wanderamaranth | Possible Side Effects, Ch. 19

Summary: Jabberwocky blood is valuable, but has a short shelf life. Then, there are the possible side effects...

Warning: Hints of non-con in this chapter. Nothing extremely graphic, but wanted to put a warning up anyways. This chapter mostly contains dream-bits, so i didn't italicize them, as then most of the chapter would be italicized. The dreams should be fairly easy to recgonize, though.

Barefoot, the sand was hot under her feet, almost burning hot. Her movements felt ponderous and slow, her body much larger than it should be. Alice tried to look down at her feet, but was unable to. In fact, she couldn't move at all.

This is a different sort of nightmare floated through her mind, and then Alice Remembered. Whatever had been fogging her recollections during the last dream-and what she assumed must have been the Jabberwocky's first attack-had lifted. Alice had just enough time to hope that the remembrance stuck, and then she was at her destination. Or what she assumed her destination was to be, for she stopped in the middle of an expanse of red sand that looked much like all the red sand that came before.

She could feel a thick coating of grit laying over her teeth (which seemed to have grown in number by an alarming amount- her teeth, that is- and become much sharper, as well) as she bowed down before a figure many times smaller than herself. "Your Majesty." she said, and her voice was deep and urbane. It was indisputably the voice of the Jabberwocky.

"I have Compelled you across the Sands and you have Come. Do you know why?" a high, child-like voice demanded.

"No." Alice felt herself say, and finally lifted her eyes to the large headed woman. Iracebeth was holding a scepter in her hands, and was stroking it lightly. "Good." the Red Queen said archly. A twist of the scepter and then the hiss of metal revealed a hidden blade. She pulled it out, and examined the sharpened edge for a moment. "I know what it is that you can not resist, Jabber, son of Wocky." The punishing desert sun danced along the length of the blade as she pressed it into her own skin, splitting a wide path across the white of her wrist. Blue blood welled up, and Alice felt herself walking towards that blood, unable to remove her eyes from it.

"Drink of me and complete my Task." Iracebeth said, holding her bloody wrist up so that blue drops fell lazily into the sand. They were almost immediately soaked into the ground, and Alice felt a part of her-that part that was Jabber, that part that was reliving this memory-shiver at the sight.

This dream did not feel like what a dream feels to the average dreamer; it was more similar to a waking memory. (If Alice had ever dreamt a real dream, she would have been able to tell the difference, but she had not, so she could not.) There was a sense of inevitability to every action, a Knowing that whatever had happened here had already happened, and Alice could do nothing to change the outcome.

"Come, Jabberwocky!" came the shrill demand. "I have Compelled you; I have offered my Blood in Exchange for one Task of Binding. You must Obey me. Drink!"

A long tongue snaked forward and caressed the Red Queen's arm, and Iracebeth shuddered at the action, from joy or revulsion, Alice could not tell. Alice, who was at this moment Jabber, sat back on her haunches once done, and stared expectantly at the large-headed monarch.

"Jabber, son of Wocky!" Iracebeth put the knife back inside the scepter, her eyes flashing with triumph. "Do you now know what I Desire?"

"The High Crown of Underland." Alice felt herself say, and she did know. She could see Iracebeth's Desire for the future, all of the plans that had replaced a warm body next to hers at night, and they disgusted her. She could see the Red King's death, could see the attempted execution of Iracebeth's own children; what she could not see was why. Madness, perhaps, was the only answer?

"Precisely. All that is left of the Royals is myself and my little sister." the Red Queen confirmed. "That number needs to be lowered further. I want there to be one Queen, not two."

"She holds the Vorpal Sword." Jabber/Alice said, and Alice could feel the beast's distaste for that blade in their words. "I will not move against She who commands it's Bearer. Too often have my hosts fallen to the Vorpal One's blood lust. I shall not allow myself to live through such a moment again, no matter how Compelled! I shall not lose another to that Cursed Blade!"

