||Episode 3 - Part II: The Queen's Trial||
"Audience has arrived! Open the way to the court!"
The talking cards announced our arrival to each other as we entered the castle. No time for asking them questions. We were being taken to the courtroom whether we liked it or not, and they didn't seem like the type to take it any other way. I followed close behind Sora and the others until we made it to where they wanted us to go. These guys must be the castle guards, I determined. What kind of queen turned a bunch of playing cards into her own personal squadron?
The court was filled with so many more guards, but they welcomed us to the seats where we were to observe the court. I saw a plump woman dressed in red and black. She wore a golden crown, which meant that this lady was the queen of Wonderland. This queen gave me mixed vibes. On one hand, she didn't give off the most evil intentions. However, on the other, I could see the anger written all over her face along with a red glow to her skin. I had a feeling that she was the one in charge of this court session as the head judge. Somebody must have done something so terrible to make her so mad.
Huh? A little girl? I blinked in surprise, seeing a blonde-haired girl in a blue dress standing at the podium in front of the judge's seat. She hardly looked like a villainous person. Of course, appearances had their moments of lying, but... I felt something about that girl. It was hard for me to explain it to myself, but it was like she had an air of pure goodness and innocence around her. I felt nothing of the malicious sort. I don't understand.
"You okay, Lu?" Sora shook me, snapping out of my thoughts. I blinked once and turned to my friend. He was looking worried for my sake, it seemed. "You've been staring off into space for a little while now. Something wrong?"
"Ah, no, it's nothing," I shook my head, but I couldn't find satisfaction with that answer. "That girl... I think she's in trouble."
Just then, the white rabbit we were looking for dashed into the court from another entrance. He was out of breath as he was before, and he climbed up the tall steps to a high platform with a small trumpet in his hands. Once the rabbit caught his breath, he gave the trumpet a few routine blows to quiet down the room.
"Court is now in session!" the white rabbit announced to us all. "Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, presiding! All members of the audience must remain silent."
"Pardon?!" The girl in the blue dress gasped in shock at the announcement. "I'm being put on trial? Please, tell me why!"
With that, and ignoring the girl's questions, the Queen of Hearts peered down from her throne and examined the subject in her midst. The look in her eyes was unforgiving as she studied her prisoner. I could hear the loud tapping of her fingernails on the wood table in front of her. She seemed to become even more furious the longer she sat there in silence. This was not going to be a good session, I could tell.
"I have little doubt in my mind that this girl is the culprit," the Queen of Hearts firmly responded. She waved around a heart-shaped wand, angrily gesturing to the young girl. My fingers twitched when she slammed her fists down. It annoyed me that she would jump to judging her without even assuming her possible innocence. At least, it was my thought that she shouldn't be so assertive as the judge. "The reason behind my judgment... is because I say so! That is the reason!"
"That is so unfair!" The girl protested the wrongful judgment. Unfair was right, I thought. Someone couldn't be guilty of a crime just because she said so. I frowned and glared at the rude queen from my seat. This court session was nothing but a fluke, that was what I had to think about it. "I simply cannot stand for it!"
"Well, have you anything to say in your defense, little girl?" asked the Queen of Hearts. "I'm waiting."
"Of course," the girl said, pointing a finger at her accuser. "I've only just gotten here, so I've done absolutely nothing wrong! You may be the Queen of Hearts, but I'm afraid that does not give you the right to be so terribly mean."
"Silence!"
Oh, boy. I winced and shook my head. The way she put it, that girl had to be innocent. But, she only angered the queen by pointing out a truth. It wasn't looking good for her at this point. I wanted to help her out of her situation, but I wasn't sure what I could even do. That queen is so impossible...
"You dare to defy me, girl?" the angered queen bared her teeth in rage, slamming her fists again upon the table. This time, we could feel the power of her tantrum in the back of the courtroom. The guards were trembling in place. They were scared out of their minds, but they didn't dare break out of formation. "I ought to punish you right now. Such insolence!"
"Hey, guys, I think we should help her out," Sora whispered to us, sharing a mutual thought with me. "Something's not right about this."
"Yeah, but the..." Donald looked up at Sora. He wanted to agree, but there was something stopping him from it. "Oh, you tell him, Goofy."
"We're outsiders," Goofy said. "That would be muddling! Right, Donald?"
"Meddling!" Donald grumbled.
"Right, and that's against the rules," Goofy nodded. "Gwarsh... I sure wish we could do somethin'."
I sighed and folded my arms. It was wrong to see an innocent girl being thrashed around by a terrible court system. If only we could do something to get her out of there, but we couldn't meddle in the affairs of this world. We would be like criminals if we did that. This was the worst.
