Best Intentions, Chapter Eleven

[wanderamaranth]

"Give your evidence," the Red King Rurik1 said, "and don't be nervous, or I'll have you executed on the spot."

Tarrant sucked in a deep breath and went to bite his bread, but instead snapped the edge of his tea cup clean off. He cut his tongue on the sharp edge, and would have touched his fingers to his mouth to see how badly he was bleeding if the King's eyes were not fixed on him in such an intent manner. He was having a horrible time concentrating on anything either he or the Queen said; the Alice child was here, in this very courtroom. What in Underland she was doing there, Tarrant had no wish to begin to guess. As soon as he, Thackery, and Mallymkun had entered (All three having been summoned to testify that the Knave had been harassing them at the time of the alleged tart theft; Tarrant suspected Rurik himself had eaten the whole batch again, and was simply too afraid to tell his wife so) they'd noticed her presence.

It would have been difficult to not notice her. She was the only child in the room, to start, and for another, she was craning her head back and forth, in the manner of one desperately curious about their surroundings; not a very subtle girl, his little wife. They filed in, and Tarrant had been immediately called to the stand, where he was still sitting, trying to pay a whit of attention to what the temperamental Royals were asking him.

Which was nearly impossible with the way that the Alice-girl seemed to be growing. He was certain she had been smaller when she had fled the tea party...Did children from Above grow at such a rate? A flicker of teal and a flash of white teeth gave him his answer to that conundrum: Chessur. Had that interfering Cat slipped her upelkuchen? Whatever could his reason for doing such a thing be?

The questioning went on in such a circuitous manner that Tarrant began to wonder if it were really another Tart Trial or perhaps something else; Rurik acted most especially displeased with him, where before this day he'd thought they were, if not friends, than amiable acquaintances, what with his constant trips to Marmoreal to speak with the White Court. He chanced another look over at Alice, whom seemed to be involved in a minor tussle with Mallymkun, and babbling his explanation for his sudden marriage (For Rurik kept interrupting himself to stare at the Alice-child in a disconcerting manner, and Tarrant wondered what the girl could have possibly done to irk the King so) when the Red King snapped, "The twinkling of what?"

"It began with the tea," Tarrant replied, swallowing convulsively.

"Of course twinkling begins with a T!" said the King sharply. "Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!"

A draft blew through the Courtroom, and Tarrant shivered. When had his shoes come off? Surreptitiously, he tried to slip them back on as he started to explain how Thackery had insinuated said-

"I didn't!" he jumped up, twitching. Tarrant shot him a desperate look, and insisted, "You did!"

Sniffing in an injured manner, the Hare insisted, "I deny it."

Oh, now all of Underland would go about thinking he had wanted to be wed to the child!

"Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said..." Tarrant interjected, but recalled too late that Mally had really said nothing at all during tea, save for her story of the girls in the treacle well, and he couldn't very well tell the King that. It wasn't his story to tell!

"After that, I cut some more bread-and-butter," he said, cutting to the end of his tale. Rurik would have let such a thing pass, but one of the jury members (Tarrant thought it might be Bill the Lizard—he'd have to have words with him, after this) asked just what Mally had said.

"That I can't remember," he prevaricated.

There was some insistence that Tarrant must remember what had been said, and this made him nervous indeed, for nothing had been said, but he'd insinuated that something had been, and therefore stating that nothing happened would not be believed, would it?Finally, though, (After the successful suppression of the Guinea twins; noisy lot, those two) with another shrewd glance from the ever-growing-larger Alice and the Hatter, the Red King nodded.

"If that's all you know about it, you may step down."

"Darling, wait a moment. I'm having that list of singers from that concert Mirana held fetched. Doesn't this witness look remarkably like the murderer of Time?"

"Go now, Hatter," Rurik said, shifting in his seat. While he possessed a terrible temper, he'd never had approved of his wife's fondness for executions.

"No. I want the Hatter to stay," the Red Queen said absently, as she accepted the scroll from a page and began to study the list.

"I'd rather just finish my tea," Tarrant said hastily, and without bothering to get his shoes back on (as they'd stubbornly refused to slip back on) was up out of his chair and down the aisle. Mally hissed at him from her seat beside the Alice, trying to gain his attention, but he refused to look at them. He ran out the doors and slammed them behind him, breathing heavily. Worry for the child tickled the back of his brain.

