Thank you to ElTangoDeRoxanne, fallacies, and emeraldonyxdragon. I might not update for the next few days because I am having oral surgery tomorrow. JOY.
Alice watched with amusement as Balthier and Valerius sparred good-naturedly, the knight armed with a pike, and the pirate armed with a sword and dagger. Despite holding obvious advantages, Valerius ignored Balthier's complaints and fought with a handicap, refusing to fully utilize his weapon.
"You are injured, pirate. You will reopen your wounds." He parried a strike that looked like silver lightning to Alice's eyes and jabbed at the pirate with his pike.
"To hell with wounds. While I sit like a docile chocobo and heal, I am also growing fat in my dotage." Balthier said cheerfully as the pike skimmed by his ribs with barely an inch to spare. When he jumped forward for another attack, Valerius failed to block in time and the dagger gouged his breastplate.
"Good one," the knight complimented. "I may have to put in a little effort now."
"If you did not wear armor, you would have been dead," Balthier purred. "Alas, I shall have to put in effort, too, if that is what you are going to do."
The rate of their strikes quickened, the screech of metal upon metal loud in Alice's ears. The pirate seemed to be in a good mood today, and his general health had improved— he'd yet to have his morning argument with "Ratsbane", or his noontime conversation where he would attempt to placate "Princess". Alice was glad that the first "person" he had stopped talking to was "Captain"; Balthier would get frustrated by Captain's apparently very moral stance, get into a towering rage. What was the most frightening was how quiet he would get the more angry he was, but his silence reminded Alice of a coiled spring or a cat waiting to pounce.
Mirana entered the yard, watching the knight and pirate spar.
"No violence, please," she said, shaking a finger as she proceeded to the tiny spyglass on the other side of the courtyard. Balthier and Valerius lowered their weapons, and the pirate wiped a bead of sweat (Alice watched this, intrigued, she did not think he could sweat) from his forehead. "We have guests coming, and I would not like them to get the wrong impression," she allowed Alice to look through the spyglass, while Balthier simply peered where the White Queen directed. The Hatter, the Tweedles, McTwisp, the Dodo, and Mally were just cresting the rise, accompanied by the most stunning woman Alice had ever seen. Her cocoa skin and snow-white hair added to her sense of eccentricity, and Alice was willing to bet that the woman's outfit would kill many women at home. Her most prominent features were a set of rabbit ears upon her head, but Alice did not feel them out of place in Underland.
"It seems our friends have returned from Salazen Grum." Mirana said, re-entering the castle. "Perhaps you would like to greet them?"
Alice saw Balthier's grip on the railing tighten. "Perhaps…" he said, his eyes riveted on the woman coming toward the castle. He took a deep breath. "Might as well pay the piper."
They stood side-by-side at the gates of Marmoreal, waiting for the escaped prisoners of the Red Queen to arrive. Balthier fidgeted, plucking viciously at his cuffs until Alice slapped his hands away.
"You'll destroy your sleeves if you keep that up," she gave him a reassuring smile. "What are you so nervous for?"
"Fran's reaction." He clenched his fists and placed them behind his back to stop himself from ripping at his cuffs again. "Have I told you that she has a different reaction every time I come back from one of our little traveling exploits? The first time, she kissed me. The second time, we were together, so nothing happened… the third time, she slapped me. What is going to happen now?"
"I'm sure she will be glad to see you after prison." Alice said.
"Prison is a common place for us," Balthier answered somewhat wistfully. "No, I am afraid that I have done bad things, and that I am going to be very sad by the time today is up."
Fran strode toward Balthier, devouring the ground with her long, proud gait. Alice, squeezing Tarrant half to death while enjoying the feeling of his hands stroking through her hair, watched them out of the corner of her eye. She could not hear what was said, but Balthier bowed his head, plucking at his cuffs once more. In the dying sunlight, Alice fancied she saw a tear slide down his face, but when he turned toward her slightly, resting his weight on one leg, she knew it was her imagination. Fran ran a hand through her hair, flattening her ears and allowing them to pop back up again. Balthier seemed to quail for a moment, before kneeling before the woman and kissing her hand. Together, they walked into the palace, but not before Alice saw Fran pull a pack of cards from a small bag on her hip and begin shuffling them.
"Is everything okay?" Tarrant asked, raising an eyebrow. Alice nodded, smiling as Chessur descended out of the air, riding the Hatter's top hat. Tarrant snatched it out of the cat's paws, and as he vanished, Chess caressed it, purring,
"Goodbye, sweet hat," with that, he melted into the twilight shadows.
