Possible Side Effects Chapter One
Apr. 11th, 2010 02:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This is a WiP that I've been tinkering with over on ff.net. I'd be most interested to hear what ya'll think of it over here.
Summary: Jabberwocky blood is valuable, but has a short shelf life. Then, there are the possible side effects...
Rating: PG13
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She was always meant to go galumphing back. He knew this. After all, he'd recited the poem to her--it's not like he was completely oblivious as to what Fate had in mind for her. However, he'd hoped, towards the end, that it was perhaps something else the author had gotten wrong, some other minor detail that had been overlooked, or perhaps added in for dramatic flair. Hadn't the dratted thing referred to soft, nicely proportioned Alice as male? Despite his admittedly mixed use of pronouns, Tarrant knew that she most certainly was not. Male, that is. So if that part of the legend had been wrong, well, why not the galumphing back bit? That made just as much sense as being incorrect about her sex. That seemed like an awfully important detail, that, whither or not Underland should expect a male or a female champion to save them.
Why, that was part of the reason they'd all felt so safe, it was--as long as they'd had a female bound to the armor, as they had that Horunvendush day, then they needn't worry about a Jabberwocky, because the one the horrid creature would fight would be male, would he not? So to a typically mad Underlander's thinking, a female in the suit was divine, because if there was no male wielding the sword, then there was no reason for the Jabberwocky to fight as well, right? Oh, how wrong they were! Tarrant didn't blame the White Queen; they had all felt the same way.
So it was with no small amount of fear, but a greater amount of hope, that he had told Alice she could stay, on this Frabjous Day. If one such detail could be wrong, then surely, surely, this one could be as well?
But it was not to be. She drank the blood, and all that was left for him to do was wish her Fairfarren. She evaporated, as Chess is still wont to do, and was gone.
Immediately after, the Queen had clapped her hands, twice, and a page stepped forward, opal encrusted box in hand. Mirana gracefully opened it (as she knew no other way of opening it), and therein sat rows upon rows of empty, pewter topped vials. Jabberwocky blood was too rare, and too valuable, to waste, even if harvesting it did make her gag. Besides, the sooner this was done, than the sooner she could commence the celebratory feasting.
"Hatta." she called loudly. (But not too loudly! That was not her way.) Tarrant walked towards her, carefully, feeling as though he were the one dreaming now, and not Alice. For surely her evaporation would just prove itself to be a bad dream, one that would itself dissipate upon waking? His kilt swung as he stopped before the Queen. She herself turned from her seated position (as another page, useful creature, had somehow or other procured herself a seat, so she did not need to place her Whiteness upon the dirty battlefield) and, smiling so that just a hint of a dimple showed, requested, "Would you fetch me the vial our dear Champion left behind her?"
He didn't need to go far. Still moving as though he was underwater, a be-thimbled set of fingers reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, where sometime between Alice's leaving and the White Queen's harvest preparations, the glass vial had found it's way there. Presently it was out and passed into her pale hands, the sight of which for an unaccountable reason made him want to sit upon the ground right there and have a good cry--and she, still smiling, held it once more under the monster's tooth. (It must be said that she tried very bravely to not gag or cough during this process, but that she was completely a failure in this regard.) Soon enough, though, the tube was full again, and she capped it with a flourish.
A smile bloomed across her features once again when she was not faced with open Jabberwocky jaws. Inclining her head a bit, she handed the vial to an unusually sober Hatter.
"It is not tea." she said gravely, "but may help, nonetheless?"
He took it, and placed it back in it's position in the left breast pocket interior of his jacket. It was unwise to refuse the gift of a Queen, even if that Queen was as benevolent as Mirana, and even if it was an unwanted one.
"Twas her decision to leave." he burred, inclining his own, behatted head towards her once, a faint gesture of respect. Turning on his heel to leave, he added, "I shall not be galumphing after her. 'Twould be gallymoggers."
"I never said you should, Hatta." was the Queen's gentle reply, the like of which made the man stop in his tracks. "A wish is a wish. It does not need to be used for travel, or Alice retrieval, unless that is what you desire. Think on it. The blood shall keep for seven days. After that, it may have…" here she paused, obviously groping for the right word, "unpredictable side-effects."
He nodded, once. "Aye, your Majesty." The reply was delivered without turning back around. "Now begging your pardon, but there's a feast being prepared that I need to not attend right now."