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

[kitchen_maid]

"Have you been good today?" Amy asks, and there's a great deal of nodding (emphatically, in Susan's case, and solemnly, in Merry's).

"Marta, have they?" Amy asks, of the woman who has followed the children over to the Queen.

"As good as you were, at their age, Princess Amy," says Marta. (Who knew Amy at that age, and who has not bothered to adjust her form of address).

Which would make them good, but not that good.

Which Amy thinks is about right.

"Then," Amy says, drawing the word out, "I think we shall have picnic. And I want you both to meet my friend, Marian, who is going to come with us."

Two small heads turn from their mother to the New Person.

"Hello," Susan says. "I am Susan Marguerite Ingress Calpurnia Rosemary Katharine Anne. And this is Merry."

"You can just call her 'Susan,'" Merry says. "Everyone does."

[queenofmay]

Marian laughed softly, at the two of them, lowering down in a truly grand curtsey. The likes of which neither Rosalind nor Perry had received from her. Ending up rather near her knees, in a pile of skirts, eyes brightly lit up.

"I do remember. I met her once before when she was," Marian's smile grew fond, as she teased. "Far younger than she seems to be now, and much smaller. But you--" She looked to Merry, the smile unfading. "I do not believe I have met before."

Seen, at least the once. But not met.

"It is my pleasure, sir."

[kitchen_maid]

Merry bows. "The honor is mine, Marian," he says.

(He says it a bit like it's a phrase he has learned, rather than a phrase he completely understands, but then that's exactly what it is.)

"Are we going now, Mama?" Susan asks.

"Yes, I think we will," Amy says, getting up out of the floor. Marta, I'll have them back to you later this afternoon."

Amy sweeps Merry up into her arms. "Goodness, but you're getting big," she says.

Susan reaches for Marian's hand. "I will walk with Marian," she announces.

[queenofmay]

It's adorable is what it is. He is the smallest thing ever, and an aspiring little prince. There was no way she wouldn't be smiling. She probably couldn't make herself stop, evening watching, as Merry was swept up and loved upon by his mother.

Marian nodded to the young princess at her announcement, quite amused at the certainty of it and letting the small hand catch in her with no fight. She stood, slowly, giving her mostly undivided attention to Susan.

"Perhaps, you will show me the way, then? I have not yet seen this garden of yours, though I must assume it is gorgeous if it is to fit in with the rest of your beautiful castle."

[kitchen_maid]

"The garden is prettier than most of the castle," Susan says. "It has flowers. And there's a pond. With fish. I gave them all names, last summer, but . . . "

Susan looks around to see if anyone else is listening, and then confides to Marian, " . . . I cannot always tell them apart, and I think sometimes I get the names mixed up. Do you think they mind?"

[queenofmay]

Marian doing her level best, did not begin to laugh once, but walked along with the small girl. Letting her lead the way and speak of the fish.

"Perhaps, it simply means that every time they are getting a longer name. So they can be more like you and all of your family. I cannot speak fish, but they could even like receiving new names with each new summer. They have not seemed displeased with it, so far, have they?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Sometimes when they open their mouths a lot they don't look happy," Susan says. "Like this."

There is very earnest unhappy-fish-mouth demonstrating.

Up ahead, her mother collects is joined by a footman carrying a large basket and a blanket.

"That's the best picnic blanket," Susan says, abruptly breaking off her fish impression. "It's purple."

[queenofmay]

It saves Marian and makes it so she's able to smother out of a laugh beginning to escape, into her free hand. She is so sweet and earnest and flipping between things, childlike simplicity and importance to each new statement.

"Do you get to have picnics often?"

[kitchen_maid]

"It's a special thing," Susan says, shaking her head.

"With Mama. And sometimes Papa can come, too."

Susan pulls on Marian's hand and go skipping off to where Amy has stopped up ahead.

"Just here, I think, Charles," Amy says.

The footman spreads the blanket out in an open area near one of the formal gardens.

He sets the basket in one corner, bows, and goes.

[queenofmay]

Marian hurried up with her, ending up laughing this time. Starting to run, instead of skip, and instead, she scooped the little girl up in her arms. Stopping to turn in a circle short of the blanket.

And give her a sudden, very wide mockingly-afraid face, before falling down suddenly. Rather play-acted-ly, because she drops easily into sitting inside her skirts, and Susan never once even remotely is endangered toward falling on to the grass and not her lap of billowing skirts.

[kitchen_maid]

Susan is completely delighted and laughing by the time she has landed.

You, Marian, will do.

