BURN

dinner and gloves and ladies in waiting

"Busy" fighting with Stefan and demanding to know what was wrong with her daughter, thinks Agatha. It had taken her years to get that particular story out of Callis, but Callis still remembers it, word for word;

"Oh, you just name her. Something boring. I don't care."

Callis had frowned.

"But my lady, I thought you said you were to name her after yourself, should it be a girl."

Vanessa had cast a disdainful glance down at the baby fussing in Callis's arms.

"I don't think that will be necessary." she'd said, and shot a glance at the charred floorboards where the cradle had stood. "Maybe you ought to name her Hestia."

Goddess of the hearth. Genius. Agatha had scowled when Callis had told her.

"I see." Tedros fiddles with one of his forks, but both Agatha and Callis can see him frowning a little at Vanessa. "You chose well. It's a nice name."

Agatha thinks Callis actually chose it just to be perverse, because it makes her sound vaguely witchy and very un-princessy, but she doesn't press the point.

"I never had a nursemaid." Tedros continues vaguely. "My mother insisted on doing everything herself."

Then he looks back at Agatha.

"How nice of her." Says Agatha simply, but she gets his meaning.

Not so stupid, after all. Then again, it probably doesn't take a genius to deduce that Vanessa is a terrible mother. You just need to spend more than half an hour with her and Agatha at the same time.

Callis looks a little more accepting. 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' and all that.

"Queen Guinevere, wasn't it?"

Tedros winces a little.

Queen Guinevere who eloped with one of his father's knights, yes. It's the one thing Agatha knows about Camelot. It would be impossible not to know it, frankly. Shook the entire woods.

"So, it was just your father, after she... left?" Asks Callis mercifully getting the message and, at least, approaching it tactfully and skirting saying it outright..

Tedros takes a breath to answer--

Sophie leans over.

"Aggie, you haven't introduced me to the King!"

Yeah, thinks Agatha sourly. I know I haven't.

"Oh, right." She says. "This is my lady in waiting, Sophie--"

"Aldridge." Says Sophie promptly, deliberately using her real-- and royal-- surname, instead of the fake one, like a podge.

Agatha could have screamed.

Tedros blinks.

"You're related to the Princess?"

Sophie beams at him, smoothing her golden hair and pink dress. Such a contrast to Agatha.

"I'm her s--"

"You're my cousin." Snarls Agatha.

Sophie blinks, as if coming out of a trance, and turns to see Agatha leaning across Callis, staring at her.

"Right." She says, momentarily meek. "Cousins."

Sophie has done a lot of stupid things, but attempting to announce her bastard status to claim she's a sort-of-Princess so she might have a better chance with Agatha's betrothed (!!!) is definitely the crowning jewel.