i. cleaning

She doesn't mind the cleaning - honestly, she does not. It is work, and in contrast to everything else she sees in this place, it is work that does not involve a single weapon to be seen. Only her, a broom, and memory of watching servants. It takes her a second, watching others, lips blue against the cold, a scarf tied tightly below her chin, and that crowning mane of hair that - she has done her best to tame it, honestly she has, but it escapes it pins and its wimple in the whipping winds. The hard press piece of linen slowly pushing its way back from her face with each turn of her head.

Eventually, it gives up the battle. Despite her best attempts to keep it in place, as she bends to pick a stray bit of glass, the material makes its final bid for freedom against the winter air. The linen snatched free and her hair springs out like a poorly disciplined child.

She does not curse - a lady would never - but she is not fast enough to catch it with her hands full of glass. For the first time, she raises her voice: "Someone, catch it, please!"

ii. the waking sea

At first thought, the notion of going to an island brings comfort. Of being near a sea - that some glimmer says if it is the waking sea, does that mean something is alive beneath it? Would she find some measure of home amongst these strange lands and their mingling spirits? She doesn't rightly know, but she hopes so.

But it is foolish. She finds no home, on wretched toys. The things are filled with spiders. So, very, many, spiders. She is not the squeamish sort, so she prides herself. There is just a line, a line that must be drawn when the spiders drops down in front of her face, reaching for her from the mouth of a stained porcelain face. It is huge, black, and she swears she could hear it laughing.

The shriek is notable at least for just how piercing it is, as she turns tail and runs back for the shore. Those sightless dolls with their sweetly smiling faces the truest witness to her great and tremendous courage. Thank Sea-Father that there was no one here to witness it.

iii. book

pretty babe-a-sweting, thy cradle is green,
they father's a nobleman, thy mother's a queen.

I can't think another line. What rhymes with Queen?