is gone, and Amy is laughing again.

[queenofmay]

One girl with the ability to pick up and drop roles to another? Marian entirely appreciates it. With a hand over her mouth, as it's move a endlessly rolling shiver of a laugh in the center of her, that only sometimes produces outward laughter.

"I don't know if I can believe that. Whatever do you use them for best?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Oh, they're rather handy at formal events," Amy says.

Actually, there are a lot of jobs for Amethyst and Algernon.

And for all Amy and Perry might be happiest in the Forest on a picnic with their children, for all they're capable of laughing about being regal . . . they both take the responsibility of Ambergeldar very seriously.

"Oh, and signing proclamations. No one would take a proclamation seriously if it were signed Amy or Perry."

There's a reason that note she gave Marian is signed Amethyst R.

[queenofmay]

Marian really does not doubt the work of Amy and Perry. And there is something in the nicknames the drags up the memory of 'Mary,' from what feels a while ago now. She nodded more solemnly, glancing above the woman's head at the picture. In a room where so many would see it, and her, and Amethyst.

"The many importance's that come with the keeping of appearances."

The necessary loyalties and loves and duty that put them there.

[kitchen_maid]

"And sometimes that come with being what people need to see."

It's not just about appearances.

"Well, I think this is quite enough of the Mauve State Drawing Room. Before my head starts to ache just on the assumption that it must be wearing the state crown.

"Where shall we go next?"

[queenofmay]

"We can't have that." Marian pondered, not choosing, but going with a question first. "Why did you list a guest bedroom?"