wanderamaranth | Possible Side Effects, Ch. 18

Disclaimer: The usual. Don't own, don't sue.

Chapter 18: Dream Battle

A/N: There is a bit of my gobbly-gook Old English version of Outlandish in this chapter. Translation in full a/n at the bottom of the page. :)

"Mother." Stayne greeted the Duchess coolly.

"Don't 'Mother' me, Ilosovic!" the Duchess huffed. "Idiot!" She mostly ignored with practiced restraint his obvious wince at the hated slur. Her over-large lips were dragged down into the most ferocious frown, and Stayne could feel Snellum quivering in his pocket.

"You did everything in your power to keep me away from the Red Court; don't go pretending I am important to you now, when it may be advantageous to you! Why, almost every invitation the Red Queen sent me to croquet, you intercepted!"

"To save your head!" Stayne asserted. "Don't be ridiculous, Mother! Do you really think between Iracebeth's temper and your own, you would have survived many encounters with her?"

"I guess now we'll never know, will we, Ilosovic?" the Duchess removed her ham-sized fists from her hips, and with a daintiness that seemed almost obscene in one proportioned such as she, spread her skirts and sat upon the ground.

The White Pawns, which had been hovering nearby in a confused manner (which, Stayne thought viciously, was all they were really good for. To claim to be an elite soldier in the White Army was like saying you excelled at ponce-ry; why, they had to have Alice fight their battles for them, and Stayne would hardly call her a robust physical specimen. Oh, a fine physical specimen, yes, but hardy? Battle-ready? No, not hardly. So Pawns, which were the lowest soldier, the ones just freshly out of basic training, were mindless and useless. Unless one wished to put as many bodies as possible between a Queen and the enemy. Then they had their uses. But still…) sat around her in a circular formation, spears planted into the ground.

"Boy!" the Duchess interrupted Stayne's rumination, and he made what he hoped was the appropriate noise. Sighing in a manner more like a grunt than a actual exhalation, the Duchess repeated herself. "Since my only child-" she glared her tiny, barely mammalian eyes at him, "took it upon himself to ruin my life of leisure as a member of the Red Court, I am on my way to see the White Queen, to ask that she not Banish me as well!"

She sneezed, and pulled out a handkerchief liberally coated in ground pepper. The Duchess wiped this under her already inflamed nose, and sneezed again, more violently this time.

Stayne ran a large hand down his face, incredulous. "Firstly, I am hardly your only child. How many of my brothers and sisters are happily grunting in the Tulgey Woods?" He finally removed his other hand from the pommel of his sword, as it seemed his mother was simply being ridiculous, (a specialty of hers) not dangerous. Not at the present time, at any rate. "Issue the second- life at the Red Court could hardly be called one of leisure! I worked and I bled and I strived for everything you had there. Thirdly…" he paused, as this was the most outrageous of his mother's statements, "Mirana is hardly the type of Monarch to Banish you when you had nothing to do with the Red Uprising." (The Red Uprising was what those Patriotic Members-or those who pretended to be- of the Red Court called the Horunvendush Day.)

"Nothing to do with it! I was a very Important member of the Court!" What Stayne thought was a sneer in his direction turned out to be another wracking sneeze. The Duchess paused long enough to wipe her nose with the pepper-kerchief once more. "Insolent Boy! She sent these guards to fetch me when I requested an audience!"

Stayne slid off of Parick, patting his neck in absent-minded reassurance as he did so. Parick tensed, but then realized the Knave was attempting to comfort him, even if the absurdly large man didn't realize it himself; he forced himself to relax and focus on the conversation between his rider and the one that birthed the man.

"Yes, they seem to be her fiercest, as well." Stayne said, but his sarcasm was lost on his mother. (She seemed to miss the key words of her own sentence-that she had requested to see Mirana, not the other way around.)

"Here, Boy!" she snapped her fingers and pointed to a spot directly in front of herself, and Stayne reluctantly went to her. "You will not ruin my chances at this Court as well! You and your Red Queen have brought nothing but misery to me!"

"The Red Queen is not my Queen!" Stayne said, piqued.

"Oh, and who then?" she blustered. "The only Queen I ever saw you make a fool of yourself for was Iracebeth!"

"I have Pledged myself to Queen Alice." Stayne told her, Pride clear in his voice and standing. The White Pawns that surrounded the Duchess gasped.

"The Champion has gained a Crown?" One asked, excitement clear in his voice.

"I fought on the Frabjous Day, you know!" another added boastfully. "I saw her slay the Jabberwocky!"

