Notes: So yeah. This is still a thing I'm doing. You get a bit of Lizard backstory so yay! Also, I apologize to any Anastasia fans in my readership. I love her dearly, I really do, but she wasn't exactly the best Queen Wonderland could hope for. I promise, the next chapter won't be quite so shitty. There will be more Alice and a bit more plot.
The Music Man
"Urgh," Alice said, shutting the book and burying her face in her hands. For once, visiting a Bookwyrm was of no help to her. Most of what she had was useless information with nothing about how to get rid of a genie and the rest of it were tawdry romance novels with genies as protagonists or love interests. And lord knows she had no interest in doing any of those sorts of things with Cyrus. "Rabbit, none of these books are helping." Mr. Rabbit moved the small stack of books from the outdoor table and set down another cup of tea.
"Alice, maybe you should let this go," Mr. Rabbit said. "Make three harmless wishes and be rid of him for once and for all."
"Have you read these books?" She said, reaching down and taking the book with the red cover and opening it to a section of poorly thought out wishes. Using the three red jewels hidden in the secret compartment in her shoe was an option she would not consider. "People have died and doomed countless other lives over a cup of coffee." She pointed to an illustration depicting the aforementioned ill-fated beverage. "And that was just with an incompetent genie. There are actively malevolent ones who can twist a wish to have the worst possible outcome. Do you think Cyrus would be anything else?" No matter how much of a friendly, polite, changed-man front he was putting up now, she was not going to fall for it twice.
"You have a point there," he said, taking a seat across the table from her. "I'm sure you'll find something Alice, you always do."
"I don't think I can this time," she said. "I've read all of these books and there's a thousand and one things about how to find a genie, how to properly make a wish - professional tip, you can't-, how their powers work, all things like that, but nothing about how to get rid of them. Just make your wishes or die. And unless you've got a good one, that's the same thing. And I don't have a good one. In fact, I probably have one of the worst out there."
"It seems like you're deliberately avoiding the issue Alice," he said. "Maybe if you talked to Cyrus about this he would know more about it."
"I'm not avoiding the issue, I'm avoiding Cyrus. Which is a perfectly reasonable response to being involved with Cyrus," she said, taking a sip of tea. Even the woman she talked to in the market place so long ago seemed to think that avoiding Cyrus altogether was the best course of action.
"Have you considered that he may have been telling the truth about being a changed man?" he asked. "The time I picked you up from was a very, very long time ago. I wouldn't put it out of consideration that a few centuries in a bottle would change somebody."
"I'm not trusting him again," she said, perhaps a bit more forcefully than she meant to. She hoped that would put a permanent end to that. "The entire time I knew him, he seemed so polite and so nice, much like he's acting now. But it's just an act. He's nothing more than a common swindler. For that entire afternoon, he made me feel so special and wonderful, even acted like he believed me when he probably thought I was mad as much as anybody else, until he got what he wanted. He's a liar and a cheat, a very charming liar and a cheat, but a liar and a cheat nonetheless and I wouldn't trust him again if my life depended on it."
"Well, maybe some good can come of this," he said, taking her hand in his paw and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "This could be the proof you need to convince your father that all of this is real."
"You've met Cyrus," she said, without thinking. After a pause, she laughed and added, "Can you imagine introducing a slimy conman I last saw in a marginally less dodgy bar to my father?" Even Mr. Rabbit chuckled at the image of her stodgy father talking to the swindler.
"I'll admit, the idea is certainly amusing," he said, checking his pocket watch and organizing the pile of books on the table.
"Alright, Mr. Rabbit, I really must be going," she said, taking a final sip of her tea and looking up at the filtered sunlight. It was getting late and she had quite a bit of ground to cover if she wanted to see about finding a new artifact for proof. She gave Mr. Rabbit a hug, he told her to be careful and reminded her that she was more than welcome at the Rabbits' home whenever she liked, and then she set off.
Alice didn't get far before realizing that she was being followed again. She set her teeth and her fingers coiled into a fist in preparation to punch certain genie in his smug face, then she waited for a birdcall to pretend to be distracted to check over her shoulder. It appeared that she was not going to see the end of the guards any time soon. She pretended not to see anything and kept walking.
