Cheshire sauntered into the Queen's bedroom and narrowly missed being pelted with a vase of white roses.
"Where are these roses coming from?" the Queen of Hearts shrieked at her terrified handmaiden. "I said, I said I wanted them gone! Every single one!"
"I, I, I don't know, Your Queenliness," the maiden stammered, pale-faced as the beluga whale a cappella quartet that Cheshire favored eavesdropping on in the evenings. Beluga whales always did have the most interesting conversations, even if they did tend to be a little long-winded.
"Perhaps the rose tree outside your window?" Cheshire commented, popping into visibility just long enough to grin at the Queen.
The Queen's hands shook with rage, and red spots of fury glowed high on her cheeks. "Cheshire, we shall see if you can still grin when your disembodied head is severed from your body."
Cheshire unraveled himself, sending his psychedelic stripes pin-wheeling in whorls of bubblegum and lavender.
"By the by, Your Heartlessness, you seem to have forgotten something I once told you: you cannot unbelieve in something just because it frightens you. You have been dreaming of white roses, like you did once upon a time, and the entire kingdom knows it."
The Queen seethed. "That fairytale has long since passed, and it did not end with happily ever after. As you have so kindly pointed out, I am quite heartless now. There are no white roses in my dreams."
Cheshire would have shrugged, but he did not think cats could shrug. And even if they could, his body was currently invisible, so the shrug would be irrelevant. So instead he yawned— a big, toothy, tuna-tainted yawn.
"I visited the Hatter earlier," he commented.
The Queen spun on her heels and stalked over to the window, yanking the heavy red velvet drapes shut with a jerk of her wrists.
"Mad as ever, I suspect," she snorted. "And no one to blame but himself."
"It rather sounds as though he blames you, actually," Cheshire countered, making sure he was quite invisible.
The Queen swelled like a dirigible, her once-pretty dark eyes flooding with malice. But she couldn't see Cheshire— he'd made sure of that.
Cheshire's characteristic grin slipped as he considered his Queen. She had once been beautiful, and it was easy to see how the poor, weak king had fallen for her. Dark hair spiraled in ringlets around a heart-shaped face. She favored dresses of red velvet, complementing the contrasts of pale skin and dark eyes and dark hair.
She had once been voluptuous too, with curves like piles of whipped cream. Food, and sweets especially, had once been her passion, and Cheshire purred as he remembered golden, flaky lemon tarts and rosy macaroons. But those too, were things of days now past, and Time was not a forgiving deity.
Now, the Queen loved no one and nothing.
The Queen deflated, hollowness seeping into her eyes as she sank down on the checkerboard tiles, her red skirt pooling around her like blood.
"Get out, Cheshire," she whispered to the seemingly-empty room. "I know. I know it all."
Cheshire dug his claws into the thick bedspread. He did not plan on leaving, and not just because cats as a rule did not like doing what they're told. He still cared for the Queen, shattered and heartless though she was.
The king elbowed open the door, bouncing on the soles of his shiny, polish-blackened boots with their jewel-heart decals. His curled mustache twitched as he giggled and chattered to Lord Squid. Cheshire rather liked the Lord Squid, with his dapper sense of fashion.
"Courting is a difficult business, my friend, a difficult business," the king advised, as though he were the foremost love expert in Hearts. Cheshire snickered to remember the sappy, saccharine notes the Queen had once mocked, but he supposed he couldn't judge too harshly. After all, the king had gotten what he wanted, though Cheshire suspected he rather regretted that now.
The Lord Squid nodded sagely as the king leaned in.
"Lady Dolphin is quite the catch, though, quite the catch!" Then he burst into another stream of giggles at his own little pun.
Then he caught sight of his wife, and he froze mid-giggle.
"Why, why, h-hello, my dear," he stammered. The Queen shot him an icy look, and he clammed up. The Lord Squid sidled out of the room, looking rather uncomfortable with the whole situation.
"There were white roses in our chamber this morning," she said evenly. "Why, dear, were there white roses in our chamber?"
The king paled. "Well, my darling, don't you think we could do with some variety once in a while? A few white roses now and again… or perhaps again and now, with Time being rather upset recently…"
The Queen's lips thinned, and the king trailed off.
"I quite agree with you, my sweet, quite agree," he backpedaled quickly. "Red roses are so very in vogue right now, in any case."
"I thought they would be," the Queen replied acerbically.
The king looked terribly nervous. Cheshire thought it would be a rather depressing affair when being alone with your own wife made you nervous, and he was quite glad to be a cat, and not really concerned with such things. He himself, Cheshire reflected, was destined to be an eternal bachelor, forever getting belly rubs from the maids and stealing tidbits of gossip.
Cheshire shifted from paw to paw. Perhaps he should see what flirtations Lord Squid and Lady Dolphin were composing.