"Found your muchness yet, Alice?" Tarrant continued. She sighed.
"If this is about slaying the Jabberwock, I don't want to hear it." Alice at last conceded. Tarrant rubbed at his eyes with a pale, pink-splotched hand.
"I suppose it would be useless for me to say anything, then."
"Quite. This is my dream, and whatever happens is up to me." Alice turned back to regarding the quiet valley, and the Hatter leaned on the rail next to her.
"If this is all a dream, that would mean that I'm not real." Tarrant looked terrified by the implication.
"I'm afraid so."
"Don't worry, Tarrant." Balthier joined them on the balcony, Fran following him like a shadow. "I think, and therefore, I exist. And Alice, if it's only your fantasy, why is it killing me?" he asked, lifting his sleeve slightly so she could see the crisscross of Bandersnatch scars that she knew now covered his body. She could not help but feel it was her fault, though she knew if she voiced her thoughts, Balthier would immediately shoot her down, saying it was his own and no one else's.
"Everyone here expects something impossible out of me. Everything that happens here is impossible. Rabbits can't talk or wear clothes. Bandersnatch don't exist. People don't have heads as huge as college globes. Cake doesn't make you grow, and foul water doesn't make you shrink. And last, corpses cannot walk around, talk, or betray people!" she said, venting her fears at last. Balthier recoiled from her, taking a step back as if struck.
"It's not my fault that I'm this way." Balthier said quietly. "And McTwisp can't help but speak. The Bandersnatch could not stop itself from being born, and I doubt that Upelkuchen and Pishsalver have a desire to make you shrink or grow." Fran leaned forward, whispering in his ear, and pressed something into his hand. He glanced down at it, then handed it to Alice. "I think you should see these."
Three cards lie in his hand, their backs to her. The image of a leering moon, blood dripping from its teeth, smirked at her in the half-light. She shivered. When he moved his hand a little bit to give them to her, the blood seemed to slid further down the moon's face to pool in the bottom of the picture. She hesitated.
"Go on, they don't bite," Balthier, with all the skill of a sleight of hand master, made them vanish and reappear in his other hand. Behind him, Fran snickered.
"We drew them for you— don't you want to know what will happen?" she asked. Her voice was as exotic as her looks, somewhat refined, yet at the same time very alien. Tarrant poked her back.
"Well, go on, take them!" he said. Alice took the gleeful moon into her hands, turning the cards over one by one.
The first had a small black zero painted in the corner, and depicted a fanciful man standing on the edge of a cliff, a sack over his shoulder. "The Fool," Fran said. "Zero. At the start of the journey, there is nothing. The Fool is not good, but neither is he evil. He carries the potential to become both."
Alice turned over the next card. A man stood over a pot of bubbling… something, his hand over his head. "The Magician. He has the ability to make something of nothing through use of his will alone. His power is almost limitless."
The last card seemed to be laughing at her. She did not know much about the tarot, but she knew that one of the cards was Death. With her luck, she might have it in her hand. She really did not want to see what was on the other side of this moon drooling blood.
"Peace, Alice. It is nothing bad." Balthier promised her. She flipped it over, and blinked. The card simply bore the image of a man hanging by his foot from a tree, his arms tied behind his back. "The Hanging Man— nothing is what it seems. Don't forget that, hm?"
"Are these things that are going to happen?" Alice asked, studying the Hanging Man card. Fran raised and lowered one shoulder by way of answer.
"Perhaps; some might have already happened, some might yet to be. I do not doubt that the Fool is you, Alice, and you are the Magician, too. I will now ask you: who do you think is the Hanging Man?" Fran tilted her head slightly.
"Balthier." Alice replied promptly. The named man burst out laughing.
"I can see why you'd say that after my little double-cross," he sighed, crouching to look into a pond. Fran examined Alice thoughtfully before looking at the blue caterpillar that crawled out of her white hair.
"I am afraid she is still not quite Alice yet, Absolem. Not until she knows who the true Hanging Man is," she said. At hearing this, Alice's face fell. She was so tired of being told who she was and who she was not. Tarrant put a gentle hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it away. Balthier's eyes widened slightly as she stormed toward him.
"Not good," he muttered, just as Alice placed her hands on his chest and gave him a firm push. He tumbled head over heels into the pond, water splashing everywhere. When he re-emerged, Alice crouched to his level.