"Oh, you fought and managed to watch her slay the creature? Very industrious of you!" one of his companions noted, and promptly chuffed him upon the shoulder.

"Queen Alice? That precious little girl from long ago?" The Duchess asked. All of the former vitriol her demeanor held was gone. Her head was tilted in an overly sweet manner and smile quirked her thick lips. "My dear, sweet child!" she said rapturously. "Come here and give your mummy a hug!" She didn't wait for him, but rushed to his side and attached herself to him. Her head (minus the hat, which had fallen to the ground in her haste) only rested at the top of his knees. She kissed the knee her head rested against, and gazed up at him in adoration.

"Mother!" Stayne hissed, appalled. His mother was this way; when someone gave her an opportunity to advance her in Court-any Court, it now seemed-she was Accommodation personified. If, however, one could not provide her access to a Monarch, she was vicious in her cruelty. Besides that, she was embarrassing him in front of others!

"We don't have Time for this!" Snellum crawled out of the pocket he'd been tucked away in and pulled himself up to the Knave's shoulder. "As amusing as it may be." The Knave could hear the mouse's mirth at his situation in the tone of his voice. "We need to get to Marmoreal!"

The Duchess jerked away from Stayne as if he were contagious, and fairly quivered as she looked upon Snellum. "And just what" she asked, in a tone of horror, "is that?"

"That, madam," Stayne informed his mother, with a pleased twist to his mouth, "is Snellum, my companion." Paricia whinnied at this, noting Snellum's improved status in the Knave's eye by simple virtue of the Mouse disgusting the Duchess.

"And you are quite right." he directed at the Mouse. "This pointless conversation has gone on quite long enough." He pulled his sword, the steel hissing unmistakably in the quiet clearing. The Pawns, which had grown quite complacent once they heard the Knave was now sworn to Alice, scrambled for the spears they had planted into the ground.

Only a few were actually successful in pulling them back out with any sort of speed; the rest were struggling with them, breathing harsh when Stayne spoke again. "I would really rather not take the Time to fight you, Pawns." Flinging his hair away from his face (and inadvertently causing Snellum to gag on a mouthful of said hair) Stayne proclaimed, "It would just be tedious and embarrassing for you. So what say you? Will you allow me to simply tie you up so I may be on my way, or do I actually have to trounce you first, then tie you?"

The Pawns looked from one to the other, and almost unanimously decided that discretion in this case was the better part of valor, and immediately all sat upon the ground, and presented their hands for binding. Only one kept standing, a spear held firmly in his grip.

"My orders, Sir, were to escort this Duchess to Marmoreal." Adjusting the grip on his spear (and thereby giving away his inexperience, as well as his nervousness) he continued with, "I would be a poor soldier indeed if I knowingly allowed the Banished Knave to ride onward to my Queen."

The Duchess, while this was happening, was speaking in a shrill and ridiculous voice, demanding to know what Stayne thought he was doing, and why did he never have any consideration for her nerves? (This screaming was interspersed with an occasional sneeze.)

"What is you name, Pawn?" Stayne asked, carefully considering the soldier.

"Geoffrey." the Pawn replied, wondering why the Knave wasn't viciously hacking him down already. He'd heard many tales of the tall man's lack of mercy and fierce battle prowess. He wasn't looking forward to having to die at his hand (as Geoffrey knew he would do, fighting Stayne) but liked the anticipation of his looming Death even less.

"You, Pawn, are worth something. You're young." he paused, head tilting off to one side, "and poorly trained" (Geoffrey bristled a bit at this, as he thought his training had been quite vigorous enough, thank you!) "but have the courage necessary to make a good soldier, some day." Stayne turned from him and went to Parick's saddle, withdrawing the long coil of rope he had acquired from the Knights.

This he tossed to the Pawn, and said, "I have no desire to cut down such promise. The proper Queens of Underland will need those like you. Help me tie your companions, and you may ride Paricia with us to Marmoreal. If you still believe once we get there that I have ill intent for your Queen, well…" he smirked, "you can always try to stop me then. But know that I am riding to prevent her Death, not cause it."

Geoffrey considered the rope in his hands for moments. (These would have been silent moments, if not for the Duchess' caterwauling and his spineless comrades pleas to do No Such Thing.) What if the Knave were speaking the truth-that he had sworn himself to Alice, now a Queen herself, and his own White Queen was in danger? Not believing him was a risk he was not willing to take.

"You have yourself a bargain, Knave." he finally said.