The Queen shoved herself to her feet, swaying slightly as the bell skirt swooped and dipped around her.
"Court again, I suppose," she grumbled. "Best to get it over with that, isn't that right?"
"Why… why, yes, my dear, yes," the king squeaked.
The Queen swept out of the room, dwarfing her (rather pathetic) husband, who trotting along after her. Cheshire trailed after them, swishing his invisible tail back and forth. The maids were all too busy to pet him during the day, so he really had nothing better to do. Besides, the Queen worried him. Her temper boiled just under her skin today, and he wanted to make sure she didn't lose her head.
And to make sure no one else lost theirs, in an altogether different sense.
The courtroom was as raucous as ever. The idiotic creatures of Hearts—and there were many, many of those—almost always made up the jury. Toads scribbled pictures on slates, usually depicting frogs on spits, while frogs lazed on the benches and puffed up their chests. Hedgehogs napped and a family of dormice made their home in the niche under the royal balcony.
Cheshire spent the first trial trying to capture one of the white mice, who were completely oblivious to the unseen predator lurking outside their home. The trial was mundane: a black sheep complained of his limited market for wool (he only sold three bags a day).
Then the king pounded his gavel, as he was so fond of doing, and the courtroom grew… well, if not, quiet, at least less loud.
"Next, we have…" The White Rabbit glanced down at his list, then blinked in shock. "The Wh-wh-white Rabbit?" He gulped, eyes wide. "But, but, but…"
The Queen smoothed her skirt. "I told you if I found any more white rose trees left, I would have you beheaded."
"My dear, maybe," the king began falteringly. The Queen crooked an eyebrow, that was all, but the king was silenced.
"You may proceed to the center of the courtroom," she informed the White Rabbit, drumming her fingers on the mahogany banister.
The White Rabbit stood in the center of the room, his nose twitching. Cheshire pricked his ears and abandoned his pursuit of the mice.
Surely she wouldn't… She hadn't fallen that far. She couldn't have.
"I accuse you of deliberate disobedience to your sovereign." The Queen's voice carried through the courtroom, and one of the hedgehogs curled into a trembling ball. A turtle withdrew his head into his shell, peeking out just over the rim. "Have you any defense?"
"I-I-I…" the White Rabbit jabbered incoherently.
The Queen folded her white hands serenely. "No defense, then. The sentence is death by beheading, by order of the Queen."
"My sweet, the jury," her husband whispered, blinking owlishly.
The Queen's lips thinned. "Jury, of course. How could I forget?" She waved a hand. "Get on with it, then."
Cheshire hopped up onto a jury bench and swiveled his ears in the direction of the jurors. He'd never particularly liked the White Rabbit, pompous airhead that he was, but to die for roses? This was bigger. The Queen could not just execute people in a fit of pique, and Cheshire hoped the jury would tell her so.
Chalk dust powdered on the table like new fallen snow. One of the jurors scribbled furiously on a handheld blackboard, then held up his picture.
The White Rabbit's head.
A growl rose in Cheshire's throat. They were weak, these jurors. They were afraid— everyone was.
Cheshire scrambled up to the White Rabbit and wrapped himself around the White Rabbit's trembling neck like a striped boa.
"You cannot do this, Your Majesty," Cheshire yowled. "You are better than such petty things."
The Queen's eyes lit like live coals. "Now, you stand up for something, Cheshire? When have you ever done something other than grin and gossip?"
"Now," Cheshire replied throatily. "Now, I am doing something, because no one else will."
"He disobeyed," the Queen said through gritted teeth. She rose to her feet. "I will not be disrespected in my own kingdom."
"This is fear, not respect!"
The king cowered in his seat, burying his face in the white and ebony fur ruff around his neck. An ostrich repeatedly slammed its head into the stone floor, desperately trying to hide. One of the snakes tied itself in a knot.
"Fine," she hissed. "Fine. I will spare your White Rabbit."
Cheshire tensed, his claws digging into the White Rabbit. This didn't feel like a victory. There was no true victory against the Queen.
"But," she continued. "I exile you, the Cheshire Cat, from the palace and from Hearts. For as long as Time may hold sway."
Cheshire stared at her, long and hard.
She raised her voice. "Anyone who sees you in Hearts again will report to me. And then I will carry out the sentence you just saved the White Rabbit from."
Cheshire slunk down onto the quartz floor and yawned.
"Fair enough, my Queen." He began to fade, but his voice stayed just as loud as ever. "You may banish my body. But I shall always be here, watching, listening, just over your shoulder." He winked at her, and she bristled, as his head flickered from view. His grin bobbed above the tiles, the only thing still visible.
"This might be the last you see of the Cheshire Cat, my Queen, but you will never be rid of me."