(no subject)
Title: The Joys of (Other Peoples) Marriage
Author: Orchids_or_Iris
Characters/Pairing: Ambrose, Queen/Ahamo
Rating: G
Summary: Sometimes being Advisor means more than just advising the Monarch of the Realm.
Warning: None.
Disclaimer: If I'd had my way there would have been a lot more Glitch. Alas I am in no position to insist upon that.
Word Count: 1565
A/N: My weekly post… which has nothing to do with Halloween. This is vaguely upsetting as I had my heart set on zombies but the Queen stormed into a perfectly good mad-science experiment. Maybe next time.
The inventor smiled fondly as the bubbling liquid in front of him turned the expected colour. He didn't usually venture into the more subjective scientific studies, but every now and then it was nice to know that he could run a bio-chemical experiment without leaving it to an Alchemist. Perfectly content in his beloved laboratory, the dark eyed man didn't have to look for the carefully graded measuring spoon by his left. This was his domain, even more so than a ballroom dance floor and he knew where everything was. He'd just carefully filled the spoon to the brim with a fine white powder when the door to his lab was thrown open and someone barged in.
"Ambrose!" called the brunette as she stormed into the room, dimming light levels as she walked. Said scientist could only gape as his Queen strode towards him looking furious. "How do I banish someone from the Zone?"
The Advisor blinked a few times. The sentence still refused to make sense.
"Your Majesty?"
The Queens lavender eyes narrowed in a rather impressive glare. One that looked rather like the one he'd received after laughing at a young not-then Queen complaining about corsets. Thankfully his excessive experience in court kicked in and Ambrose was able to keep his expression neutral and his back straight rather than scrambling away from the power in that gaze. Sometimes the inventor thought life would be much easier if the royalty of the O.Z. were not magical.
"It can not be that difficult," she announced through gritted teeth. "It's not as though he was born in the realm."
Ambrose blinked a few more times. It hadn't helped a few seconds ago but it did at least stop him from looking completely frozen. She couldn't mean him, could she? He liked the O.Z. Planned on living out the rest of his life here in fact. It had trees, rain and people that didn't look at him strangely when he wanted to muck about with the innards of a clock. Alright so maybe they looked at him strangely for that but at least they had clocks. He didn't want to be banished.
Thoroughly confused, Ambrose fell back on his tried and tested manner for dealing with his Monarch when she wasn't making sense.
"Your Majesty?" tentatively repeated the Advisor.
"Don't you even think of defending him," warned the brunette. "I don't care how well you two are getting on these days. Ahamo has gone too far this time!"
He felt his chest relax at the Queens statement. Obviously she wasn't talking about banishing him after all, which now he came to think about it wouldn't have made sense anyway but even his mind was allowed to glitch every now and then. The Advisor carefully placed the spoon of powder down on his desk as her statement circled his mind.
"What precisely has Ahamo done?" cautiously asked the man. He watched carefully as the Queen turned on her heel and began to pace up and down his lab. Ambrose had to bite his tongue to avoid saying anything about the swirl of her skirts as they dislodged a stack of paper on the floor. This particular moment was probably not the best time to say anything about being careful around possibly dangerous machines. In this state of mind she probably wouldn't even notice an explosion unless she had to pace over any of the resulting rubble.
"He denied me! Me!" declared the woman. "We haven't so much as spoken in three days and when I finally have a few hours free all he can say is that he planned to test the balloon after yesterdays storm but I can't come along as I'd distract him." The woman’s pacing stopped and her shoulders slumped. "He cares for that thrice-cursed contraption more than he does for me."
Apparently his Queen was more rejected than angry. Ambrose considered this, brushing aside the thought that perhaps fixing Ahamos balloon for his birthday hadn't been the best idea after all. Instead he concentrated on the suddenly depressed woman in front of him. This was one of the reasons he wished her Majesty had waited a few more annuals before she had chosen a consort. He hadn't even had a serious relationship, how exactly was he meant to play marriage counsellor?
