* Special *
Crumbs were falling from the rafters, but nobody seemed to notice. The deck was stacked, and the imposter in place, trembling between the guards. Every masked member of the court looked down upon the would-be Knave, none of them the wiser. Yet, from above she swung her legs, free as a bird in the rafters.
The Knave of Hearts licked her lips, another tart devoured, and watched with glee, safe while the jurors entered. The judge wore a great crown and concealed his face, and the queen looked on around them. A brown haired girl stumbled in. She was young and thin with large brown eyes and a strange blue costume, completely out of place in the court.
The Knave snickered as the girl peered at the juror's slates. Clearly, the brunette could see their stupidity. The Knave watched with anticipation for the trial to commence, sitting quite prim. She was a pretty thing, the Knave. Her caramel eyes glittered in the dark, and a blood red ribbon held back her jet black hair. She wore a simple white tunic with a red heart stitched on the breast and fitted black pants tucked into fine, black boots. Anyone who met her would never suspect her identity. There were only a select few who she entrusted with the truth, but even then, she was misleading.
Three blasts on the trumpet; on with the show!
"The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer day: The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, and took them quite away!" the lyrical accusation sounded throughout the court, and the Knave bobbed her head along with the pretty rhymes while the substition cowered before the monarchs.
"You are an impossible woman," a familiar voice sounded beside the girl in the shadows. It was the Caterpillar, still blowing iridiscent bubbles that popped once they reached the ceiling. The Caterpillar had a handsome face and voice, but the fact remained that he was a caterpillar.
"You like to remind me," the Knave responded, unbothered by the brusque greeting.
"Call the first witness," the King cried below, seemingly the highest in the court. The Hatter arrived, a mess of long limbs, spilled tea, and scattered notes. The brunette's nose scrunched up in mild disgust and exasperation as the hatter hastily entered the court.
"I'm so sorry, your Majesty," the charming hatter sheepishly began. "I really thought I had the time to finish my tea before all this. Oh, Haruhi, it's you! Are you my defense? Ah, how marvelous!" The hatter devolved into a mess of sweet phrases and compliments completely unrelated to the case.
"You idiot, Tamaki, you're not the one on trial here!" the girl shouted at him in frustration.
"What an idiot," the caterpillar sighed next her as the King shook the hatter by his lapels.
"Who said you could be so familiar with my sweet little Haruhi?" The King battered the witness until the queen cleared her throat. "Give your evidence," the King said with renewed composure. "Go on, don't be shy, or I'll have you executed on the spot!" The King laughed, and the Queen put on her spectacles just to watch the Hatter take a big gulp.
"Ah, well, you know, your Majesty, it's a lovely day for tea. In fact, Haruhi, my darling, why don't you join me?"
"Give your evidence, or I'll have you executed on the spot!" The King roared, smacking his knee with a paper fan.
"I'm a simple man," the Hatter started nervously, "and most things twinkled after that, only the March Hare said…"
"I didn't!" the blond headed hair wailed in his squeaky, child-like voice.
"Yes, you did!" the Hatter insisted fervently, turning to his friend who wailed again.
"No! I deny it!" the Hare burst into tears, and the King slumped in his throne.
"He denies it," the King waved his hand dismissively, "moving on."
"Well, then, the Dormouse said…" the Hatter's eyes slid from side to side, awaiting another protest, but the Dormouse just continued to sleep peacefully. The Dormouse was quite handsome as well, for a Dormouse, but the fact remained that he was a Dormouse.
"Have they always been this stupid?" the Caterpillar questioned, blowing more bubbles into the air.
"I think it's quite sweet, don't you?" the Knave answered sweetly before a frown tugged on her peach colored lips. "Would you stop that? It's rude to blow bubbles while your friends are in court."
"They're not the ones on trial," he retorted, blowing into the pipe again. The King presiding as judge instilled such fear in the usually confident hatter that the blond couldn't speak on the stand.
"Get out of here!" the king bellowed at the young man who hesitated as he walked by the pretty brunette on the sidelines. With the order, he yelped and fled out the door. "Who's our next witness?"
The Duchess's red haired cook sauntered to the spot, wickedly tipping a pepper box as she passed so that all the people near her sneezed loudly. The cook looked bored with the whole affair and crossed her arms in front of her chest when she stopped.
"State your evidence for the court," the King requested.
The cook passed a lazy, critical look over him and said, quite haughtily, "No, I don't think I will." The masked King looked exasperatedly at the Pink Rabbit, who just shrugged and pointed back at the cook as if to say "can't stop there".
"What's in the tarts?" the king asked, trying to muster all of his intimidation.
"Pepper. The cook answered as if it was the most obvious thing and shook the box in her hand.
