Author's Note: This particular prompt caught my attention and inspired me to write on what might have gone through Absolem's mind on the Eve of Frabjous Day. Written for AiW's Writing Challenges Forum, Non-Challenge Prompts for June/July 2011.
Prompt: Midnights, hard nights/Marching into the fight.
Disclaimer: I own nothing from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I just like to write. ^_^
Nexus of the Night
By Kuroneko
The evening was far too peaceful. The calm before the storm, as the wise ones would say; a deceptive act of nature meant to bewitch the mind into forgetting momentarily that the dawn would bring down the final act.
In truth, not even Absolem knew what ending Frabjous Day would come to when the curtain at long last closed on this seemingly endless tragedy.
The gardens of Marmoreal were so serene and quiet. It was hard to believe this place was more refuge than the palace it ought to have been: a place for fugitives and peace lovers alike. Home for some, a miracle for those who'd experience the terror of the Red Queen firsthand.
There was perhaps only one who truly stood away from all of them.
Absolem was different from those who lived in Underland. While he lived and breathed among them, Time held him suspended in a state of perpetual death and rebirth. Following each metamorphosis came new life that would inevitably end by the final breath, and with every "final" breath came the blue smoke of his rebirth. Once long ago, a bird of fire had existed in very much the same capacity, only to have Time at long last have its way after the bird had grown too aware of its nature.
Time, however, would never grant Absolem this kindness.
The blue caterpillar himself observed the moon above the gardens and blue out a thin stream of smoke before taking another puff from the hookah beside him. He'd long since forgotten how long ago he'd been born the first time, and he chose to forget all his deaths. Each one was connected to each other in a never-ending thread, splitting off into individual strands that branched out even farther and left him the root for so much of Underland's history. He was the Keeper of Time, in a sense: the Oraculum was forever under his guardianship and judgment. The compendium of Underland from the Beginning was left to him until the end of this world and until that unfortunate day arrived, he was to continue his lonesome cycle as he watched others fade into the dust of years gone by.
"It would appear that everyone is spending more time contemplating than resting," said a slightly teasing voice from behind. "The events of the upcoming Frabjous Day are like a plague, and one that even Absolem himself isn't immune to. How amusing."
Absolem permitted himself a withering glance in the voice's direction. He was not at all surprised to find the ever-grinning Cheshire Cat floating just behind him, teeth all but gleaming in the moonlight.
"This is most unlike you, Absolem," Chessur continued to prod, folding his arms and leaning his head on them. "I was under the impression that by being absolute, you would be excluded from lapses of the mind."
At this, Absolem smirked. "When one lives for as long as I have, even the briefest of lapses are welcome ones." He blew out another stream of blue smoke and gazed upon the feline inquiringly. "I take it you have nothing to do this evening, then?"
"I've just been to see the Hatter, and found he wasn't in the mood for light conversation. He was too focused on mumbling incoherently to himself about being a dream and tomorrow's battle for me to even get a word in edgewise," the cat replied lightly, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from his pristine coat of luminescent fur. "From what I gathered, our fair Champion must have said something to him that rather upset the balance in his questionable mind, and now he doubts his own existence. If he isn't careful, he'll descend even further into his madness than he already has."
"Madness is something each of us walks with everyday," said Absolem, setting aside the mouthpiece. "The amount and type is different dependent upon the individual."
"How very true," Chessur purred, and rolled mid-air onto his back. "And it would seem we have yet to witness what brand of madness the Alice walks alongside."
Absolem did not respond, but chose instead to contemplate the moon for a moment. High above them all, the orb of silver seemed detached from the events the unfurled, and all of them surrounding this girl called Alice.
For how long had they awaited that girl's return? Not even Absolem dared measure the inconsistencies Time held between Underland the worlds above it, for Time would most assuredly take offense at being meddled with once again even if Tarrant Hightopp was not the culprit. This Alice who'd come back to them after so many years of hardship had changed, and not for the best as far as they all were concerned.
Yet out of the turmoil that came with the Oraculum's prophecy, Absolem held onto his conviction that this girl was the one. When she'd arrived, she was not hardly the Alice she'd been when she was young; contrarily, she was even less so. But he could see now the changes that had taken place, the ones that added and subtracted who and what she was. What one world did, the other undid; what one dictated, the other refuted – Alice Kingsleigh was the perpetual rope in a hypothetical game of tug-of-war.
"And once again your mind retreats into the fog of thought," he heard Chessur sigh. The cat flicked his tail in mild irritation and spun around to evaporate and reappear just in front of the caterpillar's aged face. "If you aren't careful, you'll lose yourself up there in all that blue smoke that follows your presence."
"Where I choose to allow my thoughts to carry me are no concern of yours," Absolem huffed indignantly.
"I suppose I can't argue with that." The Cheshire Cat's grin expanded even further, revealing every last sharp tooth in his maw before his body began to dissipate into the evening air. "I think I'll see how that bumbling McTwisp is doing. It's been quite a while since I've given him an audience, I think. Don't venture too far, Absolem."
The blue caterpillar watched in mild distaste as the cat before him evaporated entirely, leaving only the grin behind before it followed as well, leaving him alone in Marmoreal's gardens.
Absolem shook his head and began to chuckle. Perhaps they were all lost on this night, he thought, allowing the smoke to dissipate the hookah beside him. For each of them there was a journey, long and difficult. His own was far too near for his liking, but was upon him nevertheless. He would not be there to bear witness to the battle of the Frabjous Day, but he would know the outcome when it arrived.
Until that battle, he anticipated the true return of Alice. That stupid girl who fretted above in her balcony was ever so close at becoming herself again – it was maddening to think of how near she truly was! But ever has it been that the true self will be revealed in times it is needed most, and he hadn't the slightest doubt in his mind that that girl would be Alice again.