"The court finds the defendant guilty as charged!" the Queen of Hearts concluded with a devilish grin on her face. Naturally, the girl was looking devastated at the ruling, but there was nothing she could do to plea her innocence this time. The matter was completely out of her hands. Straightening out her dress, the queen cleared her throat and sat properly. She frowned deeply and looked the girl straight in the eyes. "For the crimes of assault and attempted theft of my heart... Off with her head!"
"No!" I gasped, standing up from my chair. The guards were mobilizing to execute the girl for what the queen accused her of doing. It was so wrong to see someone who was as young as us being put through that. Why?! I wondered, gritting my teeth. What is wrong with that lady?
"Oh, please, don't do this!" the girl pleaded. "I would never do such a terrible thing like that!"
I looked to Sora and nodded to him; he nodded back to me with the same thought in mind. Donald and Goofy got out their staff and shield in a bid to protect the girl, for there was finally something we could do about this grim court session. Theft of hearts. No ordinary person could do that, nor a girl who radiated with kindness.
"Hold it right there!" Sora shouted, shoving several cards aside with ease. "Stop the trial!"
"Who are you?!" the Queen of Hearts demanded to know as we approached her and the accused girl. All eyes were on us four, casting the spotlight on us. "How dare you children interfere with my court?! You must want to lose your heads, too!"
"I don't wanna lose my head..." Goofy muttered and held onto his helmet.
"Excuse us, Your Majesty, but we know who the real culprit is in this crime," I said sharply. "This girl has nothing to do with it."
"Yup!" Goofy nodded. "It's those Heartle- Oops!"
Donald thwacked Goofy over the head with his staff, quieting him down before he got us in trouble for meddling any further. We weren't sure how the queen would react to the issue of Heartless. It was likely that she'd go on accusing us of making things up. She'd probably have the guards go after our heads.
"Anyway, she's not the one you're looking for, ma'am," Sora said, pointing at the girl.
"That's nonsense," the queen scoffed, tapping her wand on the table. "Have you any proof of that?"
間
Thanks to our interference, the girl was spared from losing her head. The queen changed her ruling to imprisoning her due to the lack of evidence, which she admitted to not having any of. We were lucky to get a second chance out of the Queen of Hearts, but time was not really on our side. So, it was too soon to declare victory.
"I want you to bring me evidence of Alice's innocence right this minute! Change my mind, if you can. Fail, and I will have all of your heads!"
I recalled the queen's assignment for us. She was sending us four on a "mission" to find evidence to prove Alice. It would be our last and only opportunity to see her through to safety, so failure was not an option. But, we had no idea where to start to find these clues that would prove her innocent. The guards were no help, because they either warned us about the queen's nasty attitude or threw suspicion back at us.
Before they closed up the curtain to Alice's cage, and before we left the queen's castle, we found a moment to talk to Alice about her predicament. She had only recently come to this part of Wonderland before being apprehended under unknown charges. Alice had no clue about why she was being put on trial in the first place, meaning they thought she was guilty from the beginning. That was also her thought on it. Considering how the queen acted during the trial, I knew that to be the case.
Interestingly, Alice had no memory of her home prior to falling down the rabbit hole. She remembered that much, though. Peeking inside it and tumbling down a lengthy pit, eventually finding herself here. Alice's story is similar to ours, I figured out. The others assumed it as well, that she was from another world. We had a ship to take us to other worlds, but she did not. Maybe there were other ways to travel other than by gummi ship.
"We'd better hurry and find the evidence for Alice," Sora said. "Uh, I guess we just pick a direction and go that way."
One of the many routes through the maze was our only shot at getting somewhere away from the castle. Picking a random way to go, we carried on to find the evidence demanded of us. We were going to run into the Heartless again, I was sure of it. Maybe, just maybe, they had a leader that was responsible for trying to take the queen's heart. We had to find something to point the blame at them. No doubt the Queen had her squadrons of cards keeping their eyes on us while we searched the area around the castle grounds. We needed to take our search outside the maze.
The thought to take our ventures came and so did the opportunity, which was in the form of an eerie forest at the end of the maze's path. I lost track of the cards a while ago. They didn't seem to be following at this point, so it was safe to believe that we got away from them. As for this forest... it gave me an uncanny feeling.
"What do ya think is in there?" Goofy wondered, admiring the peculiar woods. "I hope nothin' scary."
Sora took the lead and led us through the strange forest. There were so many signs all around that pointed in every direction possible. I doubted that any of them actually would take us to someplace important. This was no good. We needed to hurry if we wanted to save Alice, what with the Queen of Hearts wanting her head. But, this forest... We had already been wandering for a couple of hours before ending up right back where we started.
