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]

"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?"

[kitchen_maid]

"That's where Perry and I go to hide.

"No one thinks to look for the King in the seventy-third best guest room.

"Merry took his first steps in there, holding onto Perry's hands."

[queenofmay]

That is a very good reason, for a favorite, isn't it? Marian's smile was soft, a whisper of something sweet and understandable. A window once, and a different life. Also, it was thing she felt no needed to ask or trespass upon the beauty of beyond that.

Instead.

"And, your King-husband? What is he doing, now?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Let's see," Amy says, thinking for a moment. "This morning, he is reviewing reports from our ambassadors to Phantasmorania, Plumblossomburg, Crystalvia, Kleptomania, Pantechniconia, and Spain, with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Then he has lunch with the Prime Minister, and then he's spending the afternoon meeting with the ambassadors from Phantasmorania, etcetera. And then this evening, there's some kind of dinner, which probably also involved ambassadors, knowing the way they like to keep the schedule tidy.

"But we just might catch him after the morning's meeting and before lunch. If you'd like to meet him."

Amy is very good at finding the holes in Perry's schedule. The only person better at it is Perry's personal secretary, Alfred, and that's mainly because Alfred is in charge of creating Perry's schedule.

[queenofmay]

"I would be glad to, so long as it is not bother or a distraction," Marian nodded, agreeing without a pause. Curios to see who this 'Perry' that matched Amy, Not of the Paintings, would be.

[kitchen_maid]

"I wouldn't offer if it would be either of those things," Amy says, standing.

"We'll wander back that way."

Though they can take a different route, so that Marian doesn't see all the same things twice.

The castle has a lot of corridors.

[queenofmay]

Marian stepped to one side, so that she could follow Amy. Taking a last look at Amethyst and Algernon. The faces of Ambergeldar that so many expected or needed to see. And the girl who lived beneath them, in her quite, what appeared frequently, happy, life.

[kitchen_maid]

Amy stops in the hallway to speak to the footman.

"Would you tell the kitchens that I'd like a picnic lunch for four, please?" she asks. "With extra apple pastries, but only if they've made them today. They don't need to make them special."

The footman bows, and leaves for the kitchens.

"They'll probably make them either way," Amy tells Marian, as they head down the hallway. "It's the peril of making a request while royalty. But Norman is very fond of them, and he does tend to turn up at picnics."

[queenofmay]

"The dragon?" She did remember their last conversation, from only a few days prior. But it was interesting, and a little amusing, to suddenly picture the queen stealing, princess play-mate, dragon as fond of picnics as well.

Another of the things she could repeat at home and no would ever believe.