She walked through the battlefield without hesitation. The battle long over. Her eyes dark and searching. She scanned the face of every body and when she found they were not who she was looking for moved on. Her infamous smile was gone and replaced with a displeased grimace. She noticed a white hare off to the side. She approached him and kneeled down next to him. His heart beat was barely there but he smiled at the eleven year old, "Why isn't it Chessur, you're late for the battle."
She would've chuckled if her friend wasn't so injured. She asked him, "What happened?"
"The jabberwocky, my dear," He coughed up some blood afterwards.
She hissed in a very cat-like manner, "Where is Alice?"
"She never showed, I dare not think of what may have happened to her," He said as he reached into the pocket of his blood-stained waist coat. He pulled a pocket watch out of his pocket and forced it into her hand, "So, you won't be late again."
The talking rabbit's white paw grew limp in her hand. She took in a deep breath to steady her heart. She stood up abruptly and screamed out, "Alice!?"
She turned in a full circle before screaming out the name of their supposed saviour again. She stumbled through the battlefield as tears streamed down her face. She continued to scream, "You were supposed to save us! Alice! Alice, where are you!?"
She screamed her throat raw. She cried her eyes dry. She searched until she couldn't take it anymore and fell to her knees. She had no more tears to shed, so she smiled and started to laugh. The laughter was bitter and raspy. The smile extremely wide to fit all the malice that filled it. The laughter slowly grew louder and more frantic. She threw her head back and laughed more.
"Why are you laughing, dearie?" A high-pitched almost whimsical voice asked.
She struggled to stop her laughter as she rose to her feet and turned to the stranger. Her toothy smile was still there and madness was alight in her eyes. She said simply, "What else do you expect me to do?"
"Are these not you're friends' bodies? Who died, because your saviour, Alice, couldn't be bothered to show," Rumpelstiltskin asked curiously as he watched the young girl warily.
"I have cried. I have screamed. I have searched for that, that bitch. Though they still lay dead, so I do the one thing the one thing I am best at," Chessur paused, "I smile."
Rumpelstiltskin looked at the purple haired girl with new interest, "What do they call you?"
She smiled even wider if possible, "The name is Chessur, but the nick that named me called me The Cheshire Cat."
Rumpelstiltskin narrowed his eyes at the girl's foolish antics, before he concluded, "You're mad."
Her eyes seemed to light up, "We're all mad here, I'm mad, You're mad." She punctuated that statement with a giggle.
"What makes you think I'm mad?" He asked.
"You must be," She said with a bittersweet laugh, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
He cracked a smile, "Fair enough."
"What are you doing here? You're not from Wonderland," She stated.
He raised an eyebrow, "How did you know?"
"I don't know, I feel," Chessur corrected with a giggle and an eye roll.
"I am here on business," He said simply.
"What kind of business?"
"Curiosity killed the cat, dearie," He said with a slight growl.
Her grin stretched impossibly wide. Her eyes big and filled with madness. Dimples prominent in her tear-stained cheeks. Her dark purple tail coat, black riding pants, and leather boots streaked with blood from her friends and dirt from the battlefield they died on.
"Yes, and satisfaction brought it back," Was her malice filled retort and this sentence as well was punctuated by a fit of giggles.
-coc-
Chessur sat across from the one-handed wonder with her knees drawn to her chest rocking back and forth slightly. They were both doing excellent jobs acting like traumatized survivors. Though while neither of them were big fans of the slaughter they knew what they had to do. She could feel the suspicion coming off of Emma though as she approached the two of them with cups. Mulan filled the cups with water and they both drank out of them.
"A camp full of corpses and you two are the only ones to make it out alive, how exactly did that happen?" Emma asked. Chessur took a drink of her water to hide her smirk.
Hook recounted a loose version of the truth, but Emma wasn't convinced. In fact, she told him that much more or less. He started talking about how he could guide them through the land. Then, Emma pulled out a knife and held it to Hook's throat, "We aren't going anywhere till you tell us exactly who you are."
She knew they'd been found out so she quit the act. She laughed and stretched her legs out, "Oh, I like you."
They all looked at her with varying looks of shock and confusion. She had a deeper voice than the once she had been using and a British sounding accent. She leveled them all with an amused look.
"Oh, come on might as well drop the ruse. You can't charm you're way into this one's trust," She said playfully.
"Who are you?" Mulan demanded.
"The queen of the Enchanted Forest," She said sarcastically, "No, wait, she's over there in the pink sweater."
Chessur grinned widely as Snow put her hand on her sword's hilt. Chessur continued, "Wait, were you addressing me or the one-handed wonder?"
They tied the two up to a tree. Snow was hesitant to tie up Chessur, but did so eventually.
"Tell us who you really are," Emma demanded of Hook after they were both tied up.
"I'm telling you, I'm just a black smith, that girl is crazy," Hook exclaimed.
"I prefer mad, thank you very much," Chessur said.
"If you won't talk to us then you can talk to the ogre's as they rip you limb from limb," Emma threatened. She turned around, whistled loudly, and then started to walk away with the rest of her merry women.
"What if he's telling the truth?" asked Aurora over the distant roaring of ogres.