"What d'ye mean, the Oraculum is blank?"

Chessur wound himself about Tarrant's shoulders, like those Above wore the skins of foxes. He purred against the back of his neck, hoping that the vibration would be enough to keep the man in the Present and prevent a torrential outpouring of the Badness.

His condition was all his fault, really. (Well, aside from the damage Mercury had caused; that was not his fault. But the trigger to his Madness…) So it was only fitting that he try to help him when he could.

The Cat claimed otherwise, with large eyes and a grin (his armor of choice, always) but he knew it was true. He'd allowed the boy he'd helped raise become a broken wind-up toy. It would have been easy enough to evaporate out a Hightopp or two, but he didn't. His selfishness led to this result; a lost man, with no clan or family, nothing but the madness that chased across his face and the shadows under his eyes. That, and the Hope of a better future-better, because anything, he believed, had to be better than the Hell he'd already lived through.

Chessur hated it when the Fire would flair up in his eyes. They'd turn that sickly yellow, then be overcome by red, the same way the fire had consumed every home upon Hightopp Hill. It'd been yellow, at the very first, after that purple flame struck it; then it rapidly turned to red, and everything burned, until all that was left was scorched earth, the same color as the skin surrounding his eyes would become. He'd curse and yell and spit, and Chessur would let him, because even in the incandescence of his rage, he'd never hurt him.

And because the Cat felt he deserved it.

"Becoming a sentimental fool." Chessur said to himself, tail curling and uncurling. "The Past is the one thing that can not be changed. Better to focus on the Present and the Future, boy-o."

"What was that?" Hatter asked, his brogue only slightly coloring the question.

"Blank means, Hatter, that there is nothing there in which to see. It is incomplete. Empty. Bare. Plain. Blank."

The Cat could taste the Badness as it began to radiate outward, darkening Tarrant's jacket and causing his curly hair to stand on end. (Well, more so than it stood on end naturally.)

"Your Paper, Tarrant. Where did it go?" Chessur asked quickly, and all the occupants of the room froze. He needed to distract his friend from the disaster of a Futureless Oraculum, and luckily recalled the curious Paper. It might even be useful.

Although as to it's Usefulness the Cat had his doubts; he was almost completely certain that Jabber had taken her to Somewhere Else Altogether, and if that was the case, no one would be able to follow them there. Only those that had walked between worlds could go to that Place. Absolem and McTwisp were the only ones present which had done so (as on the Hatter's trips to Somewhere Else his body was technically never gone from Underland) and they would be next to useless in a battle against Jabber. Their talents lay more in the cerebral spectrum. Not everyone could be so well-rounded as himself, Chessur knew.

The Hatter bolted from the room, leaving Chessur to float back towards the desk and the nearly useless Oraculum that sat upon it.

"Of course. The Paper." Mirana said, staring down at the Oraculum once again as well. She traced the figure of Alice wearing a Crown with light fingers. "Why did I not think of that?"

"Because you are too emotionally involved in Alice's fate." Absolem replied, and Mirana gave him a sharp look. "I did not say it was a bad thing, Mirana." he chided. "Merely that it prevents you from thinking objectively."

Mally sat quietly upon the floor, watching the interaction carefully. Any doubts she may have had as to the Queen's intentions towards Hatta and Alice were gone when Mirana did not deny Absolem's assertion. She was still attempting to decide what she thought of it when the Hatter clambered back into the room, Paper held in his fist.

"How is it that you had the Paper in your possession again, Hatta?" Mirana asked, just recalling that last she knew, the Paper had been in her possession.

"I woke with it in my hands." The Hatter said simply, as he leaned over the desk and smoothed it out. Per usual, when first unfolded there was nothing on the page save a slowly swirling dot. Then the picture began to form, and all were puzzled by what they saw there.

"She's just sitting in a room with a Cat on her lap." Mallymkun said, vastly unimpressed at the 'danger' Hatter was so concerned Alice was in. The image was not complete, however. The dot then skipped a short distance away from where the young woman sat and drew a dark shadow, with only a pair of eyes visible from within it. Even the black and white sketch was sufficient to portray the amount of malevolence those eyes held.

"Weeeelll…." she admitted, "That's less than good, I suppose."

"Do not tell me I would not help my Champion if I were able!" Mirana snapped, the cheerfulness of her voice cracking at the edges. Worry for Alice after seeing the Paper had caused the White Queen to do something she thought she'd never do. She sought to speak to Underland, rather than wait for Underland to speak to her. This required going into a deep meditative trance (which was unnerving for everyone else-save Absolem-in the room, as they'd never seen their Queen in such a manner) that drained much of her energy.

