Born to be Beheaded.
Summary: When carnage and malice are second nature, the road ahead will always be laced with mines. Alice in Wonderland AU. Ari/Stan.
Note: I am aware that Rosalyn is a little OOC, but I felt like she really did fit the spot of the Red Queen.
(x)
The echo from the gavel shook the courtroom.
"Order! Order, I say!" The Queen shouted from her throne at the very front and center of the court –how very modest of the wench. The subjects in the peers quieted their outbursts, returning to the modest creatures that they were when they came in. I glared at them. They got to sit with their families and friends and stare at me with such contempt in their eyes. They didn't even know me and they'd already pinned me a killer.
I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. If anything, I had seen the murder of the princess. Too late, too late, too late, I was too fucking late to save her. How could they not tell that I would never do anything to hurt her?
It didn't matter. There was no such thing as 'fairness' in Wonderland. If anything, it should have been could 'Headland', considering all of the bodies littering the streets missing their heads. The Queen was overly fond of beheading criminals. She called herself the 'Pink Hero'. What nonsense.
The only heroes were the citizens she decapitated when they protested.
"On the count of Murder One; against the late Princess; how does the Jury find the defendant?" Again, nonsense. There was no Jury. No one volunteered anymore, and she found it just fine, considering that she would just jump over to where the head Juror would declare their verdict and speak her own.
That didn't matter either, especially when it came to rape, murder, and thievery – the verdict was always the same.
"Guilty."
The crowd in the courtroom cheered, and I was lowered from the cage they held me inside of. The system really did make you feel like the animal they wanted you to be before they –rather, she- sliced your head off. Guillotines were luckily invented a decade or so before, so I know that when I am beheaded, at the very least I won't feel it. It'll be 'civilized', just as Queen Rosalyn's been saying for years. No one's skull has been accidentally chopped into, and no one's ever been left slightly alive before. The process of beheading was now a swift, painless operation.
Then silence engulfed the room again as the cage was opened, and I was asked to stand. The man freeing me, no doubt my executioner, give me a sad smile and said "It's alright, in a few moments, none of this will matter anymore."
It really was a sad thing to think; nothing really mattered anymore when death came for you.
I felt tears well up in my eyes.
The walk to the guillotine was a relatively calm one, and despite the panic and hatred and rebellion that stirred in my stomach, I wouldn't allow for any of it to show. Now was not the time to be a 'hero'. After all, heroes didn't exist anymore.
(x)
I stared into the steel-blade of the contraption that would be my end. It was a little over one hundred yards away, and I could see the crowd cheering me to my death. Wonderland was filled with nothing but blood-thirsty wolves in sheep-skin.
"You don't want to die, do you?"
I could hear a voice, barely there, and for a second I thought it was only my imagination. However, a proposition from it quickly halted that thought. I began looking around, frantic, trying to find where it was coming from.
"If you were to pledge allegiance to me, and become my slave, I can save you from death." The voice was male, sultry and ominous. It sent shivers up and down my spine, as did the shimmering red on the blade. "Give me your body, and I can give you life. It is a contract you must make. Do you accept?"
There wasn't anything I could do but nod my head lightly and –under my breath- whisper "I accept."
Seconds later, a burst of darkness shot from my shadow, the dark figure-like shadow encasing my body before releasing into a physical form. The shadowy figure almost immediately manifested into a human body, blonde hair pulled back with gel, luxurious suit opened at the top to reveal a manly chest. I literally spent as much time as I could in this brief moment analyzing this man, considering that he was now the man who 'owned' my body.
"My Queen, Rosalyn."
"Stanley Hihat Trinidad! How delightful of you to show up today. I've been meaning to chase you down and steal that ugly head off your fat neck, luckily for me, you've brought yourself to me." The Pink Hero's lips curled up, obviously smug with excitement. She drew her rapier from its place at her hip. The crowd coward back from the scuffle, obviously afraid of the queen that they 'loved so dearly'.
"Steal my head? How preposterous. You act as though you could ever find enough man-power to tie me down long enough to behead me." The man –Stanley, was it? - bared his own smirk, fangs revealing themselves easily. He looked almost primal compared to her. In response to his words, the Queen snarled something crude at him before charging, rapier slashing rapidly. He caught the blade quickly in his hand, not even getting a single scratch on his body or clothes. It truly was an impressive thing to see, especially when said man was fighting on one's behalf.
The Pink Hero let out another enraged hiss, screaming about how he was a demon and how he should be dead, like all the others. The crowd groaned disapprovingly at her choice of words, but she quickly lashed out at them, telling them to be quiet. Silence ensued from the dull minds of the spectators.
He chuckled a bit, before releasing her sword and stepping backwards. Placing an arm around my waist, he made a threatening promise to the Hero.
"Do not threaten my slave again; because if you do, it'll be your head that will roll." And with that, he encased our bodies with darkness and whisked me off to wherever he had planned to make our escape to. I lashed violently at first, unsure of what to make of the heavy darkness, but as my body began to adjust, my mind began to calm down. I shut my eyes tight, hoping for the next thing I saw to not be the darkness.
When I came to, and opened my eyes, I was delighted that the first thing I saw was a bright sky lined with the edges of treetops. I had half a mind to chuckle at myself for how ridiculous I was for thinking that anything was wrong.