"She'll be fine. Mally is there with her. Mally will not let any harm befall her," he assured himself, knowing that if he loitered out in the hall there was a greater likelihood of being subjected to more of Iracebeth's foulness...but he could not bring himself to quit the courthouse altogether, as he really should have. No, instead he stayed just outside the door, pacing.

Just as he was preparing himself to go back into the courtroom and retrieve the Alice, (as there was a terrible clatter coming from within the room that had stirred his fretting to a fever-pitch) the door burst open, and all manner of creatures great and small burst out, shouting incoherently. From the bare snatches Tarrant was able to make make out, he heard the words "little girl" "giant" and, clearest of all, most worrisome of all, "The Queen will have her head for this for sure!"

Ignoring the selfish part that screamed to follow his desperate inclination to leave, Tarrant ducked into the courtroom and took in the chaos prevalent there. Cards soldiers were scattered everywhere; some lay on the ground in a heap by the door, yet others were pinned against the furthest wall.

Iracebeth was screaming in a choleric manner on the Judge's bench, waving her mace and demanding that the Alice-girl be arrested. Any number of the simpering courtiers or obedient animals at her feet would have been more than thrilled to assist their Queen with such a task, had they been able to figure out the trick of arresting a twenty foot tall girl. Alice was continually knocking down more of the Card soldiers that came at her, screaming in a queer, high tone. The Hatter was not able to tell if the sound was made from anger, or fear. Either way, it twisted something deep inside of him to hear that, and so he approached the bench, and as surreptitiously as possible (for he really had no wish to draw the Queen's attention to himself) gained Rurik's attention.

The Red King looked over at the fidgeting Hatter, widened his eyes, and looked significantly from him to the Queen. He very clearly thought Tarrant was daft for returning to the courtroom when the Queen had all but stated she was looking for an excuse to relieve his shoulders of his head. Tarrant gave Rurik a very significant look of his own, staring hard into his eyes, then over to the raving child, and back again. A light of understanding flickered over the Red King's face, and he nodded.

"Dearest!" Rurik boomed, causing Iracebeth to turn to face him, "Have you forgotten our purpose in being here today? Why, we were..."

While the Queen was distracted by her husband, Tarrant waded through the downed Cards and towards the Alice, who was now sniffling and holding the back of her hand to her nose, as if trying to restrain sobs. As her choked sobs began to subside, tears leaked down her face, and she shrank, and shrank, until finally she was her original size, and silent. Tarrant knelt down next to her, touched her gently upon the arm.

"Girl?" he said. "Alice?" She didn't answer him. The Red Queen was still shrieking in the background, so perhaps she did not hear him, he reasoned. So he tried again. "Alice?" He shook her arm, but nothing. She'd cried herself to sleep.

She looked like an entirely different creature when she was asleep. The brash and bold squeaker that had admonished him for being rude at his own tea party was gone. In her place was nothing more than a lost, vulnerable and frightened girl. This, Tarrant realized, must have been what had stirred his protective instincts when he'd first spotted her. This underlying alone-ness that caused shadows to linger under her eyes as she slept.

He crab-shuffled infinitesimally closer, and gently scooped her up into his arms. Alice whimpered and buried her small tear-streaked face against his chest.

"This is no place for you, little one," he murmured, standing carefully so as not to jostle her. He knew what he needed to do. It was against the tenets of the land, but the Hatter did not care. The slight weight in his arms was too young to stay in Underland. She needed her family, and the comfort of consistent things, not this unsteady land of dreams and thoughts.

He had to return her to her home.

The Room of Doors was reached much more swiftly than Tarrant would have expected. He paused outside the Door that entered that chamber, swallowing hard. "Hatter, Hatter..." the flowers flanking the Door sighed. "Where do you take your new bride?"

"To her home, in the Above. In Underland she can not abide."

"With no gifts, no mementos of this day? Shameful, shameful."

"I have no Luckenbooth2 to bestow upon her, nor shears upon my person to craft her a proper ring of hair...Imagine, me a milliner, and no shears! Entirely unacceptable."

Several of the flowers leaned close to one another, murmuring among themselves. "We shall offer ourselves, then," the orange blossoms said, pulling themselves out by their roots and walk across the ground to him. They inched their way up his pant leg and crawled up, and up, until they reached Alice's head. There they wound themselves, leaf in leaf, to form a crown upon her small head.