It would be easier to do this in a less cramped area, but she was not particularly worried. There was only half a dozen of them and the Queen's Guard were not particularly threatening, frequently citing that they were not paid enough to deal with Alice. The sounds of their footsteps got closer and closer and she scanned the area for the most favorable location. There was a particularly large and dangerous looking Dogwood Tree that would provide cover and a bite worse than it bark.
She stopped at the base of the tree and examined the bark, as though lost in thought. If they knew she knew they were there, she'd lose the element of surprise. The leaves behind her crunched under the weight of many boots and a voice said, "We've got you now."
"This is the last thing I wanted to do today," Alice said, picking up a nearby fallen tree branch without turning around. It was a good, strong branch, its weight felt good in her hand. It wasn't her first choice of weapon, but it would do. "First the mad genie won't leave me alone, now you louts decide to keep hounding me." She turned around to face them. "Well ladies and gentlemen of the Queen's Guard, have at me."
X~*~X~*~X~*~X~*~X~*~X~*~X
"You're lost aren't you?" said a voice from behind him. He spun around and found the hedgerows still empty. He glanced at the left fork, then the right again, thinking he'd missed something, but there was nobody. He spun around again and heard a slight laugh somewhere above him. He looked up and saw a woman perched atop one of the killer hedges.
She had a scarf pulled up over the lower half of her face and a peaked hat covered dark hair. She was dressed in a manner that suggested some sort of stealth work, possibly in a government capacity. She was obviously comfortable with this environment and knew some way to keep the hedges from devouring her, suggesting a familiarity with the maze and given that he'd heard numerous parties of what he learned were Queen's Guards going through the maze, she likely had a shared background.
"I don't think so…" he just hadn't decided which way to go yet. He'd been stuck in this maze for hours, most of which consisted of him standing at various crossroads, trying to figure out which way to go next. He felt as though he should have been able to remember which way Alice led him the first time, but this whole maze looked the same and he was no longer any good at making decisions.
He was stuck at the first turn for what must have been half an hour. He thought he remembered which way he went the first time, but he may have been wrong. Being wrong meant being stuck in this maze even longer. Or never seeing Alice again. The turns grew more difficult after that. He had all the more potential to be wrong and even after he made a choice, he worried he'd made the wrong one.
"Well, you've been standing there since I got here and I've been watching you going back and forth for a good five minutes," she said, cocking her head to the side. "If you're not lost, then I'm the queen."
"Are you the queen?" He'd served kings, empresses, sultanas, shahs, and all manner of royalty and if he'd learned one thing, it was that the possibility of royalty dressing up as commoners and blending in was not out of the question.
She laughed so hard she almost fell off the hedge. He couldn't help but notice the bitter voice when she finally regained enough self-control to say, "Nargals! You really are lost aren't you?" Perhaps she wasn't one of the Queen's Guards.
"Maybe," he admitted.
She leapt down from the hedge with all the grace of a mountain goat, pulled her scarf down, smiled at him, and said, "You need help?"
He didn't know what to say to that. He certainly had no idea how to get around this place and she had some ability not to be eaten by the killer hedges. But she probably had more important things to do than show him the way out and he didn't want to inconvenience her. The selfish bit of him he'd worked so hard to repress told him to accept her offer, but he couldn't ask that of her. She'd only just met him and owed him nothing. He didn't even know her name. Yet she had no idea what he was, no idea what he could do, and still offered him aid.
"I confess I might," he said. "I'm afraid I'm not from around here and don't quite know my way about yet."
"You can live here for years and never know how this maze works," she said. She held her hand out to him and said, "I'm Lizard. You can call me Liz."
"Cyrus," he said, taking her hand. She shook his hand firmly and set off down the left path. A wave of relief passed through him. He'd been a few moments away from taking the right. Anything to save him from his own poor life choices.
