Wind and color.

The sky wheeled overhead in a fountain of shape. Bits of shattered memories and stabbing wants came to Ilosovic on the tendrils of a reality that still had a concept of space and time. A deep voice called to him, "Don't die." Was it his? He didn't know. Blinding sand, intense heat, and a distant knowledge of his legs carrying him in some direction, away from the gibbering laughter that mocked him, threatened him. When his legs tried to give up, when his skin's sweat was tears from the brutal landscape he was subjecting himself to, he reminded himself of the madness he'd beheld, and fear was a greater lash than discomfort.

He was beyond all of that now, however. Thoughts of self-awareness were long shut off, and the only thing he knew was that last command he'd given himself: Run. He had been running, he had no idea how long, or how many times the moon had shown it's face or the sun had glared at him. Everything ran together now, running together with him.

Pictures swam in front of him. The White Queen. Her sister, his former master. Her late husband, a bleeding gash at his neck. Tarrant's wild eyes from their last battle. They were judging him, disappointed in him. He tried to apologize, tried to tell them he hadn't known any other way, tried to warn them what he was trying to get away from, but the images didn't listen. Eventually, they, too, even passed.

The hour finally came when he couldn't run anymore.

He was warned first, in his mind. "If you keep running like this, your legs are going to break." He shoved this message aside, flashes of teeth and mouths and the voice like ice in his brain pressing him to go faster. After a lifetime of careful steps and knives under pillows to be face to face with exactly was was waiting in the darkness was nearly enough to finally End him.

That was his only warning- he no longer felt the burning in his muscles, the screaming as they tore in his attempts to put as much distance as he could between himself and what hovered in that glade, and so he did not slow down. Until, eventually, they broke.

Ilosovich felt no pain as he went down. Rather, he merely felt a floating sense of confusion as to why he wasn't going anywhere anymore. He bounced and skid on rocks and ground, coming to a grinding halt... Somewhere.

He tried to raise his head, tried to make sense of the blurred vision he had on his one good eye. Straining with what strength he had left now that addrenaline was leaving him, he sputtered and shivered into a position that could see some kind of grass and gentle movements in the distance. The wind whistled in the emptiness, and for a moment all was still.

The silence shattered as hands grabbed his arms. Terror stabbed him as he remembered with full force once again why he had been running, and he struggled to escape. Words of fear fell from his mouth and spasms rocked his frame, but the hands held strong. It was too much for him. This is the End, he thought, and everything went dark.

LLllLLLlllLLllLLLllLLllLLLlllLLllLLLlll

He awoke dazed and unsure how much time had passed with a renewed joy of what "softness" was. The sheets around him felt like a refreshing cool breeze on a summer day, and the mattress beneath him seemed to know exactly what parts of him the most support and offered it cheerfully. He stirred, aware of a dull ache in his right leg, but the kind of dull of injury that has been treated by soothing hands, and not by tempered senses. Though much of him would have been content to stay buried in comfort, the growing knowledge that he wasn't dreaming needed to know where he was. Moving slowly, both for his own sake and to not alert anyone should the comfort be a ruse and his surroundings not hospitable, he pulled himself to sitting up.

The room was refreshingly pleasant. White walls, white blankets, and a wide window with a welcoming seat at it's base opened onto a view of ash trees and cherry blossoms. Light made it's home here, and he was filled with a sense of peace that was so different from anything he had previously known. He had the impression that the room had not been decorated so much as it had been given a personality, but the impression was a vague one- half-realized and recorded later when he recollected that first moment he woke up after his trial in the desert. The voice that circled loudly in his mind was asking, What is this place? and It's so soothing here... Am I dead?

The door to this room opened, and in walked a serene figure that Ilosovic had not been expecting. He gasped, and then quickly lowered his gaze in respect and fear.

"Do not trouble yourself to look away, Stayne." the White Queen Mirana called in a musical, low tone. The former Knave did not tilt his head, but allowed his eye to stay on her as she walked around to his side of the bed, her hands raised in calm control. He noticed she was smiling, and he felt himself relax an inch despite himself.

Silence stretched between them for a few moments, as they each sized each other and the situation up. Outside the window, the wind sighed happily- a strange sound and one that he didn't yet know how to fit into his current situation.

"I hope you're not alarmed by my arriving here so soon after you'd come to." Mirana continued with an ease that seemed effortless. "The guards informed me you were awake." She gestured airily to the two Knight pieces, previously unnoticed in the corner for their stillness.

