The Handmaidens

Art by Arthur Bowen Davies

I feel that there aren't enough courtly intrigue/romance resources, so I made this table to work towards amending that. Because I can't help myself, there is a smidge of implied setting, your mileage may vary. Enjoy!

D12 Handmaidens: What are they up to?

1	Returning from drinking with the elves. Her lips are flushed, her eyes are bright, her skin moist and chill to the touch. She looks around her warily, avoids thresholds.
2	Sewing a cloak for her brother. She repeats the pattern on the shoulder over and over, taking care to never reach the end. She is waiting for a messenger to tell her if she should complete it as hero’s raiment or a funeral shroud.
3	Pricking her fingers with a needle to see if she bleeds. Cursed with an illness of creeping stone, she has felt the heavy numbness sink into her hands.
4	Painting over a sovereign coin, obscuring her kings face with that of another, blue bearded and green eyed. Sorcerer King of an encroaching kingdom. She does not know this.
5	Has written on a mirror, backwards, with lipstick. Harmless enough, but the marks seem to be made on the underside of the substrate, not on its surface.
6	In a window seat, tending to a tiny boxed garden. Tiny silver shears clip the limbs of miniature oaks, an eyedropper of water irrigates the roses. And look, she polishes the little tower, dusts the minuscule girl in the window seat…
7	In the corner, cutting up a pear with a little golden knife. Juice runs down her chin. She sighs deeply. No! You can’t have any!
8	Striding through the halls, a hatchet, cruel and dirty, clenched in her perfumed fist. Her eyes are wide and clear, shining with purpose.
9	Listening intently to a cat. Really? The fool? I never would have thought… They do make a handsome couple… I didn’t even know he could speak! She bustles off, the cat padding quickly behind her.
10	Affixing little propellers, glistening with clear machine oil, to various objects. The room is filled with a high humming, apples and spoons and handkerchiefs and necklaces and a very confused kitten spinning slowly through the air.
11	Standing on the tower balcony, eyes grey and distant. Watching a flock of birds draw ever closer, swooping high through scudding clouds.  Are they hawks, or ravens, do you think? Perhaps they are vultures.
12	Fashioning a needlepoint of the queens face. She takes vicious pleasure in stabbing the needle through the eyes, over and over and over.