AN: Well, the drop off in reviews is discouraging to say the least. Hope the story hasn't gone that downhill. I owe a debt of gratitude to Karribean for her support and enthusiasm. Thank you, my friend!

If you are reading and find this remotely interesting, have insight as to why one might have lost interest, or suggestions, please drop a review. I'd really appreciate it. If only a word to let me know you are still reading. Mahalo. :D

Lyrics to songs from Les Miserables by Alain Boublil (French lyrics) and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics)

Movie quotes from the novelization by T.T. Sutherland

Chapter 9: The White Queen and Her Champion

"The time is near, so near it's stirring the blood in their veins! And yet beware don't let the wine go to your brains! For the army we fight is a dangerous foe with the men and the arms that we never can match... We need a sign to rally the people, to call them to arms, to bring them in line!" -Red and Black from Les Miserables

In time, Mirana could avoid her courtiers no longer and, upon saying fairfarren to Absolem, the Queen went to the join her court. They greeted her with coos and compliments, airy empty words that evaporated the instant they were spoken. Though infuriating at times, Mirana could bear them no ill will for their denial of what went on outside the walls of Marmoreal. They were coping in the only they knew how; all of Underland's was, though defense mechanisms were as different as the inhabitants themselves. Fate, mercifully, took her away almost as soon as she had joined them with news that Alice was no longer on her way to them, but was actually in Marmoreal. Mirana retreated to the throne room, to wait for Underland's champion without the slight idea as to how she was going to receive Alice.

The pristine marble doors of the throne room opened to reveal a young woman, a very tall young woman, who wore a determined expression on her face, but Mirana did not miss the apprehension that also resided in her features.

"Welcome to Marmoreal," Mirana smiled as Alice approached her. The Queen's regent grooming took over and she greeted Alice with all the elegance and propriety that one would except of a White Queen. But Mirana's thoughts and attention were not focused on the girl herself, but on what she held in her hands: the Vorpal Sword. The Queen's fingers itched to touch the cool metal blade once more.

Once upon another lifetime, Mirana had arranged for Tarrant's birthday a chance to train with the White Knights of her parents' army. She had watched his training from a far with a bit of envy. How she had wanted to wield the powerful weapons that he did, to learn to use them and channel their energy. Her vows prevented her from doing so, but Tarrant returned the surprise one evening and placed a sword in her hands. Standing behind her, he guided her movements in fluid choreography until she was sure enough to take on the sword herself. He convinced her that it was not breaking her vows to take the weapon; her vows were not to harm a living creature, not to never touch a weapon. What a rush of exhilaration and dynamism had surged through her body; how she wished she had never taken the Vows of the Healing Arts. That feeling returned each time she held the Vorpal Sword.

Now Alice was extending the legendary weapon to her. "I believe this belongs to you," she said humbly from her bowed position.

Adrenaline coursed through her as Mirana took the Sword from the girl. She allowed to herself but a moment to revel in its power, before returning it to its rightful place with the Knights Armour.

"The Vorpal Sword is home again," she said with a light sigh. A dreamy look misted her features. "The Armour is complete. Now all we need is a champion. "

Alice could feel the Queen's pointed look, but could not meet her gaze. She had no answer, for to say "Not I" seemed inappropriate and inadequate a response to the ethereal ruler before her.

Mirana sensed the girl's hesitance and let the subject go. "You're a little taller than I thought you'd be," she said with a kindly smile.

At this, Alice looked up and smiled a bit. "Blame it on too much Upelkuchen."

The Queen gave her a knowing look and a wagged a finger at her. "Ah, come with me."


Tarrant's face was creased with worry and his eyes were a deep violet umber. He paced the floor of his workroom viciously with his bottom lip pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Mirana sat on the recliner near the window, bouncing her knees with nervous energy. She couldn't take much more of his silence; he'd said nothing since she told him of her father's plans, he had only paced. Mallymkun was on the work table pacing in time with Tarrant over a scrap over material that was beginning to wear thin.

