milliways_bar | (no subject)

Since tea and embroidery are staples of Amy's ~~entry posts~~ time at Milliways, she notices the other young woman almost immediately.

A moment later and she's arrived, tea in one hand, embroidery in the other, and a bright smile on her face.

"Good evening. I'm Amy. May I join you?"

Jane smiles, noticing the other woman's similar possesions.
"With certainty. I am Jane. Jae Eyre."

"It's lovely to meet you, Jane," she says, sitting down, and beginning to arrange her sewing things.

"Have you been here in Milliways long?"

"It is nice to make your aquaintance, miss. I have been here for a period of several months, although most of it has been of quiet contemplation in my apartments." She senses that the other woman could most likely see through the euphamism to the real truth of the matter: she was hiding.

Amy would see that, yes. Amy would also be far too polite to, shall we say, call a spade a spade.

"The rooms here are very comfortable, aren't they? But I think it's nice to get out occasionally, and meet people, especially if you can find someone with common interests."

They have to have at least two, needlework and tea.

"What are you working on?"

"It is nice to come out here, to the bar, and at least observe the customers of this odd establishment. Although I suspect they are very different from me."
She pauses.
"This is only a piece to help me retain my skills at needlework, as I do not use them horribly often here. It is only a sampler, a little idle work. And you?"

Amy leans forward to look. "You do very fine work," she says, and then offers the other girl her own embroidery hoop.

"It's a handkerchief. For a friend. And there are really and truly all sorts of people here, but you can learn so much from them."

Jane examines the work. The technique is a bit different than heres, but still very detailed and neat.
"Very nice. Your friend will enjoy it very much. Are they also here?"

"He is, yes," says Amy. "Most of the people I consider good friends I met here. Which makes being Bound much much easier."

"I think I would like to make such friends. I am afraid I do not have a large number of them at the moment." She pauses. "at least those who I would go to for assistance." Mr. Rochester's visage appears before her, unbidden and haunting.

Amy looks at her, eyes very serious for a moment. "Friends you can go to for assistance are very good things to have."

Strangers, too, when you have to.

"So we shall have to get better acquianted, Jane. When and where are you from?"

"Indeed they are, especially when you do not have them."
Jane refuses to speak more in detail about the matter.
"I think it wqould be an excelent idea to be better acquainted. I am from rural Northern England, the year 1848."

"There seem to be rather a lot of people in the bar from England," says Amy. "I'm from a country called Phantasmorania, which probably doesn't exist in your world, but it's sort of near France. And . . . our years don't translate exactly, it's the twenty-fifth year of the reign of King Hulderbrand, but I'm probably from sometime before you. I seem to be from some time before most people."

A pause, while she rethreads her needle.

"And what do you do, in England?"

Jane thinks this over carefully, and is mostly certain that France borders Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy, but no Phantasmagoria.
"I suspect so as well. Yet I think that we are more alike with our worlds than many here.
"As to myself I am... was a governess. I am no longer. I am not entirely sure at this moment. I am simply here."

"Oh, dear," says Amy, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were dead, I'm afraid."

Jane opens her eyes wide.
"No, I did noot mean that at all! I simply am....unemployed. Of my own volition. I am Bound here, as i cannot get back to my time. But I do not think I am dead. Not yet."

[ooc: Can we slowtime? Damn classes...]

"Oh, dear," says Amy. "Now I'm even more sorry, Jane. I just . . . Well, I should know better than to assume anything here, really. And it's certainly possible to be Bound and not dead. I'm Bound, and I have no intention of dying any time soon."

[ooc: Of course! Good night!]

"No, it is alright. I suppose it is a legitimate assumption with my ambiguity. You would aldso not be the first to make assumptions. Although I would like not to make assumptions abot yourself. What were you brefore coming here?"
The question is asked lightly; Jane fully expects the woman to be quite ordinary, a governess or factory worker or married, or somesuch mundane career.

Amy is completely, totally, and thoroughly Ordinary. She's just also royalty.

"Well," she says, thoughtfully, "immediately before I came here I worked as a kitchen maid. In the palace in Ambergeldar."

Of course, she doesn't look remotely like a kitchen maid these days, and she knows it.

Jane looks at her critically. While she is by no means beautiful, she lacks the roughness of the kitchen staff that she had known, growing up at Lowood and at Thornfield. She asks carefully, "What did you do before that?"

"Before that," says Amy, "I lived with my parents."

There's a pause while she cuts a thread.

"My parents are the king and queen of Phantasmorania."

Jane blinks, surprised.
"The king and queen? Of your country?"
Jane's features remained fixed in surprise, complete with rapid blinking.
"You do not act like a princess. Not that I have met a princess before you."

Amy smiles, and shrugs. "Well, I'm a very Ordinary sort of Princess, really. But most of the royalty here is fairly . . ." she pauses, looking for the right word. "Well, we're not terribly regal, for the most part. My adopted brother is a king, and he runs the stables."

Another pause, and then a grin.

"And we all seem to be very fond of tea."

Jane nods.
"Yes, tea. I rather like tea as well. Shall I get you some?" Her words trip over themselves, in her haste to be useful or something like it.

"That would be lovely," says Amy, serenely, "if you'll join me. Tea is one of the most important things here at Milliways, after all."