The Hatter, needing to feel useful (as he was going Mad just sitting, waiting for news of Alice-oh, if only he hadn't let go of her hand! What pain the Greed of his Lust had caused!) had fetched a new Tea tray from Thackery in the kitchen while Mirana hummed (as the tray the Queen had ordered earlier to share with her sister had gone Cold, and that Would Not Do, not at all!). When he returned Mirana was awake from her trance, and the news she had to share had not been what they'd hoped to hear.

She'd insisted that the Tea be poured and treats distributed before telling them what she'd learned, and in between bites of cake and tiny sips of tea, related Underland's words to them.

To say Tarrant was not pleased would be an understatement. The Badness nearly overtook him again, and was only able to stay in the Present due to Mally's quick thinking and even quicker work with a Hatpin.

The Hatter needed someone (besides himself, which he really suspected to be the Guilty party, but he did not want it to be him Very Badly, because if it was he, and if-when, he forced himself to say-Alice was safe from Jabber, then he would have to Explain his faults to her, and that would be…unpleasant) to blame, and the White Queen fit that role nicely. Unfortunately for him, the Queen did not take kindly to his Idea of distributing the Blame.

Mirana held her tea spoon like a scepter, and swished it dramatically in the air before she lowered it carefully. She picked up the tea cup in front of her, and the steam that had been rising from it abruptly stopped. A loud crack was heard as the cup shattered, and now-slushy tea landed with a splat on the White Queen's skirts. Standing briefly, she shook them clean, then sat down again, the icy tea and pits of porcelain forgotten under her feet. Her eyes met the Hatter's very deliberately. "Alice is in Underland's grasp, and She refuses to release her until the Contest betwixt her and the Jabberwocky is complete."

Chessur looked a bit alarmed at this. "You actually spoke with…Her?" The Cat said in concern, stopping himself just short of saying her name.

"Please do not casually use one of Her names, Chessur." Mirana sighed, warning him despite his catching himself. "She's already quite cross that we've even allowed this to happen to our Alice."

"My Alice." Hatter corrected, standing to lean over the desk. "My Alice." he repeated, slamming the flat of his hand down on the surface, causing all the bits and miscellany strewn on top of the erstwhile desk to jump and clatter. "She was ne'er more than a means to an end to ye, ye slatternly besom." His eyes burned with phosphorescent rage. "Until ye decided dif'rnly. But I…" he half turned away, his eyes scrunching shut in pain. Then he roared, and all of the pleasant little trappings (Tea tray included) atop Mirana's desk were swept away to the ground. "She was always the end to me! The cause and the reason! I killed Time for her! And ye…ye just…..Ye weyeden ten pound suist ye honeste cure, du I wiste verraily yur soule goon a-blakeberyed whilst ye lunv yur to-toron Haberdassheres, Webbes, un Tapycer du wreke hymslves!* Or worse-ye asked my Alice to fight yer battles for ye!"

"You are worried, and frightened for one very dear to you." Mirana said slowly, standing as well. Her eyes were sharp and focused. "For that reason and that reason alone, Hatta, I am willing to forgive your outburst here today. But I will not-" the word not was forced out, like the White Queen was speaking past shards of ice in her throat, "allow you to continue speaking to me in this manner. Do not presume to tell me what I do or do not feel, and when I felt it!"

A smile bloomed once more across her face as she stood and did several graceful turns about the desk to reach his side. "We have seen where she was taken, and it does not look to be an Evil place. We have petitioned Underland for assistance, and she has told us to have Faith in our Champion. Do you respect our Alice so little as to believe she is not capable of handling herself?"

Green resurfaced in the Hatter's eyes. "She shouldn't have to." he whispered, suit darkening to a slate grey. "She should ne'er of 'ad to.

"But she did." Mirana said firmly. "And she will. What we need to do is what we can to assist her, here." She stood. "Will you follow me to the kitchen?" she asked.

"What for?" the Hatter asked, his lisp more pronounced than usual in his emotional exhaustion.

"I want to make sure not a single trace of Jabber's blood is left within Marmoreal's walls."

"I believe I can be of some assistance with that." Chessur purred. "Evaporative qualities, remember? I can remove most traces of the Blood from your bodies, though it will be painful."

