Bella is catching up on emails. It amuses her to agree to play the role of royalty at this random Renaissance faire that had the audacity to ask her if she'd be so kind to guest-star for a day, so she's telling them she'll do it presuming no emergencies come up and they don't give her excessively absurd lines to say.
[You can stick properties onto torching with evils, and take them off the same way, but those are also what I need to resurrect people if I don't want to wait for a batch, so even when I add new tweaks to my own powers I wait until I have a bunch of them lined up and get them all with one evil instead of doing it piecemeal, since I have hexes coming in more regularly.]
[So I'm going to go play the part of the queen at a renaissance faire that thought it would be fun to ask me just in case, and I told them I'd do it for a day if they didn't give me silly lines and I could bail in case of emergency.]
"I'm sure if you invite her to make you a dress, she'll make you a dress, but she can probably come up with something more traditionally kingly if you prefer. And yeah, the email said I could bring a co-star if I wanted. They were kindly gender-neutral about it, actually, had a little footnote about how they like to live in an alternate version of the past where things are nicer than they really were."
"I am not going to break up with you for looking any which way in a Renfaire dress." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "I don't think it's going to be a bonus, really. Frankly on you anything in the category of 'clothes' is not a bonus. Whether it'll be significantly differently attractive than you-in-clothes-at-baseline will probably depend on the dress, but I've never found drag appealing before. I do hope that's not a disappointment."
Queenie makes them an incredible pair of dresses. Lots of purple velvet, purple-and-silver brocade with a concentric circle theme for Bella, black-and-silver with a theme of birds and flowers for Ripper. And she and Ghosty insist on doing their hair. The result is rather magnificent.
And they arrive on time for the faire. The person who is supposed to greet them is pretty startled when they actually show up. "I was like," he says, "ninety-five percent convinced that one of your staff people agreed as some kinda prank and I was going to have to fill in."
"Nope," says Bella. "Any email that leaves my account signed 'Bella' is from me; the others say 'Imperial Staff'."
"If you don't have anything suitable picked out, maybe you could take the name they use for the non-guest-star queen?" Bella suggests. "I believe it was Annabelle. Unless that would be confusing or whoever plays Annabelle normally would object."
"No, that's fine," says the renfaire person.
"Their Majesties Isabella and Annabelle. All right," says the renfaire person. "Now, the only things you need to show up for are the knighting ceremonies for the kids at ten and noon and the joust at three; other than that you can just mingle and try to be Renaissancey. Faire food is comped for you but souvenirs aren't because those are independent suppliers. If you go to any of the shows they might riff a little on your presence, you can riff back if they seem to want you to and you have anything to say but it'll usually be fine to just smile and nod."
Bella is recognized, although the fact that she's not in her standard crown makes a few people dismiss her as a lookalike. Her appearance wasn't heavily advertised; they weren't sure she'd come. No one appears to know who "Annabelle" is, at least so far.
"Celtic metal it is." Off they meander to the correct stage, arriving a few minutes early, in plenty of time to get front-row seats while the band is setting up. One of the band members is trying to attract more audience, and immediately hits upon the royal attendance as a selling point to holler into the passing crowds ("Come on, you tasteless louts, even you can see that we're good enough for Their Majesties!"). Present the instruments are arranged, the seats are filled and there are more people standing in the back craning their necks, and the music begins. It is both Celtic and metal.
After two songs, there's a bit of patter by the same person who was yelling at people to come see the show while someone straps her bagpipes on. During this he double-takes at Her Majesty Queen Annabelle. "- speaking of musical influences, is it just me or does Her Majesty on the left over there look like Ripper from Wretched? Nina, do you see it?" Nina (the one with the bagpipes) nods.
There are more cunning little shops, and a stunningly bawdy comedy show, and a juggler who invites Bella onstage - she does a quick pentagoning and acquits herself much better than the juggler was expecting. There is another knighting ceremony, better-attended than the earlier one. There is chocolate-dipped cheesecake on a stick. And then their majesties are invited to preside over the joust. Bella has lines, for this; there's a bit of plot, with a wicked foreign knight challenging the local knights who were just having a friendly competition, and she got the script ahead of time and delivers it with appropriate vim. Ripper doesn't have to say anything, although he would do well to look appropriately approving or horrified at the correct points during the sequence of events.
Eventually the good knights of Underspecified Medieval Country Of Which They Are Queens defeat the intruder. There is falconing and more jousty-type stuff, Bella bids everyone a ceremonious goodbye and enjoins them to have fun at the remainder of the faire, and the queenly duties are officially discharged for the day.