She led him through the maze without a moment's hesitation, sometimes paying more attention to their conversation than where she was going. He envied that sort of ease. He used to be able to slip through crowded Agrabah markets with the same ease. He still found it difficult to believe that Liz was swilling to help him, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"You really seem to know your way around," he said as they turned down an overgrown path. "Is everybody from this land a natural navigator?"
Liz laughed and replied, "Nah. Most people stay as far away from the maze as possible if they can help it. Good for me though because the Queen's Guards don't go in if they can help it either. I mean, it was crawling with the buggers earlier but they normally keep out. Hedges, you know?"
"Actually I don't." He didn't like the implication of that statement. That meant that massive killer plants were the norm here.
"You mean you've never seen a hedge in action?"
"Well, I think I saw one eat a squirrel earlier if that's what you mean." They took a turn to the left.
"Exactly."
"Are all the plants in this land so voracious?"
"Well, they might not all eat you, but a lotta them are gonna give you a run for your money. The maze used to be pretty safe, but the Queen's let the hedges go all feral." He couldn't help but notice the frustration in her voice.
"You seem to be pretty safe around them," he said, recalling the sight of the woman perched on the hedgerow.
"Yeah, well they like me," Liz said, making another left turn. "Used to be a gardener. Until the Queen said she wanted red roses instead of white and Bill couldn't keep his mouth shut. "What do you want us to do? Paint them?" he said. Next thing we know, the entire gardening staff's out."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't be. I got a sweet gig going now." She smiled at him. He knew that smile. That was the, "Yes Taj, everything at work is fantastic," smile. She was good at faking, but he was better at reading people. He thought better of pressing her about this. She was helping her and he hadn't known her that long.
"So what do you do?"
"Odd jobs here and there. It's great, get to make my own schedule and everything," she sounded sincere, but something about the way she looked just over his shoulder instead of at his face led him to believe that there was more to the story. "What about you? What brings you to Wonderland?"
"Well, it's a long story," he started. "Hundreds of years in the making. To make a story as long as the fabled golden road of Oz into a more doable hike, suffice it to say there was a girl."
"Ah." The sympathetic look on her face told him that she'd heard another story that started the same way, although likely ended considerably differently.
"I don't think anybody's told a tale quite like this one before," he said. "Let's just say we were magically bound together by accident." He added, sounding a bit more put out than he probably meant to, "And she wants nothing to do with me."
"You like her a lot don't you?" she said.
"I barely know her," he admitted. "We met a long time ago, but in the short time we knew each other, I'm afraid I ruined any trust we may have had."
"If it's not too personal, what'd you do?" she asked.
"I'd rather not talk about it." Thinking that far back dredged up painful memories. Thinking of meeting Alice for the first time made him remember Taj patching him up after the bar fight and promised not to tell their mother about how he'd been gambling again. He was far happier thinking of his first memories being of his first master letting him out of his lamp rather than playing with his brothers in the streets near their home.
"I don't even want her to trust me anymore, because gods know I don't deserve it, but I just want her to know I'm not the same person I was back then, but I'm afraid I ruined any chance she'll believe me."
"Because you got her cursed?" He didn't like the idea of lying to Liz, but he didn't think she'd believe that centuries ago, he'd conned Alice out of a comb, then later on became her djinn and she was having none of that.
"Exactly." Not entirely a lie.
"That's rough buddy," she said, tugging on a vine and two of the hedges parted to reveal a wall of trees, thicker and denser than any he'd seen before. "The main road's this way." She left the maze and headed towards the wood. "I'm heading back to town if you want me to show you the way."
It certainly sounded better than waiting here for whatever sort of wildlife accompanied killer hedges. "I'd be glad to accompany you," he said. "Sorry if I've caused you any inconvenience."
"Don't mention it," she said. "It's not like I went out of my way or anything. Besides, if you'd stayed there, you'd probably run into the Queen's Guards and let me tell you, you do not want to do that. They're not so bad, but Her Highness loves a good beheading."
"That can't be good for her subject's morale."
"Nah, but hey," she said, "what's a castle without a few talking heads?"
"A few talking heads?" He'd heard of spells for these sorts of things, but he always thought it was his mother telling scary stories.