"Well?" Unable to contain herself, Mirana shot up from the seat like a cork from a champagne bottle. Surely her friends could stop this madness; they had to! If not them, then no one could or would.

Tarrant stopped his pacing in front of her and looked helpless. With a shrug, he flopped down on the recliner she had been sitting on. "I can't think of anything."

"Nothing?"

He shook his head. Mirana looked to Mallymkun who was still now as well. She, too, shrugged with a pained expression. The princess looked slightly wounded that they could not come up with a plan to save her, not even a madcap one that could not possibly work.

"I don't see how you can avoid marry the Knight, Mirana." Tarrant rubbed the back of his head, still thinking. He was using her given name more freely when they were alone together or with Mallymkun. " I-I-" he gave up with another shrug and removed the hat from his head, forlornly turning it around and around in his hands. It was complete now, save for the lack of a band around the crown. He was contemplating leaving it that way. Absently, he rearranged the hat pins, trying to balance his own feelings about the matter with Mirana's request for help. He knew this day was coming; it had simply come sooner that he thought. And deep down, he had hoped that the kiss they had shared in the mural room might somehow change the inevitable. Obviously, it had not and would not. They had not spoken of it since it happened several weeks before; everything went on as it always had.

Mirana, who was thinking the same thoughts as Tarrant about the mural room, was about to give into tears of despair when another voice chimed in. "Sorry, I'm late," it purred above them. The trio looked up to see Chessur settling down on one of the hat stands. "Got held up by that temperamental Knight, What's-His-Name? Now what's so urgent that I am to help with?"

Mirana burst into tears, burying her face in her skirts.

Chessur looked at Tarrant with wide, innocent eyes. "Whatever it is, I didn't do it." He spread his paws out, pads up, as though to show that his paws were clean in the matter.

Tarrant shook his head ruefully. "It isn't you, Chess. Mirana's just been informed by her parents that she is be married to that temperamental What's-His-Name. In two months there is to be a formal engagement before the kingdom."

"Oh, that," the Cat flicked his tail at Mallymkun, attempting to knock her from her perch on Tarrant's sewing machine. "Yes, I heard about that. It's unfortunate, but nothing to waste tears over."

The Princess, the Hatter, and the Dormouse all stared at him in disbelief with just an implication of malice towards his cavalier attitude.

"We called you here to help," Mallymkun snapped at him, grabbing for his tail, which he vanished from her grip. "You can go away, you know. We don't really need you."

Chessur looked wounded. "But I am here to help. Listen." He swished around the Princess and the Hatter, putting an arm around their shoulders and pulling them toward him until their cheeks were pressed against his. "A lot can go right in two months time just as a lot can go wrong. Nothing is set in stone, only set in the Oraculum. And it's debatable as to whether that's gospel truth or not."

"What are you suggesting?" Tarrant shot him a perplexed look.

Chessur evaporated suddenly and when he did, Mirana and Tarrant fell together, bumping heads and nearly lips as they tried to catch themselves. "I'm suggesting that you three dark clouds pay Absolem a visit and seek his advice. I'm willing to bet that your parents did not consult him, Princess. And you know how he gets when he is left out of important events." The Cat shrugged and swatted a paw at them as though they were remarkably dense for not having come up with the idea themselves. "When you go, let me know, will you? I'd very much like to have a look at that scroll myself. One never knows when knowledge of the future will come in handy."

Mirana grabbed Tarrant's hands, imploringly. "When can we go?"

Tarrant frowned. "Can't be this week. Stayne will not leave for another four days." When he saw her face fall, he slipped one hand from her grip and put his arm around her, pulling her close. "Mirana, you must put up with him until then. Your parents are to leave immediately after that with business in the Heart Kingdom. We will go then. All four of us."

Mirana brightened for a moment and leaned into him, then she frowned. "What if the Oraculum say that I am to marry him?"

Tarrant's face, bright at her proximity to him, dimmed again. "Well, like Chessur said it's debatable as to whether the Oraculum is gospel truth or not. If it says you are to marry Stayne, we'll have to try and change it. Somehow."

