(Disclaimer: I don't own Heart no Kuni, that belongs to Quinrose. Nor do I own Alice in Wonderland, that belongs to Lewis Carroll.)
Alright, so I know I have other stories that I need to be doing, but this idea came to me, and I couldn't not write it. It just seemed too awesome to risk forgetting. xD
PS I don't know if they ever elaborated on what Alice's missing memories were (pretty sure they did. It seemed to be a key plot point) but I have not gotten there yet, which is why this is so clearly not cannon. xD R&R!
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/*\
The little girl dashed through the somewhat-familiar stretch of woods as fast as she possibly could. From the moment she had met her, the girl knew that the Queen wasn't exactly stable, but now?
She had come to the conclusion that the woman was a little more than unstable. She was crazy.
She had been going to kill three of her guards over a rose bush. A plant, and not even because it was in bad health, but for one, simple, absolutely ridiculous reason: it was the wrong color. How could she not intervene?
The child tripped and fell into a fallen log, but now was not the time to be nursing wounds. She could hear the guards approaching, their voices loud and the baying of the hunting dogs even louder. If she did not run and find somewhere to hide, she would become subject to a fate that countless others had suffered.
The girl got up, and sped off in another direction. She quite liked her head where it currently was.
/*\
The forest was unending. No matter where the little girl went, what direction she took, she could not find the exit to the labyrinth of the woods.
For a moment she despaired. She felt just as lost as the Dame, who had zero sense of direction. That was when she caught a glimpse of color, a glimpse of something not green through the branches.
The girl danced over logs and twisted through the trees with an amount of renewed energy. She had finally done it.
She had made it to a town.
/*\
The seven-year-old dashed to the side-street, her long blonde hair flying behind her like a cape. She knew she was too recognizable. No other girl had the same color hair nor hair ribbon, no one wore the same shade of bright baby blue, and even more problematic...
None of the others had a face.
But she didn't know what to do about it. For the moment, all the child could do was run, as she would be unable to pause until she got out of the Kingdom. As happy as she had been to find the town, she could have cried when she saw the colors. Everyone was clad in red. Their homes were red, their accessories were red, even the collars around the necks of the pet dogs were a bloody shade of scarlet.
She had been running for so long and she was so tired...and yet she was still within the Red Queen's realm. She had hoped to make it to the Hatter's by now.
Maybe she really would die in this ridiculous world.
Just then the period changed to night. The guards who had been pursuing her, hot on her trail, had stopped cold.
There was no moon, and it would take them several moments to let their vision to adjust. Though the girl could hardly see herself, she knew that her survival depended on this.
They were entirely distracted, this would be her only chance to hide.
So she sprinted towards the nearest house and climbed the tree next to the fencing. She dropped down to the other side, and listened as the guards got louder, approaching her hiding spot, making her heart pound in abject terror, and then noticed their voices getting quieter and quieter, as they continued down the street.
At long last, she'd lost them.
She made her way to the back of the yard, careful not to destroy the landowner's garden, and prepared to jump over the fence back into the woods when,
"Hey you!" She froze. No, no, no, this couldn't be happening! Was she really so unlucky as to have gotten caught the moment she managed to evade the guards?!
She started to feel despairing again. She whirled to see...a boy. A resident of the house?
"I-I-!" She stuttered, and then stronger, "I didn't mean to intrude! I just needed to get away! I didn't hurt anything!" She squeaked, and then looked at the person in front of her. Now that she was viewing him with both eyes, she saw that he didn't appear to be that much older than her. He wasn't much bigger either. There were no sleeves on his shirt, an accommodation for the warm weather, and so she could see just how scrawny his arms were.
If I have to fight, she said to herself, I could probably take him.
Somewhat reassured by this train of thought, her eyes then darted to his faceless face. Shoulder-length black hair decorated his head, spiky in a manner that made it look untidy. If she looked closely enough, she could occasionally catch a glimpse of his eyes, appearing to flicker in and out of existence, sharp and green and glaring.
It was clear he had not believed her.
"Alright, now seriously." He drawled, crossing his arms. His voice wasn't very deep, so he was definitely just a kid too. "What are you doing in my backyard?" The girl, not much caring for his tone, could not help but to challenge him. Raising her chin slightly, just enough to rid herself of the illusion of meekness, she spoke.
"You mean your parent's yard?" she retorted, crossing her arms back at him. The boy's eyebrows scrunched.
