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]

Marian didn't drop into, but a hand moved behind her back, she inclined her head, gracefully easy, and had lowered, without quiet reaching a full curtsey. "A pleasure."

Any friend of Amy's, is not quite a phrase she would consider using aloud yet, regardless of the fact it would have some small truth to it. But only some. It is still a different world, and one she knows little of, even if she has better knowledge of Amy than it.

[kitchen_maid]

"Yes," says Rosalind, with a smile.

"Rosalind was one of my very first ladies-in-waiting here," Amy says.

And is now her best friend.

"And her husband is the Commander of the Palace Guard, and looks after us all.

"And Marian is a friend of my brother's."

[queenofmay]

It's easier to pay attention to all the first words, noticing the ease between the two women that says more than the words do, than acknowledge the last with more than a slightly more forced, but conceding, smile.

The topic that sat between them somewhere.
An unknown that might remain unknown forever.




Storm-grey eyes and golden hair.




Marian kept her smile firm, not a blink.



"You both much do quite a job," Marian offered, to Rosalind, and her absent, referenced, husband. "Amy has always seemed quite at peace in the times I've been graced with seeing her and her children."

[kitchen_maid]

Rosalind smiles. "They are not, generally, difficult to look after," she says.

"Except when we are," Amy puts in.

Which, occasionally, they are.

(See: dragons, missing guests, and Caspian's amazing ability to crawl off, curl up under a table, fall asleep, and send the entire palace into a three-hour tizzy.)

"I'm taking Marian to meet Perry," Amy says.

Rosalind nods her head back the way she came from. "You might want to go around. Lady Cecily is . . . lurking. I only just escaped." Rosalind smiles at Marian. "She's sweet, but she talks more and says less than anyone else I've ever known."

[queenofmay]

Marian tried not to smile, but it might have shown through in some part. "I think every court has seen the type, far more often than longed for."

Their aims were usually about as transparent, too, which had put Marian off a large portion of any of the girls who fluttered the edge of Nottingham while she was growing up.

[kitchen_maid]

"Lady Cecily takes it to new and impressive levels," Amy says, a little drily.
"Thank you, Rosalind."

Rosalind nods. "I'll let you go, if you're trying to catch His Majesty before lunch. Lady Marian, it was an honor to meet you."

[queenofmay]

"And you, Lady Rosalind."

Marian watched her go some space, before adding.

"Hopefully that does mean she has to detain the girl for your sake, either."

[kitchen_maid]

"Oh, no," Amy says, as Rosalind continues the way from which Amy and Marian have just come. "It just means we'll go up the side stairs.

"There are certain favors I try not to ask of my friends."

[queenofmay]

Marian couldn't see her asking any of them. But rather like the apple commentary, there were things people did out of compassion toward friend and sovereign alike for reasons of esteem above request.

"Is she an occupant? Or a guest?"

[kitchen_maid]

"They have a suite here in the palace," Amy says. "And Stefan's father has lands outside Litchlea, that Stefan will inherit one day.

"Stefan is Perry's oldest friend. And they have a daughter who is just a bit younger than the twins."

[queenofmay]

She had meant Cecily, but she hadn't been specific in her question at all. It wasn't as important either, in comparison to the last words, that made her smile, shaking her head.

"To think, how little time it shall be then, before all of them will be running here and there in a pack through all of these rooms."

[kitchen_maid]

"Giving their nursemaids grey hairs," Amy says, rounding a corner to turn down the hall to Perry's study.

And then stopping abruptly, reaching one hand out to catch Marian, and flattening against the wall behind them.

Up ahead, a voice comes echoing out of the open door. A moment later, a rather self-important man in an improbable suit of very green clothing comes into the hall way.

Amy and Marian are just barely hidden from sight by the guard standing next to the door.

"Go that way," Amy mutters under her breath.

[queenofmay]

It's a good thing Marian is incredibly good at what she does. To the point where she never calls out when Robin will pull her to a wall when he breaks in, or when she has to hide when she's trailing the Sheriff's new plot.

Because this part comes as easily as breathing, even in a completely foreign place. The voice and the words at the end of the hall. The guard doing his level best to remain not looking at them, and if she had to guess, not laughing.

[kitchen_maid]

The Minister for Foreign Affairs (for that is who the man in the green clothes is) turns and heads the other way down the hall, and Amy sighs.

"I'm sorry," she says to Marian. "But as far as I know, he hasn't anything he needs to say to me, but if he sees me, he'll feel it's his duty to think of something, and then we shall be stuck here till dinner time.

"Hello, Sir Geoffrey," she adds, to the guard.

"Your Majesty," says the guard, with a bow.

"Is the King in?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you," Amy says, beckoning for Marian to follow her. She pauses in the door to look over at Sir Geoffrey again. "You're very kind to wait until I've gone in before you start laughing."

