A preview, while you wait.

Writing is ongoing! I had planned to get one chapter a month done, but it looks like it'll be a little longer. Unpredictable work keeps jumping up at me.

It wasn't long before she heard the crackle and crash of a body pressing through the long grass behind her, accompanied by a steady, rumbling monologue of the old gardener, Slowpoke, to some unnamed and unspeaking companion.

Star turned her head toward the voice, just as Slowpoke's own face emerged into her little clearing amongst the ornamental grasses to which she had retreated.

"Afternoon, your ladyship," he grunted, accompanied by a perfunctory flick of a hoof to his brow. "I hope you'll forgive the intrusion."

Star nodded, frowning just a little as a young unicorn tottered up at Slowpoke's side and curtsied in her general direction. "No intrusion, Slowpoke. I was just taking a moment away from everything."

"Right you are, ma'am, only that's prob'ly why young Sunrise here was wantin' to find you."

"Oh, the new girl."

The maid curtsied again. "Yes ma'am. Sunrise Song, ma'am."

"I'm well aware of your name." Star shuffled around to get a better look at the maid, whose pale yellow coat contrasted sharply with the the charcoal grey of her uniform. "Have they sent you on any more fool's errands this week?"

"Ma'am?"

"You know, like the time they all had you looking for a new doorknob turner? Though I personally thought the ceiling polish was much more creative an idea."

"Oh." Sunrise Song frowned and pouted at the revelation. "His Lordship asked me to find you, ma'am. He seems to be of the opinion that you're hiding, ma'am."

"Of course I'm hiding," said Star. She stretched out, not caring how her coat was rubbing into the earth. "I would prefer not to have anything to do with the cretins that always show up to every social event we host in this place."

Sunrise Song curtsied yet again. "Yes ma'am, only he was very specific that you speak to him, ma'am. It's about the Prince."

"He ain't here," Slowpoke added.

"Really?" Star put a hoof to her chest and rolled her eyes toward Slowpoke. Then she grinned. "Suddenly the day doesn't seem quite so terrible. Sunrise, be a dear and tell Lucent that I shall be along in a moment and if you so much as think of curtseying again," she added, with a stern glare in the maid's direction. "I shall not be held responsible for my behaviour."

Sunrise Song's eyebrows made a valiant attempt to meet her ears. She swallowed, stuttered a half-formed response and skittered away through the grass at a respectable clip.