I feel so sorry for Alice and Tarrant, for the moment this is very tragic. However, if you do fancy some Mirana/Tarrant I have a very subtle flirt here somewhere, probably so subtle you won't notice it but still. Thank you for writing reviews and making me happy, it feels so good to post a new chapter then. Oh, and don't worry about them not ending up together. I always favor happy endings! :)
Tarrant stood on his knees on the marble floor and the hallucinations of Alice laughed at him as the walls fell down and the real Alice ran away from him. It was the last push his heart needed to real lunacy. He laughed and laughed, higher and higher. His laughs sounded platonic and cold and very soon the laughs were followed by him running up the stairs in panic. He couldn't even think about what he was doing and he felt his feet loosing grip as he fell and hit his head. Then everything went black.
Alice still felt Mirana's judgmental eyes and Hatter's sad ones burning in her neck as she finally reached Beyond after a steep stair. Her heart pounded as if it were about to pound out of her chest. Everywhere around her people stared blankly, without any emotion, at the black and white surroundings. They were so alike Alice had a hart time to part them and the lack of color in Beyond was something she was painfully aware of. It was just as dull as she had thought and the memory of her friends echoed in her head, tears still streaming silently along her cheeks. She still found her mind too clouded to think straight.
No one wanted to stop and help her find her way and the animals just stared at her quietly when she asked them. The map was too hard to understand. It was like London, a stricter, darker, colder London.
"Why am I doing this?" She asked herself. "Why can't I just go back to Wonderland and fight with them?" She knew the answer to that question as soon as she asked it. The thoughts of wonderland in shatters, her friends soaking in their own blood and Hatter, her Hatter, in the hands of that manipulative idiot. That was why she was doing all of this. She couldn't remind herself enough about what would happen. She couldn't even allow herself to think a simple "what if"-question. What if Wonderland's soliders was better? It wasn't worth the shot.
After wandering around the boundaries of Beyond she found an old man that could escort her to the castle, which was not at all like Marmoreal, more like a large house. With a lump in her throat she stepped inside, only to be greeted by an isle of statues of Eriah and what she supposed was his victories. Alice was more scared than ever. "I need to get myself together." She whispered. "6 impossible things, Alice. Come on. 1. There is a place in only black and white. 2. You get there by using a huge stair from one world to another." Alice did enjoy her father's old method to calm herself down. It told her everything was possible and that was exactly what she needed to know now. It was soothing.
"3. I'm two worlds below London. 4. I give up my dream home for the dullest place on earth. 5. I am about to be a queen." Alice found her muchness return to her as she spoke the last sentence. "6. I will be happy in Beyondland and I will love my husband."Impossible things could happen and had happened renewed strength in her eyes she continued into the castle to start her new life.
Mirana sat on the edge of a bed in the castle's royal wing, stroking the hair of an orange-haired man as she peeked out through the windows to watch the beautiful day. He opened his eyes slowly, looking whimsy. He soon brought his hands to his head and moaned. It was four days since he hit is head on the marble stair and it still felt like something was hammering on his brain. Still, it wasn't quite as bad as it had been before. Hitting a marble stair wasn't his favorite thing to do, though. Recovery was far too long.
"Hello." She said with a smile when she saw him waking up. "How are you feeling today then, dear?"
"The head is better." He said, implying that something else was not. Mirana quickly got the hint.
"And the heart?"
" I must be dying." He whispered. "I feel like I'm dying. I think it's crushed."
"You're not dying." Mirana said, giving him an amused smile. However, he could catch a glimpse of anger in his eyes but it was oddly not directed to him. He figured it was at first, since he hitted his head and was all mad and wouldn't forget Al-. That girl. Strangly she was mad with someone else and though he thought and thought he couldn't figure out why when he was the one who had been acting wrong. "You're such a drama queen, Mr. Hightopp, did you know that? Anyhow, you usually say it's broken."
"Did you know that heart is a muscle? It cannot break." He glanced away towards the window, his eyes turning blue and Mirana knew to well what that meant. Deep sorrow.
"I'm sorry about... You know who."
She saw how he struggled his madness, his internal battle, to not disappear into his own thoughts. At last he gave her a stiff smile.
"I don't really mind. I have all the friends I need here." He made a vague hand movement towards the rest of the, very empty, room and gave off a tired giggle. He was nauseous, dizzy and his head and heart hurt like he thought something hard smashed them, but he had to try. For Mirana. He had asked her for a potion that could help him with everything. To forget and to be out of pain but there was no one that didn't give him side effects like being loopy or have an increased strength of emotions. He had rejected it with the reason that he had enough emotions for the moment, thank you.
He thought of the time he'd spent waiting. Everybody waited the first year, like they all expected her to come back and then he had been doing other thins. Making hats, having tea because no matter how strongly he wished she hadn't left him she said she would come back one day and she had things to do. It was not likely that The Alice would come back just because a simple Hatter wanted her to, and a very important woman like herself probably had plenty of business in the Otherworld. He kept the optimism for the first half of the second year. She was- No, is special and she said she'd be back before he knew it but maybe her time was much more slow.
After that he thought he might have missed her, that she'd been there, all lost and then just returned because she couldn't find them. Could that be?
He started sitting by the table, thinking about the most horrible things that could have happened. Hatter sighed at the thought of that, he was naive and childish, as she said he was. To think that she, the champion, would return to their little country when she was clearly meant for more. To think that she might missed him too, someone as unimportant as himself… Ridiculous.
"Tarrant, Tarrant!" Mirana said, loudly. "Are you there, love?"
"Oh, I- I am sorry, I was drifting off, thinking about –"
"It's okay," She said. "I'll leave you for a moment and I'll return with lunch, all right?"
Tarrant nodded and watched her friend take up her fairy-like composure again.
"Do I look like a trustworthy queen now?" She said, laughing at herself. Usually she just dropped the queen-like posture around her friends and they were usually as amused when she had to put up her formal self and fake the complete lost-ness she usually had. They had giggled at it forever and she thought Tarrant could need a laugh.
But Tarrant didn't even notice, he had drifted off into his own thoughts again so she just gave him a warm smile and shut the door. She was truly worried about him and the latest news about Alice wouldn't make it better. She planned on keeping it from him but the rumors were flowing all over the castle. All she could do was to cross her fingers and hope. She had commanded the others not to talk about it around Tarrant but there was other ways for words to arrive to it's destined recipient than a direct conversation. Still, to have him hear about that... Poor thing.
