'No greater city or greater land has ever claimed to be more diverse, encompassing and welcoming as ours. She is our queen, our home, our island. We owe her everything'
- Queen Valeena to the Royal Court, Address of the Summer Solstice.
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Trying to talk to Mrs Ruby Winchester whilst she was knee deep in her little world of self-importance, everyone knew, was very much a futile task. Over the years, her husband had grown accustomed to these small moments of black against an otherwise radiant and happy marriage, but ever since she had returned from Raiaera, they had gone beyond ignorable. With every stride they made, arm in arm towards the area of Scara Brae known as Regent Park he grew more tired of her incessant ramblings and accounts of the wonders she had seen in distant, unfamiliar and to his small narrow minded view of the world, utterly uninteresting lands.
“I hate to be rude,” he said with a wry tone that Ruby instantly assumed meant but I’m going to be anyway. “I fear I have no heart to listen to anymore tales about elves and bards.” He pulled away from her, and set her hand gently by her side to walk free and unhindered by her burdens.
“Oh,” she said, lips pursed and hips still swaying without any loss of momentum, despite the shock. “I see.”
They turned a corner and stepped out onto the edge of the large grass land, which featured copses and small ornamental streams and various low walled gardens pertaining to the different fancies and pleasantries of the strange people who insisted on tending to the land for anyone to use as they liked. The sun, now able to bear down on the Winchester’s did so with inscrutable vigour, and Ruby instantly tipped her cream white parasol forwards to edge it out of her eyes.
“You’ve talked of nothing but for three days, I have heard every inch of Raiaera relayed to me and every note of every song sung recanted by the fireside each night since your return. It is a wonder to me, your travels truly are, but look,” he waved his arm wide over the butterfly horizon. “Fire grass from Alerar, rhododendrons verdantly in bloom in seven shades unseen on this island outside of this park for centuries.” He half spiralled and leaped closer still, until his boots rapped against the cobbles of the wide carriage street which divided the park facing luxury properties from the elaborate scenery.
“Over there, beneath the ivory bridges carved from the sandstone of Fallien’s endless deserts, runs water that glistens with quartz and lapis lazuli lodestones from the mines of Kachuk.” Ruby tapped her foot as he explained the flora and fauna of the entire world to formulate a point she knew was coming, but still couldn’t prepare her stubborn mind to accept. “In Regent Park the world comes to us, we, I have no desire to leave this city.”
“I…” she stepped into the street after him, after looking left and right in case an oblivious cart master cleaved her in two, “am not asking you to step onto the deck of the finest ship in port and sail away into the infinite wonder of the new dawn’s horizon.” She took his hand and they crossed arms, making their way to the pathway on the far side of the road with well-timed and in synch steps.
“Then at least talk to me of your sister, or the Orlougne girl, or something other than elves and dragons and strange incantations I know nothing about,” he said absent mind idly, allowing his wife arm room to slip through the kissing gate that allowed passage through the green iron trellis fence. It sat atop a small red brick wall that ran around the circumference of the park, with a white chalk slab set on it every ten feet or so. Vines and dandelions poked out of every crack in its century old surface, threatening to topple it without a thought.
“Emma?” She raised an eyebrow, and pulled back from the start of the traditional lover’s kiss. She slipped through without indulging in past times and walked on, leaving her husband sour faced and without a guide.
“Do you really think I would let my mind and eyes wander to someone other than you, Mrs Winchester?” He ran after her, trying his luck as if they were courting for the first time. When you were married to someone as fiery and hot headed and caring as Ruby, It was a regular occurrence.
“I could not be certain, she was remarkably pleasing on the eye, talented, and bountifully intellectual beyond the veil of her beauty,” her words implied she was fishing for compliments, and she cocked her head to her left to cast him a polite, sun kissed smile.
They giggled like young lovers and embraced one another again, him to the left of her, parasol shrouding them both from the glaring heat, and the half-baked canopy of sycamore and amber glade trees casting dancing patterns of summer bliss over the gravel path and rolling green lawns.
“There is only one woman I truly love, and that love will never waver in all the many years that remain in my life. It will be unfaltering and unending, eternal and righteous.”
Ruby poked him in the ribs and tempted fate, “What is this woman’s name I should cut down in her prime?”
So it begins, she sighed. An argument amongst married nobles always ended up in what many called ‘frivolity.’
He returned her jibe with a finger of his own, and they wobbled away from one another with a skip and a giggle. The other more dignified patrons of Regent Park cast them furtive and disapproving stares from their rigid chequered blankets and from behind their afternoon papers. Young folk did not often enter into the stale realm of the city’s nobility, least of all in the more upper class districts, far from the destitution of the Numarr Slums and the privy red light district to the south of the wall.
Mr Winchester gestured to the sun, running up an embankment to crest its wave and look down at his wife. She wrinkled her nose, and stowed the parasol to chase after him, tucking it under her arm as her inappropriate footwear dug little rivets into the carefully tended lawn. As she got half way, he disappeared over the far side and came to a stop at the foot of the incline. He turned around with a jump, the lapels of his jacket furled up from the rush of wind, his tails and top hat eschew with the most excitement he had had in over a month.
“Come on!” Ruby roared down at him as she reached the top and slapped her knees.
He looked up at her with a cheeky smile and set his hands on his hips, as if to say ‘hurry up!’
“This isn’t fair; do you know hard it is to run in this corset?”
“My true love would never wear such ludicrous heels and attire to roam the wonderland of my heart’s desire!”
Ruby rolled her eyes.
“Oh, it’s an allegory. You’re winding me up with an allegory!” She let her words bounce down the grass and cut the heads of the wavering daisies with spite.
“Of course my dear, my true love is not a woman, except in spirit.”
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