"What you are doing for her is noble indeed. Not driven by lust, nor yet by greed. We shall stay with her, for as long as we are able."

"Thank you," he lisped. "Thank you."

Then he went through the Door, walked to the Above, and, upon hearing the call of concerned adult voices in the distance, laid her down on the ground at the base of the closest tree. At the very last moment, as the voices drew extremely close, he twisted the thimble he wore on his left hand pinkie finger off and placed it on her right hand ring finger. Then he bent to her, kissed the top of her head on her golden curls, and ducked back down the rabbit hole.

"Blundering bandersnatches!" Tarrant hissed, searching about his person for a scrap of fabric. His blood welled, thick and bright red against the white tablecloth. The porcelain of the tea cup had punctured his hand, as porcelain has an unfortunate tendency of doing whilst one grips it too tightly. Ribbons-no, couldn't use those! A snatch of lace? Wholly unsuitable for wound binding. What he needed was a good cotton, or perhaps a slather of caramel. Did they have caramel at tea to-day?

At least he hadn't bitten right into the tea cup. That was extremely unpleasant to do.

He was preparing to hop upon his chair (in order to have a better survey of the table, to search for said caramel that may or may not have been there) when a small, soft hand alighted on his shoulder. Thinking it was the White Queen, returned from using the Windmill's necessary room, (as he'd specifically requested her presence on this day, to perhaps ease Alice's mind of the worry that he would press himself where he was not wanted again) he turned to wave her away, but froze in stupefaction to see that it was Alice, instead.

Alice, whom he had not seen since he'd slunk back to the Windmill House in the dead of the night, unable to bear being even only so far away as Mallymkun's Burrow. He'd come home to see his bedroom cleared of all scraps of fabric, and the dress—Alice's dress, the one he'd made back when he still held the hope that she would perhaps one day wish to be joined to him, the dress he'd made to be worn when they'd confirmed to one another and all of Underland that theirs would be a true marriage, not just a Binding of convenience—visible to the room. Alice had found it, then. He'd known he should not have brought it from his workshop at Marmoreal to the House, but he'd thought things were going so well...

She was looking at his hand and frowning with such indignant muchness that he was quite pole-axed. She looked up into his eyes, and he felt his lips part at the emotions swirling there.

Alice turned away, and Hatter felt himself sway, his body having already been unconsciously leaning towards her. His eyes lost what focus they had as he tried to track the swirling Alice movement, but she was too close or he was too faint to really catch what it was she'd turned her back on him to do. When she'd faced back around, though, it was evident enough.

Her napkin was neatly ripped in half. Where Alice had found such a tool to accomplish the task, Hatter didn't know, and in his current state of mind only half-cared. She reached for his injured hand, which was still dripping, a steady plop plop plop! upon the tablecloth. Lips compressed in a tight line, she set about binding the wound. Each small tug of the fabric upon his hand caused a pleasant building warmth to jerk at the base of his stomach. Alice touching, the feeling said. Alice warmth. Alice kindness.

Hatter used his uninjured hand to brace himself upright, clinging to the table edge so he didn't swoon right into the pudding. His lips were still parted, he knew, and he was likely panting like a dog begging for scraps from her table. He well and thoroughly did not care.

"Alice…" he whispered once she was finished. He stood, curling his body towards hers. She still held his hand cradled between her own, the neat little bow where she'd tied off the fabric peeking between her fingers.

She stayed still, her face upturned towards his. Her lips were the ones parting now, and did he imagine that she leaned towards him as well? He searched her eyes, hoping that this time her willingness was not imagined; this time, when he leaned towards her, when he lowered his head to meet her lips, she would not flinch away from him. "Please…" he heard himself breathing. Their trembling mouths were a hair's width away when, of course, Something Happened.

*~*~*~*

"ALICE!"

The younger Miss Kingsleigh scuttled away from her captor as if waking from a spell, and Hamish fancied that she was. What had she been forced to endure during her time here? His mind shied away from the scenarios his unfortunately well-developed (due to the very blonde that he was now concerned with) imagination provided him.

