Fan Fiction ❯ Don't Kid a Kidder ❯ Chapter 11 ( Chapter 11 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Don’t Kid a Kidder

by Rosy the Cat

Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own X-men and the various comics titles and movies, etc. They belong to Marvel. I do, however, own in the creative sense Margaret Kidder, her family and any other original characters I end up writing into this story. Steal anything of mine without permission, and I’ll round up a lynch mob of my fellow writers. This story was inspired by Gevaisa’s “Minion” and “Lady Doom,” which both kick ass, as does she. Before anybody launches any protests, she knows quite well what I’m doing and she’s probably more excited about it than I am. In fact, as of a few chapters back this story has joined continuities with the “Minion” saga. Huzzah for friendships in fandoms!

Chapter 11

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We got through the rest of the reception line with no more delays, thank God. I don’t think I could’ve stood any more nervous embarrassment like that. Maybe if there hadn’t been so many other people around I wouldn’t have done as badly, and actually had something resembling a real conversation with Queen Joviana, albeit a short one considering the time constraints.

And then we were directed to our table under the Lunch Pavilion...

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“Ooh! Prezzies!”

“...Kitty?” My tone had Miss Munroe glancing back from her discussion with King T’challa, to his annoyance, and Dr. McCoy aborting his meandering wander amongst his super-heroing colleagues that had been vaguely aimed toward the seat with his name on it at their table and re-directed into a beeline toward me. He later told me that he thought all of the emotional stress of the day--and possibly the past month or so--on me had been wreaking havoc on me, and thus I was on the verge of shutdown or something, only he used more technical terms that I ended up looking up in the library. Not pleasant. I was promptly steered into my seat and a server asked to bring me some water and a glass of juice.

Note to self: no breakfast followed by only a rather small cheese quiche-thingie is not a good thing. It had probably been what had affected my shield control when I met Queen Joviana too, so yeah, I’m definitely not going to skip out on food if I can help it ever again, no matter how nervous I’m feeling at the time. By the time I’d stopped shaking and calmed down, reinforcing my shields to their proper strength again, more people had arrived so the tent was starting to look actually full. That’s when I noticed the presents that the guests all received, which was what Kitty had been so enthused about initially.

“Ooh, books!”

Kitty grinned and said in a relieved tone, “I think Miss Bookworm is better now.”

I sniffed in faux-indignance, not even suppressing the smile that had lurked itself onto my face, “I’ll have you know that, barring Omi Goldberg and my aunts, I’m from a long line of nerds, Miss Dragon-tamer.”

At each place, there were the wedding favors: one beautifully bound and illustrated copy of a Midsummer Night's Dream, and an Everyman Library collection of poems on the subject of marriage--those were what got me giddy, ‘cuz, well, BOOKS. I love books, be they text books or sci-fi or fantasy or history or scientific journals, though those last I’ve always only been able to get a hold of through school or public libraries, and school never had much of any. That Dr. McCoy keeps a bunch in his office and the infirmary AND Xavier’s student library quite ably explains why he’s in my top three favorite teachers of All Time. Well, so far.

There was also an 18 karat gold--not gold-plated, but solid gold, commemorative medallion. The front of it showed the happy couple in profile, facing one another, with the date and the Latin phrase ‘Quod Deus Iunxit’--which translated as 'Whom God Has Joined.' The back just had what I assumed was the Von Doom crest. Apparently there were also sterling silver versions, one for each Latverian citizen.

That last item was what got me nervous again. The only gold ANYTHING I’ve ever owned is my baptismal cross with its chain, which is an heirloom and thus didn’t cost my parents anything, and that’s rather small and understated while being nonetheless pretty. That makes sense considering I’ve had it since I was a baby, but still, the medallion is a lot of money; not only just the gold itself, which was about the same size as the Troy Ounce silver coin-shaped ingots I’d seen used in my jewelry classes at my old school, but also it’s collectability or whatever. I mean, Mom and Dad each have a wedding band, but those are still rather small and serve an obvious function, and mom has some serious jewelry that she keeps locked into a small safe even though she sold most of her pieces when money got tight--the pieces remaining were Goldberg family heirlooms, like my cross was a Kidder family one, unlike the stuff Omi and Opa bought for Mom when she was my age or whatever.