"He's not," Emma said confidently without turning around or faltering. Chessur smiled widely at the woman's threat feeling a familiar rush of adrenaline.
"Good for you," said Hook, "You've bested me, I can count the number of people who have done that on one hand."
Emma turned around and stalked towards them, "Is that supposed to be funny? Who are you?"
Hook sighed, "My name is Killian Jones, but people have taken to calling me by my more colorful moniker, Hook."
"Hook," Snow exclaimed.
"Check my satchel," Hook said.
"Hook?" Emma questioned unimpressed, "As in Captain Hook?"
"So, you've heard of me?" Killian said lightly as Snow pulled out a shiny hook from his satchel. An ogre roared from not to far off.
"There getting closer so you," Emma jabbed her finger at Chessur, "Better tell us who you are and you both better explain yourselves, if you don't want to be eaten."
"Simply a creator of chaos, my dear," Chessur said cryptically with a wiggle of her eyebrows.
"Thus isn't time for your games," Killian exclaimed.
Chessur huffed, "You're no fun, Captain." She looked at Emma with an impossibly wide grin, madness glinting in her eyes, "What if I don't mind being eaten, seems a good way to die. Helping another being survive."
Emma honestly couldn't tell if the girl was bluffing or not. She found it hard to believe this was the same girl they had dragged out of the pit crying. Another roar even closer sounded out.
"Just tell her your bloody name," Killian yelled.
"Wait, you don't know her name?" Snow asked.
"No, but you do. I wasn't lying, Chessur is one of my names," She explained tilting her head to the side. Her grin only grew when another roar met their ears.
"Tell them your real name," Hook demanded.
"What if my reality is different than theirs'? Then what I consider my real name, they may not."
Killian growled, "Stop being so damn difficult."
Chessur sighed, "Fine, all this talking has ruined my mood for being eaten." She looked Emma in the eyes and there was a beat of silence where they just stared at each other. "You would know me by the name, The Cheshire Cat."
Snow and Mulan's eyes widened and reached to pull out their swords. Emma looked back at her mother and Mulan shocked by their reactions to this small girl.
Killian said, "Cora sent us to get your trust, to learn all your secrets about your Storybrooke. She didn't want any surprises when she finally got over there."
"She can't get over there," Snow exclaimed, "We destroyed the wardrobe."
"Yes," The Cheshire Cat giggled, "But she collected the ashes and she can use those to open a portal."
Another roar, closer than ever.
"Alright, now cut us down," Killian said.
"No, we should leave them here to pay for the lives they took," Mulan said forcefully.
"Hey, that was Cora, there is no blood on our hands." Chessur added with a thoughtful expression, "Well, there is, just not theirs'."
"Ignore her," Killian pleaded.
"Let's go," Emma said looking between the two of them. They started to walk away, but Chessur had other ideas.
"Wait," Chessur said, "You need me."
"Why's that?" Snow asked.
"We are all after the same thing, to go to your land," She implored.
"How is this helping your case?" Emma asked stepping closer.
"We arranged for transport with Cora, but you seem much more... intriguing. The ashes will open a portal, but she needs something to guide to portal to your land without it there is no way of know where you'll end up," Chessur explained, "The one-handed wonder and I were supposed to get it for her. I'll help you get it with two conditions."
"And those are?" Emma asked slowly.
"I can't believe I am saying this, but cappy comes with and you give us both transportation to your land," Chessur said reluctantly.
"Why do you two want to go to Storybrooke?" Emma asked raising her knife as more ogre roars sounded.
Killian answered seriously, "To enact revenge on the man who took my hand, Rumpelstiltskin."
Chessur shrugged and said, "It is a mixture of boredom, curiosity, and bad judgement."
Emma didn't look amused by her answer, but began to cut them down all the same. When they were let down their hands were immediately bound and they were pushed in the direction they were to be heading in. They walked briskly away before the ogres to show up.
-coc-
"I'd like to make deal with you," Rumpelstiltskin said briskly.
"And what would the terms of this deal be?" Chessur asked quirking an eyebrow.
"I want you to kill someone for me and in return, I shall bring Alice to you," He smirked at the dark look that came over her face though her smile was still there. "He lives in the Enchanted Forest, so-"
"I'll do it," She cut him off, "I can't imagine being here after this."
With a flourish of his hand a contract and quill appeared in his hands. He handed the two objects to her. She read through it thoroughly, twice. Her signature Cheshire grin never left her face. She signed the bottom line with her messy cursive, Ashley Chessur.
"Then, it is a deal," He said with a smirk, "I'll be looking forward to you holding up your end of the bargain."
"And I yours."
"His name is Myron Owings. He is a knight of the Evil Queen's who hadn't fulfilled his end of a deal, by a given deadline. I'll take you to the Enchanted Forest after I'm done with my business here," Rumpelstiltskin informed her.
"I don't care, if it was the Evil Queen's own daughter. If you fulfill your end of the bargain, they will be dead," Chessur said allowing the madness to take over for the first time.
Did you like that? It's longer than the first chapter, I think. If you liked it don't be shy, follow, favourite, and/or review. Favourite/Follows make my day and reviews make my week.