"I'm not here for Mirana's death." Despite everything her sister had done, despite the fact that she deserved death, certainly, Iracebeth would not order that. Not yet. "I will do that myself. In fact, I don't want you to even fight her Champion, or face their Vorpal Blade at all."

Alice could feel Jabber's interest in this statement. If he had possessed proper ears, they would have been perked up.

"I want her humiliated. I want her trounced. I want everything she holds dear, the very Clan that has supported her and her reign for nigh these many years to be crushed, to be nothing more than a fragmented memory in the minds of those who saw their destruction!"

"Speak more plainly, she of Crims." Jabber spat. He was interested, but not patient enough to sit through her posturing. It was very hot out in the desert, after all. Alice could feel his ardent wish that he could resist being Called at all, and the slightly bitter tang that still lingered on his tongue from Iracebeth's blood. He knew, and because he knew Alice knew, that whatever Iracebeth ordered him to do, he would be unable to refuse, and if he failed in his task, then he was bound to do the Caller's bidding until he found a way to succeed.

"You are bound to me until the very last Hightopp is dead. When every Hightopp born is slain, then you shall be free."

"It shall be done, your Majesty."

Time froze, and Alice was suddenly standing beside Iracebeth, who stared ahead, unblinking. She looked over at the Jabberwocky, which was smiling at her congenially.

"Neither of we actually wanted to fight the other, you know. You and I." he said, still smiling at her in that odd pleasant-yet-sad way. It was the same way that everyone who visited in the days following her father's death had smiled at her, and Alice had learned to hate that expression on a face quickly.

"We are but Chess pieces in the ongoing Queens' game upon the checkered field." Blinking heavily, he spoke solemnly, in the manner of a minister imparting a secret of the highest spiritual accord. "That is the real and only reason the Queens do not kill each other, you know. They enjoy the game too much."

Red eyes glowed brightly at Alice, and she nervously glanced over at Iracebeth once more. The Red Queen was still frozen in Time, and part of Alice was afraid that whatever it was that made Time freeze her would lift soon, and then she'd be dealing with two homicidal maniacs, instead of just the one. (And never, Alice huffed, did she believed she'd think herself lucky to deal with a singular homicidally insane individual!)

"This was a clever trick, Bearer." Jabber said in a tone of acknowledgement, and Alice wanted to ask What trick?, but Jabber was still talking. "This memory is among those I count as most disturbing, I will grant you that. You chose well to bring me here, to make me relive this." Smoke curled out of his mouth, forming shapes of scenes too miniature for Alice to completely make out, but just large enough for her to tell they showed a scene to begin with. "I will not allow it to happen again."

A denial of any such action automatically sprang to her lips, but Alice held her tongue at the last moment. If Jabber was disturbed by being here, did that mean that she was winning in this battle of theirs? And if she were winning, did she really want to tell her opponent that she was unaware of how she was doing so?

"There is another option to all of this tugging back and forth and drudging up of worst fears, memories, and dreams, you know." Jabber said, imploringly. "What say you and I play a new game? One where the Queens are not the ones playing the field, but you and I, united together. We could trounce those that would stand before us." Red smoke swirled, and where Jabber had been moments before, the White Queen now stood. She held out a hand and blinked at Alice, eyes moist and full of pleading. "We don't have to fight."

"I thought you said you couldn't transm…transmog…" giving up on the word, Alice said, "change your shape, Jabberwocky." She stared at the fake White Queen. He flinched away from her statement the same way Mirana had jerked away from Iracebeth when she'd refused to peacefully give her the Crown, a hurt but unsurprised expression stealing across her face.

The White Queen-shaped Jabberwocky leaned forward, lips pressed into a thin line, completely at odds with how the White Queen normally looked at Alice. "Transmogrify?" Jabber's grin grew even wider as he leaned closer still, and said in a lover's whisper. "I lied." Jabber-as-Mirana laughed, and it sounded like broken glass being walked over in heeled shoes. "Well, only a little White Lie, actually. This is Somewhere Else Altogether, silly child. In the physical world, I may not be able to do so, but here?" Mirana's soft, happy expression was back on his face. "Here, I can be whatever you want me to be. I am only limited by the power of your Dreaming." The back of a delicate hand traced across Alice's face, and she fought to not jerk away from the touch.