Suddenly tired with discussing the matter, Mirana touched Tarrant hat, which was arguably his finest creation. Many had tried to bargain that hat away from him, Chessur not excluded, but Tarrant refused always claiming that it wasn't finished. Mirana knew though that he would say that even if it was finished because he did not wish to part with the hat. "Have you decided yet how to finish it?" she asked, looking up at him.

Tarrant raised the hat to eye level with his free hand. "No," he said flatly, disappointment evident in his eyes. "I know it needs something still. Something- something silky or satiny, I don't know. Just different from the material of the hat and something not green. I should like whatever it is to hang down over the back, like a kite's tail perhaps... or perhaps not."

The quartet quietly gazed about the room looking for something that might fit his rather sketchy description. Then, in a sudden stroke of inspiration, Mirana stood up and untied the rose sash that she wore about her waist in her daily dress. It was a simple thing, not at all fancy save for the embroidered flowers and slight fringe at each end.

"What about this?" she asked, holding the garment out with flourish.

Tarrant studied the fabric that she offered him. It took him a moment to place where he had seen it before. When he realized that it was her sash, he was immensely touched by the gesture. The color in her clothing was fading rapidly as she grew older. Eventually, all color would be gone from her wardrobe as white denoted her stature in life. Now the only color she had left were bits of fabric like the sash and they were becoming endangered. He smiled and took the sash, gently and skillfully winding it about the hat before tying it in the back. The ends of the sash hung down the back like twin tails of a kite. His hat was finally finishing and nothing in world would ever make him part with it.


After the White Queen concocted a Pishalver potion to return her to normal size, Alice learned that she had been summoned to see Absolem. Then, after returning from yet another puzzling conversation with the strange Caterpillar, she found the White Queen at her vigil by the spy glass. Alice approached her timidly, awed by the breathtaking beauty of the Queen; the Queen whom everyone in Underland, save the Red Queen's minions, would so readily lay down their lives for. No one more readily that Tarrant, Alice remembered. A terrific pain shot through the girl's heart and guilt twisted her insides. She had left him behind where he would almost certainly die. She did not want any of the curious creatures or people she had met to die, dream or otherwise, but especially not him. That curious feeling that caught in her heart and stomach when she thought of him, intensified until she thought she might burst.

"Alice?" The White Queen's sweet voice, laced with concern, broke through Alice's conflicting, confusing emotions. She blinked, unaware that the Queen had been watching her since she had stepped out onto the parapet. The Queen motioned for her to come closer. "You seem upset," she said in a low, soothing tone. "I hope that Absolem was not to unkind to you. He has a rough manner about him though he does not often mean his insults."

This made Alice smile a bit, a slight relief knowing that it was not just she to whom the Caterpillar was rude. She did not need another Mallymkun against her. "I'm-", Alice did not want to lie to the Queen nor did she truly wish to discuss a matter she could not voice anyway. "I'm exhausted." That was not a lie. She stood beside the Queen, understanding at once why her followers were so fiercely loyal. The White Queen radiated a warm, generous beauty of kindness and purity. Such a leader was easy to follow, even to certain death. Not that meeting the Queen had changed her feeling towards slaying the Jabberwocky. Still, she understood the why the others would give their lives for her.

The Queen, though serene, seemed to have a bit of nervous energy trapped inside, Alice deduced as she watched the woman slip a finger under a silver chain so impossibly thin that Alice had not noticed it before. From out of the top of her pearl-encrusted bodice pulled a small silver band with an intricate knot like pattern carved into it. Her slim white finger and thumb absently took hold of the ring and slid it back and forth over the chain.

"That's a beautiful ring," Alice commented in admiration of the delicate adornment.

"Hmmm?" Mirana's gaze was distant and her smile seemed even further away. "Thank you, my dear."

Ever curious, Alice wondered what the story was behind the ring. "It looks like a wedding band."

Something caused small ripples to disturb the Queen's tranquility. "It is," she said after a long pause, sounding almost sad, but not quite.

The girl was throughly intrigued. "Why don't you wear it?" Immediately, Alice bit her lip, wishing she had thought before speaking. There were any number of reasons that the lady might not wear the band, most of which were not pleasant and none of which were any of her business.

