(Untitled)

[anneotherboleyn]

After the blistering heat, Anne had welcomed the snow with open, if surprised, arms. It was a time to wear as many of her heavy dresses as she liked and twist her hair into ornate styles and simply be in a way that the warm weather did not permit. Oh, it was very cold, but the compound remained warm, and it was a marvel of architecture now--

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[turnthebadinme]

Serena had finally made up her mind to check in on Blair, but that didn't mean she wasn't glad of a little distraction, almost relieved to discover friends in the rec room. "Hi, Jason!" she called cheerfully, giving a wave before heading over to Anne. She felt for him, she really did. It seemed as if he'd been through a lot, and then this place had just got so much more confusing right around the time he'd shown up. Still, Anne's work caught her attention more fully. "What is this you're working on?"

[anneotherboleyn]

How sweet of Serena to know the help.

Even if the help was distracted by lights flashing off of the shinier decorations about.

Anne smiled at her and beckoned for her to sit. "I am simply adding some beadwork to a bodice I was able to scavenge from the clothing box. It's been a great while, but I think I might be able to do something passable."

[turnthebadinme]

Serena eased into a nearby seat, leaning forward to get a better look at Anne's work. "It's lovely," she said, smiling. "You really have a knack for these things." She had no gift at all for handicrafts. For the most part, she would lay that at the door of not having had any training in it, but really, it was more that she lacked the patience.

[anneotherboleyn]

"Before my family came into any sort of money," Anne said, "we did do a surprising amount of our own work. And then under Katherine, who came before me-- she liked her women to be industrious."

Anne had introduced her to a new sort of industry, she liked to think.

[turnthebadinme]

Serena bit her lip, smiling. "We were raised to be industrious in other ways," she said wryly. "Less hands-on, more committees to... help the homeless or hold fundraisers for endangered animals."

[anneotherboleyn]

"It is no less the court of your own time," Anne said. "Though I suspect you fell prey less to the whims of a highly designated leader. In my time as Queen, it was more organizing of parties, masques, anything to divert my husband."

[turnthebadinme]

"Well, our parents were pretty highly designated," Serena mused. "Among the girls, though, it kind of shifted, depending on... well, a lot of things." They'd had their share of masques and parties, too, and she couldn't help wondering what it had all really been like in Anne's time. "What was he like? Your husband, I mean. People like to guess, but at home, we can't really know..." She was willing to guess he wasn't really like Jonathan Rhys-Meyer, though.

[anneotherboleyn]

"At end of my life, he was fat and smelly and impotent, and nobody said a word to displease him, lest they end up in the Tower," Anne said, her mouth twisting. She set down her needle.

"But he wasn't always like that, no. I remember when I was a small girl, before my mother sent me away to France... he was so newly in power, and our golden prince. Handsome and charming and powerful. It took a very long time before the power and fear ruined him."

[turnthebadinme]

It seemed a lot less remote, knowing Anne had lived through it. "Why were you sent to France?" she asked, partly from genuine curiosity, partly because it was her instinct to steer away from unpleasant topics quickly. The idea of a man like that becoming what he had was disquieting.

[anneotherboleyn]

"Why, to better myself, of course," Anne said. "Though by that I mean, to better my chances to serve in court and rise to marry a wealthy, powerful man. Which worked out very well, I believe. France taught me how."

[turnthebadinme]

"To become queen," Serena said with a light laugh, before remembering just how well it seemed to have worked out for Anne in the end. "I love France. My mother never sent me away out there, but we went sometimes. I spent my seventeenth birthday in Paris."

[anneotherboleyn]

"I wish I could have returned once," Anne said. "Simply as myself, to visit old friends, to see the countryside. Even on the days it was cold and damp like in London, there was a certain charm."

It had been... safe.

[turnthebadinme]

She nodded. "I guess some things really don't change," she said. "There's nothing like Paris. I wish I could have seen it in your time. I bet it was beautiful."