The woman showed a very wary and confused Regina and Emma inside and gave instructions to her men. "Prepare a room and a bath for my guests! See to their beast and make sure she is properly fed and brushed!" she barked. "Set two more place settings at the table one to my left and the other to my right." The men and women around her scrambled to obey, but they did so without fear or anxiety.
The short, powerfully built blonde led them into what seemed to be a war-room built into the rock itself. There was a large, circular map of Oz in the middle, cabinets and racks of scrolls and weaponry and there perched on the large balcony ledge was-
"Rishtay." Regina inclined her head and the monkey bowed.
"My ladies." He said to all three.
"I hope he has been perfectly civil." Alice winked at them. "He can have a rather filthy mouth when called upon."
The monkey smiled and bared his fangs. "Never."
"Go on, change out the guards and report back." she shooed him affectionately and turned to the two speechless women. "Oh, right." She smiled brightly. "What the fuck is going on, huh?"
Emma liked the woman immediately. "Took the words right outta my mouth."
"Right, well, let's begin at the beginning." She gesture to two worn leather chairs and waited for them to get comfortable. "When I was young, I stumbled through a rabbit-hole-"
"Holy shit! You're Alice! The Alice!" Emma leapt up suddenly. "There are two children's books written about you!"
"Like Alice through the Looking-Glass?" Regina asked faintly.
"The same one." The blonde smiled ruefully. "Anyway, I stumbled through a portal twice on accident and found myself in Wonderland both times. However, after I was older, I found that I could manipulate these portals and enter whenever I would like-"
"Wait." Regina stood suddenly and approached her with a mixture of appraisal and wariness. "That's impossible."
"No," the short woman corrected, her amber-colored eyes dancing with intrigue as she stepped so close to the witch they were almost touching, "It's unheard of, not impossible, Your Majesty." Emma pulled the skeptical brunette back into the chair as the storyteller continued. "As I was saying, I found I could manipulate this phenomenon and so began portal hopping back and forth to Wonderland. I also visited the Enchanted Forest once or twice by mistake. However, I always found myself back at my old haunt."
"Why?" Emma asked.
"There was a girl."'
"Oh." The lean blonde leaned forward, knowing what would happen next.
"A girl named Jacquelyn. And I loved her." The blonde sighed wistfully as pain flashed briefly over her strongly featured face. "And we made an incredible team; defeating the Jabberwocky together. But a Prince came and charmed her away. She left me and Wonderland and never came back."
"I'm afraid she's dead, Alice." Emma said quietly as she remembered the story Tiny had spun about James and Jack.
"I knew she must be." The blonde sighed again but continued. "But I lived on in Wonderland for quite some time. I was a trader mostly, acquiring difficult items from various realms; always ready to do a deal for the right price. That is, until the Queen of Hearts showed up with her magic and I was forced to flee."
"When did you leave?" Regina asked with a stony expression and underlying curiosity.
"Before you came for your father." The blonde said and the dark woman raised her eyebrows in surprise. "My portal hopping abilities allow me to gather information quite effectively." She explained. "Learning about the different lands has been a passion of mine; an obsession if you will." She bounced on the balls of her feet. The woman didn't seem full of nervous energy so much as she was simply full of energy. Even Emma could sense it as she sat before her. She could also feel Regina getting restless beside her.
"And you can transport us through if you wish?"
"I can." The woman said, "Tomorrow, tonight I will have to prepare. I am only used to transporting myself; moving you two will be a different matter. I will show you to your room to ensure that everything is up to par. Dinner will be at sunset." She smiled as she led them from the room. Her curt and very straight-forward way of speaking and abrupt movement caught her guests by surprise.
"The bean? Rishtay said you have Elphaba's bean?" Regina interrogated.
"I do." Alice stopped dead and turned quickly to face them. She reached to a leather string around her neck and drew out a long necklace with a golden pendant. Only the pendant was curiously shaped.
"Is that the bean?" Emma breathed quietly.
"Yes. I rendered it useless." She held it out to them.
"By coating it in gold?" Emma drew nearer to scrutinize it.
"It's contained in an alloy mesh."
"A Faraday cage. In miniature." Regina said, also drawing closer as the woman tucked it down into her shirt, between her breasts once more.
"A what?" Emma asked, looking up into the woman's strangely golden eyes.
"It keeps the bean from activating." Regina explained as the woman turned and began leading them, once more, through the corridors of rock. "Magic is like energy-"
"-I remember." The blonde said wearily. "So this cage keeps the magic out of the bean? Why make it unusable?"
"Because traveling between realms is dangerous. I didn't wish for Francis to get her greedy hands on it and set off to conquer another world." The woman explained to her companions.
"So you never intended to give us the bean." It wasn't so much a question as it was an accusation from the brunette.