I sat down on an overgrown tree root and sighed in disappointment. A little bit of frustration crept into my feelings as I looked back to the road that most certainly went back to the castle. That queen. My mouth curved downward into a deep frown as I stared off into the dark shadows cast by the towering trees. I don't understand it, but... something's not right about all this.
A bubbling feeling of unease rose high in the pit of my stomach during my thinking session. I rested my hands on my pant legs and curled my fingers softly. The number of Heartless in this world was a huge concern, as were the words that came from the queen's mouth about who tried to steal her heart. Her overall behavior, though, bothered me incredibly. Someone who could be so cruel as to execute a little girl like Alice. It all stunk of one thing.
"Hey, Lu?" My ears just about tuned out Sora's voice because of how zoned out I was. Inhaling deeply, I blinked and turned around to see him standing to my left. "You were looking a little space out there for a second. Is something wrong?"
"Hm? Yeah," I nodded slowly. Sora wasn't exactly my person to go to for spilling all the details about my concerns. But, he was my friend, and I didn't mind talking to a friend. "It's just... I've got a bad feeling about the Queen of Hearts and this world. Ever since we walked in on that trial, I noticed something off."
"Yeah..." Sora folded his arms and thought hard about it. His mutual reaction made me perk up a bit and wonder if he noticed it, too. "Why is the queen making us go through all of this trouble when the Heartless are running around?"
"Ah, well, I guess that's part of the issue," I said, rubbing the back of my head. But he wasn't commenting on the morbid behavior. Looking away, I took a moment to break away from my reflections. That was when a strange sensation crept over me. It felt like someone was watching us from afar, yet no one could be seen. Could it have been a Heartless? No... they weren't around this part of the forest at the moment. "Hey, do you guys notice anything strange?"
"Like what?" Donald, who was grumbling about something in his conversation with Goofy, turned around with his feathered brows furrowed.
"Gwarsh, I think we are being watched!" Goofy exclaimed. The three of us looked to him, noticing that he was practically shaking in his boots. "Fellas, look!"
Goofy pointed at the remains of a fallen tree nearby. We were disturbed to find a pair of eyeballs floating in the air, watching our every move. However, they vanished when we spotted them and reappeared as a dismembered cat's head with the body standing right on top of it. I jumped to my feet and prepared to bring out my Keyblade in case it was an enemy.
Yet, in spite of our defensive reaction, the mysterious cat never let its grin disappear. It could have been an enemy, but... I lightened my guard just a tad. Not attacking. Then, he must not be in it with the Heartless.
"Hey, who the heck are you?!" Donald questioned, looking sort of upset.
"Who, indeed?" teased the cat. He had enough of bouncing on his own head and juggled it back onto his shoulders. Breathing a long, drawn out sigh, he rested on the tree and watched the four of us. "Terrible times for little Alice. The queen wants her head, and she's not guilty of a thing!"
"You know something?" I asked in a more gentle tone. "Can you tell us how to help Alice?"
"Ah, the Cheshire Cat knows all- but doesn't always tell," he responded playfully, but it instigated irritation within me. "The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness. Good luck on finding your evidence!"
With that, the Cheshire Cat vanished without a trace. We were left to figure out what his little riddle meant and if there was anything we could go by to rescue Alice from her situation. Although, there was one thing I knew for sure. This culprit had to be a Heartless. I had no doubt about it. An untamed Heartless bent on destroying anything and anyone without a reason.
"Ugh, how are we supposed to find the evidence if we don't know where to look?" Sora complained, kicking away a broken stick on the ground during our walk through the forest. "Look at this place. It's too big and dark!"
"Plenty of hiding places for the culprit." Suddenly, we were met again by the Cheshire Cat, who appeared in the middle of our path. He was laying on his stomach with his head rested in his paws. "With the eyes to see, anyone can see the culprit. See the evidence in the shadows, if you can. Only a little is needed. But, beware. Not all evidence is there to help you. Do hurry, too. The Queen of Hearts gets very impatient."
"What?" I muttered, folding my arms. Again with the riddles and talk that made no sense. He disappeared before we could ask anymore questions, but that was fine. I turned to the guys and nodded my head. "Come on, we better find that evidence."
"Yeah, I think I hear those cards coming," Sora mentioned.
He was right about that. There was a distant noise coming from somewhere in the forest. Not wanting to find out if it really was the queen's guards following us, we hurried through the forest to look for as much evidence as possible. Just one thing remained on my mind as we searched. What does he mean by eyes to see...?