Author's note: Many thanks to the illustrious Spotzle for her beta work (including her patience with me when I threw a boatload of changes at her just before Thanksgiving).
Thanks also to Lewis Carroll and Tim Burton/Linda Woolverton for the characters who are the genesis of all this.
To see the other writers' entries (also my soundtrack for this story), go to livejournal dot com and look for aiw_big_bang/
Prologue
And in today already walks tomorrow.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
No one would have dared point out to him that he owed his freedom and more than likely his very life to a lady-in-waiting of the White Court. But Ilosovic Stayne was both more self-aware and more pragmatic than he was generally given credit for, and he felt no shame in either fact, particularly since he was more than a little taken with the lady-in-waiting in question, and she, miraculously enough, returned the sentiment.
Adjusting to life at the White Court had proved somewhat demanding, despite the luxury and ease of castle life and the fact that he had been in sword training there for several years before Iracebeth had stolen the throne and taken him with her as her right-hand man. He didn't much care if residents of the castle trusted him—for one thing, he found amusement and freedom in the certainty that many of them did not—and he always been something of a loner, so their company was not something he craved. But leaving the castle grounds for any reason was a poor option as of late, as Underlanders of both parties—for and against Iracebeth—were still prone to attack not only him but also his lady, and that level of restriction was hard for him to accept.
Finding something worthwhile to do with his days could be a dilemma, as his lady love had court duties, and additionally was known to become testy if he spent too much time provoking her. He had had no official capacity in the castle ranks until recently, and he now held a position as sometime administrator at the Red Castle as it was converted into a meeting place for all of Underland—not exactly what he had trained for, although he did show a certain skill for management, to the surprise of no one more than himself.
And then, of course, there was the unending challenge of attempting to maintain a civil relationship with Tarrant Hightopp, who seemed to be everywhere at all times. His main consolation there was knowing the Hatter was having an equally difficult time with that task.
Still, the castle was beautiful, the grounds lush and expansive and pleasant to wander, Casiphia Rhoswen apparently ideally suited to be his lady—something he had certainly never expected to find and especially not among the members of the White Court, Iracebeth was now deceased and no longer plaguing his life, and he was alive and healthy and experiencing no end of astonishments. Casiphia, for instance, was from a family that never ceased to surprise, and he never failed to enjoy the fact that she now carried the small Derringer her mother had brought back from the world above on one of her own adventures.
Good and ill aspects notwithstanding, this state of limbo was one Stayne realized was never destined to last, knowing, as he did, that it was inevitable one day the Queen's Champion would return.