Entrance bandwagon, yo

[man_of_all_work]

[OOM: Why friendly visits should be outlawed in Ambergeldar, and why does everyone insist on calling him Algernon?]

Someone comes in through the front door, whistling cheerfully.

"Lavender's blue," the tune goes,

"Rosemary's green,
When I am King,
You shall be--hullo," says the nice young man who had been whistling, to no one in particular,

Comments

[kitchen_maid]

Amy has been just the tiniest bit homesick of late, perhaps because Anne went home, perhaps because it's almost Christmas. Either way, home has felt very far away lately. And so the last thing she's expecting to hear is the song her ladies-in-waiting used to use for her lullabye.

She looks up, of course, and sees a nice-looking young man who actually appears to be from someplace she knows. She doesn't think she knows him, but the clothes (and the song) seem right for Phantasmorania or Ambergeldar. Or somewhere else nearby.

And so she gives him a genuine, dazzling, brilliant smile that wrinkles her turned up little nose, and says, "Hello. Welcome to Milliways."

[man_of_all_work]

The nice-looking young man turns to her with a rather nice smile of his own. It crinkles the corners of his eyes quitecharmingly.

"Hello," he says. "Where?"

[kitchen_maid]

It's a very nice smile.

"Milliways," she repeats. "It's the bar at the end of the universe."

[man_of_all_work]

"Oh," he says, "I see."

He turns to look back at the door, curiously.

"..and I've managed to get here from Amber? How very strange. I wonder how on earth I managed that."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy's smile is very bright.

But since she knows of at least one other Amber, it's probably better to be safe than sorry.

"The Amber in Ambergeldar? Because I got here from there myself."

[man_of_all_work]

"Did you, now?"

He turns back to her with a bright smile of his own, and sticks his hands in his pockets.

"That's the Amber I mean. Did you come from the city or the castle?"

[kitchen_maid]

"The castle," she says promptly. "Through a door in the back of a pantry."

[man_of_all_work]

He laughs. It's a nice laugh.

"The back of a pantry?" he asks. "Did you work there, then, or were you just paying a friendly visit?"

He has already decided that she is much nicer than Persephone.

[kitchen_maid]

Amy's eyebrow goes up. "Do I look like the Princess Persephone?" she asks, clearly amused.

"I'm the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid," she adds proudly. "What about you? Did you come from the castle or the city?"

[man_of_all_work]

"From the castle," he says, still looking at her curiously. "And no, you don't look a thing like Princess Persephone. You look like you've been outside, for one thing. It's strange I've never seen you around, before, isn't it?"

Not really.

[kitchen_maid]

A slightly odd (but still very nice) smile in regards to the line about having been outside.

Amy shrugs. "I guess that depends. I'm pretty sure you don't work in the kitchens, so probably now. What do you do in the castle?"

[man_of_all_work]

He considers this for a moment, and turns to look back at the door.

"I work there, too," he says, after thinking. "I suppose you could call me a man-of-all-work."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy has lived in palaces all her life. That's a title she's never heard.

"A man-of-all-work," she repeats carefully. She looks at him. "You look sort of like a senior page."

[man_of_all_work]

The nice young man looks at her for a moment, and then throws his head back and laughs.

"A senior page," he says, after a moment, chuckling. "Yes, I suppose I do. Sadly, kitchen maid, I am not a page. They have a rather better time of it than I. Two hours off every day, and an afternoon each week."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy is honestly not quite sure why this is funny.

But he has a very nice laugh.

"Don't you get any afternoons off?"

[man_of_all_work]

"Hardly any," he says, with a half-smile. "I do all sorts of work, you see, and it seems as though there's always more of it to be done, and no getting out of it."