He'd been watching from the shrubbery for some time. The flora had wanted to give him away as soon as he'd crouched amongst their greenery, but a significant glance to the machete at his side and a lifting of his left brow had silenced their protests immediately. He was very glad he'd thought to imagine finding it; such a tool was proving invaluable here in Alice's Wonderland.

His first inclination had been to rush to her, scoop her into his arms and away with her, but after several days in Underland, days of hearing of the Mad Hatter of Marmoreal and his reluctant bride (Hamish had nearly swallowed his tongue the first time he'd heard Alice described as such) made him cautious. Alice was considered a sort of savior here, a Slayer of a Jabber-whattsit. Hamish couldn't imagine the Alice he'd known, the Alice who sobbed over squished frogs at dinner parties (caused by the lucky swing of a server, not himself) slaying anything, let alone a beast as fearsome as the Jabber-thing had been. She was delicate. She was weak and sickly. She was soft and caring and a daydreamer, not a hard-edged war veteran or savior of anything except him. Alice had saved him from despair with stories and fanciful flights of whimsy, a saving of his spirit-if the beings here spoke of her doing such things for others, that would not shock him. But to hear them say that she'd lifted a sword, that she'd saved this entire land through bloodshed and sprayed ichor…no.

Still more daunting were the stories they told of the beast at her side. The last survivor of his people, they said. Leader of the Underland Underground Resistance, a rebel group whom, from what Hamish could piece together, had cobbled together just enough support to usurp the proper ruling authority of the land and put her pretender sister upon the throne. He Killed Time, they whispered, awe and more than a bit of fear in their voices. He'd heard the Capitalization in the sentence, had stupidly outright asked the Lizard who'd said such a thing to explain himself.

Eyelids flicking closed over his bulbous eyes, the Lizard had told him, in a manner that suggested he was expecting the Last Hightopp to spring from the shrubbery and split him straight down the middle with his equally infamous claymore, "He needed Time to Pass so the Alice could return to him, you see. So he took some Thyme with him to the very table he wedded her at and Killed it. Took the scissors upon his person and snipped it apart, leaf after leaf after leaf. Then he pinned the roots to the table, spread them out, chopped them up. Left them right there amongst the tea-things to die of thirst. All around Thyme, drinks aplenty-but not a drop for him. When he was just about gone-when the leaves the Hightopp had chopped away had dried to brittle sprinkles, when his roots were screaming from the agony of there being no dirt to protect them, no water to sustain him…" The Lizard had gotten even closer to Hamish, so his mouth was just against his ear. His tongue flicked his skin as he whispered, "Hightopp gathered up all those pieces of him that had been green, the Dormouse helping all the while, and gave them to the Mad March Hare. He baked them up into cheese and cream scones….and then they ate him."

Startled, Hamish had jerked away from the Lizard and his tongue, and said, "What, they ate Time?"

"No, they ate Thyme...because eating Thyme in such a manner causes Time to pass very quickly, eh?" the Lizard corrected, looking at Hamish as if he were quite dull witted. The young man had been going to ask how eating Thyme could kill Time, and why these people seemed so obsessed with it in the first place, closed his eyes and took a deep breath to do so, but when he'd exhaled and opened his eyes again, the Lizard had been gone. Annoying habit of the creatures around Underland, that-appearing and disappearing willy-nilly. So he'd not had the chance to ask at all. Yet one thing was certain, whether it be Time or Thyme that Tarrant Hightopp had killed that day-he was not above murdering for Alice.

His opponent seemed to be cunning and patient-a dangerous combination. Hamish would have to exercise caution when going for Alice, he'd told himself. The weak-willed, wimbly man in him wanted to dramatically fling his makeshift camping items upon the ground and hie out of this damned land, but the boy in him-the one that was still desperately attached to Alice, the one that had sworn to his mother at nine years old that he would marry her one day-stubbornly refused to leave without Alice at his side.

So he'd stayed, and traveled the strange land, asking the various creatures and very occasional person he passed (whom all seemed very hostile) where the Alice was to be found. As he'd traveled he'd found some useful items, and dreamed others; on the second day he'd found a pair of trousers and a shirt that was a bit large, but serviceable, hanging from a clothesline strung between two trees. Hamish had hastily put them on, shucking the nightshirt in relief—it had itched, just as he knew it would.

