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]

"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.