kitchen_maid | Room 203, Monday, Early Afternoon

"Generally they swim away rather sooner," Perry laughs, "as they do not appreciate oars coming down into their water. Besides, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to be friends with them, anyway. I'd feel terribly guilty about eating them later, wouldn't I?"

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Yes, that would be terribly awkward. And it's really no great loss, as they're hopelessly boring as conversationalists, anyway. Unless you are very very interested in swimming."

There's not much to the life of a fish, really.

Not particularly, no.

"Which is why you showed great presence of mind in choosing squirrels and crows to be your friends instead," Perry points out. "Much more useful, and quite a bit more entertaining."

The squirrels in question leap from various shoulders and begin what seems to be half a wrestling match and half a game of tag on the snowy ground.

Amy watches them for a moment, and then bursts out laughing.

"Well, I'll give you entertaining, in the case of the squirrels. I'm not sure how useful those two are. Except in snowball fights."

Peter Aurelious takes off with huffy dignity, and, from his perch on the branch above them, says, "Qwa." As disdainfully as possible.

Which is rather disdainful.

"Peter Aurelious is useful," Perry tells her, straigh-faced, as if he were nowhere in sight.

"He found your Christmas tree, after all, didn't he?"

Peter Aurelious could probably out-disdain Princess Persephone, really.

"He did," agrees Amy. "Oh, he's terribly useful, if a little smug about the fact."

She looks up at the crow and gives him a smile. The qwa she gets in response is somewhat less disdainful.

Somewhat.

She could use some disdain lessons from Peter Aurelious, as a matter of fact.

"I'd say he has every right to be smug," Perry says, nodding. "I say, you don't mind if I have him come in and be smug at the Council for a bit when we get back, do you? It might just throw them off long enough for me to get a word in edgewise now and again."

Amy giggles. "I think you probably underestimate the ability of your councilors to say what they mean to get said, if they're anything like the ones in Phantasmorania. But if you think there's a chance it will work, and if Peter Aurelious has no objections, I certainly think you should try it."

"There is always the chance," he says, laughing, "although the Lord Chancellor is very keen on getting everything he wants to say out."

Putting his hands on his hips, he looks about.

"Well, no brambles as of yet. How predictable."

"I believe it is the job of Lord Chancellors to be keen on saying everything they want to say."

She laughs.

"Well, it's probably rather silly to be looking for a berry bramble in the middle of January anyway, Perry," she says, practically. "I don't know of any berries that are in season in the snow. But it's a very nice excuse for a walk."

"Well, there is that," he says, cheerfully, reaching out to take her hand as they walk. "And it's a perfect day for it, whether we find something interesting or not, isn't it?"

"Absolutely perfect," she agrees, "and I think its being interesting has nothing to do with what we do or don't find."

"How true," he tells her with a smile. "After all, I am in excellent company, and therefore have no complaint to make."

And perhaps his smile is rather more fond than cheerful, but he turns his attention back to the path quickly.

"Well," she says, looking over at him. "You know what the key to being in excellent company is, don't you? You have to be excellent company yourself."

"So that the excellent compnay doesn't up and leave you?" he asks as they tramp through a particularly large snowdrift.

"Not exactly," she says. "Because it works best when everyone involved is in excellent company.

"Like now."

"I think perhaps it has a lot to do with the squirrels," he says confidingly, as the two shoot by in a blaze of gray and red fur.

"So, tell me, kitchen maid, what have you been doing? Keeping yourself busy?"

"True," she says with a laugh. "The squirrels rather improve any gathering, don't they?"

Amy thinks for a moment.

"I manage to stay busy, after a fashion, I suppose. I've done far more embroidery that anyone at home would ever believe. And I talk to an awful lot of people. And . . . and I try very hard not to think about whether or not I'm ever going to see that door again."

He looks at her then, his smile fading slightly.

"Do you think you'll never get home, then?"

Amy shrugs. "I don't know."

She brushes the snow off a fallen tree and sits down.

"I mean, the conventional wisdom seems to be that I will at some point, but it's just . . . it's been four months, Perry. And this place is . . . wearying, sometimes."

She gives him a half-smile.

"This is not one of those times. I think it's the excellent company."

"Must be," he says, and sits down next to her.

"For my part, I suppose I'd like to go home, but--well--if we go back to Ambergeldar, than I don't know when I'd get to come and spend time with you, and you'd be busy in the kitchens, if you decided to stay and work there."

He puts a hand on the tree trunk and leans back, looking thoughtfully up at the sky.

"I like it here. But I suppose I miss Amber."

Amy follows his gaze and looks up at the sky as well.

"Oh, I like it here, most of the time. I would miss it, miss the friends I have here, dreadfully if I left and couldn't come back. But it's not home. The trees are wrong."

She looks down and out at the trees, and after a long moment, she turns back to him with a smile again.

"Well, you know, I do get every second Thursday afternoon off. We'd see each other then."

"Every second Thursday really is rather a long time," Perry says, gloomily.

"Perhaps I could convince the Council that the kitchens maids need more time off."

"Well, yes, it is, and yes, we probably do. Especially since we're usually on duty all morning and again after dinner.

"You could just decree it, you know. You are the king, after all. But of course if you give the assistant kitchen maids more time off, then then senior kitchen maids will need more, so that they don't get upset, and then the assistant cooks, and so on up the line. The whole thing gets to be a bit of a mess.

"And in the meantime, we're here, and we don't have to worry about second Thursdays."

"That's true," he says, brightening a bit.

"But I don't see at all how I can go back to being around Cousin Persephone all of the time when I'd really rather be with you."

He turns to look at her, and his smile is just as nice as it always has been.

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