He'd eventually managed to make his way here, to the small Windmill in the woods. Despite being obviously recently cared for, the house still had an air of long-standing neglect about it, a certain sadness about the windowpanes. Several large tables of varying sizes and shapes were strung together in a vague semblance of order, new and mostly pristine clothes upon them. A wide variety of delectable-looking dainties were scattered about, and no less than fourteen steaming pots of tea sat there, despite there being only two beings present at the table. One was the Mad monster he'd heard so much about-there was no mistaking whom he was, with the descriptions he'd gotten of hellfire hair and luminescent eyes-the other was Alice.

The caution he'd demanded of himself was enough to have him crouching among and threatening the foliage, so he could watch, wait, and see what was occurring: if Alice was injured, or if the beast was armed and prepared for an attack. Alice seemed fine, but agitated. An odd sort of tableau seemed to be occurring-Hightopp was muttering furiously to himself, picking up various dainties and setting them back down. His throat worked in painful-looking swallows, and his hands, when free of foodstuffs, clenched and unclenched in the white tablecloth.

Throughout all this, Alice stood directly behind him, an expression of such sadness upon her face...but she never said a word. She did not seem to even be making an attempt to speak. Occasionally she would reach forward, but then snatch her hand away, her brows titled in such a manner that told Hamish she was scolding herself severely. They were onto their third round of this odd little scene (Hatter was griping the tablecloth again with one hand, and held a cup of tea in the other) when Hightopp growled, a frightening sound deep from within his chest. His barely restrained rage physically manifested itself as well, as he destroyed the cup in his fist, the porcelain of which pierced his skin, making his blood splatter across the fine white tablecloth.

Alice's attention had gone from the back of the creature's head in front of her to the wound on Hightopp's hand, her hazel orbs becoming very round. The fae still had his back to Alice, curling his body towards his injury the way an animal would, to hide it. Alice had none of that. Hamish watched as she straightened herself up and touched Hightopp's shoulder, turned him around to face her. Then she rotated away to pick something up, giving Hamish had a clear view of Hightopp's face. He recognized the expression upon it quite easily, having worn it around Alice often enough himself. Still, this was not enough to convince Hamish to reveal his location, not enough to have him standing and blustering into the clearing, caution and planning be damned. What happened next, though, was.

Hightopp sat as Alice bound his wound, only standing slowly when she finished. Alice was still turned towards him, and her mouth was quavering in a way that Hamish had only ever dreamed of it doing when she looked upon him, and Hightopp was leaning closer, clearly intent on…

"ALICE!" Hamish had shouted, out of the shrubs and halfway across the clearing before he was even aware he'd made the decision to move. All activity at the tables ceased as both personages there turned from each other to stare at him. They all stood as such for several moments, Hamish clenching his fists and snorting through his nose like a bull prepared to charge, Alice and Hightopp standing together, their hands clinging to one another's. Then Time began moving again.

It was an odd experience, even for one who'd been wandering Alice's Wonderland for several days. The creature that at turns seemed solicitous and controlling shoved the blonde behind him, his face the very picture of frustrated lust. Alice had been resisting him, then! He'd arrived just in time, to save her from falling under his salacious spell! Hamish felt his chest puff out a bit at this, and had to remind himself that the damsel was not rescued yet, and too much early pride would only result in himself being distressed just as much as she.

"Who are ye and what are ye doing at our home, laddie?" Hightopp growled. Hamish had the odd sense that this creature knew exactly who he was, and what he was doing there. A kind of desperate fear flitted across the madman's face, boosting Hamish's confidence. Why, if this Hightopp were afraid of him, he must not be so fearsome as all the creatures of the land seemed to think he was! (Hamish did not fool himself into thinking he was the most intimidating specimen of a man.)

That confidence wavered and then hid altogether as he saw the beast's entire countenance darken, and his eyes-! They actually turned red, like he was summoning the forces of hell to his command! Hamish was very concerned about his unmanly urge to piss himself, when something happened which completely deflated the beast's rage, and left a broken, trembling man in his place.

"Hamish?" Alice said, her voice rough, but still hers-still clearly Alice. She stepped around Hightopp and towards him, then smiled-to think, Alice, smiling at him!-as she walked over. "Hamish, it is you!" she cried, tears pricking her eyes. "Have I gone mad, or are you truly here?"