Smiling wider, a true grin of relief, this time, (as the White Queen hadn't really been sure what compounds she'd need to distill for a Potion to take care of that problem) Mirana said, "Your help will be invaluable, Chessur. I was thinking more of destroying what is in the Vials, though."

"Oh, yes. Quite."

"I will go with you to do that, Your Majesty." Mallymkun suddenly volunteered. Mirana looked at the small Mouse in surprise for a moment, before nodding her head in graceful acceptance and, pausing only to gather up the Dormouse in her hands, twirled out of the room, Absolem trailing behind.

Chessur turned to the Hatter. "Mirana would not let harm befall the Alice if it was within her power to prevent it, Tarrant." he said, gently.

"Just the Idea of her with that beast, in any form…" the man trailed off. "On Frabjous Day, I would have slain the Jabber for her. If she had allowed me." He looked down at his hands, the ragged yellow nails and swollen, jagged cuticles.

"I know, Tarrant." Chess said. He wasn't sure if his friend referred to Alice, the woman he was clearly in love with, or the White Queen, the one he'd Sworn fealty to, but he knew either to be True.

"Let us leave this room. It is too full of Hostile Recollections for my taste." the Cat suggested. "And…we can set about preparing for when Queen Alice arrives. She's going to need rooms, clothing…bedding…" he added in a suggestive impulse as he saw the Hatter was not really paying attention to his words. Tarrant's eyes flashed for a moment at the word 'bedding' (as the multiple Implications of said word were not lost to his Mind, but he forced them away with Effort) but settled back to green.

"Queen Alice." he said morosely. "If ever she were mad enough to accept my suit before, she willna now. Not as a Queen. There will be others…so many others, with much more to offer her than I can."

"Perhaps is you offered her something other than your suit?" Chessur teased in an attempt to lighten his mood. "It would fit her very ill."

Giggling despite himself, Hatter said, "Alice would look most pleasant in anything she so desires to wear. If it be something of mine-" (and what a wonderful Idea that was! What would she look like in his teal shirt with the cuffs? It would fall just at her mid-thigh, he knew, and he would barely be able to see her fingertips beneath. Would she have it mostly buttoned, or loose at the neck. Loose, Hatter decided. She could belt it and wear nothing but that, and he would be a Most Pleased man.) He sobered again and asked the Cat in a considering tone, "Is this my punishment, then, for killing Time? To Wait for her in this agony, to wonder at her Fate with every breath?"

"She will come back to you, my friend." Chessur said, floating in front of his face. "I know this is cold comfort, but I will attempt to Evaporate to where she is, and will Assist her in what ways I can."

The sun was shining brightly, glinting off the snow outside the window. A thin crystallized layer sat atop a fluffy base, presenting an unbroken blanket of sparkling beauty. Alice smiled out the picture window, and then returned her attention to her breakfast. She and Helen Kingsleigh sat across from one another at her mother's small breakfast table in her private sitting room. It was a handsome table set made of heavy dark wood, quite unlike what other ladies had in their parlors.

It was, Alice realized, her mother's own brand of muchness, to dare to have furniture that suited her rather than what was fashionable. She frowned a bit as the odd phrase tickled the back of her mind. What a perfectly nonsensical word, 'muchness'! Why, she should as soon as 'absolutivity' or 'contrariwisisivness'!

Unlike the way her table was usually set (so that both parties could sit across from one another and turn to look out the window the table, and in that way have pleasant and appropriate conversation,) Helen was now seated directly in front of the window, and Alice alone faced it full on. The sun was getting very bright in her eyes, and between that and the golden halo that surrounded her mother from said sun's rays, she had to squint to be able to see at all. Her mother's form was the barest shadow beyond the golden silhouette; her face was a black smear against the glare. She had a small tricorn hat perched atop her head, which was singular as well, as it was just breakfast (wasn't it?) and wearing a hat of that style to breakfast was impertinent indeed. Alice quite liked it.

"Is the breakfast not to your liking then, buttercup?" her mother asked, voice calm and slightly impersonal. Alice frowned a bit at it, but shrugged away her unease. It seemed it was just the morning for mother to be incongruous. Looking down, she saw a large glass of milk, a slice of toast, halved, and a half of a grapefruit, sitting in a crystal dish, a small red candied cherry in the middle. A dusting of white sugar completed this decadence, and Alice gasped in delight.

She picked up the runicble spoon, scooping out the flesh, feeling the juice sliding around on her fingers. The utensil was half-way to her mouth when she felt a cat rubbing her ankles between her legs, and she paused. It wasn't that the sensation was unusual, no…it was simply that she and her mother had no cat to rub against her ankles. Dinah, Bless her Soul, had passed away right after her father did. The double loss had been more than the young woman had wanted to bear.