The point was, that medallion represented one of two things: 1) a reminder of my experiences today, that I could keep and cherish and show to my children--God willing--someday, or 2) having my immediate family not only in the black, but possibly even with a few small luxuries, for an undetermined as of yet length of time. Damnit, being the responsible oldest child SUCKS sometimes!

Note to self: keep it in a safe place for the time being, and ask my parents at the mid-term break. Maybe it’s naive of me, but I trust their judgment. And until then, I got a cool shiny thing to admire.

At that point I had to put my gifts to the side as someone directed all of the guests to stand up and turn towards the tent’s entrance.

The steward of the dining room announced, "Their Majesties, King Victor and Joviana, Queen of Latveria." That was apparently the correct way of announcing them; Doctor Doom had “King” in front of his name by right of birth and conquest, while Ms. Flo...Florescu-VonDoom?--who had married up, had the title after her name. The assembly applauded, and they swept in. Queen Joviana’s reception gown reminded me most of a simplified, sleeveless version of Neo Queen Serenity’s dress in the Anime series and comic books Sailor Moon: an empire waisted dress of gold-embroidered white silk, with a long, flowing float-y skirt and a golden bow defining the waist. Her necklace looked like a branch of wild roses twisted around and magically poofed into silver and emerald leaves with diamonds shaping the flowers. Very pretty, and went with my mental Anime association.

As they made their way to the high table, Her Majesty looked around at everyone and everything. Big ol’ chicken me, I ducked my head instinctively to hide, a slight blush tingeing my cheeks, according to a teasing Kitty. Everyone sat down, and we finally got to look at the menu.

It said:

1) Cream of Carrot Soup with Lovage or Pheasant Consommé.

(Neither of these sounded familiar. At all. I ended up going with the pheasant because it couldn’t be too different from chicken, and while I like carrot sticks I hate carrot in any sort of cooked form. Ick.)

2) Green Apple Sorbet.

(Hey, that should be like a sour apple lollipop turned into a frozen lemonade type of thing, right? Yum!)

3) Grilled Brook Trout on a Bed of Wilted Field Greens; Mamaglia With Herbs.

(Apparently mamaglia was cornmeal mush, also known as polenta, grits, or semolina. I foresaw for myself just pulling the trout to bits and moving it around the plate, as the only seafood I liked was fried shrimp. Fish sticks always made me gag with their fishy-ness.)

4) Lemon Sorbet.

(Frozen Lemonade!)

5) Chicken Roulade with Apricots, Almonds, and Barley; Steamed Mélange of Fresh Vegetables.

(Okay, ignoring the veggies, that sounds pretty good. Though I didn’t know what the heck Chicken Roulade was, apricots are always a plus.)

6) Pear Sorbet.

(...Huh?)

7) Pork Loin with Lemon and Bay Leaves.

(That sounded pretty darn good, actually.)

8) Salad of Heirloom Beets with Walnuts in a Pomegranate-Citrus Vinaigrette.

(Umm...No. I’d try it, but I doubted I’d like it.)

9) Rose Petal and Champagne Sorbet.

(Well that sounds different.)

10) Wedding Cake.

(No idea how they’re going to pull that off, as I’d seen two wedding cakes pulverized during the Kitchen Incident. Poor cakes, they looked lovely.)

So, yeah, even with me not eating some of the listed courses, I figured I’d end up stuffed to capacity. Yay!

So there was speech-making by people who obviously knew at least Doctor Doom well enough, and then lunch. I’m pretty sure I made the right decision about the soup, and the green apple sorbet was really, really good, for all that there was only about a spoonful or two. Maybe I can talk to Mom about seeing how expensive something like that would be from a grocery store, because I think that would be pretty tasty and refreshing on a hot summer day in a larger quantity.

Ooh, and the wedding cake! It ended up being graduated tiers bordered by stood-up mini-sponge cakes, with strawberries and whipped cream, and sugared flowers scattered decoratively on top, so it looked kind of like each level was a miniature fenced garden covered with snow, with spring flowers popping up from underneath. As pretty as the original cakes were, I really liked the cake that ended up being served much better; it just looked more approachable and, well, edible. Tasty, too!