[queenofmay]

For a moment, here and gone, or maybe it will return to linger later, Marian wonders at Amy's talking to the guard. Even though they are 'of an age,' she wonders what she will never rightly know, if her mother had been like this with people in Nottingham Castle before she was born.



But Marian had to press her lips together, at Amy's last comment to the guard. And she simply inclined her, flashing him a bright smile, before she followed the queen into the room.

[kitchen_maid]

And the Sir Geoffrey's quiet laughter will follow Marian into the room.

"Hello, Alfred," Amy says, to the man who was sitting at the desk there, but who stands when the Queen comes into the room. "Don't let us interrupt you; we're just stealing a moment of His Majesty's time."

Alfred bows. "Of course. Though I am afraid it will have to be a short moment, ma'am."

Amy nods. "Five minutes. You may throw us out after that.

"And he'll do it, too," she tells Marian, quietly, as they move through Alfred's office and into Perry's study. "He's been Perry's secretary since Perry was ten, and he's fiercely protective."

Amy pushes the door open and calls out, "Hello, Algernon."

Well, there are people listening.

[queenofmay]

Marian stayed close, taking note of the names as she went by, each time, in case. By rote and habit. You never knew when you might need someone. Duty, and the rigors and rules to the roles of it.

Even if she likely isn't required it, Marian stood straighter, walked smoother, hands folding behind her, as she was following Amy in. Somewhere between the name and the fact, regardless of everything else said before this moment, she was still meeting a King.

[kitchen_maid]

"Hello, Amethyst," Perry returns, standing, with a glance at the woman he doesn't know.

The King of Ambergeldar is a tall man with rather tousled hair and an ever so slightly rumpled doublet.

His study is rather more imposing than his wife's, done in deep reds and golds, but still clearly a workspace, rather than a room for show. Most of the walls are lined with books, but hanging on the wall opposite the desk is a massive painting showing Amy (not Amethyst) with Merry and Susan, painted just after Merry's second birthday.

"Perry," says Amy, now that the door has swung closed behind Marian, "may I introduce Lady Marian of Nottingham, who is visiting from Milliways. Marian, this is my husband, Perry."

[queenofmay]

There are the intersecting lines aren't there. Amethyst and Algernon, Amy and Perry, paintings and people. And it takes a moment to consider really. The things she would at home were she ever brought in to the presence of King Richard, subjected presence of Prince John.

The second of which was far more likely than she liked considering given the Black Knights. And between the two, thoughts, she settles for a step between what she would there, and wouldn't with Amy.

"Your Majesty," Marian said, with the same half move she had made early. Not a full curtsey, based on Amy's choice named as to how she introduced him. But the words came as a respectful acknowledgement of, what she wagered would be the one and only time it would happen.

[kitchen_maid]

"Perry," he corrects. "With friends of Amy's, it's 'Perry.'

"It's very nice to meet you, Marian."

[queenofmay]

"And you, as well, Perry," Marian repeated it, with a more true smile. "You have a very lovely home, for what I have seen of it thus far."

[kitchen_maid]

"Thank you," Perry says. "We're very fond of it."

Well, most of it.

No one could be fond of the Crimson State Room.

"Are you having lunch in the gardens?" Perry asks.

Amy nods. "Of course."

Perry sighs. "I'd join you if I could."

"I know," Amy says. "How was it this morning?"

Perry waves a hand at the pile of papers on his desk. "I don't know why he bothers to give me copies of the reports. He then proceeds to tell me every single thing that's in them. In detail."

"Because," Amy says, with a smile at Marian, "he thinks it's his job to think of things to say."

[queenofmay]

It may have been impossible not to smile at least in some small part, thinking of Amy suddenly pressing them to the wall in avoidance. So as to avoid a few minutes with the man who would come up with things to say, though just as sobering was that thought of how long he'd potentially been in reporting, too.

It was a sizable stack of paper there.

[kitchen_maid]

Well, there really is no such thing as "a few minutes" with the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

There's a faint knock at the door, and Alfred sticks his head into the room.

"Begging Their Majesties' pardons, but His Majesty's lunch . . . "

"Yes, thank you, Alfred, I'll be along directly," Perry says.

"Very good, sir," Alfred says, and steps back into his office, not quite closing the door behind him.

"Do give my regards to the Prime Minister, Perry," Amy says, Cheerfully, and her husband gives her a bit of a Look.

"I'll see you at dinner, Amethyst," he says, leaning forward to kiss his wife's cheek. "Marian, I hope you will enjoy your visit."

[queenofmay]

"Thank you, I'm sure I will." They are, the both of them, darling. If Marian doesn't laugh, she can't help from smiling. They steal seconds between the lines, serious and teasing, and never less than adoring of each other, even as they do what they must and what they've chosen.

"I hope the rest of your day is as little taxing as can be."