"I uh... No, no Your Grace." he rasped out when he realized she was waiting for a response.

"I admit I was surprised when you were dragged into my Courtyard, half dead and alone." She kept her dark eyes on him as she spoke, a gaze he was finding increasinly difficult to meet. " I would have thought you had been captured for spying, except the guards who brought you in told me they had only laid their hands on you after having seen your legs give way during a mad spring through the outskirts of my Kingdom- hardly a sound plan of attack. I must assume, then, it is something else."

Ilosovich was silent. He had ceased meeting the Queen's eye and was staring at his hands in his lap, but he wasn't really seeing his hands. He was seeing rows of pointed teeth and a woman with flaming hair far past the point of no return... A shadow fell over his hands, and the soft musical voice continued. "I may not have stood on the same side as you, but I know you Ilosovic Stayne. Whatever else you are, you are a smart man, and you do not make rash choices. I did not have you thrown in a dungeon because I feel that you were running away from something that frightened you, and I believe I need to know what it is that can frighten the Knave of Hearts."

He jerked at being called that, and his voice sounded hollow in his ears. "I'm not the Knave of Hearts anymore... Perhaps still a knave but... not of hearts anymore... not to... especially not after-" He gasped and breathed deeply, the words catching in his throat. He did not wish to say them, because if he told someone, if he told the White Queen, that would mean this impossible situation was true, that the previous week of his life had been true. Out of everything to have ever happened to him, he did not want this to be true.

She waited until he'd had a minute to calm his breathing again, and then started again. "Ilosovic," she began, and he raised his eye to hearing his name being said. The silver crown on her head with it's jewels of blue caught the slivers of sunlight streaming through the window, and for a brief moment he saw the family resemblance. For some reason, this gave him the push to tell her what had passed, and he was watching her coal eyes grow wide with guarded alarm when he started his tale.

"Your Majesty... Your sister has gone mad."

LLllLLLlllLLllLLLlllLLllLLLlllLLll

As the sun pulled high into the sky, Alice Kingsley arrived at the White Palace. The trees greeted her familiarly, and she allowed herself a deep breath of the perfumed air before resolve took her and she rushed up the stairs ignoring all else. The halls of white stone seemed to part before her eyes, and though she heard the whispered question of her name in the air she pressed on with a swirl of golden waves trailing out behind her.

Her shoes tapped on the marble floor with each of her long strides. This way to the kitchens.. That way to the bedrooms... So the throne room is-

She stopped. Voices echoed along the passageway to the bedrooms, and she recognized them. One of them belonged to her friend, the White Queen, the other, she could vaguely place- but it couldn't be... Could it?

Slowly and curiously she walked towards the sounds, each step making her more and more sure of a truth that she wasn't certain she believed. Eventually she found herself at a door down a shaded hallway with two white Knights at attention, though they made no move to stop her from entering.

"...you're sure of this then?" the White Queen said from within, her voice sounding oddly serious. Alice stood close to the entrance, listening with all her intent at the words inside.

"I would stake my life on it, if I felt it was worth anything." the deep male voice answered, as if from a far-off dream. "I wouldn't have come here otherwise, not that I knew where I was going. Nothing short of that monster could have driven me back towards where I am exiled."

"If this is case, then we must be ready. My sister has always been deranged, but if she has truly become so desperate, then she is all the more dangerous. I will alert my armies, immediately."

Alice stepped into the room, her curiosity not allowing herself a moment longer to hesitate. The bright light after standing in the shadow was dazzling, and it took her eyes a moment to focus. When they did, she saw the White Queen, radiant as ever, standing over a bed where a tattered looking man with one eye sat looking shocked. Alice froze.

"Alice! Goodness, I wasn't expecting... It's wonderful to see you at such a time." The Queen smiled at her. Alice kept standing in the doorway, her face giving her away though she wasn't aware of it. The Queen, noticing where her eyes were, answered the unasked question. "Ilosovic is here to help us, Alice. He's warned us of a danger that we would have been entirely unprepared for. I'm giving him a pardon in exchange for his assistance."

"His assistance... yes..." said Alice slowly, a tumble of emotions and questions inside her not quelled by the Queen's answer.

"Since you are here, I hope you are also here to help us, once again?" Mirana continued looking at Alice with a gentle smile.

Alice was still frozen. Slowly her eyes moved from the Queen's smile to Stayne's shocked face. "I..." her eyes met Stayne's eye for a long moment, and then she snapped back to the Queen's calm face. "I need a moment." And she turned and ran from the room.