"I must say, I do not care for this field of battle, Jabber."

The Queen-shaped Jabberwocky pressed himself fully against her, red eyes glinting. "Too bad, Champion. This is the one you've Chosen. Now all that is left for you is to hang on tightly." Mirana's face smiled in a parody of Jabber's grin. "Unless, of course, you're willing to concede already?"

"Not hardly." Alice replied, eyes narrowing.

"I didn't think so." Jabber replied. "Oh, yes, you will be a delight indeed to inhabit. Look at what marvelous dreams you construct for yourself." He snickered through the White Queen's mouth, and leaned forward as if to kiss her with those dark burgundy lips. Alice frowned. The frown was not caused by the laugh, or even the threatened intention of a kiss, as Jabber thought, but rather at the sensation of a Cat rubbing up against her legs.

The vision suddenly shifted. Jabber as Mirana was no longer present, nor was she in the desert. Alice couldn't see much of anything at all, actually, as she was surrounded by darkness, but knew herself to be out of the desert simply from the lack of oppressive heat. Alice thought she saw a purple-grey Cat shape running away from her as her sight struggled to refocus from bright sunlight to barely any light at all, but she could not be completely certain.

"Are you quite done flaying that fox, Tarrant?"

The Hatter was curled around a basin, sweat dripping down his nose to plop into his vomit. His body shook, and his hair was matted against his head; his Hat had been set aside to not risk it falling into the bowl of sick.

"I'll flay you if you keep showing me how much ye're concerned for me, ye urpal slinging scut!" The words would have sounded much more menacing had they not been coming from a mad-man clutching a sick-bowl as if it were a long-lost companion. Chessur evaporated right to directly in front of him, and looked into his mismatched eyes. "You'd already expelled the majority of it yourself, Tarrant. Once more should do it. Are you ready, or would you like to wait?"

It had been decided that, although the Hatter was most anxious for Chessur to leave and attempt to help Alice, as he told the man he would do, firstly he needed to eliminate all traces of Jabberwocky blood from those two individuals within the castle to ingest it, so that if (when, the Hatter firmly told himself) Chessur was able to help Alice, they didn't begin right where they started again, with Jabber gaining a foothold in someone else.

The White Queen sat even-paler and still in a cot near where the Hatter was curled on the floor, her face beaded with cooling perspiration. She had insisted on going first, because she told them, "Although I am most alarmed for our dear Champion-" here she smiled at the Hatter, a smile of challenge, with her dark eyebrows raised high, "I do have the duties of Underland to take into consideration as well. Tonight I am scheduled to receive petitions, and it would not do to have Underland's citizens feel their concerns are being postponed because of a personal matter within my household."

"A personal matter!" Mally had huffed, indignant on,…well… everyone's behalf.

"I do not feel Alice's Fate to be a personal matter, Mallymkun…" the Queen said, "but there are those within Underland that would not agree with me, and it would be to the benefit of none to allow any hint of dissention with the White Court to take root." Mirana tapped her index finger against the others in a staccato pattern, using sigils to make her words understood without speaking more plainly.

So Mirana had allowed Chessur to evaporate and enter her body through her nostrils and her ears. Shortly after she began convulsing, and right after that she was terribly ill, the stench of burnt, stale blood filling the air as she heaved and coughed. Soon purple-red slime was oozing out of her mouth, and she'd had to hang her head over a basin, drooling out the viscous fluid. It was not her finest moment.

"You do realize…" Chessur had told her, as the Hatter held her long White hair away from her face as she spit copiously, "that by doing this, I am no longer bound to attempt to fulfill the wishes made while this Blood was dronkelewe, yes?"

