by Narrator » Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:11 pm
Sam walked down the hallway immortalizing Katarina's awkward teenage years. Even golden princesses get zits, or awkward growth spurts, just like anyone else her age, and even the finest makeup artists and clothing designers in the kingdom couldn't hide all of it. It's just that most people don't have those moments depicted in 40-foot oil paintings, or in carefully explained diagrams encased in glass and put on display for all to see and observe. It wasn't all negative, mind you -- sprinkled in here and there were photographs of Katarina enjoying herself; copies of stories she had written that were awkward but well-intentioned; a small display of Nika-oriented materials, one of the few friends she had had. But, well, teenage years are awkward for anyone, and it was all on display here. That, itself, began to transition to more mutant-oriented things as it went along; presumably artifacts of Katarina trying to convince her father to let her go to university outside the welcoming, safe arms of Symkaria -- a Warhol-esque collection of paintings of Katarina in various X-uniforms from across the years being the centerpiece there.
Sam would overhear the patrons as she made her way through the ever-increasing crowds. Judgmental would be putting it mildly, though it wasn't all critical. It was just every minor piece of bric-a-brac; every fleeting thought and memory, being weighed, evaluated and dissected, for what it would mean for Katarina as a ruler, as a leader, as a judge, as a general, as Queen. Whether that was a representation of Katarina herself overanalyzing her situation or a reflection of actual real-world pressures placed upon her wasn't entirely clear; though it was clear that it wasn't entirely healthy.
The hallway came to an intersection, and then to an end. In front of Sam was the apparent destination of most of the crowds; a large open space, perhaps a converted ballroom. There were actual throngs of people surrounding some sort of glass case in the center of the room, though Sam would have to push through the crowd to see what was actually in there.
To either side of her, through the intersection, were a pair of closed doors; the first blocked-off parts of the museum she had come across. The lights were off in each hallway and were particularly unwelcoming, as the museum guided patrons towards the destination in the ballroom.