"And you're not one to tell me who I am either, liar!" With that, she vanished into the castle. Balthier dragged himself out of the pond, water plants clinging to his hair. A crab dangled from his ear, and he swatted it off.
"Damn," he picked up a card from where Alice had dropped it, turning it over. "The Hanging Man, eh?" putting the card down, he picked the little crab up and held it to his eye level. "You just can't stop following me, can you? Well, if not all of her muchness, she's regained something, don't you think?" the crab waved its claws at him ambiguously. Balthier snorted. "It's not that I'm ungrateful. I mean, I'm glad you allowed me to return back to Fran, and to spend the rest of eternity with her. It is like the stereotypical romantic dream come true. But… I do wish you would stop interfering with my life, Calypso. I've quite enough of gods."
Alice fled through the halls, not knowing where she went. She sped past Mirana, Valerius, and even the Tweedles, who responded with twin cries of:
"Watch it—"
"Alice!"
She burst into her room and flung herself onto the bed, sobbing.
"So you still think this is a dream, don't you, stupid girl?" Absolem's rich voice broke upon her. She looked up to see the caterpillar inching down the wall near her head, dragging his hookah with him.
"Go away. Ever since I have come here, everyone has told me what to do and what to expect, and you have done nothing but call me stupid. Tell me why I shouldn't just smash you under my thumb, Absolem." Alice replied.
"Because you would be very, very sad." Absolem replied simply. Alice snorted.
"No, not really."
"You've been here before. I'm quite surprised you haven't remembered by now." The caterpillar blew a plume of smoke into her face, and she waved it away, coughing.
Memories flashed before her eyes. Having Tea with the Hatter, following the Cheshire Cat, painting the roses red.
"So it was real— those dreams weren't dreams, they were memories." She whispered.
"Yes," Absolem said. Alice frowned.
"Balthier and Fran were not there."
"No, they came through a different means— a magical looking glass in a pool of seawater. Unfortunately, they came into the hands of the Red Queen first. Iracebeth noticed his gift for deception and his devotion to Fran. Naturally she was jealous," Absolem chuckled, and Alice remembered what Mirana said: Iracebeth is jealous of many things, love especially. Funny she is the Queen of Hearts, no?
"She removed Fran from the picture, locking her away in the dungeons, and set about trying to take Balthier for herself. Sadly for her, her precious pirate had no heart for her to be the Queen of— he'd given it away." Alice put the pieces together. She was trying to find out why Fran was so important… I wasn't going to tell…Balthier had said while he picked the lock.
"Fran is his heart— his muchness, isn't she?"
"At last, someone with an iota of intelligence has noted that, besides me." Absolem said dully, sucking on his hookah. "He died for her, you know. Told me so himself. He chose a cursed life as a walking corpse so he could return to her. Now tell me, Alice. Where is your muchness?"
She paused, thinking.
"Can't tell me that, can you?" Absolem inched back up the wall.
"No, I can! It's in here!" Alice placed a hand over her heart.
"Oh?"
"I am the Fool. I've come here on a journey. I am the magician. I will change things through my will alone. And the Hanging Man— that is all of us. He is me, you, Fran, Balthier, Tarrant— everybody. Even the Jabberwock."
"Well now, I'm a butterfly. Alice, at last." Absolem chuckled.
"Thank you, Absolem." Gently, Alice tapped his head. "Now, I have an appointment with the Jabberwocky today, and I would hate to miss it."
She encountered the sky pirates on her way to don the armor of the champion. Balthier hastily moved out of the way, but she grabbed him by the arm. He was still damp, and the cold water made his skin feel like the bite of an arctic ice pack.
"What now, Alice? Come to throw me off a balcony? I can't guarantee I'll make it back in one piece if you did that." Balthier shifted uncomfortably, his eyes flickering to Fran for some kind of salvation.
"Actually, I wanted to apologize for pushing you into the pond earlier. I don't know why I did it." Alice said.
"You were angry, that's why. I think you could have killed Yiazmat with that look." Balthier ran a hand through his wet hair. "Where are you going?"
Alice smiled this time, a true smile. "I'm going out to kill the Jabberwocky."
Fran nodded approvingly, and Balthier watched as the young girl continued down the hall.
"Well now, I have seen a good thing. I don't feel so bad about marching to war now." He said. The Viera stroked the hair at the nape of his neck, watching with amusement as goose bumps rose in response.
"I suppose. If that is the case, you wouldn't happen to have my bow still, would you?"
Yays?