"Not really, no." Alice tossed over her shoulder. "But you don't need it; you have me."
"And the Grimmerie-?" Questioned Emma as they followed the quick-paced blonde through the castle toward another wing entirely. Regina trailed after them, memorizing the route and watching the two blondes interact. She was obviously sore about being tricked, even if it didn't change the outcome of the interaction...so long as they could trust Alice.
"-You will keep up till the moment you step through that portal. You have no reason to trust me and I understand that." She turned to them and gestured to a door. "Here are your quarters. Please enjoy them to the fullest extent." She winked cheekily and then bounded off down the hall in a flurry of golden waved tresses.
They entered their room and looked around. The walls were solid stone; it seemed the entire castle was carved straight into the rock's face. Something about the short blonde's demeanor seemed to echo in the way she had adapted the cliff face to meet her purposes. Emma ran her hands over the ridged lines in the wall as Regina stepped out onto the balcony. The blonde followed her out there.
"What do you think?"
"About Alice?"
"No, about the weather." Regina turned to her with pursed lips. "Yes, of course, Alice."
"She's not lying." Said Emma as she shrugged. "And her story matches up with what we already know."
"Except about the portal jumping. I have only known of one other person to be able to do that."
"Jefferson."
"Yes, but he had a hat."
"Over which he had absolute control." Emma pointed out. "Perhaps it wasn't the hat, Regina. Perhaps it was him."
"But it was the hat; we used the hat." The brunette said.
"Well, maybe the hat just channeled his energy more effectively." She shrugged again and shucked her boots, moving toward what Alice had informed them was the 'shower room'. "I mean, maybe the hat was a seriously magical tool but maybe it took someone like Jefferson to really get it moving. Alice might be another person like this, but maybe she doesn't need a tool."
"There are a lot of maybes." Regina commented and began stripping as well as she followed Emma into the shower room.
"I'm just saying it's possible is all." The women entered the steam to find themselves in a circular room with a slow cascade of water pouring through a hole in the ceiling. "Thanks be to God!" Emma shouted and rushed the warm water.
Regina hastened in a more dignified manner but both women enjoyed washing themselves and each other in the cascade. Lips met, lashes fluttered, and lingering caresses abounded. The steamy chamber echoed with small noises as the pair explored one another as thoroughly as possible. Unable to stand it any longer, Emma sank to her knees before the brunette and parted her folds with her tongue, pouring herself out into the intimate, passionate act. Attempting to give Regina everything she wanted as the brunette clutched her wet hair tightly and took all the blonde had to offer.
"Emma…" she whispered as her climax built and unleashed.
Afterward, the brunette's knees were wobbly but it didn't stop her from gently pressing Emma into the cool rock of the circular shower room and plundering her with her fingers again and again until the blonde moaned and trembled around her. "Oh, Regina…" she murmured and the tone tugged viciously at the brunette's heart. She trapped the blonde's mouth with her own and captured the moans and wails the taller woman unleashed as her folds clamped down on the digits and the passion overwhelmed her.
Emma and Regina left their room, but not before they had hidden the Grimmerie and sealed the room with powerful magic. The brunette led the way in a flowing, midnight blue gown and Emma followed her in tight, green silk. Regina had magicked her clothes and the blonde found that she rather liked the gown, but she had never worn something so fine in her life.
They had just made it halfway down the stairs in the main entrance hall when Alice walked through the doors in a tight, champagne gown with a plunging neckline. The color off-set her golden hair, amber eyes, and pale skin. She seemed unaware, however that they were staring at her in amazement.
"You both look lovely!" she met them at the steps and took one of each of their hands before bringing them simultaneously to her mouth. Emma had difficulty keeping her eyes from the woman's full cleavage and Regina was mesmerized by her full lips. "I hardly have an occasion to dress up, but I'm glad I did tonight." She then offered both of her arms and Emma and Regina, still slightly punch drunk by the dramatic change in appearance of their short host, allowed themselves to be led into the hall where they were met with a larger feast than what they had imagined.
Gathered around the long tables were all manner of people. Dark, light, munchkin, and elf. Animals sat debating with their human counterparts and Emma even spied what she suspected to be nuns. All around them, simultaneous pandemonium and harmony. It wasn't tranquil by any means, but it was a beautiful, working chaos.
When Alice had seated first Regina and then Emma to her right and left, she stood and clinked her glass with her knife. The hall went silent as she commanded the eyes of all present. Emma glanced at Regina behind their host's back to find the brunette wore an expression of bemusement similar to her own.
"Friends! The queen had been defeated!" she said and the din in the stone hall was unimaginable. She held up her hands and it tapered out. "We can now form our democracy and govern Oz the way we deem fit. Every person will have an equal vote; an equal voice. Equality for all races under the law. We will see Oz rise into a new enlightened era; the New Golden Age of Oz is upon us!"