In Which the Queen is Introduced...
The woman looked abruptly surprised at Katherine shaking the symbol in front of her. She seemed to be a little surprised also at the fact that there were several other women in her room at that same moment. The woman pulled her back a little straighter and then in a commanding voice said, "Who precisely are you to come barging into here at this time?"
Amaretto looked at the woman and noted that while her hair was short and bobbed on the back with tight curls, a small tiara had been placed on her head and sat slightly askew. Checking over the woman, Amaretto was surprised at the look of her dress. The dress had long red sleeves that were topped with a puff of fabric surrounding the arm in a bell shaped manner and within them, there was wrapped around the woman's shoulder a large piece of bronzed metal. The metal seemed almost fused with the woman's skin, but Amaretto simply assumed that it was a rather tight fit. The rest of the woman's dress was a low cut bodice wrapped within a long corset of black. The corset had long laces that tied her waist into a perfect vee before the dress, which was made of a royal purple, flowed down the front in a traditional spill of what appeared to be velvet.
The woman put gloved hands on her hips and said in a rather lofty tone, "I'm waiting for your answer good women."
Katherine curtsied rather graciously and deeply and then said, "Pardon us good lady, but we were actually looking for a room in which a dear friend of ours was supposed to be teaching us fighting." Katherine straightened back up and the look in her eyes made her seem more regal and even imperial. Amaretto felt a rush of jealousy that her aunt could put on such a good showing. At the same time, she felt that perhaps it was because her aunt was secretly royalty somewhere, though as to what country, only Morocco came to mind.
The woman in front of them crossed her arms and then in a very dry voice said, "I sincerely doubt that."
Katherine looked taken aback and then placed a hand on her chest. "Why I very much think that you have mistaken us for someone else. We simply meant to arrive at our destination without any problem; we did not mean to have you think anything at all of us."
The woman placed her hands on her hips and Amaretto thought that she saw something trailing from the woman's arms. The woman however took a step back and then looked around and said, "I think that I am not mistaken in what I am thinking at this moment."
Katherine shook a finger at the woman. "I think that you would be."
"You come into my room," the woman began, "As well holding weapons when you come through the door. You then seem to have gotten the wrong room. We are not amused."
Amaretto blinked. "Did you just say what I think you did?"
Alice lowered her guns and a look of horrified embarrassment crossed her face. "Your majesty?"
The woman nodded her head and then looked down her nose. "If you must know, I am indeed Her Majesty Vitorianna Alexis, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of Indus."
Amaretto blinked. She turned to her aunt "You mean that this woman is the queen?"
Katherine shrugged. "It could very well be."
The woman in front of them said, "I am also known as Vitorianna Alexis Regina et Imperatrix."
Amaretto raised her hand in disbelief as if to silence the woman. "You mean that this woman right here is the Queen of England,"
The woman narrowed her eyes and in a short tempered voice said, "That is the Empire of New Machina. We have not been called 'England' since the second Steam Renaissance."
Amaretto rolled her eyes and then continued speaking, not caring about what had just been revealed. "So whatever, this woman is Queen, and we were supposed to find the queen and protect her. However, we find the queen standing here and looking fine. What are we doing in here again?" Amaretto let the exasperation that she felt come through the last sentence that she said. She was not happy at this point. After being thrown on this trip, and being forced to fight for her life, she was not happy with the result that stood before her.
The queen's eyebrows knit together in consternation. Katherine spun around and shook a finger at Amaretto. "Don't you have even the slightest amount of respect Amaretto?" Her voice was obviously exasperated as well and her face looked stern.
Amaretto threw her hands up in the air and then gripped the sides of her dress and pulled them to the sides slightly as she took a bow from the waist and said, "Your Majesty, forgive me. I did not think that we would be bumping into you."
Almost as soon as Amaretto bowed, the queen made a face. "That was vulgar. Who taught you to curtsy and show respect?"
Amaretto looked at the queen and then said a little sourly, "No one did. I don't normally make it a point to meet with the queen of Eng- I mean New Machina."
"Did you grow up as a heathen then?" The queen sneered at Amaretto. Amaretto could feel her eye twitch. She knew what the word meant, but she didn't think it was a nice thing for the queen to say. She may have been royalty, but Amaretto knew that no one had the right to speak something. Instead, Alice and Johanna had both risen from where they had curtsied and Johanna had taken a step forward. She looked at the queen and then interrupted by saying, "Alice, I have a question."
Alice was smoothing out her dress and had put her guns away rather quickly. "Listen I know we are here after the Stone, but perhaps we should pause in our search if only to extract ourselves from this situation."
Katherine nodded her agreement. "It is indeed a situation. Trying to find a stone and winding up with a rather awkward social moment is hardly what we needed at this juncture."
Amaretto marveled at her aunt's fluid motion of speaking. She frowned and looked back at Johanna who seemed almost as if she had a flitting expression across her face. The expression vanished almost as soon as Amaretto thought she saw it though, but it was enough for her to confirm that the Stone of Communication was indeed nearby. Amaretto turned to the other woman whom they had walked in on and then said, "So you're the queen?"
The woman nodded her head rather imperiously and then said, "Yes I am."
"So then why are you here instead of in the palace?" Amaretto put her hands on her hips as she spoke.
The queen looked at Amaretto and said, "I don't have to explain myself to you. I am the Queen of New Machina."
Johanna stared at the woman and then suddenly said, "You are lying."
Everyone in the room suddenly stopped breathing.
Amaretto turned around and then said, "What do you mean?"
Katherine pursed her lips and then said quietly to Amaretto, "I can see what she is saying, however, I would have thought that she would have had a little more tact in how she addressed the matter."
The woman standing in front of them who had identified herself as the queen narrowed her eyes and then stared at Johanna for what seemed to take forever. The silence filled the room and thickened like slow acting cement. Amaretto was beginning to feel uncomfortable. The queen then crossed her arms and leaned back only a slight bit as if to make a point and said, "What makes you say that I am not the queen?"
Johanna pointed towards the bed first and then to the floor around the woman's dress. "The signs all point to you not being the queen," was all Johanna said at first.
Alice moved forwards. "What signs are those?"
Johanna pointed towards the floor again. "If you note very carefully, you can actually see the piping that is coming out of the hole in the floor where she is standing and how the hoses connect to the small shoulder plates she has on. They are also connected to the floor as well as the machines that are connected to the woman who is lying on the bed."
Amaretto turned and looked at the bed more carefully than she had before and noticed the sleeping form of a woman there. She allowed the shock to register across her face before she even thought of schooling her features. Katherine looked towards the bed and nodded her head. "Oh my, it appears that we have indeed gotten ourselves into something that seems to be a little over our heads. I vote that we just simply leave now."
Amaretto grabbed her aunt's arm and whispered hurriedly. "The stone is in here though! You can see that because animation is coming back to Johanna!"
"What do you mean by animation?"
"She's starting to show emotions again. Didn't Alice say that the closer we got to the stone, the more emotion that Johanna would show?"
Katherine raised a single eyebrow. "I don't remember her saying that."
Amaretto shook her head and then said, "I just inferred it from all the things that she had said originally. There has to be something to be said for the fact that all these facts will eventually connect together right?"
Katherine nodded her head and then pulled up her bag. She promptly began to rummage around the inside of the purse. At that moment Alice chose to begin arguing with Johanna. Amaretto hoped that everything would work out for the better.