Chapter 26: "For Old Time's Sake"
The Gnomes hiding up in the hills started coming down immediately after I had taken my two light-orange mushroom heads. My bust was still all but bursting out of my dress when they arrived on the battlefield.
"Nice of you guys to sit up there and leave everything to Cheshire and me!"
The Gnome Elder remained calm in the face of the insult and my obvious fury.
"We couldn't do anything. We arrived here days before you did. Everytime we approached the Queen of Hearts' Castle, those Bible-thumpers came out in force. The thumping was deafening. It made everyones' ears bleed. The few who failed to run immediately ended up temporarily deaf with their ears ringing for days. We thought you would adopt a strategy of tossing a jackbomb and then retreating over and over again."
"One jackbomb is not sufficient to block the entire field. The Bible-thumpers would have just gone around it."
"Well, your tactic worked. It sure caught us all by surprise. Never saw anyone deliberately jump into a whirlwind before! Actually, none of us ever saw the boob shrooms in use before. And you used two at once! It really was quite a show! You didn't see it, but Cheshire put on quite a show, as well. None of us had ever seen Cheshire in combat before. We all thought that he always ran away at the first sign of combat."
"You all thought that Cheshire was a coward?"
"Yup."
"Well, now you know. Pin the Order of the Gnomes on his collar or something."
"Cheshire doesn't have a collar. They tend to get caught on things and strangle a cat, anyway."
"You knew what I meant. Shall we all head toward the Queen of Hearts' Castle together? What do you have to use against the Card Guards?"
"Same one thing we've always used. We're miners. We have sticks of dynamite and blasting caps to set off a quantity of dynamite. Dynamite is not a very good weapon against a moving target. It's good at corralling a large group of enemies."
"Dynamite." I sighed. The poor Gnomes had nothing else. I had heard of them picking up staffs from dead Card Guards to use.
"Shall we go?"
"Of course."
We all began marching together toward the Queen of Hearts' Castle. The Gnomes told me that they had heard rumors of some White Chess pieces waiting to join up with them near the Castle.
As foretold by Caterpillar, the White Chess pieces were indeed waiting to join up with us near the Queen of Hearts' Castle. There were two Knights and a Bishop. That was the sum total of the White Chess pieces. The Bishop said that Pale Realm was reluctant to release any more pieces for an assault on the Queen of Hearts' Castle because of the worry over cutting into the security force for Pale Realm. Understandable. Pale Realm had once seen Red Chess Pieces penetrate all the way to just outside the door of the White King's throne room. The Rooks were the White King's personal guards.
After discussing various battle plans, we began marching together right in the open field in plain view up to the Queen of Hearts' Castle which was backed up against a mountain side and surrounded on the other three sides by open field. It was well-placed strategically. The mountains were too steep to climb without mountain-climbing gear, of which we had none. We had to approach via the open fields. No element of surprise was possible.
We marched straight toward the drawbridge. I was suffering increasing discomfort from my still partially expanded breasts jiggling and wobbling around. It occurred to me that if we hadn't been on a battlefield, I would have been completely okay with getting stuck with them. The constant jiggling was highly erotic for me. They sure weren't designed for long marches, however.
To our surprise, the drawbridge lowered at our approach and a single servant rode out on a horse. He was armed only with a sword in a scabbard. I suspected that the sword was more ceremonial than anything else. The Queen of Hearts' personal messenger handed us an official communication with the Queen of Hearts' signature.
"To Alice and all allied rebels. All hostilities are ended and Card Guards shall be restricted to policing duties inside my realm and border guard duties. They will no longer do the bidding of the Red Queen in any other parts of Wonderland. All Gnomes are henceforth to be released from genital restraints. Two copies of both types of release key will be provided. All hostilities with Pale Realm are ended. The war is over. At least, my war is over. Alice and her allies are welcome inside my Castle. For old times' sake. I spent the first civil war locked up in the Red Queen's dungeon while she put forth an imposter in my place. Hatter was down there, too, someplace. Let the Red Queen fight her own battles. Signed, Queen Rania, the Queen of Hearts."
The messenger immediately handed over two copies of the release key for Gnome mens' metal lockboxes and two copies of the key for Gnome womens' metal fabric chastity belts. I handed the keys to the Gnome Elder because he had a keychain.
"The Queen of Hearts has come to her senses. Some scout must have seen what I did to the Bible-thumpers. We all need to remember that this Queen of Hearts is not the one we remember from the first civil war. That Queen of Hearts was an imposter. This Queen of Hearts is the Card Royal that I remember from my early trips to Wonderland. I hope all of you remember her as well."
"It could still be a trap, Alice," said the Gnome Elder.
"I realize that. Let us see whether she demands that we all disarm upon entering the Castle. I, myself, am not willing to disarm. The Chess Pieces should not disarm, either. I suspect that the Queen of Hearts will refuse to allow you Gnomes to bring your dynamite inside. You should expect to be required to store it in an outside-the-Castle location."
"That sounds acceptable to me."
I turned to the messenger.
"Messenger, we accept the Queen of Hearts' invitation. Please notify her. We will wait here for permission to cross the drawbridge."
The messenger bowed, and rode off across the drawbridge, which rose up behind him. We stayed in place, waiting.
A half-hour later, we saw the drawbridge come down again. The messenger rode across and read aloud a signed message.
"To Alice and all allied rebels. Permission to enter granted. The gnomes must store their dynamite after crossing the bridge in an outside-the-Castle storage facility for explosives. It is designed to keep everything as dry as possible. You may not bring dynamite inside the Castle. It is forbidden even for Card Guards. Alice may retain her weapons. The two White Knights may retain their swords. The White Bishop may retain his staff. Small rooms with an attached bathroom and shower will be provided as is customary with guests. Gnomes will be required to share a room because of the shortage of rooms. Alice will also share with the Cheshire Cat. The White Chess Pieces will not be required to share. Schedules for meals and entertainment events are posted in all rooms. A tour of the Castle will be conducted for Alice and the Cheshire Cat on the first day. The rest of you are free to roam. For your own safety, do not annoy the palace guards. Enjoy your stay. Signed, Queen Rania, the Queen of Hearts."
"It seems we are invited," I said to the Gnome Elder. He turned and discussed some matters with the other Gnomes.
"The Gnomes have decided to head into position near the Red Queen's Castle where we will conduct harassment attacks from the hills. Give us a few weeks to soften up the Red Queen's Castle defenses. We'll join up with you then."
"Very well, I'll see you then. I'm not sure how long I'll be here. The Queen of Hearts - this Queen of Hearts - was very appreciative of company when I was a child. She had a knack for scaring people off, though. Shouts of 'Off with their heads!' did not make people eager to visit."
I shook hands with the Gnome Elder and watched him head off with the rest of the Gnome rebel band. The three white chess pieces decided to accept the invitation. They suggested the possibility of the Queen of Hearts as an ally in the fight against the Red Queen.
"The fact that she's willing to let us in makes me curious about the relationship between her and that horde of Bible-thumpers you just slaughtered. She doesn't seem upset about that."
I thought the White Bishop definitely had a point. We followed the Queen of Hearts' messenger across the drawbridge into the Castle. A contingent of palace servants met us and escorted us up to small, but comfortable rooms which had a toilet and shower attached. It wasn't quite the luxury of Pale Realm, but it was certainly comfortable. There was an air of old England about the place. Dark wood and elegant carvings abounded. Paintings hung everywhere on walls covered in rose pink floral wallpaper. Spectacular winding staircases led to upper floors. Gaslights hung from the ceilings and stuck out of the walls in hallways. Louis XIV style furniture was everywhere in the large rooms and even in the hallways. Even some of the guest room furnishings were in elegant Louis XIV style. Needless to say, none of us had much luggage.
Every room had a schedule of meals and an explanation of the laundry service posted. A small rectangular notice on the doors stated that royal chambermaids cleaned rooms at nine o'clock sharp every morning. Bedsheets were changed once a week. The chambermaids all had a skeleton key which opened all guest rooms. I noticed my name written on a white postercard slipped into a nameplate on my door. No chance of mistaking my room for any other. Every room also had a door number in arabic numerals above the nameplate. On the desk was an invitation to dinner with the Queen of Hearts in the main dining room at seven o'clock. It was five. I thought it a good idea to shower and clean myself up before heading down for dinner. There was nothing I could do about my clothes.
At six-fifty I headed out and down the nearby spiral staircase to the main dining hall. The guest rooms, most of them I suppose, were on the second floor of the Castle. I saw the white chess pieces coming down another spiral staircase. We met at the long dining table, and saw cards with our names on them indicating our seats. I was seated directly in front of the Queen of Hearts. Her husband, the King of Hearts, sat at an end of the table. Cheshire was sitting next to him chowing down on what looked like scrambled eggs. I remembered the King of Hearts from childhood. He was always walking around saying "You are all pardoned." I especially remembered his unwillingness to touch alcohol or Wonderland Weed. There were times, I suspected, when he was the only sober person in Wonderland. Like his wife, he spent the entire first civil war locked up in the Red Queen's prison.
The Queen of Hearts was seated directly in front of me and was not what I remembered from childhood. She was no longer fat and manic-depressive. She looked, in fact, quite normal. I sensed that she was in quite a good mood, but I was baffled as to the reason why. I thought I needed to be quiet and observe carefully. The Queen of Hearts looked down at my still-expanded chest and chuckled.
"Those light orange mushrooms sometimes take two full days to completely counter the effects of the dark orange mushrooms. You are not the first to use those mushrooms as a weapon. Right at the beginning of the first civil war when the Red Queen sent her pet monster to capture me, I used two of those mushrooms at the same time. Desperation. I waited at the top of a staircase, took the mushrooms, and then jumped down on the jabberwock. I knocked him senseless for a few minutes. After he came to, however, I was an easy capture. I was unable to move. I couldn't even get to the light-orange mushrooms in my dress pocket. My boobs were on top of them. I was completely helpless. The Red Queen gave me the light-orange mushrooms so that she could stuff me in a prison cell. Without the light-orange mushrooms, I was too big for any prison cell."
"Were you in the cell next to Hatter?"
"Unfortunately no. He would have been good company. My husband was separated from me, too."
I sat quietly and listened to the small talk occurring up and down the dining table. The Queen of Hearts often turned to address other people sitting up and down the table. When she turned back to me, I had a question for her.
"Why do you seem so untroubled about me slaughtering your minions? All those Bible-thumpers?"
The Queen of Hearts broke out into loud, guffawing laughter.
"My dear, you don't understand! Those Bible-thumpers were not my minions. They were the Red Queen's minions!"
My jaw hit the floor. Never in a million years would I have thought this.
"You mean the Bible-thumpers were occupiers in your lands?"
"Yes, they were how the Red Queen controlled my husband and me. They were how the Red Queen controlled all of the Card Royals and the Card Guards under their command. The other Card Royals all live on the top floor of the Castle. They all have a roof garden that they tend. They seem quite alienated from Wonderland. Given the tyranny of the Red Queen, I don't blame them. You could say they're retired. They now leave command of all Card Guards to me and my husband."
"So when I slaughtered all those Bible-thumpers, I actually did you a favor?"
The Queen of Hearts broke out into loud laughter again.
"My dear! You liberated us! You had no clue, did you?"
"No, I didn't."
The rest of the dinner went quite pleasantly, even better than any of the tea parties that I had had in childhood with Hatter. The Queen of Hearts insisted that I call her "Queen Rania" and seemed to bear me no ill will over the Card Guards that I had slaughtered in the past. Queen Rania phrased the problems of the past in a single sentence.
"You did what you had to do, and I did what I had to do."
After dinner, Queen Rania had the manager of the chambermaids give me a tour of the Castle. Another servant gave Cheshire his tour. We started off in the basement, which housed all of the scientific workshops, chemistry workshops, a metal shop, a wood shop, a clothesmaking shop, and numerous other workshops. There was one workshop that he especially wanted to show me.
"This is our potions room, where we make medicines out of herbs, minerals, and some chemicals. Not everything we produce is a drug. Some of our potions are for personal problems. For example, this shelf has Wonderland Weed which is very useful for the depressed and a weight-loss potion which Queen Rania uses. She used to be really fat."
"Yes, I remember from childhood. I've been in Wonderland numerous times before."
"Here's a potion which no one seems to be much interested in. A bustline enhancing potion. Nobody wants it because it also makes your hips and butt bigger. Some women have claimed it gives you a fat tum right below the waist as well."
"It actually sounds well-designed. Big breasts on a skinny body look ridiculous."
It dawned on me just then, with my breasts still expanded a bit from the dark orange mushrooms, that I had breasts that looked out-of-proportion to the rest of my body.
"My chest is the result of having used dark orange mushrooms as a weapon. The light orange mushrooms that I took haven't taken full effect yet."
"I knew that. I heard Queen Rania talking to you from down the dining room table. Mushroom breasts aren't much fun. They don't quite look like the real thing, they don't move quite like the real thing, and they don't feel quite like the real thing. They're good for fakes, but they're definitely not equal to the real thing."
"You said nobody seemed much interested in the bustline enhancing potion. Can I have a few bottles of it?"
"You want some of this? Really?"
"Yes, can I have a few bottles of it?"
"I have to warn you that this stuff contains an appetite stimulant. It works by making you gain weight. It targets weight gain to the bustline, but you get bigger in other places as well. It's not perfect."
"It's exactly what I want. Like I said, big breasts on a skinny body look ridiculous."
"You're not skinny."
"I know. I was. Still, big breasts on me would look disproportionately large, wouldn't they? Like these mushroom breasts right now?"
I stepped back and let my tour guide look me over.
"You're right. You're still too slight for big breasts. You can have three bottles. That should be enough for at least three months. Each bottle is a quart. A standard dose is a one-ounce shot taken every morning before breakfast. Each bottle holds 32 one-ounce doses. I'll give you some shot glasses. They're clean."
My tour guide put my three bottles in one paper sack and the shot glasses in a smaller sack. The tour was mostly of the basement and the library on the fourth floor. The first floor was the main living areas and work rooms such as kitchen and laundry. The second floor where I was consisted entirely of guest rooms. The third floor was guest rooms and some additional workshop rooms. The fifth floor was the living area of the retired Card Royals who preferred to remain out-of-sight as much as possible. The fifth floor was off-limits to both guests and most employees. Only the King and Queen of Hearts and some of the kitchen and laundry employees went up to the fifth floor. My tour guide told me that the fifth floor had its own kitchen and laundry.
I dropped off my two paper bags in my room on the way to the fourth floor for a tour of the library which, for me, was the most interesting part of the tour. The library was massive with paintings on all of the walls, an art folio section, a bibliography section, a history section, a travels section, and, of course, fiction and literature. Many of the volumes on display concerned the world above and had little to do with Wonderland.
I returned to my room and eyed the schedule for meals. Breakfast at seven o'clock, morning tea at ten o'clock, lunch at noon, afternoon tea at three o'clock, dinner at seven o'clock, and cocktails in the main lounge at nine o'clock. These people lived to eat, I thought. I stripped off my dress and lay back in bed in just lingerie and socks. I was grateful that the room came with a pair of cleaned bedroom slippers provided. It didn't take me long to fall asleep.
The next morning, just before breakfast, I saw my two paper bags on the writing desk and remembered what they were for. I took the shot glasses out of the smaller paper bag and the three bottles of bustline enhancing potion. I spent several moments just staring at the three bottles and finally broke the seal on one bottle. I poured a shot and sat staring at it remembering my tour guide's warning.
"It works by making you gain weight. It targets weight gain to the bustline, but you get bigger in other places as well."
I was no longer thin. I was average. Normal. I was the size I had been near the end of my previous tour of Wonderland. My body now completely filled the pinafore that I had picked up in the Gnome seamstress' house. I was exactly what I had wanted to be when I was in the Asylum. If the bustline enhancing formula worked, it would make me bigger than average. A bit plump. A bit round. What did I really want? I stared at the shot glass on the writing desk a few minutes longer.
"Down the hatch," I said, and drained the glass. I wanted the boobs. I wanted the wide hips. I wanted the big, heavy bottom. I wanted to be a big, plump, buxom lass. I took my morning shot faithfully every day that I was at the Queen of Hearts' Castle from then on. Two weeks later, when I got back my laundry, I noticed that my lingerie was up one size. Caterpillar up to his old tricks. Then I examined my dress. It was one of my old dresses made by my Gnome seamstress, but it was one size larger. I put it on and noticed that it fit perfectly. My previous dress had been getting tight, but I hadn't noticed yet. The same trick happened again after four weeks when I saw that my dress had been let out and a third time after six weeks when I found myself with a brand new dress. I ended up spending a total of seven weeks in the Queen of Hearts' Castle before the White Chess Pieces and I left to join up with the Gnomes who had been conducting a leisurely campaign of harassment and sabotage to soften up the Red Queen's defenses.
End of Chapter 26
This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. EA (Electronic Arts) owns the copyrights.