A/N: I AM SO SORRY! I didn't update last weekend because I got so preoccupied with other school stuff, and I'm going to be pretty preoccupied again, I've got an analytical research paper for English that we're starting tomorrow and it's due in April, and gosh, I just feel pretty panicked right now, sorry. Besides all of that, my laptop's internet is being a douche again, we have a new router, but my laptop is all like 'NU-UH, I AIN'T CONNECTING TO THAT NETWORK' and it just seems that my technology curse is reminding me that it exists, I'm sorry for being cursed! Anyway, thank you SO MUCH if you've continued to read this story even though I've been all douchey with not updating when I say I will, again, you are all AWESOME!

I would like to thank James Birdsong for reviewing, he's just pimp like that, aren't you James Birdsong?; and I would like to also thank Organ Man for favoriting this story, might I just say that your name is kinda creepy, because I read it, and the first thing that came to my mind was Slenderman (please don't google that, unless you want to be all paranoid about every dark corner you see), but thank you nonetheless for liking my story so much.

WARNING: THERE IS SOME BLOOD IN THIS CHAPTER AND I DO NOT ENDORSE NOR ADVOCATE THE ACTIONS OF ANY AND ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY, THAT IS ALL

RER, Read, Enjoy, Review! :D


Lawrence, only seven years old, had never really played with anyone else; his mother always kept him close to her, saying it was dangerous for him to roam alone in the palace, and being only seven, he did not understand his mother's constant worrying and suspicious glances at the women around her in the part of the palace designated for his father's wives and their children.

But he did have to admit that his mother's strange actions, especially as of late, greatly confused him, she was constantly listless, staring out the window blankly for hours at a time; she was also forgetting him at places, leaving him behind as she raced ahead, completely consumed in some thought that would occupy her attention sufficiently enough that she would leave her own son behind to be lost in the maze of corridors that made up the palace, just like she had then, leaving Lawrence to toss a ball at the wall so it would bounce back at him.

Though his mother often did this sort of thing, she always remembered to come back for him and pick him up, begging for his forgiveness, which he would give because, well, she was his mother, and obviously very worried with whatever it was that concerned her, and though he was young, Lawrence could tell that she should be allowed to have some time to herself to think about whatever it was.

What he had not expected to happen while he was playing, was for a girl to show up, perhaps eleven or twelve to his seven years, she seemed very mature for her age, with that same certain air about her that tended to hang off of the other women that his mother was always so nervous around. Like him, she had dark hair, dark eyes, and a fair complexion, much fairer than even his own, and he deduced that the girl must be one of the sisters of his that his mother always kept him away from.

Ignoring any warning that his mother had told him about staying away from the sisters, he tossed the ball to her, and it bounced a bit, before merely rolling to a stop at the sandaled feet underneath her light dress.

She picked up the ball and stared at Lawrence, "Who are you?" she asked him, giving him a suspicious glance.

"I'm Lawrence Vanchre, First Prince of the King Vanchre." he answered, giving that full title that always made his mother flinch when she heard it, he always wondered about that, "Who're you?" he asked in return.

"I'm Jilliana Vanchre, Thirteenth Princess of the King Vanchre." she replied, deciding that he was ok and finally tossing the ball back to him, "I never knew I had a brother."

"I've never met any of the sisters, well, besides you." he tossed it back to her, "Mommy told me not to be around them, but you seem nice."

"Don't you think it's weird your mommy told you not to hang around your own sisters?"

"No, Mommy said that their mommies might be mean to me, and Mommy just wants me to be safe; besides, I heard one of the mommies whipped a servant because he brought her the wrong kind of cloth for something she was working on, that doesn't sound like a nice mommy."

"That was Krisna's mommy, she's the Tenth Princess, and yeah, her mommy is kinda mean, but she was in a bad mood that day."

"That still doesn't mean that she should do something like that, that servant was my mommy's friend, Krisna's mommy should apologize."

"Krisna's mommy is just like that, I don't know why, but the other mommies don't really like your mommy."

"Does your mommy not like my mommy?"

"I don't know, my mommy died when I was three, how old are you?"

"I'm seven."

"Then that was before you were born, but my mommy didn't like Krisna's mommy either."

"Maybe my mommy and your mommy would have been friends."

"Maybe." Jilliana answered and the ball came back to her, she suddenly looked up and tossed the ball back to Lawrence, "I have to go now, bye Lawrence."

"Bye bye, Jilliana." Lawrence answered with a smile and a wave, happy to have finally gotten to play with someone.

Jilliana just walked off, not once had she smiled at her little brother.

"Lawrence!" he turned at the sound of his mother's worried voice and she ran up to him, scooping the young boy into her warm arms, "Oh Lawrence ... I am so sorry ... how could I just leave you here ... oh please forgive me ... please."

"Of course, Mommy." Lawrence answered, letting go of the ball so he could wrap his arms around his mother, who smelled so much like that sweet, sweet smoke that anyone over thirteen seemed to always be drenched in, but his mother seemed to always drown in it.

Lawrence and Jilliana were hiding in the pantry, and he honestly couldn't remember why, but they were.