It was just like in the fairy tales Alice used to tell him, as he laid on his chaise and watched the other children run by; the fair maiden was being rescued by her (admittedly not very handsome) prince from the dastardly beast who'd confined her. It was enough, more than enough, with all of the things he'd seen and experienced the last few days, for him to regain his faith in storybooks and their endings. He felt shame for ever having doubted Alice, for allowing his mother's influence to sway him from her words and fantastical images. He smiled, still imagining himself as the prince come to bear her away.

"It is, Alice, it is!"

They were interrupted by the cracked, disbelieving voice of the mad creature by the tea table. "Alice?" The look the animal-man turned to give Hamish had him suddenly remembering that in this story, his and Alice's story, the ending had not come upon them yet. There was still a beast to vanquish before they could go home and live happily ever after. When his gaze returned to Alice, though, he was a too-thin, fragile seeming madman once more. The rapid shifts of character unnerved Hamish to the extreme.

A waver of indecision danced across Alice's face, but she turned to Hamish, as the ginger haired young man thought she should. "Have you come to take me home?" she asked.

Battered tan boots tromped across the clearing until their owner was just in front of them. Grotesquely stained hands reached for Alice as the mad thing mewled, "I thought you understood, I thought..." he bowed his head, shook it, and started again.

"Alice, how many times must I tell ye? Ye are home."

Hamish put a hand on Alice's arm to move her out of Hightopp's path, and the Hatter snarled, jerking towards them in a threatening manner. Yelping like a startled chambermaid, Hamish scrambled both he and Alice back two steps, just out of the man's reach. All traces of the almost apologetic lover disappeared when Alice spoke to him.

"Hatta!" she said, voice cracking with the words, "You stop this instant!" (She sounded for all the world like a scolding nanny.) "Hamish is a friend, who likely heard from mother how you stole me, and-"

Furiously interrupting, the Hatter roared, "I couldna have stole ye, ye ungrateful wee nab! Ye're my wife!"

Stunned silence filled the clearing. Hamish wasn't sure who was the first to remember that breathing was necessary, but noticed when he did begin breathing again, it was shallowly, as if afraid that heavy breathing would break the still tension that coated the air. The milliner's skin actually took on a greenish cast, and he looked like he was one hiccup away from being physically ill.

"Oh. Is that how this is to be, then?" Alice finally said, words strong, but unable to look at Hightopp's eyes. Instead her gaze drifted down to her left hand ring finger. Hamish sucked in a distressed breath at the stacked golden bands that rested there. "Am I a creature to be possessed, Tarrant? I don't even remember marrying you."

"No, Alice, I..." Tarrant stepped forward, eyes darting about the clearing as he spoke. "Ye didna remember me at all afore, lass. And...marriages here in Underland...are not being as they are in Upland, I dinna think."

"What, consensual?" Alice mused sarcastically. Hatter's response disarmed her.

"Yes."

She took two steps back from him, further insinuating herself into the circle of Hamish's waiting arms.

"I wouldna have it this way betwixt us, lass, no if I could help it! 'Twere a mere little boy when ye first came to this land, and so charming that I couldna help feeling protective of ye, and then..." he shrugged his shoulders, as if that explained everything.

"I fail to see how being protective of me when I was a little girl could have resulted in our marriage," Alice said incredulously.

"That, my dear Champion, is the result of Underland itself, I'm afraid."

The tension in the trio shattered and fell away with the approach of a fourth. Alice and Tarrant bobbed their heads in a respectful way, while Hamish made incoherent gargling noises in the back of his throat. His grip on Alice loosened as he gaped unashamedly at the sight before him.

A beautiful woman with long, flowing hair and graceful, fluttering hands entered the clearing, her dark lacquered fingertips, painted lips, and heavily kohled eyes only accentuating the brilliant whiteness on the rest of her person. She looked very much like a faerie queen Hamish had once imagined in a daydream. All that was missing to complete the fantasy were gossamer wings.

Floating towards Alice without seemingly a care in the world, this faerie queen held out her hand to the young woman. Alice accepted, and together they walked towards the table set for tea.

*~*~*~*

Author's Notes:

1 Slavic name meaning "red"

2 A piece of jewelry traditionally (Scotland) given to a bride by her groom on their wedding day.

Previous Chapter                                                                                           Next Chapter