Another wracking cough rattled through Mirana before she was able to lift her head to answer the Cat. "Of that, I am aware." she said weakly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. It came away smeared with her dark lipstick, and she stared at the black spot for a long moment before speaking again. "I have not been Seeing things clearly, as Absolem said, due to my…attachment for my Champions." (No one said anything, but it was not unnoticed by the room's occupants-that is to say, Chessur, the Hatter, and Mallymkun-that the Queen spoke of Champions, plural, rather than a singular person. The Hatter had flushed a bit at this, as that clearly meant to all that she referred to him as one of those champions.)

"There was no good reason for me to drink the Blood of the Jabberwocky, save the convenience it would provide myself in filling the vacant Crowns of Underland." Voice dropping to a whisper, she said, "And perhaps I drank it for the opportunity it presented, of a distraction to prevent thoughts of the one who decided to leave us."

For the first time since the White Queen's strange request of himself and his…the Alice (he really did need to stop thinking of the poor girl in such possessive terms. There was no formal accord between them, they'd made no vows…they'd not even gone to the Green and spoken intentions to the Blacksmith! She was her own person, with her own Ideas, and apparently, a Queen of Underland in her own right. If he were lucky, she would call he hers, and not contrariwise!) the Hatter felt something other than confusion, anger, and a vague sense of disappointment for his Monarch. Sympathy tugged at the bottom of his guts, and he stroked her back with the broad of his hand over her sweaty dress.

"I believe I drank the Blood for reasons very similar, your Majesty." he said. "Although I do not recall exactly if that is true, because I was in the grip of the Badness."

"Love makes fools of us all." Mally agreed, and Chessur was the only one who saw that she stared at the Hatter as she said this. Little surprised the Cat anymore, but for one reason or another, the Dormouse's feelings for Hatta did. Did every female within Underland admire the Hatter, or was it just the ones of his acquaintance?

Filing away his feeling of vague dismay to be examined at a more convenient time, he'd announced he was done purifying the Queen, and was ready to begin working on the Hatter, just as soon as he helped Mirana to one of the sick beds to rest.

When Chessur had warned them that it was going to hurt, the Hatter decided, (once Chessur had indeed begun the evaporation process) it seemed he had not been exaggerating in the least little bit. How the creature could show such concern for them as to go to the effort to remove the blood from their bodies, then find amusement in their reactions to the pain from that same removal was beyond the scope of his imagination. (And he prided himself, usually, on having a very full and well developed Imagination, as he exercised it daily!)

"Aye, ye Grimwig. I'm ready."

If the White Queen (who, while an excellent Monarch and very picture of Justice in Rule, was not the most physically acclimated creature to roam Underland) could withstand a continuous barrage of the Cat's form of 'healing' without a break (and who had more Blood in her body than he did, as he expelled an Amount immediately after he swallowed it down, when he seized and foamed at the mouth) then he, the Hatter, certainly could as well.

Disappearing, his form a vague outline of smoke, the Cat smiled widely. "Here we go again." he warned, and then re-entered Tarrant's body.

Her hands touched slick stones on what was clearly an exterior wall. Alice walked along the length of it, feeling for some sort of familiarity, as it was still too dark for her to actually see where she was. Very faint glints of moonlight spotted through, but not enough to allow her to get her bearings.

A loose cobblestone turned up at her feet, and her own kicking of it caused her to nearly jump out of her skin as it clattered loudly down the street. She laughed at herself, a bit nervously. "You're just out in the dark!" she said. "There is nothing here, nothing at all that wishes to harm you." Yet, she thought, but did not say that word aloud.

As is of course what Fate is wont to do, as soon as the young woman alone by herself in an unfamiliar place spoke words of that nature, a man's voice spoke behind her. It was so thick with brogue it was nearly unrecognizable, but recognize it she did, anyways. "Rats have sharp snouts, yet are poor fighters." it mocked, and Alice turned about, hands clenched tightly in her skirt.