Mirana cast a kindly sidelong glance at Alice's innocent curiosity. Her placid feature misted over with a bittersweet smile. "My husband and I were separated on the Shatterky Day, the day I was banished to and he from Marmoreal," Mirana chose her words carefully as not to reveal her mate's identity. There no worry that Alice was a spy, yet the young Queen felt a strange feeling well up in her that caused her not to want to share him, any part of him, not even his name, with Underland's Champion. "I will wear it again when we are reunited and the Jabberwocky is slain on the Frabjous Day." She gave Alice a direct, meaningful look.

Alice ducked her head, knowing the Queen was expecting her to be Underland's Champion, just as everyone else was. That odd pain tripped through her again. Despite the nearly compulsive desire to please the White Queen, Alice was still Alice which was not the Alice. She wasn't even Almost Alice. She was just Alice.

Burying her own peculiar feelings, Mirana turned a good-hearted smile on the perturbed girl. "Are you truly alright, Alice?"

A grimaced finally broke over her face and she subtly wrung her hands . "I feel very guilty," she admitted in a small voice.

"Ah," Mirana nodded, understanding completely. "A feeling I am intimately acquainted with."

"You?" Alice did not sound as though she believed the Queen.

The woman chuckled softly. "Alice, I am a Queen whose people have been cruelly oppressed and murdered. Yes, unfortunately, guilt and I are close companions."

Alice moved to lean against the guard rail on the opposite side of the spy glass from the Queen. "Yes, but what happened wasn't your fault. What I did was mine."

How little you know, dear child, Mirana thought regretfully. Peering around the spy glass she queried: "And what did you do?"

Alice tapped the thumbs of her clasped hand together anxiously. "I left my friends behind in Salazen Grum."

Intense concern pricked the Queen's stomach, but she maintained her composure and benignly asked, "Why did you do that?"

"Because they told me to." Though she kept her expression to a mild frown, her voice betrayed her deep remorse. "They told me to come to you with the Vorpal Sword. They told me run and... and I did."

"I do not see how that is wrong."

Alice turned suddenly to face the Queen with enormous, damp eyes. "I left them to die!" The words burst out out her like water suddenly breaking through a dam.

Mirana was a bit taken aback by the admission and was about to offer a reassuring arm to the heartbroken young woman when Alice said, "He was so kind and good to me. He did everything he could to protect me and I just left him."

"Him?" The Queen's pulse raced to a rapid tempo. Though his name unspoken, she knew of whom Alice was speaking.

"Tarrant."

The sympathetic look of Mirana's countenance froze in place and she could not have changed it if she had tried. My Tarrant? She thought, rage leaping up from deep within her. You left my Tarrant to die? It was a guttural reaction not based on reason or rhyme. Tarrant, she knew was more resourceful than he was given credit for being and, with Mallymkun and Chessur's aid, he would find a way out of her sister's Castle of Horrors and still be in one piece.

Alice, though intensely distraught, was not as near tears as she sounded. She did not think she could cry if she had wanted to; it was a though she was beyond the point of tears. She wondered how she would handle news of his death. Even if it was only a dream that would have been killed she knew it would be as though the Vorpal Sword had pierced her own heart. "If I never see him again, I don't know what I shall do."

Mirana pulled back her arm at the peculiar look on Alice's face. She knew that expression somehow. The despair, the loneliness, the... where had she seen it before? Where? Particles of a recollection floated back to her bit by bit. It was on the Shatterky Day, it seemed, somewhere in one of Marmoreal's gardens. She had seen that expression in the reflection pool the last time she had seen Tarrant, before he was taken away by the Knave of Hearts. That expression of heartbrokenness had been on her own face.

Though her external expression never wavered, internally Mirana felt ill. Though Alice said no more about Tarrant and she did not press further for the girl's feelings, the Queen felt the unmistakable rise of jealousy and fear replacing the rage. Now that she studied the girl further, she saw the beauty she had missed before. With her blond, tousled hair and fair, refined features, she was surely as striking as people said Mirana was. What if Tarrant thought the same? What if Tarrant's return to Marmoreal was not for her, but for Alice?

