Memories of a Deadbeat King

[rassafraggin]

The room appears to be a private audience chamber, which would situate it a ways down the hall from the grandiose throne room. The three tall windows are stained glass depictions of historical encounters with the Dolphins, the Sirens, and the Selkies, respectively. The day's light from the surface splashes those myriad jeweled colours onto the floor like an ornate carpet. The room is appointed with dignity, fit for graciously receiving small, stately company.

At one end of the small chamber, an easel has been set up. A few sheets of glass rest in an open sachel next to the easel and one has been placed in the tray ready for work. Whatever else the easel might contain is left to the imagination, to be retrieved at need. Maggie is kind of hovering nearish to the easel itself, hair pulled back into a long, plaited fall down her back. As she had to set a few things up, she arrived ahead of the appointed hour.

Giselle bounced her way through Rebma once plans were made with Maggie via Vialle, towards the palace. No, really. She was making like an astronaut on the moon, playing with the water and gravity. She is really, really enjoying herself down here. She has long, thin, tendril-like braids trailing behind her when she moves, though they sometimes move on their own when she's not playing with them with her hands. It's hard not to fiddle with the braids. And once to the palace, and escorted to the audience chamber, she's still bouncing. But in place. More or less. She's not exactly stately. Or dignified. She will have the presence of mind to bow to Moire when the queen arrives, though it will be accompanied by a bright grin and more bouncing in place.

The side tables are furnished with an array of eleganty-spun bottles of liquor refreshment, along with a tray of dainty biscuits and puffs encased in a thin gel to preserve their crispness. There are seats of smoothly curved stones arranged in a tasteful, casual manner, though one stands out with gold veining as the chair upon which the monarch receives her company.

Currently still wearing her host, the Warden, in graceful glistening couture, Moire settles into the room shortly after Maggie. The faithful Feldane hound trot-paddles to his usual corner and sinks his hindquarters down with a doggy-snort. The Queen has just bestowed a warm greeting upon Maggie, when one of the royal guards on hall duty rings a chime and rolls the hall door aside. "Lady Giselle of Amber, Your Majesty," he announces.

Moire offers Giselle a smile from the middle of the room, acknowledging her bow with a gracious nod. She remarks, "You have my apologies for the checks that must be made, since we last spoke, Lady Giselle." A pause to give time for the cousins to greet one another, then the monarch continues, "Might I offer you something refreshing before we sit.. or remain standing perhaps," she notes upon observing the other's penchant for bobbing in place.

Maggie took the time to watch Moire entering. The warm greeting given was returned in kind, a smile lingering as Maggie turns to welcome Giselle into the room once Moire has finished. She offers Giselle a hug, bouncing along with her cousin if it is accepted. When that has concluded, she fades back a little, the bouncing tapering off easily. Turning to Moire, she smiles, "Giselle is working on a serium that may help repair both the Tir Pattern and return full functionality to Rebma's. It is in the early stages of development. She was hoping to gain insight into Oberon by talking to me about him while I am doing something pattern related. She needs a trump, so I thought that would possibly work. I do not know if you knew grandfather, but was hoping that you would not mind stearing the conversation or chiming in? Any insight she can get into what sort of man he is would be helpful. But I do not know if you knew him... So..." She turns to Giselle, "Is that about right?" Then to Moire, "And is that okay with you?"

When Moire apologizes, Giselle says "Oh, it's okay. I know important people have to worry about security kinds of things. I didn't mind." She looks like she doesn't do a lot of worrying. Her braids continue to occasionally move a little like the hair of medusa, but much longer than those snakes. She hugs her cousin, bouncing with her for a moment before saying to the offer of refreshment "Sure, I could have something. Nothing strong, though. It's harder to absorb what I need to, when I'm drunk." She makes a bit of a face that says she does not enjoy being sober. She nods to Maggie's explanation, then adds to Moire "I'm basically trying to make the alchemical equivalent of a trump of Oberon, without Oberon. By absorbing all I can of him through his bloodline."

Moire stands calmly while she receives all the details of the occasional of which she'd been unaware. A few moments pass of merely nodding to Giselle's explanation of her experiment. "I have just the thing," she presently says, turning away to the side bar to select a mild concoction that does offers more bite than bark, with none of the barmy aftermath. "Margaret, since you'll be painting, I suspect you shall forego your usual." She assembles a small tray of munchables, however, and returns shortly to contemplate the arrangement of chairs and easel. "Who is to be your subject?"

Maggie steps back toward the easel after darting Moire a warm smile and a nod, "I think that would be wise. I don't want to muck it up." Settling beside the easel she bends to take a few items out of the bag beside it. The first appears to be a pencil with a sparkling, very sharp point, minus graphite. Leaning back, she considers both of the people in front of her. "Well..." She turns her smile from Moire to Giselle, seeking the answer to Moire's question, "Giselle, you wanted a trump of yourself, but do you think that you can sit still enough for me to get a good likeness?"

Giselle smiles when Moire picks something appropriate. "Thank you!" she says to the queen in Merri's body. Then Maggie asks about sitting still, and she thinks for a moment. "If I'm focused on what I'm doing, I'll be a lot more still. But if I'm doing my thing, absorbing the ideas I draw off you and maybe the queen so that I can understand them, will you be able to draw me properly?" she asks, then says "Also, did you want to try that potion, to help bring out inherited traits? Might be harder to draw that way. Or, well, maybe easier. Who knows?"

Moire sets the rest of the tray down on a nearby sidetable, then goes to sit in one of the chairs which allows her to view a bit of Maggie's work without obviously staring over the woman's shoulder. Whether she plans on speaking of her experience of Oberon with his grandchildren, she hasn't indicated one way or the other, yet. "By potion, do you speak of the serum of his essense?" she asks abruptly, "The same one which, during the meeting on Lord Quinlan's craft, it had been speculated to be a great danger to the one ingesting it?"

Giselle shakes her head, to Moire's question. "Nah. The essence is what I'm building towards. That'll only be taken by whoever's fixing the Patterns. The thing I made, for Maggie and others to take, exaggerates traits they've inherited through their bloodlines. To connect them to those traits so I can try to learn Oberon through them, as it were."