There was some awkward tension after the last dishes were cleared and Dr. Doom gave a gift to Mr. Fantastic: his--that is, Dr. Richards’--patents. You know, I’d been wondering for a while why the world was so crappy when all sorts of science magazines I’d been reading kept claiming all sorts of environmentally-friendly tech had been invented by the heroing types over the years. It turned out my parents’ mildly-paranoid assertions were correct: Big Business was trying to kill everybody by long-term poisoning while destroying the planet’s ecosystem. Boo! Hiss!

On the plus side, who knows what kind of cool hero-inspired medical technology I’d have to play with by the time I was in Med School, not to mention when I finally had my degree! I couldn’t suppress a little mental witchy cackle.

In any case, we all made our way out to the picnic-esque area--though we had chairs under either trees or sun umbrellas--that was seating for the production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which explained the presence of the book version.

To be honest, the play confused me from the moment I glanced through the Dramatis Personae. To be specific, most of the character names did not match what was written in the description. Titania, Puck and Oberon largely fit with what I knew from watching Disney’s “Gargoyles” when I was younger--Puck rocked, so no giggling!--but seriously, Theseus was NOT the “Duke of Athens,” he was the Prince of Athens who ran the Labyrinth of King Minos and killed the Minotaur, brought back the entire group of Athenian youths intended to serve as human offerings to the Minotaur, plus King Minos’ daughter, and became King after finding out his father had committed suicide when he mistakenly thought Theseus was dead. And don’t get me started on what Shakespeare did to Hippolyta! Arranged marriage my ass! Nobody arranges anything for the frickin’ Queen of the Amazons!

It was a touch easier to suspend disbelief for the parts that didn’t involve those two characters, though I did get an occasional annoyed twitch whenever I was reminded that the Bard had shoved Elizabethan social constructs and culture along with Greek and Celtic mythology together like some kind of crazy written smoothie: amalgamated flavor with more than a few chunks of discord that wasn’t properly liquefied by the blender.

It was toward the end of the second intermission that I got another chance to speak to Queen Joviana...

When she stopped by our group and asked us what we thought of the play, Dr. McCoy smiled and replied, “A marvelous interpretation. I’m finding it quite inspiring. Xavier’s has never had a tradition of putting on a play—perhaps I will institute one, while I’m there.”

“You’re taking up teaching there?” she inquired.

“For the time being. Professor Xavier’s health was taxed during recent…events, and he’ll be recuperating for a while, I believe.”

“I hope he recovers swiftly and completely. I think that Xavier’s School will only benefit from your tenure there.”

“Thank you,” said Dr. McCoy. “I think that Latveria—and your new husband—can only benefit from your presence here.”

“How charming of you! I hope your students are enjoying the play as well.”

She looked at the rest of us. Miss Munroe said that, yes, she was, and she appreciated that the Fairy Queen was being played by a woman of color, and Kitty added her appreciation, but I just had to open my big mouth and say, “It’s enchanting and beautiful—but it’s incredibly inaccurate, historically speaking...” At that point I was just horrified and fervently wishing that I had Kurt’s powers so I could poof myself away home to the family apartment and hide under my bed in embarrassment.

“Well, yes,” she agreed. “If you think of the characters as having been named for the historic figures, maybe that will help.”

“Err, yeah. Thank you,” I managed to get out without squeaking, thank GOD. Nevertheless, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was blushing like crazy. Surprisingly enough, Queen Joviana’s advice helped a great deal, and I stopped feeling the need to cringe all the time during the rest of the play. Go team me!

So, after the final curtain call, we mingled with the other guests for a while, though I unfortunately have to admit I finally conked out for the night less than halfway through the fireworks, and was brought around thus:

Kitty: “Meg? Wake up; we have to back to the hotel now.”

Me (grumbling sleepily): “Wake up and go to bed; is there any sillier statement a person can make?”

Kitty: “Probably. Let’s go, we’ve got a long flight tomorrow, and then back to classes.”

Me: “No me gusta.”

So...we went back to the hotel. And I crashed into bed after changing into my pajamas and hanging up my Nice Dress. That’s it.

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Author’s notes: As always, this is dedicated to my buddy/beta reader Gevaisa, who rocks! Further dedication goes to my beloved princess kitty-daughter, who passed away over a month ago only a few days away from her twentieth birthday:

Now in God’s Grace
In all her Fluffy Majesty,
Katrina Chrystal
1986-2006

So until later, thanks for reading and please review. Reviews, after all, put a smile on my face!

-- Rosy the Cat
9/22/06