"You really are from another realm aren't you?" she said. "Yeah. They're really creepy too. She used to keep them at the maze entrances to scare off tresspassers."
"I don't think they're working too well."
"I wouldn't know," she said, shuddering a little. "I stopped using the real entrances a while ago. Don't let all this ruin your impression of Wonderland though. It's not all awful here. We've got Dandylions, Tigerlilies, Catmint, Underland's not all that bad if you know how to hold onto your wallet…"
Liz started rattling off a list of curiosities he'd never even considered in all his years in the bottle as they walked. He responded in turn by telling her he was a traveler and told her stories of far off lands he'd visited and his home in Agrabah.
A long time later, he heard the rattling of cartwheels and an odd sight rolled around a bend in the road. A strange little dragon wearing spectacles came slithering along the road, pulling a covered wagon full of books. They came to a stop in front of Liz.
"Hello Elizabeth," they said, stepping out of their harness.
"Hello Zirnitra," she responded.
"How have you been? Who's your friend?"
"I'm Cyrus," he said, holding his hand out to dragon. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure's all mine. My name is Zirnitra and I'm a Bookwyrm," she said, straightening up a bit and sounding rather proud of her position. She shook his hand and said, "Can I interest you two in anything?"
Liz looked very uncomfortable for a moment before asking, "Those novels I borrowed the other week…"
"Ah yes! "Temptation of an Underland Scoundrel," "The Wyvern Lord's Heir," and…"
"Yes I remember," Liz said, her face turning a deep shade of red. "Anything like those?"
"I think I might have a few," Zirnitra said, slithering over to her cart and rummaging about. He couldn't help but like the mobile library. "Your card's still on file with me and while we're on the subject, Cyrus, do you have a Bookwyrm card?
"I'm afraid I've only just arrived in this land," he said. "But I think that your services are wonderful so I think I would like that very much."
"Ooooh Liz, I already like him better than the other lout you hang around with," Zirnitra said, pushing her glasses back up her snout as she went through the books. "What's his name again…Wade? Wigstan? Wilfred? Windsor…"
"Will," Liz corrected. As the color of her face deepened, he surmised that she and Will were likely more than friends.
"Right. Will. No interest in a Bookwyrm card. Said he wouldn't be here for long enough to need one. Well, we'll see where that gets him. All alone in the world without any of these lovely books," Zirnitra said, caressing the spine of an encyclopedia. "Well Liz, I think I've have a few things you're going to love." She placed a stack of well-worn paperbacks on the side of the cart. "One Night on the Boiling…"
"Ah thank you so much," Liz said, cutting her off again and taking the books from the cart before Zirnitra could rattle off any more titles, careful to cover the covers with her hands.
"Now you Cyrus," the dragon said, hopping onto the side of the cart and pushing her glasses back into place. "What sorts of books do you like?" He really didn't know. He hadn't had a chance to read for pleasure in a very long time and he was no longer sure of what he liked.
"I'll give anything a chance," he said, not wanting to offend the Bookwyrm by saying that he honestly did not know what he liked to read. "I really only want one though. I'm only passing through."
"Hrm…" she said, rubbing her snout with her talons as she thought. "You look like you'd like a nice adventure. Let's see what I have…" She dove back into the cart. "I'm afraid I don't have much to offer at the moment. I had a busy day in town and earlier, somebody borrowed everything I had about genies. And I told her that "Taming of the Rogue Djinn," was not an informational text, but she wouldn't listen…" That sounded an awful lot like Alice.
"Was she about Liz's height, have long light brown hair, and wear a white dress?" he said, perhaps a bit more eagerly than he meant to.
"I'm sorry, I am less than optimal with appearances, I remember books. I know she typically borrows books about physics, but I would need to look up the receipt to recall her name, here, allow me…" She reached for a black metal box he assumed held receipts.
"Oh no, never mind, it's not important," he said. "What was that you were saying about adventure stories?" Just as he said this, his gaze fell on a stack of books a bit more relevant to his predicament.
Notes: Please review this shiznit. I really love reviews!
