Eilonwy sighed and pulled up a bit of her hair to examine it in all of its red-gold sogginess.  "I look like a doll someone tried to use for a mop." She crossed her arms. "All of this dratted hair washing." She immediately wished she had kept her mouth shut. No doubt that would send the Queen off correcting her.

            And indeed it did. "Don't complain child, it's not becoming, and stop playing with it, you'll rat it all up. Besides that you'll get you're embroidery wet." She leaned over. "My goodness what is that? A pig?" Queen Teleria eyed Eilonwy "Hardly a befitting subject…but maybe you'll stay with this one."

            Eilonwy hardly saw any reason why she should have finished anything else.  It wasn't as if there was any use for another handkerchief with blue flowers all over it. You couldn't blow your nose on something you had spent that long on, and if anyone else did they deserved to have their fingers pricked and their knuckles ache, not to mention a few hair washings. She decided that explaining this to the Queen might be less than wise. It was a real setback having no one to talk to but the Queen, but they had outright refused to let her tour Mora with Rhun, and obviously Taran was home at Caer Dallben with Coll and Gurgi and Hen.  It was hardly fair that he got to be with everyone and she got to be with no one but the Queen, and a few random ladies here and there.  Talking to them about how bored and lonely she was was like complaining about digging to a mole.

             Quietly she tried to remember what Hen Wen looked like. She was white, of course, but what color were the insides of her ears? Her hooves? Her eyes?  She had penciled in Hen Wen's form to remind her what lines to stay in to get it right.  Beside the pig was a more shadowy sketch where she hoped to put in the Assistant Pig Keeper who took care of her. 

            "Aren't pigs traditionally depicted as-don't slouch over it like that-pink?"

            "This is a particular pig." Eilonwy replied  "Hen Wen, Dallben's pig. My friend Taran is fond of her."  She sighed.

            "I know, Taran, the boy with the torn cloak."

            "Oh don't remember for the torn cloak!" Eilonwy stammered, putting down her embroidery. "That's rude, when he saved your son and he is such a good friend of mine, it's like remembering a rose garden for one bent petal." 

            "Calm down child." Queen Teleria replied, without looking up from her own sewing. "I meant no offense, I am sure he's a fine lad, pick up your sewing and keep working or you'll never finish Jenren."

            "Hen Wen." Eilonwy corrected.

            "Whatever." The Queen handed Eilonwy her embroidery "Back to work, dear, and don't make faces like that, you'll give yourself wrinkles.

            Eilonwy could have screamed. She didn't care about wrinkles. She wanted wrinkles; you couldn't teach a girl with wrinkles to be a young lady.  "Whatever" indeed! And the Queen though she could lecture her on manners, she couldn't even get Hen's name right. She was worse than a tone-deaf music teacher.   Eilonwy sighed and took the embroidery from the older woman and, sullenly, started to sew again, staring blankly out the window as she did so.   The sea…It made her want to go swimming.  Not for the sake of swimming, but for the look on all of those proper ladies faces when she jumped in.  She sighed and looked back at the sewing and gave up the idea.  The water here was too rough for that sort of thing, besides she'd likely sink in her million layers of dress.  Furthermore, she hardly wanted to get her hair wet , now that it had dried. They would surely make her wash it again.

            What she really wanted from the sea was a boat, to take her home.  She would have even settled for traveling with Rhun around the island, for she even missed him.   The clumsy prince wasn't the best of company, but he did talk of things that weren't sewing or dresses or balls or feasts. He had no interest in who was courting who, or where the queen had bought the new set of dishes, and he wouldn't tell her to calm down or stop brooding.   All in all he was far better company than the Queen and her swarm of bees.

            But he was off doing what she couldn't, adventuring.  I was enough to make you jump up and down and scream! 

            Eilonwy was hardly paying attention at all now to the embroidery, which she was reminded of by a sharp pain in her thumb.  She yelped and dropped it on her lap.

            "Careful dear." Queen Teleria admonished mildly

            Eilonwy glared.  Being near that woman was enough to make you want to jump out the window and try to fly home. 

            Prince Rhun was having considerably more fun.  The soldiers with him were not.

            They were on their way home but Rhun had insisted on stopping and trying to pick flowers.  It hadn't worked; he'd managed to find a straggly few but he'd put them in his bag and they'd wilted overnight.  Now he'd just gotten up to his knees in mud trying to build a new bouquet. 

            "Do you think the princess will like them?" He eagerly asked the soldier next to him.

            The man stared back. "I suppose." He managed, unenthusiastically. They weren't particularly pretty, a little wilted and rather muddy. 

            "I certainly hope she does. She's been so miserable since her friend left, perhaps she should come along next time, she is to be queen, but mother would never stand for it would she, besides there was a lot of mud this time hardly befitting a princess.  I can't wait to get back home at any rate, it's nice to see things but it's nice to sleep in your own bed as well.  It shouldn't be long now. " He put his hands on the saddle to mount and realized he was still holding the flowers. "I say, what do I do with these…I hadn't thought of that…" 

That's it for now, but there will be more SOON.  Please read and review! Here is the disclaimer part : I don't own any of the characters, places, things, or analogies, all of them are Lloyd Alexander's, except the analogies, they are Eilonwy's (which would make them Lloyd Alexander's by proxy, but they aren't in the books so I don't think he wants them. She gave him better ones)