"Is it safe to go out yet?" he asked after so many minutes of silence, only getting hushed in response, and in the dim light from the cracks in the wood, he was able to see her face scrunch up in deep thought.

"I'm going to leave." she suddenly announced, not even looking at him, but more saying it to herself.

"Why?" he asked, his own face scrunching up in confusion, wondering why anyone would ever even want to leave the palace, not when the sweet, sweet smoke buried itself so deep into everything in the palace, that even their hiding place smelled of it, and when they could get as many sweets as they wanted from any of the cooks, just by telling them their names.

"Because, I don't belong here, do you know who my mommy was?" she asked him.

"Who was she?" he questioned in answer.

"She was a regular, old, human, from Wonderland; now if that don't sound like someplace exciting, I don't know what does."

His jaw dropped open, even he knew how far away Wonderland was from the Nile Valley, it was supposed to take three months in perfect conditions to even reach the outskirts of their country, and there was almost never perfect conditions: bandits, sandstorms, the Volcanic Plains, jabberwockies, supposedly, even bandersnatch, and so many other obstacles lied between Wonderland and the capital of the Nile Valley. "How did she even get here?" he asked in awe.

"Well, my grandpa was supposed to have gotten blamed for a bad crime, and no one, wanted to defend him, so they had to run away, because if they stayed in Wonderland, they would have gotten killed, and they decided that whatever they faced on the way here, couldn't be any worse than what the Queen of Hearts would have done to them."

He nodded his head, having heard so many tales about the fierce Queens of Wonderland, who were supposed to be the most vicious things to have ever lived, with a list of deaths even crueler than those suffered by the victims of the jabberwockies and bandersnatch, combined.

"So I wanna go to Wonderland, and become a lawyer, so I can help people that no one else will." she told him, a fire burning in her eyes.

"And you can do it." he told her, completely confident in her, and for the first time since he met her, she smiled, and he smiled back.

"Mommy, what's going on?"

Lawrence watched as his mother tried to wipe away the tears spilling down her eyes while she set a letter off to the side, "N-no-nothing, L-Lawrence." she answered with a shaky breath and a sniffling nose, tears continued to make tracks down her face.

"Why are you crying?" he asked her, going up to his mother and hugging her.

She hugged him back tightly, and in her crying voice she answered, "Be-because ... I-I'm just, just so happy." he could feel his mother move a bit, but kept his face buried in her dress, taking comfort in the smoke that he smelled on her, "La- Lawrence ... y-you trust M-Mommy ... right?"

"Yes." he answered.

"Th-then trust ... trust Mommy ... thi-this will, it-it'll on-only hurt ... f-for a little wh-while."

Lawrence felt a stabbing pain in his side, and was quick to place his hands at the pain, feeling some liquid seep out of the wound, he looked down and saw red staining his hands and clothes, then he looked up at his mother, whose wrists were crying red to match the tears in her eyes.

"S-see ... we, we'll be happy now." she told him in a soft, disappearing voice, "Is-isn't it ... so p-pretty? ... J-just like rubies." and her eyes glazed over as her figure slumped against the chair.

Lawrence could vaguely hear someone struggle with the door, before he too blacked out of the world.

When Lawrence finally woke up, the world was made of white and far too bright. It took him far too long to realize that he was alive and not just drifting through some sort of afterlife.

As he finally took in his surroundings, he realized he was in the hospital ward of the palace, and then everything came back to him, his mother stabbing him in the side before slitting her own wrists and dying in front of him; he couldn't stop the tears that left his eyes as he realized his mother was dead, and he was now left alone in the world.

"Lawrence?"

He sniffled and tried to wipe away the tears, and saw Jilliana standing there, holding some heavy leather bound books. He sniffled and swallowed down the rest of his tears, trying not to cry in front of his sister.

"Your mommy's dead." she dead panned, causing his tears to break down the feeble wall he had set in front of them, "You big baby, stop crying." she growled at him, glaring at the young boy.

He glared back, "My mommy just died, I can cry if I want to!" he shouted back indignantly, ignoring the tears that continued to stream down his face.

"Yeah, so what, when my mommy died, everyone told me to shut up too, so you're not allowed to cry either." she sternly told him, frowning her disapproval at the little boy.

"Well, she didn't try to kill you did she, besides, she wasn't a human."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"She shouldn't have died so young, she shouldn't have been weak like your mommy."

"Humans age too fast, my mommy died because she was old, not because she wanted to."

"At least my mommy loved me enough to want me withher!"

That did it, Jilliana launched herself at the little boy and started to punch and kick him, and he was too surprised to do anything back, so he ended up with more scratches and bruises. Some medics came into the room to check on the ruckus, and looked appalled by what they saw before they pulled Jilliana off of Lawrence and dragged her, kicking and screaming, from the hospital ward.

Lawrence tried to stop the tears, but they just seemed to spill faster and faster instead, and pathetic little sobs wracked his entire, small frame.

Two weeks later, when he was allowed to return to the room that he had shared with his mother, he found the strange device that he had always seen her smoking from, and remembering how she would always breathe from it when she was sad, he inhaled the smoke deeply, coughing it all back out in loud and raspy whoops. Then he went back for another breath.

He had never before felt so happy in his entire life.