She happened to look across the way at her mother, just then, once again. A flash of umber eyes and a trail of smoke came from the silhouette, and Alice's spine stiffened. Alice had the feeling that the figure sitting across from her was Not Her Mother, but that was simply ridiculous. Who else would it be?

Why did speaking and thinking in Capitalization suddenly seem so familiar, and so important?

You drank the wine? You ate of their food?

Her mother's voice spoke to her from memory, not the figure across from her. In the memory, it had sounded warm and caring, despite the concern and fear present there as well. The voice of the one presently in the room with her sounded…different. Less human, if she had to quantify it. T

he recollection those words of wine and food her mother spoke felt like a recent event, but she couldn't remember the rest of the conversation, and Alice's thoughts darted away from her like minnows from a foot dipping in a stream. She set the spoon down on top of the grapefruit, and frowned at it, forcing her mind to think on what was so important that she couldn't remember.

"Is something wrong, dear heart?"

Alice shuddered a bit at the endearment, but couldn't, for the life of her, begin to understand why such a thing should affect her so strongly. The nicknames just felt awful to hear!

"I feel as though there is something I'm forgetting that is awfully important. Something that I really should remember." Alice replied honestly enough, despite a churning in her stomach that told her she needed to lie. But lying to one's own mother seemed a terrible thing to do!

"They say, sugared plum, that the best way to remember things, is to forget that you were trying to remember at all. Eat up, and fret not about it!"

There was an eagerness present at the suggestion to eat, dare Alice say it, almost a compulsion behind the words, She had the spoon once again halfway to her lips before she was able to force her hand down. The Cat brushed against her legs again, and she glanced under the table to see it. Dinah's large green eyes stared back at her, but not the Dinah Alice had last seen, old and frail with the last bits of her life draining away from her. This Dinah was barely more than a kitten, and had one of those ridiculous bow-ribbons Alice hadn't put around her neck since…another thought crashed into her head as she stared at the too-young and very alive Cat.

She and her mother never ate grapefruit anymore.

It was something the whole family had enjoyed together, once upon a time, certainly. On Christmas morning, they would all gather together and eat grapefruit and laugh before going to open their presents. Margaret would try to sneak bits of Alice's grapefruit when their parents weren't looking, and more often than not Alice would share. They'd giggle when caught out, and Mother would scold Margaret, telling her to 'Let Alice have hers!'. Her father would wink at them both, and from seemingly nowhere produce two more of the exotic fruit, which they would take from him with joyful alacrity.

Since her father's death, their family had not partaken of that little ritual. Even the sight of a grapefruit last Christmas, after Alice had returned from China, (she had thought to perhaps encourage a happy memory in her father's name for the family) had reduced her mother to tears, and Alice had to ask a butler to take the fruit away.

"Is this Christmas?" Alice asked, and her mother's shadow cocked its head to one side.

"What a strange question, cherry cordial." her mother said, in that same slow, off-putting tone. "It is Summer's turn to control the Seasons."

Alice considered the odd phrasing of her mother's sentence as Dinah hopped upon her lap. She looked down at her dear friend and companion, gone these years. Tears welled in her eyes, before the vague memory of another voice forced her to stop.

Nothing was ever accomplished with tears.

She leaned close to the cat, studying its eyes, but they appeared the same they always had. Clear green and peaceful, if a bit wiser than a cat's eyes had any right to be. Dinah blinked solemnly at her, and Alice wondered if she'd gone even madder than people whispered she was.

Lifting her gaze to her mother, then, Alice was astonished to see eyes glowing red from her shadow. The young woman jerked to her feet, breath caught in her throat. Dinah slid off her lap but managed, with a Cat's grace, to land on all her paws.

"Who are you?" Alice demanded, fear quickly being replaced with anger. "You are not my mother!"

"No…" the sly voice said from the silhouette. "That I am not." It then gave a horrible burbling giggle, and blew purple tinted smoke in her face. Alice inhaled sharply even as she told herself it would be a Bad Idea, and then all she knew was the sensation of falling, and the feeling that her situation had just gone from strange to worse.

A/N: Here is the translation to the 'Outlandish' Tarrant spoke in this chapter.

*You dare say you care for honor, but I truly know your soul goes blackberry-ing while you leave your haberdashers, weavers and tapestry-makers to avenge themselves.

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