Continental Breakfast Included

[kitchen_maid]

The King and Queen have a great many parlors at their disposal, ranging from the very grand to somewhat very grand.

And then there is this one, which is generally reserved for the use of the family and their closest personal friends. It is a comfortable, sunlit sort of room, where one may find the children's toys and the Amy's embroidery and Perry's carving projects.

It is also where Amy has instructed her staff to lay out a breakfast for her friends this morning. They were all shown back to their rooms for what was left of the night before after their adventures, to at least attempt to get some rest.

Amy herself is a bit busy at the moment catching up on Official Matters: giving reports to the Deputy Captain of the Palace Guard and the Court Historian, seeing to the palace's new ghost (she's settled him in the Northwest tower, which is, she assures him, a perfectly lovely place to haunt), and reassuring her husband that yes, darling, she really is perfectly all right. She'll be along when she can.

In the meantime, everyone is free to make their way into the parlor in their own time. When they arrive, they will likely find company, and definitely find a table laid with everything the kitchens could find to send up: bread and jam and marmalade, cakes and pastries, eggs and bacon and sausages, a giant bowl of fruit, tea and juice and milk.

Comments

[noteful]

Meg managed a couple of hours of sleep. Enough that she doesn't feel the need to actually prop her eyes open, not so many that she's not grateful to see the tea pot at the end of the table.

She takes some bread and a plum to go with her tea, and chooses a chair on the edge of the room, near a window and next to a small table. Someone has left a copy of Mother Goose on the table, which (at least until other people show up), Meg is flipping through.

The illustrations are quite lovely.

[parkerlee]

Parker usually makes an effort to make herself presentable in the mornings when staying over at friends' houses (even--or perhaps especially--when that house is a royal residence). But given what they pulled off last night, she's decided that she's earned a few more hours in her jammies, even if she's not in bed.

She'd found a rather grand dressing gown and pair of slippers in the wardrobe of her guest room, attempted to tame the bed-head, and then followed her nose to the breakfast laid out in the parlor.

Parker has a comfortable chair, a pastry and cup of tea sitting on a side table, and a few of Susan's finger puppets. She's placed them on her own fingers, and is idly waving them at her own face.

She's awake. Really.

[parkerlee]

Parker--wearing a rather grand dressing gown over her pajamas--takes a seat across from Meg, setting down her own plate and cup of tea.

"Do you feel like you've just woken up from the most weird-ass dream?" she asks.

Parker does. And little wonder.

Since the 'weird-ass' had all been quite real.

[cutting_edgex23]

X only really needs an hour of two of sleep a night, which is why she really looks no different than usual as she makes her way into the room.

It only takes a moment to pour a cup of milk, spread some jam on a few pieces of bread, and add a few strips of bacon to her plate. Balancing a serving of fruit is really not that much more difficult.

Then, fully prepared to camp out with food for quite some time, X makes her way to a comfortable chair near a reasonably sized table.

It helps not to have to worry about spills.

[noteful]

"To put it very, very mildly," Meg says.

"I can't tell you how little I'm looking forward to explaining all this to my husband.

"How are you this morning?"

[noteful]

"Good morning, Laura," Meg says, taking a chair on the other side of the table.

She has her hands wrapped around a cup of tea.

"How are you today?"

[parkerlee]

"Maybe get a beer or two into him first?" Parker says, raising her steaming cup of tea. "And take comfort in the fact that it will be a leisurely heart attack."

Because, yeah, somehow she doubts Alain will be thrilled.

"I'm okay. I feel like I could sleep for another two days, but I'm also so keyed up I feel like I could play in that postponed football game."

The football game feels like it was a very long time ago at this point.

[noteful]

"I'm not sure I could sort out the rules well enough to play football here," Meg says. "Even after a proper night's sleep, and certainly not before."

As for the other . . . Meg sighs.

"I suppose I could offering him beer first. I don't know that anything short of horse tranquilizers would make much of a difference, but . . . I could try.

"Maybe I can play up the part about the requisition forms and play down the part with the brooms and the fire and the evil trees."

[parkerlee]

"True. I'm not thinking of anything involving actual plays. I'm thinking more, Grab a ball and run around the field like a squirrel on speed."

Parker brightens a bit.

"Hey, you're going to be a med student soon. You can probably get something like that."

She kids. Mostly.