"Don't change the subject. What are you doing here? Are you a Role-Holder?" He growled. For a moment, the girl merely looked at him with a blank stare, as if wondering if she'd heard wrong. Then, to his complete and utter annoyance and confusion, the girl started laughing. He knew he wasn't the most intimidating of the schoolboys - not that he'd ever admit it - but she was a girl. She was smaller than him. She clearly knew she shouldn't have been sneaking around his house, and when being interrogated by a boy both bigger and older than her, she started laughing?!
He immediately decided that there was something quite wrong with her mental state.
"No," she giggled, trying to muffle the noise with a hand, "I'm...well..." she had stopped at this point, and her voice had gotten very quiet. "Y...ple...all...e...or..ner." she mumbled.
"What?" he snapped,
"You people call me a Foreigner." She snarled, a little louder than she probably should have. To this, the boy's nasty demeanor broke. His arms flew to his sides and he took a step back, looking at her a bit strange.
A Foreigner?
"Prove it." He demanded as soon as he'd recovered, standing a little stiffly. She looked to the ground.
"Umm..." She trailed off.
"I knew you were lying." He stated dismissively, before turning to walk back into the house. He figured he should probably tell his parents that a Role-Holder was in the backyard, but then a small hand tapped his shoulder.
She had pridefully presented him with a small blue vial that was only half-filled with a clear liquid.
A small blue vial that - according to the stories - only a Foreigner was allowed to hold.
/*\
After the boy had recovered from his shock, he had quickly reiterated his plan and decided to smuggle the girl into the house. It was clear that she was exhausted, and upon hearing her story, it was no wonder that she had been fighting so hard to evade the Queen's guards. He had stowed her away in the attic, sat her down on a spare blanket near the window, and now he was creeping carefully down the steps of his house to find something from the kitchen.
If the stories were true, then Foreigners weren't like Wonderlandian people. If she died, she wouldn't be reincarnated. If she died, that was it for her.
He found the thought strangely chilling. It seemed unnatural that a person could be so...fragile.
She explained to him what she had been doing earlier in the day. The objective of her Game was to fill up the vial. In order to do this, she had to interact with the residents of Wonderland, and so she had chosen to spend the day at the Castle, because she had been hoping to find the Dame, as she liked to go camping with her.
Instead she had been found by the Queen. The monarch had quickly diverted the girl's attention, and brought her out into the gardens to play croquet. That was when the Queen, the old, insane hag, had noticed that something was wrong with one of her rosebushes.
When it had bloomed, the flowered turned out to be white, rather than red.
Enraged, the Queen had ordered that the guards who had overseen the gardens be executed. The girl, unwilling to let this happen (?) had made a suggestion.
"You could paint the roses red," she had piped up, "And when they die, you can plant the red ones instead."
However, the Queen had apparently only heard "paint them red." When the bush died from the lack of sunlight and the brown and decaying plant matter marred the impeccable looks of her gardens, she had ordered the girl dead as well.
She had run from the cards for hours on end, trying to escape to no avail. It wasn't until the change to night that she'd finally gotten her opportunity to lose them, and ended up in his yard.
No wonder she had been so exhausted. Suddenly the raccoon rings around her bright blue eyes made a lot more sense.
When she had finished her narrative, she had also finished the last few morsels of the small dinner that the boy had presented to her. She knew that he was not her ally, in fact his reaction was an anticipated one at this point.
He did not want to assist her out of kindness, but rather curiosity. She didn't fully understand the strange "love" that the people here had for her, but she assumed it was a sort of survival mechanic, one designed to work in her favor (against her family's wishes, she had read Darwin's work).
She came from a world where murder was a crime of the highest degree. Here, it was a commonplace practice. Without the "love" of the Wonderlandian citizens, she would wager that she'd probably be dead by now.
The idea scared her.
Then there were the comments about "rare things". The look on the boy's face reminded her of a conversation she had overheard between a pair of faceless.
"Foreigners aren't exactly a commonality. I'm sure the Duchess will want to take her in. She loves rare animals."
If anything scared her more than the constant murder, it was that many of the people here did not view her as a person. She felt that the boy shared a similar view. He had brought her some bread and water. In her home world, this would be a meal fed to a wild dog out of pity. A person in such a situation would have been awarded something much different. If someone wished to get a person in need some food, her father told her, they would bring him into a tavern, where he would be served things like soup or steak and vegetables.
Now that she knew this boy was not one of the few who would see her as equally human, she knew exactly which cards she needed to play.
"What's your name?" The boy asked. Startled out of her reverie, the girl answered.
"Alice. Alice Liddel. You?" she responded.
"Blood Dupre." Instead of speaking, she gave him a queer look.
"..."
"What?"
"That sounds fake."
The ten-year-old had half a mind to shoot the blonde beast eagerly scooping up the last of the crumbs off the makeshift rug.
