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

[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?"

[kitchen_maid]

"I'm afraid that's a sport only for a very particular countess, Norman. Most of us lack Laura's constitution."

She smiles at Marian.

"I'm sure you know Laura. She's also from Milliways.

"She visits to go flying with Norman."

[queenofmay]

Marian nodded, catching the name, and what went along with it. There's an interesting surge of understanding and disappointment that mingled there. Marian's hands settling again at the base of the glass she was holding in her lap.

"She would like that," Marian said, quietly bemused. "I have only been flying once before, as dragon's are not common to my world. I had not known them to be real anywhere until a few years ago."

[ordinary_sorts]

Norman pauses halfway through taking up a third pastry, the little cake poised on the tip of his tongue.

Then he pulls it deep into his maw, swallowing without chewing.

"Dragons are hardly common, but we are most certainly present."

He sniffs, sending smoke-clouds out of his nostrils.

"Believing us not to be real shows a distinct lack of imagination. Particularly in your story-tellers."

A second exhalation of smoke through Norman's nostrils shows exactly what he thinks about that sort of ridiculousness.

[queenofmay]

Imagination is not something that most people in Nottingham flourish about. She would not say Nottingham is a place without it. Children still run and laugh and play at all sorts of games, in the villages and in the market.

But it is not nearly as prevalent as the sun shining all day.
And it is is far, far, far harder to find in their parents.
Mined gold, clung to tenaciously in their centers.


"I think, perhaps, that you are right. At least about needing more storytellers."

[ordinary_sorts]

"Well, of course I'm right."

Norman accepts another offered pastry.

"Honestly. No dragons. Impossible."

His muttering fades away into something that is manifestly incomprehensible to anyone that is not a dragon.

Then he sighs, his great sides heaving with a long exhale.

"I'm sure you could import some. Storytellers, that is. Or bards. They're noisier, to be sure, but they do scamper about very quickly."

Especially with a judicious application of flame. It used to be very entertaining.

[queenofmay]

Watching him with the children it is a little amazing. They are tiny and entirely doubtless and gleeful. Bright eyes and smiles. "We do have some of those. And traveling minstrels."

Though far less of them, and less of fairs, come to Nottingham now.

[ordinary_sorts]

"Do you export your minstrels?"

His tone is conversational, and punctuated by the drag of his tongue against the tip of his muzzle, clearing off any remnants of the apple pastries.

"It seems to be the done thing, and very few notice when they go missing."

There's good eating on a minstrel, even if they are generally less self-roasting than knights.

[queenofmay]

"It is usually more that they come and go as they will," Marian said, stealing a strawberry from the heir to Ambergeldar with a grin. It was easier than saying they ran for the hills the second they could get free of Vasey.

Any sane and rational person who could, would.


"Are there many here?"

[ordinary_sorts]

"I'm sure I don't know. I can never really tell any of you humans apart."

This is the point at which Norman resettles his head on his forepaws, giving the impression of a vastly huge creature getting ready to take a well-deserved nap.

It makes it easier for Susan to put the daisy crowns on his head, for one.

And for another, those apple pastries are very filling.

[kitchen_maid]

Susan, having exhausted the supply of apple pastries, reaches out and grabs Marian's hand again.

"I have to go get daisies now," she says. "You can help. We need lots and lots and lots and I can't carry them all by myself."

[queenofmay]

Marian didn't need the very last inch of that lemonade, or the half eaten meat pie. No, really, she didn't. Because she's laughing as she gets up, commenting that this does make sense, as her skirt is vastly larger.

But it's really not in the comment, it's in the glance back, even as Susan pulls her toward the flowers. They are beautiful, all of them. Norman, the incredibly large dragon, flopped down like an overlarge puppy, with wings, quiet now, as though ready for a nap.

Amy with her graceful countenance, listening to something Merry is saying, so focused up on his mother, and the two of them framed by the garden and sun. Too far away to hear their words now, but joy and love needed no words to be read.

Susan's voice, so close and so sure of itself. Her tiny hand, so certain and trusting, and completely devoted to her mission. Yes, Marian thinks, swinging their hands and turning to this newest small adventure. This was, perhaps, everything she didn't know she needed today.