The Count from the Council neither agreed nor refused. He had to go back and ask his master.
"The Council won't refuse," Annan said confidently.
"Why?" the Skeleton King asked, playing along.
"The Scarlet Queen never shows herself. If I were one of the Councilors behind them, I'd take a chance to observe the Queen from up close with the Stuart Family."
"I'll do it," the Crimson Princess said excitedly.
At first, Annan had thought the Crimson Princess would object to having the Queen play Elizabeth. Instead, she looked eager to begin.
With the last problem settled, Annan was ready to start filming.
The first scene of Five Hundred Years of Terror: Count Dracula shared a tender moment with his wife in the castle, then received orders from the Royal Palace to lead his troops into battle. A political enemy spread a false report that he had died on the battlefield, and the grief-stricken Elizabeth killed herself because of the rumor...
The battle and political scenes were easy enough to film. The real problems all came from the Scarlet Queen.
After more than ten days of recovery, the Queen could stand and walk slowly, and no one could see how weak she still was. But whether she stood or sat, she looked noble and aloof. Her scenes with Annan resembled "a warrior kneeling before his Queen" far more than "a loving couple."
The Scarlet Queen made the same mistakes no matter how often she was corrected, and some of the Actor from Free City began to frown.
Worried that tensions would flare between the Actor, Annan quietly drew them aside. "The Queen is at least a thousand years old. Even your ancestors' ancestors would have called her Old Ancestor. We need to be patient with her..."
Filming resumed, and