kitchen_maid | Thursday, Early Afternoon, Forest of Faraway, Near Amber

Thursday, Early Afternoon, Forest of Faraway, Near Amber

It is one of those beautiful days September bestows when she is in an especially good mood. There is bright sun, and a breeze, and just the barest hint of approaching autumn in the air. The very edges of the trees have begun to flame crimson and russet and gold, but for the most part, things are very very green. In short, it is a perfect day for a picnic.

They had managed to get Peter through the kitchen without too much trouble (although he had gotten a scolding from the second senior cook about being neater with the flour in the future) and Peter Aurelious and the squirrels joined them at the palace gates. And now here they are, in the clearing near edge of the Forest of Faraway, where the Ordinary Princess always comes on her every-second-Thursday-afternoons-off.

She spins all the way around, arms out, smile dazzling, in a sweeping, dizzying, giddy gesture that takes in the trees and the sky and the stream and world in general. "This," she says to Peter, "is home."

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She puts her arm around his shoulder, her hand resting at the back of his neck. "Why would it be?" she asks.

"I feel like these are things I should figure out. I should know what I think about fate, I should know what I think about my past - like nothing else should matter to me until I understand all of that. But other things do matter to me."

Like you.

"And you'll figure them out. I have complete faith in you. But it's not," she pauses, casting about for the right word, "wise, to be so focused on figuring out the past that you miss the present."

And because the Wisdom thing does not come quite naturally to her, and because the fairy who cast Cheerfulness on her was rather more powerful, the Ordinary Princess follows this up by starting to giggle.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's just . . . you still have flour in your hair."

Peter snorts and sits up, rubbing at his head, which showers her with flour and really just spreads it around in his hair.

"You said there was a blackberry patch, didn't you? Where is it?"

The Ordinary Princess coughs a little, breathing in flour again, and then grins. "Over there," she points. "Race you?"

"You're on!"

He leaps to his feet, and they're off. She has a slight head start, and knows the way, but he's probably a bit faster, so they're rather evenly matched.

"Rather evenly matched" is probably not a bad description for the two of them.

And naturally, they reach the blackberry thicket at almost the same time, and so it's rather hard to tell who won.

Or not, since Simon Perryvall is waiting for them when they get there.

Well, when you put it that way... no. No, it would seem that perhaps it's not.

The race is quickly forgotten, though, in the joy of blackberries picked straight from the bush and purple-stained fingers.

"This is glorious," Peter says, eventually. "How can you bear to ever leave?"

She shrugs. "I needed to work. And there's not a lot of work in the forest. And I needed someone to talk to, other than Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious. It's . . . rather more glorious with company."

Peter smiles at her, then offers her a particularly large berry.

"I suppose that makes sense. Do you enjoy working in the kitchen, though?"

She accepts the berry with a particularly bright smile.

"I don't dislike it," she says. "I know it sounds odd. It's just, no one has ever asked me to do anything useful before. There's never been anything that had a result. Even if it's just clean dishes, it's nice to have a result. All anyone ever wanted me to do was play the harp, which I'm not good at, and embroider, which I don't like. My royal Mama just wanted me to know to sit, and stand, and move elegantly. And try to look beautiful, even if I'm not. And I'm never going to be elegant. I'm never going to be beautiful, either. My smile is always going to wrinkle my nose, which is always going to be turned up and freckled. My hair is always going to be mouse brown, and my eyes are never going to be blue. And I don't care. I rarely ever have. And for the first time in my life, neither does anyone else. So long as the dishes get clean."

"I like your nose," Peter says, "and I like how it wrinkles when you smile. Really, everyone is always happiest, and most interesting, when they're doing something they enjoy. I don't think anyone who saw you out here, in the forest, could ever call you ordinary again."

Her smile at this really does wrinkle her nose in the most charming way. "You're one of the few people who ever has," she says. "Maybe we're both too worried about words and labels. Maybe I should just be Amy and you should just be Peter."

Peter grins at her.

"Alright, then, just-Amy, I think if I eat another blackberry I shall begin to bleed purple."

"Then you should stop," she advises, gravely, but her eyes are full of laughter.

Peter sticks his (rather purple) tongue out at her.

"Easy for you to say. You've had them more often than I have."

"That's true," she admits. "But if you make yourself sick you won't enjoy them at all. You can always pick some to take back with you, you know."

"They're not the same when they're not straight off the bush," Peter grumbles.

But he looks rather happy regardless.

"No," she agrees. "They're not. But I hardly think you'll be able to sneak the entire bush back through the kitchen."

Though the image of him trying has set her off in giggles.

"Oh, come on, they wouldn't notice if you lead an elephant through that kitchen, so long as it kept out of the flour," he says, with as straight a face as he can manage.

The giggles have given way to actual laughter. "Don't be ridiculous," she says. "How would you ever get an elephant to carry a blackberry bush for you?"

"He could wrap his trunk around it," Peter points out. "So long as it didn't poke him. He might not be happy about that."

"I think the convincing of the elephant could be the difficult part," she says. "And there aren't any elephants in the Forest of Faraway, anyway."

"Of course not. A bear, then? Or... well, what large animals are there, here? One can convince any animal of anything, given the right stimulus."

"No bears, I'm afraid," she says, trying to keep a straight face and almost succeeding. "Nothing larger than a deer. Rabbits, of the non-demonic variety. Squirrels. A great deal of birds. The occasional fox. Hedgehogs. Badgers."

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