Title: hide and seek
Prompt: Prompt 12—picture of hands and constellations
Character/Pairing: Alyss and the core, mentions of Alice and Jack
Summary: Alyss pulls the threads of fate, the strands of time, and smiles to herself.
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Alyss closes her eyes and reaches out. Her hands stretch far into the abyss, further than they ever will in the outside world.
But then again, the abyss is nothing like the outside world. Concepts of time, of space, of distance don't exist here. Not in the same way. Not when one is tied to the core, the very center of the abyss and the reason for all of its existence.
(If she tries, she can just barely remember a time when that wasn't the case. Just barely. A span, a second, a thought of when there were two where now one stands.
What a lonely person. What a lonely life. She pities her past self.)
As it is, she can feel the different chains as they make and break contracts, the different lights as they snuff out and darken. Her fingers brush against them, taking them in but ignoring them. Alyss doesn't need them, not now. Maybe when they return she will look at them. What news do they carry? What information can she glean? For there are others, more important, that she has to find.
Her tea party is still waiting for two of its most important members and despite the thousands of things she can control, she is unable to fix that. Despite the things she can change, the things she can fix, she is powerless without the aid of a wish, a desire, a hope.
She can do nothing unless she is pushed, unless she is asked.
And what is the point to being the core, to having this power, if she can do nothing that she wants? She can't grab the memories Alice discarded, can't grab her own memories she tore up. She can't find them, can't find anyone, can only wait and wait and wait and hope someone comes.
Hope it isn't Vincent, like last time, hope it isn't Vincent and his scissors and his cruel sharp mouth. He hurt Chesire, he hurt Chesire and blinded him and he hurts her still.
He's not invited to the tea party. If she sees him again, she'll rip him like she ripped the knight.
Oh, but that is such an unimportant thought. About an unimportant person. Now where has her dear sister gone? Where has Jack gone? He promised he'd be here for the tea party.
(And Jack keeps his promises, unlike Alice, unlike Oswald, unlike Oz—no wait, that isn't right, is it? Alice did, she kept it despite the cost. And Oz broke and Chesire died and she's still waiting for their tea party.)
Where is she searching again? She steps through time, steps through the eras that pass outside. A chain returns, and another, each giving her useless information. Jack isn't there.
There's nothing to do but try again. Alyss pulls the threads of fate, the strands of time, and smiles to herself.
There's no hiding from her.