"Hatter?" she asked, hating how her voice trembled over the word. A low laugh was her answer, and the irrational need to flee filled her; she did not deny it. Picking up her skirts, she began to run, and there was the rustle of fabric behind her as the owner of the voice picked up pursuit. As she ran, lines of familiar rhymes began floating across the air to her, in that same low, thick accent. The swiftness of Alice's flight didn't seem to be affecting her follower at all; he spoke the same as he had when they'd been standing still amongst the stones.

"Sing a song of sixpence! A pocket full of rye." Alice stumbled a bit on her fashionably high heels, but forced herself back up off the ground. The voice gained on her, giving Alice the distinct impression she was being toyed with.

"Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. When the pie was opened the birds began to sing! Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the King?"

The Hatter's voice giggled, and it felt wrong, not at all how his laugh usually made her feel. "Wrong Alice, Wrong Alice, why do you run?" it sang, and then continued on with the rhyme. "The king was in his counting house, counting out his money…"

How can I be the wrong Alice if this is my dream?

She stopped running and stood her ground.

"The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey!"

Every nerve and instinct in Alice's body was jangling for her to run, to hide from this pursing voice, but she forced herself to stay in one place. This wasn't her Hatter, twisted by a bout of madness; this was the Jabberwocky, and he was playing a new game with her. One she may not like, but he seemed to think very grand indeed. What she needed to do was refuse to play. The best way to refuse to play was to stay in one spot.

Had Alice really thought things through, though she would have realized that Jabber, using Hatter's voice, had been asking her to not run away, but Alice was admittedly not thinking as clearly as perhaps she should have been.

Her ears strained for any sound of movement, but she could hear nothing. Not the rustling of cloth, nor the thud of a footstep. Just that voice, getting nearer and nearer to herself, from seemingly different directions.

"The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes…"

A rush of wind from behind her and Alice was suddenly being pulled roughly into a firm male body from behind. "When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!" he finished triumphantly. She struggled a bit in his arms, but he had her own pinned to her sides. His hands splayed suggestively across her lower stomach, and even through the layers of skirt she seemed to be wearing, she could feel a thick turgid length pressing into her backside.

The tone of voice changed, this time to one of cooing devotion, but it was still wrong. Still not the right-proper Hatter's voice. Alice fought to get away even harder as Jabber-as-Hatter began to thrust against her in time with the words he spoke.

"There was a little girl, who had a little curl…" he huffed out a lungful of breath when she managed to get an elbow into the soft part of his stomach, but her angle was just poor enough she was unable to completely break free. He sucked in new air, and then continued on as if nothing had happened. "Right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good…" the Hatter's voice broke a bit on the word good, and Alice knew with a dull sense of horror that if she didn't get away from this version of Jabber soon, he would…finish, and if he…finished, then the battle was over. He'd win, and her body would be his to control, her mind his to play these twisted games with forever.

One of the hands that had been holding her close to his body on her lower stomach traveled upwards, to cup a breast. "She was very, very good…" he sighed. Alice stilled, gathering her wits about her. She knew she had one chance left to get away, and if she failed…well…

She stomped down hard on his instep, and Jabber-as-Hatter howled in pain, reflexively releasing the grip he held around her. Alice scrambled away, and each faced the other, breathing heavily.

"But when she was bad, she was horrid!" the Hatter-that-was-not screeched at her. Now that Alice was finally face to face with him, she could see the red glow of his eyes that proved he was not himself.

"No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love." Alice quoted, adding, "Jabber."

"Perhaps not today, wee laddie." he conceded, "but ye very nearly were."

"Stop speaking like him!" Alice demanded, and Jabber's only response was to chuckle.

"The only way to g'eh me to stop is to win. But ye dinna know how to do tha, do ye?"

Eyes narrowed, Alice insisted, "I'll figure it out." before the scene shifted, and she found herself in a new place once more.

A/N: Two different nursery rhymes were used in this chapter, There was a Little Girl and Song of Sixpence.

The quote "Rats have sharp snouts, yet are poor fighters" is from the Irish folktale/folkhero Seanchan.

Alice's quote at the end of the chapter "No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love." was originally said by Alexander Pope. The full quotation is "Songs no longer move; no rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter