A.N.: HAY GUIEZ. Omg, so, how about an incredibly wondaful user, AnimeGoth92, is featuring this story on her polyvore account!
I really appreciate all of the reviews, guys. :3 You'll all so sweet~
Sorry about how boring this chapter is.. D: It's mainly plot development.
Everything started to go blurry for Alice while being led down the path that led to Tarrant's house by the new king. It seemed her legs were moving of their own accord. Even though he was speaking loud and clear, she could only faintly hear him. Only bits and pieces she couldn't comprehend. Biting her lip, she tried in vain to piece together what had just occurred. Her memory of the last half hour was already fuzzy.
I-I was in the house.., She thought, With Tarrant.. Upstairs, and then.. There was a.. Knock on the door.. And Tarrant went downstairs.. And, this.. This man said he was the new King.. and there was new laws, right? And I had to be registered.. Yes... That's what happened.. Well that shouldn't take long.. But he said I'd have to stay at the castle for awhile.. But Tarrant can visit me.. It wont be that bad.. Right?
She was finding it increasingly hard to keep a clean head. She remembered her and Tarrant planing out various strategies to get into the castle.. So, this was good, right? A-and what did he say to act towards the new King, in case we met him beforehand? Every time she thought deeper into what just happened, her mind went blurry, as if trying to pretend nothing was happening.
Was it to be careful around him?, She thought, Or maybe it was to try to befriend him? Possibly resent him? Ugh. Who am I kidding? I haven't the foggiest as to what to do.
She barely registered when her legs stopped moving. This brought her to a state of semi-consciousness. She noticed a very large carriage in front of her in the dark. Since it was darker than night, she could hardly see a few feet in front of her. Although, she wasn't noticing much of anything since she left the house.
The carriage was a light royal purple, with an odd crest embellished on it's sides. Alice could hardly make it out, but, in black and white silk was a circle with an ankh inside it. Inside the loop of the ankh was an eye. She stood there trying to figure out what it meant when she heard the King's voice.
"No no, there will be no need for that, yet, anyways.. I told you, we'll see in a moment." She turned around, and saw one of the hideous monster-creatures was holding a thick bundle of rope. She took a step back. "Ladies first." The tanned man said to her with a smile. She very reluctantly faced the carriage again.
The giant cricket opened the door to the carriage, and a silk colored carpet rolled out, stopping at where her feet were now standing. She hear one of the odd creatures make a throaty noise, and she thought for a moment she would feel the ropes binding her. She tensed up for a moment, but, it never came. So, she took a careful step on the carpet.
"Go on now, nothing will hurt you in there." She heard the tanned man's voice say, so she took a few more steps, and walked inside the carriage. She noticed only one seat. Turning around, to look at the tanned man though the door. It looked smaller than when she first walked in.
"Are you not coming..?" She asked quietly when she noticed that no one had moved after she did. She looked at the carpet, which was starting to slowly roll up of it's own accord. The places were her feet had touched it burned bright white, like molten silver. A few of the hideous creatures actually started grunting, with what she could only presume was laughter. The tanned man was ignoring them, and staring intently at the carpeting, a very puzzled look on his beautiful face.
"I shall accompany you." He said. The creatures stopped grunting immediately. She couldn't see their faces in the dark, but, she could imagine a very stupid, very confused, look on their large, brownish-gray faces. She could hear the cricket starting to talk faster and more high pitched than ever.
"B-but Sire, I don't think-" He started
"Then you shouldn't speak." The tanned man said simply, walking towards the carriage. Now that she was looking straight through the door, she noticed it was in fact shrinking. Immediately, the cricket started making incredibly muffled sounds, as if he was trying to protest but couldn't get his mouth open.
The door was now roughly the size of a window, and shrinking ever-faster. Without further ado, the tanned man slipped though it. Alice heard something drop to the floor, and noticed right across from where she was sitting a chair fell out of nowhere for the tanned man. He walked over, and sat in it. Facing Alice, he begun talking to her.
"You may refer to me as King Jonas," He eyed were the carpet now was, curled up at the base of the door, now a pure white color. " You may, however, call me Jonas. Like I told you on our pleasant walk over here. I would like to think you were listening, but that matter is up to discussion." He said with a smile. Alice didn't know what to say back, so just met his eyes, smiled quickly, and went back to looking out the incredibly small window. Within another moment the window was nothing but a pin-prick. A second later, it was gone.
"How does it do that?" She asked quietly, still gazing at where the window was. You would think it would be darker than midnight inside the enclosed carriage, but it surprisingly wasn't. It wasn't painfully bright, but, there was an odd yellow flush of illumination coaxing every corner of the carriage. It seemed to have no start or end, and upon examining every corner, she believed there to be no oil-lamps, or any light givers of that sort. "And where is this light coming from?"
"That's a good question." Jonas said thoughtfully, looking around at the light with a great air of interest. Alice had no idea what he meant by the statement, so became very interested in her feet. She looked up for a moment to see him looking at the ceiling, apparently looking for the light source, as she just had. When he looked up, a small cornicello on a chain appeared from under his white undershirt. He eyed her nervously to see if she had seen. She quickly looked down, pretending she hadn't. He stared at her for a few seconds longer, and apparently decided she hadn't seen a thing. He tucked it back into his shirt.
She slowly started slipping from her shock on the ride to the castle. She started to notice things again as she normally would have. She even started to think a little clearer. She looked at Jonas properly for the first time. He was wearing an outfit identical to the one most of his guards were. A black suit, black slacks, highly-polished leather black shoes, and a pin-striped white undershirt. The breast pocket had a white handkerchief protruding out, and was embellished with the same symbol she had seen on the outside of the carriage. In other words, he looked incredibly sharp and over dressed.
And those.. Those things.. That he had brought with him up to the house. They were at least twice as tall as him, and thrice as broad. They had ridiculously saggy skin; at least twice too big for their bodies. And these.. These almost tusk-like things protruding from their mouths. Their noses were lop-sided and their faces proportionate in various ways. Their skin varied from different shades of gray to brown; she had never seen anything like them.
Lost in her thought, it seemed but a moment until the window-door started to appear again. It was exactly like watching in shrink, just in reverse. It became big enough to walk through at the precise moment the carriage halted. She looked at Jonas who was standing up, and extending to her his hand, in a very gentleman-like manner. She jumped up, suddenly very eager to get out of the carriage. She got up a big too fast, or, maybe she had been sitting longer than she thought.
Either way, she had suddenly felt incredibly dizzy and weak legged. Jonas put his arm around her shoulders so she wouldn't collapse. She was quickly overcome with nausea, and it took all she had not to get sick. Once she was able to stand on her own again, he reached to his neck and pulled out a triangular vile. The bottle was shiny, and filled with incredibly clear liquid. The silver chain it was on glimpsed feebly in the light.
"Here, drink up. You'll feel better." Before she could protest, she felt an odd liquid being forced down her throat. It was colder than ice, freezing every bit of her it touched. Immediately, her nausea was gone. Only, she felt.. Well.. Odd. And unmistakably warm.
With a thud, Alice hit the floor of the carriage. She was completely and utterly passed out. Before totally blacking out, she could of sworn she saw Jonas smiling at her falling, tucking the chained vile back around his neck and down the front of his under shirt.