Queen of Hearts

1

a stone skipped

on the pages of life

moments

trapped into story

the queen of hearts

when he denies

asks

won't you dance once more?

---

"Dodge," Alyss said softly as she felt his presence behind her. It had ever been the way since the day he'd nearly lost his life to The Cat, the day that Alyss had won back her queendom from Aunt Redd. The day that Wonderland was forever changed by the power of White Imagination and a handful of faithful followers.

Wonderland was thriving in Redd's absence. It had taken time to clear out the city of the refuse and unwanted, and more time for Alyss to imagine a way to put it to right instead of letting it fester and waste somewhere in Wonderland. But the city was already beginning to look the way it should, shining and bright and a place where one wanted to be. There were still signs of Redd's years of rule, but by and far they were fading, and well as it should in Alyss' mind.

Of course, there were some things that would never truly fade, just diminish until they didn't hurt so much. That was one of the reasons she had chosen to receive Dodge here, where she could wait for him patiently as she watched over the memorials of her parents and his father. It was a sobering effect, and helped her contain her irritation with the way she'd had to send for him as well as stop her heart from trying to leap from her chest, a regular occurrence when she was near him.

"Majesty," was the murmured reply she received, and Alyss sighed a little with it. It wasn't as if it would change; from the moment she had been crowned Dodge had stopped treating with her and simply served. And Alyss hated it.

"You wanted to see me, Majesty?" he asked, his tone never changing even as Alyss turned to face him. The proper five paces from her he was, bent at the waist in half a bow, right arm crossed over his chest so that his hand was fisted over his heart.

Alyss considered him for a moment, wondering if her imagination was enough to ask him to dance and let him say yes. She's asked him seven times since she took the throne of Wonderland, and seven times Dodge had refused, declined, said no. If she could only tempt him to dance, just the once, one time that she could show him what she wished to… No. It would be Black Imagination, and she wouldn't do that to. Couldn't, especially since he was already so close to it himself with a revenge that was unpetty but fueled still by such white hot anger and pain.

"Dodge," she asked him. "Am I the queen of Wonderland?"

He straightened, a blankly bemused look to his face before answering her. "Of course you are, Majesty."

She turned away to stare out the window once again, her shoulders straight and as regal as she could get when what she really wanted to do was shake his stiff neck hard and ask him why he would not dance with her. In all truth, she was far too afraid of the words she was about to say to him, that he would know her casual indifference for a lie and suspect the words that she truly meant. She could face him while she spoke, she could not risk it.

"Yes, I am, Dodge," Alyss said softly. "I'm the queen, I rule Wonderland. My word is law; if I desire something it's given to me. And yet… You won't dance with me."

She could hear him behind her, standing stiff and tall. A smile played vaguely across her lips, the faint amusement there simply because she knew that Dodge was trying to find an answer. It left abruptly as she turned, knowing that there was no answer he could give, since the only answer he would give her was evasion. And she'd finished with evasion, she'd spent more than half of her life evading the truth of it, and she would not do the unthinkable, the unbearable, for Dodge Anders. He deserved more than that, and not some pretty little story that made her life easier.

This wasn't about making her life easier, it was about her, and him. If only she could imagine that it were about them, and not just them. The thought was enough to make her eyes sting, and she promised herself that she would not cry, that Dodge would not see her shed a single tear.

"I've been patient, Dodge." She met his eyes after a moments hesitation, and wondered what he might say. "Why won't you dance with me?"

His jaw tightened so that the four scars upon his cheek were stretched tightly, white against his skin. It was the first real, unleashed emotion Alyss had seen on Dodge's face since he came to her, since the celebration where Bibwit had stopped them from speaking, however unwittingly, so that she could pardon her unjustly imprisoned subjects. His lips thinned and she wondered at the anger suddenly in his eyes, as though she'd made him angry somehow when she hadn't meant to at all.

"It wouldn't do, my queen," he whispered, and Alyss blinked at him once, struggling to understand his words.

She pursed her lips for a moment, the habitual gliding of tongue across teeth familiar and almost comforting. "Have I… Have I wronged you, Dodge Anders? Displeased you in some way? Am I as unattractive as that, that you refuse to dance with me just once?"

The way Dodge breathed in sharply frightened her. It was as though someone had pierced him through, making him draw his breath in as though it would be his last. But Alyss didn't let the questions die. No, she needed the answers too badly to allow it to all slip away.

"No, Maj—"

"Alyss," she told him, cutting off the formal title he never failed to address her as. "My name is Alyss, Dodge, just as it's always been."

"Alyss," and the name seemed to be wrung, strangled, from his lips. "I can't, Alyss."

Can't. He can't. It didn't mean anything to her as she first heard him say it. In fact, Alyss wouldn't have understood it if Dodge hadn't reached out to her, fingers dry and warm and so strong as he lifted the Jabberwock tooth from where it lay just above the swell of her breast. And the pained look on his face, the way his eyes were dark and guarded as he lifted it and met her eyes, truly met them, and then let the tooth fall.

"I'm sorry, Alyss," he whispered. "I can't."

I can't.

The meaning was suddenly there, just as if she'd imagined the answer herself, and it struck her hard as a blow. I can't. The childhood vision of love was swept away by the words, carelessly ripped from her and leaving Alyss feeling hollowed out and painfully empty as she realized it: he did not love her, if ever he had. A young girl's dream—maybe she had imagined it all, maybe he had only ever been her friend, even if he had been her best friend no matter what.

And so Alyss swallowed the sickness that had taken root inside of her and gave him a serene smile that lied as well as her eyes. "I understand, Dodge. Thank you for coming."

She turned away, a dismissal if ever she'd given one, and there was a pause before Alyss heard the scraping of Dodge's boots against the smooth and polished stone of the floor. His footsteps were louder now than when he'd come, and she knew it was simply because he was leaving, and Alyss knew that she would not ask him back again. No, the single dance on her seventh birthday would have to suffice, ordered as it was, and the few moments at her own engagement party. It would have to be enough.

But if the flowers in Wondertropolis didn't sing so gaily the next morning, no one dared ask the queen why.