[queenofmay]

Susan gets hugged, laughing, smiling. And without really pulling herself from it, Marian realizes its the first time she's felt unrestrainedly joyful even for a few seconds in a very, very long time.

And she smiles over the girls head, letting her arms loose, so she can crawl away if need by, as she looked to Amy. "Thank you, again."

[kitchen_maid]

"Of course, Marian," Amy says, handing lemonade across the blanket to Marian. "And you're always welcome. Whenever you like, for as long as you like."

Amy has a ridiculous number of guest rooms.

[queenofmay]

"I wish I, or Milliways, could take you up on that more readily right now," Marian said taking the Lemonade, and careful of the tiny child in her lap. "But I will be glad to keep it in mind for later, when things are calmer."




She would be glad to get to know Amy more.

For several reasons, laced into others and several all her own.

[kitchen_maid]

"Well, the offer stands. For however long.

"Napkin, Merry," Amy adds, holding it out to her son.

The heir to the Throne of Ambergeldar has found the strawberries.

He's very, very fond of strawberries.

[queenofmay]

That much, and the red around his mouth, is very obvious. Marian finished the first sip of her lemonade and watched him with his napkin first, before asking, "Merry, have you ever made Berry Pies with them before?"

[kitchen_maid]

Merry shakes his head, eyes very wide.

[queenofmay]

"Perhaps, when I come back, when can convince your mother to show us the secret way to her grand kitchen, and I shall have you help me with one." Marian ruffled Susan's hair, as she added. "They were my very favorite thing when I was about your ages."

And for a great deal longer after, too.

[ordinary_sorts]

"Please say none of you are intruders."

The voice is deep and rumbling, and coming from somewhere very high up.

Then, of course, it's coming from somewhere much lower down, as a vast draconian eye blinks first at Marian, then at Amy, then at Susan.

"Only you will all keep changing colors, and I'd hate for a picnic as nice as this one to be spoiled."

Does he smell apple pastries?

[kitchen_maid]

"Norman!" cries Susan happily, abandoning her lunch to find the apple pastries in the basket. (This requires her to take everything else out, to make sure she finds them all, of course.)

"None of us are intruders, Norman, but you're very good to check," Amy says. "May I present Lady Marian of Nottingham? Marian, this Norman, the Royal Dragon of Ambergeldar."

[queenofmay]

Child scrambling from exuberantly from her, and balancing lemonade and food aside, Marian might have been a little surprised into helpfully not moving at all. He was rather . . . big. And talking, wasn't he?

As Amy had said. Marian seemed to gain herself somewhere in the middle of Amy's introductions, smiling a little, both because of and in spite of her own first reaction. Hands settling in her lap, at the base of her glass.

"Fair eve, Norman."

[ordinary_sorts]

"Susan!"

Norman does sound delighted about that, helpfully craning his neck in order to rest his head on his forelegs.

It leaves him at a fairly decent height for consuming apple pastries, provided the princess holds them up.

This accomplished, he lets his tongue flick at the air for a moment. Then the enormous pupil of one enormous eye seems to center on Marian.

"Nottingham. Nottingham. Hmm. Could you show that to me on a map? I've never been. Is it an interesting place? Are there caves?"

Oh. Wait.

The Queen presented this woman to him. That means human formalities.

Such a bother.

"Hello, Lady Marian. You wouldn't be another one interested in going dragon-diving, would you?"

[queenofmay]

Marian regarded the face, still trying to take in that she was talking to a dragon. Whose head was so much larger than her person even, no matter the rest of him. "I can not say that I am, as I do not know what it is."

"But, yes, there are caves in Nottingham" Marian said, with something of a note of amusement in her tone, predisposed to answer his first questions. "And, it being my home, I would consider it greatly interesting."

Also, entirely unsafe and quite unreachable for him from here, thankfully.

[ordinary_sorts]

"Are they inhabited, your caves? And Nottingham, too, I suppose. Isolation is dreadfully dull, and knights are always filling. Cows and sheep, too, provided no one screams when you carry them off. High-pitched voices hurt my head."

Norman curls his tail around his haunches, extending his tongue to very delicately take the first of the offered pastries.

He swallows before speaking again.

"As for dragon-diving, it's a sport of Countesses, not kings. I fly very high, and then I drop you, and then I catch you before you hit the ground. It does wonders for my claw-eye coordination, I must say."

[queenofmay]

That sounded positively terrifying. And given the completely unruffled way he says it, Marian glanced toward Amy, trying to decide if he meant it. And who did it. And why.

And, rather all of the sudden, what it would feel like.

Falling through the air only to be caught. "Truly?"