Ambrose spared a longing look at the series of glass tubes and flasks. The mixture had been overheated by now anyway so he extinguished the flame beneath the larger of the containers and turned back to his Queen.
"I'll talk to him."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"She just doesn't understand how important it is to me," fumed the blonde as he paced. The Advisor had found the man in a rarely used floor of the east wing, no doubt he'd gotten lost again but Ambrose really didn't think this was the best time to comment on Ahamos navigational skills. Especially as the Slipper looked just as angry as the Queen had when she'd burst into his lab. The dark haired man really hoped that their argument had taken place away from prying eyes. Bribing and flattering the staff into keeping quiet was one thing but if he had to deal with speculation within the court over the state of the Queens marriage then he'd be less than pleased. Such a thing would certainly require compensation at the very least. He did need more lab space.
The inventor momentarily brightened at the thought before Ahamo completed another circuit. Apparently the old adage about married couples taking on each others traits was correct. Other than the change in scenery this was pretty much a replay of events in his lab. Ambrose hadn't even had to say a word to the blonde before the Slipper had began to rant about his wife. Although unlike with his Queen, Ahamo hadn't skipped to the point yet.
"I mean it's the last thing I have from my world! I'm not going to just give it up! I've done everything else. I've gotten used to all that stupid cutlery and losing my portfolio and even dressing differently," Ambrose refrained from commenting that the mans one set of clothes had been ruined after the horse incident. "Now she wants me to give up everything else too?"
The dark eyed man watched as Ahamos ire finally ran out and he slumped against a wall. The genius rarely studied others behaviours by choice. To be perfectly honest he found a series of equations to be far more interesting than peeling back others masks. His job meant that he was required to be able to spot others weaknesses and strengths and he was good at it but he never really did so out of his own interest. The inventor smiled slightly, he supposed that if he was going to be foolish enough to make friends then he might as well work at it.
"You're really not good at feeling useless," idly commented the man, ignoring Ahamos sharp glance. "You know just because the Court thinks you should be happy doing nothing, doesn't mean you have to. Your wife married you because of who you are, you don't have to change that."
The blonde thought about objecting to the observation and continue to argue before giving it up as too much effort. Instead he slid down the wall and crumpled into a sitting position. A moment later Ambrose joined him with a great deal more elegance.
"All of this," muttered the artist with a half-hearted gesture to the wall in front of them. "It's important to her."
"True," agreed Ambrose. "And it does require a lot of her time," his friend snorted at the understatement. "It doesn't mean that she expects you to be lounging around doing nothing until she calls for you."
"Oh yeah? Well it feels like it," gruffly replied the blonde and Ambrose shrugged.
"I often find it helpful to remember that the court is made from a collection of idiots and children that merely look like adults. It's usually better to ignore their opinion of your actions."
"Easy for you to say," disagreed the Other Sider. "You have a job. I'm just... here."
"I would say that you have a very important job."
"Right, keeping ‘the Queen’ happy,” Ahamo grimaced. “Yeah I know the entire court is really happy about that."
"Actually I was talking about your art. Surely you've noticed by now that other than Architecture there's very little artistry in the Zone and certainly none modelled on the Other Sides methods. So far everyone's been enraptured by the pictures you have shown," absently replied the Advisor sounding completely unconcerned by the topic. Ahamo stared at him.
"You want me to paint," flatly summarised the Slipper.
"Yep. You are an artist aren't you?"
"Well yeah but..." the blonde thought about it for a moment. So far he'd kept his drawings to the same level he had managed when he'd been a starving painter scrabbling for work but that wasn't an issue any more. He could get all the supplies he wanted. That was what a patron was all about and he even had a royal one. "All the O.Z. to paint," he mused.
"Uh-huh."
"Stuff no ones ever painted before."
"Yep."
The pair sat in silence for a minute or so before the blonde spoke again.
"I should go apologise huh?"
"It's traditional, yes."