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Her teeth are sharp (they were sharper before), but gnaw as they might, the chains are steely and hold fast against canine pressure.

The sun has long set and only the dim stars blink sporadically above her uncrowned head. Her stomach growls and growls and she wishes with great desperation (unbefitting a queen!) for a roast or two. But none are to be had, in this land that borders the waste lands.

There was once, perhaps, when a rabbit or two might have grilled a chicken for her at the clap of her hands. But those days are now long over…

She had always been a good queen, though. The coup d'état was entirely unexpected (none of her courtiers had ever so much as mentioned dissent among the people), and anyway, a queen could have her own way since it was her divine (god-given, that was) right to rule over the inferior beings.

The Jabberwocky had been her undoing, she knows it now. She had chosen a creature too weak to fight a mere girl, too frail to utter striking battle cries.

And now she wanders alone, chained to an unwilling and fully silent knave, chairing the darkness with her gracious presence.

/Oh she is so gracious, the lady with the hair spun from fire/

And the trees tip their leafy crowns to her majestic presence, when the thunder grumbles and the lightning mimes.

/And she is so majestic, the Red Queen, her people shrink from her very shadow/

When she loses her mind (and when her head enlarges disproportionately to the shrinking of the rest of her), there is no cheer across the desolate plain. He, her once-upon-a-time faithful subject, lies dead as a log at the other end, tethered to her for all eternity and cannot comfort away those bitter tears awash in moonlight.

Skulking over the wasteland, she weeps and tries to slit her own throat.

But she is queen, she is royal, she is gracious, she is majestic, and she can never die in Underland where all the strange things walk.

Some days she wakes to feel the sunlight breeze across her muddy face, but most nights, she finds the darkness knotted into her untidy copper hair, and wishes again for a decent river to bathe in.

But she can never again enter Underland till she is dead, but she can never die.

Such a curse upon a queen! She had never thought to consider that eternity could be such a stifling curse.


A/N: I was very taken with Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. And I want to read Lewis Caroll's Alice In Wonderland again!

I don't think this little ficlet actually makes much sense; I just wrote it out for fun. I was trying (rather futilely) to get under the skin of Iracebeth haha. Didn't really succeed, but I had fun writing this!

Reviews would be appreciated heh (: and thanks for reading!