/*\
The Outsider girl had wanted nothing more than to get back to Hatter Territory. Apparently that was where she was living. Why she'd want to reside with the Mafia, Blood didn't know, but they must have been treating her well there.
At least, they had yet to kill her.
Wonderland was not a big place, so the boy - having lived here his whole life - knew his way around.
She must not have been here very long. He thought to himself, just barely remembering to hold the too-low tree branch aside for her. His father told him time and again to be a gentleman, but the mannerisms just weren't sticking.
They had left two hours ago, and by Blood's calculations, they should almost be there. In just a few more minutes, the duo had come across a path.
A path with a sign on it.
Blood inspected the road marker while his exhausted companion stood in the road, her bleary eyes blinking. His mood significantly improved when he discovered that he recognized the name of the town on the left side of the sign.
It was the town closest to Hatter Mansion.
Encouraged, he dragged Alice down the path, and then leaped into the woods. As much as wandering around the forest was fun, it was also tiring. He didn't like feeling tired.
In just a few more minutes, the gates materialized. Luckily for him, it was not the Twins he came across, but rather the Hare.
The Twins were insane, and to be fair, the rabbit was too. However, unlike her co-workers, she was a little more open to reason.
Blood felt slightly more confident in the prospect of his own survival as Alice slightly leaned into his shoulder, looking like she might drop then and there. He took her arm and wrapped it around his neck and took hold of her waist. Right now, he looked like a friend. If the stories were true, then the Role-Holders might not kill him if she asked them not to. He hoped so. She yawned when the March Hare took notice of them.
"Alice?!" She exclaimed, lightly leaping to the little girl's side.
"Hey Evl'n." She slurred, "I'm so tired..." And she collapsed, nearly bringing Blood with her. He let go, and glanced down at the sleeping girl nervously. Should he try to wake her up?
Immediately, the Hare looked to the faceless boy for an explanation, her hand inching towards her gun instinctively, her amber eyes glaring into the deepest depths of his mind, as if she knew each and every one of his secrets, lies, and dreams. As if she was going to devour his soul if he didn't start talking.
Who knew a rabbit could be that terrifying?
Alice forgotten, Blood wasted no time in explaining the events through his point of view, unconsciously backing up against a tree. The Outsider girl had simply appeared in the yard, and explained who she was. She then told him she was hiding from the Queen's guards, and had asked that he direct her back to the mansion. He did not want his parents to find her in the house, and so led her back, as he thought her too tired to make the trip herself.
The boy held his breath as the Hare raised an eyebrow at him and bit her lip.
She was thinking.
Her hand moved closer to her gun, and Blood's clock momentarily stopped.
Was she going to kill him?!
Her hand dropped and she moved to pick up the tiny girl.
"Thank you for bringing her back." The woman stated, "Alice comes from a culture very different from ours. Where death and violence is an everyday thing here, it's much more serious in her eyes. Her world would view ours as monstrous and barbaric, and being a child, she doesn't quite understand why it's so different. She does her best to respect what we are but..." the Hare laughed, somewhat bitterly, "She was raised to value life, as she and her people are granted but one each. Here such a thing is less than frivolous." The woman made eye contact once more. "If you ever have the privilege of meeting another Foreigner in your current life, remember that." She stated, and walked away.
/*\
When Nightmare was finished restoring another section of Alice's memory, she was lying on the floor in a near catatonic state, eyes wide with shock. Blood - who had been watching over her, as this particular memory had to be restored in the Mansion - was sitting right beside her, equally surprised.
Of course, how could he have forgotten this Rule? The Rule was that - if a Role-Holder was to meet a Foreigner before the time of their Role - they would be forced to forget it. There could be no bias in the Foreigner's Game.
As she laid stock-still at his side, Blood found himself empathizing. He suddenly understood why Alice so often complained that her mind felt violated.
/*\
Soooo how was that? I was just sitting around, playing a game on my phone, trying to think of something to write, when I remembered something. One of the most famous scenes in Alice in Wonderland is when Alice paints the Queen's roses red. Since I can't really imagine Vivaldi ordering Alice dead, I chose to set this scene in the past. I was thinking about having her meet up with Peter - explain the whole love thing and all - but then I decided it would be more fun to write this with kid Blood. His superiority complex denotes a troubled childhood xD I imagine that he was the last boy who grew tall, he was bullied by kids bigger than him, and would need Vivi to fight certain fights for him. He was physically powerless, and so had to use his smarts to evade trouble. His opponents being other children, that might not have worked as often as he wanted, so he's learned to be afraid.
Ergo, he got drunk with power when he obtained his Role xD Please leave some reviews!
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