"Is she allowed to speak to him that way?" the Knave asked the Caterpillar as the court descended into chaos.
"It suppose she doesn't care one way or another," he answered. One of his hands worked hurriedly to scribble notes on the scene below them. The cook cried out for the Dormouse to lose his head, and the Dormouse ran off with the March Hare under his arm.
"Jeez, what's got them so riled up?" a new voice asked behind one of the thick wooden beams.
"You'd think they're at a ball with all this excitement," another added, opposite of the first. The twin cats twirled around their hiding places and balanced side by side next to the Knave. The girl handed them their pay, a bag full of the Queen's pepper tarts, and they eagerly tore into the burlap pouch.
"You're going through a lot of trouble," the Caterpillar noted. He couldn't seem to wrap his head around the sense in this world of senselessness. The Knave only divulged some of her plot to him, and the holes in his knowledge were so plentiful and wide that he genuinely felt he knew less than the twins. "It's a bit ridiculous just to condemn this herald."
The false knave quivered as the King held up a folded parchment as evidence. The monarchs and their aspiring legal advocate debated the importance of this paper. The Knave didn't acknowledge what the Caterpillar said. Instead, the four above the rest listened as Wonderland's guest read the sets of verses off the page.
"This doesn't make any sense at all," the girl said after finishing the strange poem.
The twins snickered proudly at their work, and the Knave looked over her shoulder to the two miscreants. "What did that mean?" she asked the two, very intrigued by the nonsense they created.
"Absolutely nothing," they answered in unison with matching shrugs and grins. The Knave grinned with them, and the Caterpillar thought that they were an odd trio for him to be associated with.
He turned to the young woman beside him who was watching the court carry on with a furrow in her brow. She invested all of her resources into this plot of hers. It involved the Cheshire twins, the Caterpillar, the March Hare, the Dormouse, the Duchess and her footman, and even the Pink Rabbit knew. Truthfully, the cards were stacked against the herald. Quivering and indignant but unable to get out a word, the herald rattled his chains nervously while Haruhi debated his innocence with the prosecution, the King and Queen. Haruhi advocated as best she could for the herald, growing mile by mile until the Caterpillar's bubbles were tangled into her dark hair. A fuss and a puff of smoke, and Haruhi awoke, leaving them as quickly as she came.
"Oh," the King said through a cough. As the smoke cleared, the monarch looked down upon the pale faced herald in the place of the Knave. "Well, we might as well get this over with. Off with his head." The off handed sentence was punctuated with a small shrug. The guards dragged the herald away, kicking and screaming. The Knave smirked victoriously and rose lithely to her feet on the narrow wooden beam.
"Well, that was exciting," the Caterpillar drawled. "Remind me why you've put in all this effort to frame an innocent man for your crime?"
She was already traipsing along the beam with one of the cats on either side. All three had their backs to him when he posed this query. The Knave looked over her shoulder, and the twins looked at her. She offered him a withering smile, "My dear Caterpillar, this man isn't innocent at all."
"Oh?" he blew out more bubbles and followed after her when she continued along the beam at a leisurely pace, "What did he do?"
"Didn't you know?" the twin on his left asked.
"He killed the White King," the twin on his right continued.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," the Caterpillar began. "The White King was your father, was he not?"
"That's right." He frowned at her answer. He could not recall when she began employing such underhanded methods to get her way. He stopped and watched her take steps heel to toe as she balanced precariously high above the court. "Aren't you coming?"
"Well, that depends. Where are we going?"
A wicked smirk came onto her face and her hand went to the hilt of the great sword strapped to her back – a relic from the White Kingdom. "I'm going to slay the Jabberwock."
{OR}
A/N... This short was inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Haruhi's Adventure in Wonderland the Ouran special. I do not own anything derived from his work nor do I own anything from Ouran High School Host Club. I feel that goes without saying (given this is the fan fiction website). Anywaaay, I hope you enjoyed this brief chapter featuring Hana as the Knave of Hearts, Komatsuzawa as the herald, and any guess as to who would be the Jabberwocky? I won't confirm because it foreshadows the next two installments of this story.
That's right! Two whole other parts to the series.
I plan to finish this story with the last episode of the anime. I have a second and third installment outlined and set up. The next two parts will be rated M, so if you don't read smut please don't feel like you have to read the future pieces. I want to use this story as an exercise for my writing, and I'm an adult who really needs to practice writing sex. I don't write anything that interferes with consent [granted, I cannot believe how low the age of consent is in Japan (?!)] but part two will take place parallel to the rest of the manga.
Next time: A dose of jealousy... There's a storm brewing. How will Hana react to Hikaru and Haruhi stuck in the storm?