There are lots of pleasant things to do in Ambergeldar, and while she's there, Meg intends to take advantage of all of them.

So today, she and Amy are out picnicking. It's a lovely day; the food is delicious; there is coffee and tea enough to satisfy both of them, and Susan is safe with her nursemaid in the castle.

All is extremely well.

It's late, late at night by the time Meg is standing in front of Lilly's room, and she doesn't knock loudly.

It doesn't seem quite fair to wake her up. And there's always the Threshold. But -

Well. Just in case she is up.

Just in case.

In the time since a certain conversation happened, Meg has had time to think.

Time to think, in particular, about how very complicated this is going to be to explain to - certain people.

Which is why her knock on Andrew's door is possibly a little tentative, as she stands outside, fingers fidgeting.

*Meg's been shuttling between the Threshold and the House of Arch, mostly, for the past few days, with occasional stops to check about her lost coffee mug; it's only this morning that she's stopped by the bar long enough to receive a letter.

An executive decision: Family politics might make it awkward to read in the Threshold, and the main bar is a little less private than might be hoped.

A half hour passes; and now Meg is sitting at the chair behind Andrew's desk, frowning down at the letter open in front of her and twisting a pendant between her fingers.*

*Meg had some trouble, at first, figuring out where exactly to hold Alanna's dance lessons. The House of Arch school was officially on break for the summer, Meg's room at the bar had barely enough space for one person to stretch, and removing Alanna from the current space-time continuum (such as it was) to go to the Threshold for every lesson seemed a little extravagant.

However, there are the newspaper offices - and one of them has a smooth wooden floor that was just about perfect for practicing.

Which is why Meg's currently busy taping up a sign over the door:*

Do not disterb. Lesson in progres.

Meg Giry grew up speaking French, but for months now almost all she's heard around her is English, in all its variations. Hello, hullo, hey and hi; how are you, what's wrong, it's okay; alive and dead and later and bye. All over the bar, people speaking in English, spitting out their consonants like they're going to choke on them. Even her classes are held in English, every flowing French term carefully explained to her students in the heavy, stuffy tongue they understand.

She's even started to dream in English, from time to time.

The Threshold is quiet - often unnervingly so; Meg's used to cities, and unused to solitude - but when her father speaks to her there, he speaks to her in flawless French. For that reason alone, it serves sometimes as a refuge. It's serving as a refuge now.

Meg practices for hours, allegro et arrondi et arabesque, the French phrases passing smoothly through her mind as her body enacts the motions, and in the times between - when she's stretching down or warming up, or simply resting and letting her body recuperate - she thinks about language. About French.

In French, the words all end lightly, so lightly you can hardly tell when one's over and another's begun. The word mort, just to take an example: the English feel the need to tack a vowel onto the end to express almost the same sound, more.

They have the word mort in English, too, but it ends on a clomping t, and it means 'a great number'. Meg's a little amused by that fact, when she remembers it during one of her stretches. It's sort of accurate, after all.

She still prefers the French, though. And perhaps thinking it through completely in French - the language in which mort means death, and le petit mort, the little death, stands for its opposite - will help her to make sense of the caisse, and the rose noir, and Anthy, and the ville des morts.

After a few days, of dancing and thinking and dancing again, she decides it doesn't make much more sense in French after all.

But she feels better all the same.

*It's a beautiful day.

The sun shines down brightly on the vibrant green grass, the rippling blue of the lake, and the shocking pink of the teddy bears on the carpet on which Meg is currently sitting.

When she sees Lilly heading towards her, she jumps up, waving enthusiastically - but considering, she probably isn't terribly difficult to spot.*

*The television's been sitting in the room for a while; someday Meg and Andrew really will finish the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This is not that day.

Today, Meg is perched on the bed with a huge bowl of popcorn, lots of chocolate, and a bottle of wine, waiting for her cousin.*

*Meg's grinning happily as she eases the door to Andrew's room open. This may have something to do with the fact that her head and hair are currently bedecked with tiny shining stars.

Her smile fades, a very little, once she gets a good look inside, and sees Andrew busy packing into a small overnight bag - but she rallies quickly.*


Hey, Andrew -

*Meg's had a long night, and the room is dark when she comes in.

She switches on the light, automatically - it was dark enough outside - and glances around, but she already knows it's empty.

She goes over to the bed, and sits down on it, rubbing her arms absently. They're a little cold - Lilly, she remembers, still has her cloak.

She should probably go to the Threshold. There's no reason to be here. Andrew may not even come back tonight.

Same club, she thinks, unbidden; and leans her head back against the wall, and closes her eyes, and attempts to banish it with a not yet.*