No, no! Internally she shook the thoughts from her head, recalling the message Chessur had delivered to her: Le mo ghrasa mise, agus liomsa mo ghra or I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. If Time had passed, if ten years had gone by, perhaps it would be plausible that Tarrant's feelings for her would have faded. But Time had not passed, it had not moved since the Horunvendush Day. Without Time, one's strongest feelings would be nearly impossible to change. Wouldn't they?

"I just want to wake up from this dream!"

At this frustrated outburst, Mirana became the White Queen again and left the insecure young bride repressed inside.

"I don't know why I can't wake up!" Alice was looking imploringly to the Queen as though she might be able to conjure up a potion that would force her to regain consciousness.

The lovely woman's eyes darkened a shade and her expression became grim. "Alice," she said sternly. "This is not a dream. This is a nightmare from which we are all trying to wake from." After a moment, her featured returned to the collected demureness with only a hint of concern in her dark eyes. With a small sigh she said, "I had hoped to have a champion by now."


Oh, Frabjous Day! Calloo Callay!Finally! Finally after all the years of waiting and wanting the Frabjous Day was just over the next horizon.

"Come on, Tarrant!" Mallymkun poked the shoulder she was standing on impatiently with her newest hat pin. The Hatter, as usual was lost in his own world, dead to what was happening around him. "Mirana is waiting for us."

"Yes, come on, Tarrant," Chessur hissed good-naturedly at him. "Or I'll take back that hat."

Even the Cat's envious slithering about his head couldn't distract the Hatter from staring at the world beyond the walls of Salazen Grum. With Chessur's incredible ability to change his shape, he had rescued both Tarrant and Mallymkun from their execution. And they in turn had lead a small revolt against the Red Queen taking with them on their journey to their Queen all of Mirana's courtiers: Uilleam the Dodo, the Tweedles, McTwisp, and so many others. And now, though exhausted and nearly starving, they were all headed toward the white citadel that stood out like a light house of hope, guiding them home.

"Come on, everyone," Tarrant said suddenly, as though he had been waiting on them all this time rather than the other way around. "Our Queen awaits us! Tally ho, over and yonder!"

The Tweedles looked at each other and Uilleam, throughly confounded by the Hatter's strange words.

"Let's not forget," McTwisp warned, ever the grounded soul amongst the madness. "That the Red Army still guards Marmoreal and you, Tarrant, are still banished."

"No, need to worry about that," The Hatter scoffed lightly with a joyful grin, searching the trees for something. "Now where, oh where, is my pretty dove hiding?"

Assuming he meant the White Queen, the motley crew exchanged concerned looks wondering if the Hatter hadn't gone completely off his rocker, not to return this time. Then, from out of the shadows of the branches before them, a soft coo-cooing was heard.

"Ah, Ailbhe!" he said softly as a dove of the most dazzling white floated down to perch on his waiting fingers. "I need you to carry a message for me."

"Gladly, Tarrant!" the dove fluttered her wings excitedly. "This is just the message I've been waiting to carry."

"You know it already then."

"Of course, I will tell the Queen that you are on your way." With the most graceful carriage that reminded the group of the White Queen herself, Ailbhe lifted herself into the air. "Wait for me to return in the foothills of Marmoreal just beyond the barricade. The Red Army does not patrol beyond there. The Queen, then, will guide you the rest of the way."

Tarrant beamed as he tipped his hat in a gentlemanly fashion and watched the bird fly off. His heart was so light that it seem to take flight with her. So close were they now; so very close.

Oh, to see Mirana again! His little dove was just over the hills across the chessboard fields of Marmoreal. And Alice! Dear, sweet, beautiful Alice. He surely would sweep her up into a grand hug the instant her saw her.

Alice!


"One day to a new beginning. Raise the flag of freedom high! Every man will be a king. There's a new world for the winning. There's a new world to be won. Do you hear the people sing?" -One Day More from Les Miserables


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