milliways_bar | (no subject)

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It's been almost four months, in Ambergeldar, since Amy came into the bar. Four rather tiring months, really, spent criss-crossing the country so she could be introduced to a populace. But that all ended last week, in early October, almost two months early, and she's back, looking about for her friends.

The slight curve to her stomach could be the result of the fashion of her dress, or even a trick of the light. But given the way she's smiling . . . it's probably not.

Amy is back. And she has News.

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"Hello, Ingress," says Amy.

Ingress gets a hug.

"Are you supposed to be in the bar?" asks her princess lessons tutor, who knows the rules of the House of Arch.

Oops.

"Tom and Door went to see the Lord and Lady of the Green Park, so they're busy."

"Well, I suppose so long as you stay with me everything will be all right," says Amy, smiling. "How are you, dear? What have you been up to?"

"I've been playing with Gavroche and writng stories and lots of stuff. But Tom and Door are gone lots, and our babysitters are nice, but they're not princesses."

"You'll have to come visit Ambergeldar again. I've been reading up on croquet so we can learn the real way to play, if we want to. And I'd love to read your stories."

"Okay, I bet I can." She gives her a hug and notices a little difference in squishiness. "Amy, did you eat too much cake?"

Amy giggles. "I do sometimes," she confesses, "but that's not that much.

"Perry and I are having a baby."

There is a squeal. It is loud.

"YOU ARE!?!?!?!"

Amy nods. "In the early spring," she says, "as best we can tell."

"Svava's going to have a baby, too. I heard Tom say. Everyone has a baby but us. Can I be the baby's Auntie?"

"You shall have to be," says Amy. "Aunt Ingress. It has a very nice sound to it, doesn't it?"

"It does, it does! I'm excited! I can hold babies. I held Charlie's baby, and I hold Anthony all the time."

Well, maybe not all the time, but she has a few times.

"Well, it'll be a little while yet till the baby is born, but then you can hold him or her. As often as you like."

A pause, while she thinks.

"At least, I assume it'll be a while. It's hard to tell, going back and forth."

"That's okay, it just means I can play with the baby sooner. She'll be a princess. Or he'll be a prince."

Ingress clearly has a preference.

"Yes," says Amy. "And if it's a princess, you'll have to help with her lessons, when she's old enough. You'll be an expert, after all."

And it'll be more fun for everyone that way.

"How old do babies need to be before they can play croquet?"

"I'm not sure. Old enough to walk, certainly, and to hold the mallet."

She thinks.

"Three or four, I'd think, at the very youngest."

"That's a long time. Sunny's hardly even old enough and she hasn't been a baby for a long time."

"It is. But there are other games to play, too. And if we can't find one, we can make some up."

"Like Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake? That's a baby game."

"Yes, precisely like that one," says Amy.

"And at some point, you shall have to provide milkshake lessons -- what all the best kinds are, the best way to drink them, and so on."

"I can do that. I can do that easy." She takes a slurp of her own milkshake.

"Of course. But the baby shan't know anything at all about milkshakes."

And that's just sad.

But there aren't any blenders in Ambergeldar. Alas.

"I'll teach her everything I know."

There will be blenders soon. Magically charged ones which do not require electricity.

It will revolutionize Ambergeldar, making it the country that gave the world milkshakes, on one version of Earth, anyway.

"Excellent. I shall depend on you, Princess Ingress."