Sitting up, however, I realized just how grave the situation was. Yellow eyes pierced my soul, and I was frozen stiff.
"Y-you!" I flailed an accusing finger at the figure, trying to skid backwards as well as I could to get distance between myself and the tan male.
"Yes, me. I am Evil King Stan; your master and ultimate evil conqueror." He said lackadaisically, as though nothing he had just said was at all odd.
"Conqueror? Evil King? Uhm, excuse me, but have you not seen the recent Queen? Did you not just save me from her grasps?" I blinked incredulously; after all, how could he plan to be an evil king when he was willing to save unsuspecting victims from the Queen of hearts? That was almost the exact opposite of 'evil', if anything, that was almost justice being served.
I chuckled at his notions of being 'villainous', and he snapped.
"Yes, I did save you from the Queen. But there is a reason, you see?" If I didn't know any better, I'd have said he thought this through. I sat on my calves, my ankles crossed under my butt. "She is claiming that everything she does is in the name of 'justice', but you and I both know she's just insane. However, I know that I want to rule the throne with an iron fist and make people cower before me and tremble in fear. Therefore, if I was to take the throne, they would know just how much business I mean, and they would have no choice but to be terrified by my simple presence." His logic was flawed, but I wasn't about to say anything. Saving my life was enough to earn my patience and attention for however long he wanted. I was in no hurry to end it all by upsetting him.
That is, if he had a temper loose enough to kill me over something so petty. Not that I knew if he had a temper or not. Now that I thought about it, I literally had no idea who this mystery man Stan was, or what he was like, or anything.
"So, uhm, I have a question."
"Yes, slave?"
"Who are you, exactly? I mean, I know that you're an Evil King, and I know your name, but who are you exactly? I'm sorry to say, but I've never heard of you until now."
This seemed to piss Stan off something fierce, because his calm poker-face broke and now he had this horrible almost-snarl on his lips, baring his fangs, and his eyebrows were now scrunched up. Within seconds, however, he calmed himself down and brushed a hand through his hair, remembering what being human was, I assumed. Being human is hard, I've heard, at least for almost feral demon-like creatures like Stan appeared to be. Were demons even real?
I couldn't remember anymore. Wonderland kind of fell to shit after the Queen's reign of terror started.
"My name is Evil King Stanley Hihat Trinidad XIV, and as of the moment you accepted your contract with me, I am your master. It's very simple, I wish to rule the world, and you will accompany me and help me to achieve that goal."
It really didn't make much sense, but I went along with it anyway. He seemed to be somewhat reasonable, not to mention the fact that he saved me from my beheading.
"I see…"
"You sound skeptical. What is it, slave, do you doubt your master?"
"First off, my name is Ari, not slave, and secondly, how am I going to help you 'conquer the world'." He scoffed at my attempt to clarify my name to him –as I would learn, he refuses to refer to anyone by name unless it is himself or someone he values. As for the second half of my sentence, his eyes sparkled in delight, obviously waiting for me to ask this question so he could explain to me his 'master plan'.
"How, you ask? Well, I'll tell you." He stood up at this –I was sprawled out on the ground, sitting up and supporting myself with my palms, whereas he had been squatting a few feet in front of me- and gave a magnificent twirl before getting in my face and exclaiming "You will hide me in your shadow, where I will be able to obtain reconnaissance from the citizens of this country in order to rule them with an even higher fear factor. Flawlessly brilliant, is it not?" His lips were curled up in an excited smirk, once again revealing his fangs. I had an odd sort of obsession with his oddities; his longs fangs and claws, as well as his long, pointed ears, not to mention his brilliantly yellow eyes. He was very intriguing in appearance.
However, back to the present, I simply gawked wide-eyed at him. That was his master plan? Recon, really? Granted, it was a bit more methodically thought-through than his motivations and desires, but it was still too ridiculously simple to count for his master plan.
"Is my plan nothing but brilliant?"
"Uh, of course."
"Of course…" He drawled out, obviously expecting me to finish it with something or other.
"Stan?" He shook his head. "King Stan?" He shook his head again, this time a bit more aggressively. "Sir?" This time, it was clear he was getting annoyed. "Master?" At that, his eyes lit up and it was clear that I had hit the mark.
Clearly he was a conceded narcissist that was obsessed with himself. I couldn't really care any less; he was going to be the protection I would need against the Queen in the many months and years to come, so who was I to get in the way with his mutual love for himself?
"Keep up your obedience, and I'm sure our journey to kingdom together will be a pleasantly swift one."
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear a voice screaming about how bad of an idea this really was, but I quickly ignored it. After all, every extra day on my life now was all thanks to this man. Because, at the end of the day, he could play God all he wanted, just so long as I got to stay alive, no matter how immoral that sounded.
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Sorry about the short chapters, but in order to keep myself occupied, I feel like it's necessary. If they weren't this short, I would never update. w ;;
I know that Stan is a little weirdly written, but I'm doing that on purpose. It seems like, throughout the game his dialog isn't exactly 'normal', it seems a bit more formal, considering how he's however-many-years old. (I'm assuming somewhere in the hundreds) So he's going to have a bit of a weirdness to his talking.
Also, if you see any errors or places that are odd/should be rewritten, please let me know! I hardly ever revise myself –bad habit, I know I need to stop it- because I'm just soooooo lazy.