"Tell him about the ghost. Hey, for that matter, tell me about the ghost. I guess he's the Official Palace Ghost now."

[cutting_edgex23]

"No one died," X responds, taking a sip of milk.

"I am okay."

Beat.

"You do not want to go back to sleep?"

[noteful]

"I think I'll avoid drugging Alain until at least sometime after our first anniversary."

Probably a lot longer than that.

"The ghost is, um, very precise. And not very good at being a ghost.

"You all went off to be brilliant and daring and save the day, and I did general clerical work and light filing.

"He did tell me I had nice handwriting."

[noteful]

"I was hungry," Meg confesses.

"And if I sleep too late in the morning, I'll stay up too late tonight. It's better to get up and just face the day."

Besides, she has tea. It'll be all right.

"How did things for you last night? There wasn't really much time to ask, then."

What with the fleeing on brooms and all.

[parkerlee]

"And we'd still be stuck on the wrong side of the lake if you hadn't volunteered to be his Girl Friday," Parker points out.

"And he's right. You do have nice handwriting."

Parker breaks off a corner of her pastry. She looks oddly sympathetic.

"Poor guy. And it's not like you can really stop being a ghost. Maybe he'll loosen up a little now that he's up here with some company."

"So, you've brought home a ghost. And I've brought home a dragon. The next time we have one of these madcap adventures, what do you suppose Laura is going to bring home?"

[cutting_edgex23]

"I do not know what that is like," X says, matter-of-factly.

Then she takes a bite of bacon.

"Last night."

She pauses for a moment, looking for the right words.

Sometimes it takes a while.

"Amy did not get hurt. And Bruce was okay, too. I -- "

It seems like time for another pause.

"The spell was very strange. You were okay, too? With the ghost."

[noteful]

"I think Amy might stop inviting us," Meg says.

Every time she comes to Ambergeldar, Things seem to happen.

"Maybe he'll at least get used to the fact that he is a ghost. That would a good start, I think.

"So long as he doesn't hope to be a scary ghost."

Meg doubts he has it in him.

[parkerlee]

"Frankly, I think I could scare the spectral pants off of him with very little effort."

Not that she would. But she also doesn't see their ghost turning into horror movie material anytime soon.

"Nah. I don't think so. Amy doesn't really get scared off."

[noteful]

"I was fine," Meg says. "I was doing paperwork, basically.

"I leave the daring heroics to people who are better suited to them than I am."

But if you need someone to battle evil with a filing system, Meg Ford is your girl.

"But, the whole place was quite strange, yes."

[noteful]

"She might ask us, though, to stop concluding these visits, 'It followed me home, can you keep it?'

"So what were you doing last night, while I was filling out forms?"

[parkerlee]

Parker giggles.

"Well, I guess you could offer to take him home instead..."

But then that would probably put Alain firmly in horse tranquilizer territory.

"God, it's all kind of a blur. I had a dance off with a clockwork ballerina. There was a wooden sword and flying spells and sentient torches, and lots of hallways and running and more clockwork people."

"Then we found this weird throne room with a giant pendulum and decided we'd found the jackpot."

[cutting_edgex23]

"Heroics are not always very helpful."

For context, X does not consider her own job to be heroic.

That is left for grand-standers like Tony Stark.

And maybe Cyclops.

"I am glad the spell is over."

[noteful]

"Me, too.

"Though it certainly ended in terribly dramatic fashion."

Meg sips her tea.

"At least, I assume it's over."

[noteful]

" . . . I don't even know which part of that to comment on first," Meg says.

"You, um.

"Giant pendulum?

"Clockwork ballerina?

"Sentient torches?"

[cutting_edgex23]

"Amy is not in a trance. And she is not dancing anymore."

Beat.

"Bruce is not, either. And the bird exploded."

Here X hesitates.

"It is possible for Scorpius to check? Before the court wizard returns."

How concerned do they need to be?

[parkerlee]

"The giant pendulum is probably the most relevant bit."

Really, Meg is sure to get the whole story in hairy detail. Just probably not in strict order.

"We figured that a clockwork world plus a giant pendulum probably added up to something that meant something."

"So, we--well, Scorpius--got that stopped. And that's when the chiming started."

[noteful]

"It's probably possible," Meg says. "And the Queen and King don't really seem like the sort of people who wouldn't make sure that things are done, you know?"

Meg pauses.

"Bruce was dancing?"