Chapter 18

Tick Tock, Goes the Clock

-~:{+}:~-

"Well, that was useless… I should really learn focus. I don't have many other leads home, except this vial…" She thought aloud, walking along. The night was so short, and the day was so bright. Her eyes stung slightly from the light hitting her tired eyes, then she stopped suddenly. "Oh, that's right. There's that Alice girl. How did I forget that so easily?"

{Wait… She's in another county though. I can't navigate, and I still have to fill up the vial. Damn…}

Looking up at the blue sky, it made her a bit dizzy and strained her eyes even more. She didn't like it when the sky didn't have a single cloud, bird, plane, or anything else. It was too expansive, seemingly endless, and that just made her dizzy. Her eyes seemed to do that whenever something looked so deep yet so empty. That's why she liked evenings the best. Wasn't much else for her to do, however, walking along the flowery path. She seemed to have a tendency to trail off when spaced out.

"Careful!"

Elise snapped out of her trance to see someone else, kneeling near the side of the path. She wasn't going to run into him, actually, she was facing slightly away from him. Looking down at her feet, she saw nothing extraordinary that she should avoid, just the edge of the flat grass.

"If you're not careful, you'll step on the flowers."

His hair was dark, and for some reason, it made her think of soil. Must have been the mention of plants or something. She did take honors biology freshman year, digging around in the local soil for extra credit. One of those useless facts she remembered was that it was called drummer silty clay loam, or something along those lines. If only she cared for gardening.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention." Elise readjusted herself, firmly in the center of the path. "I lose track of where I'm going from time to time."

{It's another roleholder. Wonder which side he's on?}

"You, you're that foreigner that people have been chatting about…" Unlike some of the others, he didn't look too impressed. He leaned a bit closer to her, as if trying to figure what all of the fuss was about. "Hm. I don't get it? You don't seem to special. You have two arms, two legs, a head, and so on."

"Ah ha…" She stepped back a bit. This girl didn't like it when strangers entered her personal space bubble like that. "So, just who are you? You must be a roleholder."

"Oh, I'm just a gardener. I'm Landon."

"Elise… So do you take care of these flowers?"

"Not these. I like to see how they're doing from time to time, but these are wild, and have been around the library as long as anyone can recall. They're quite resilient, despite they're appearance."

"Hnn. That's really cool. My kind of flower, I suppose." Elise cocked her head slightly, staring at the flowers, seemingly endless. She enjoyed flowers, but she wasn't fond of actually gardening herself. Too much hassle and she grew up hating outside during the summer for the unbearably hot and humid summers. Her mother was quite the opposite though, often forcing her outside, to tend to the tomatoes out back.

Still, wondering, she was hesitant to ask who this gardener was. "Who do you work for?"

"I maintain the gardens for the Red Queen."

{Another person working for the Queen Valse, then… I'm still not sure if I should see them as enemies or not. But I suppose a person who tends to flowers can't be all bad. Even if some environmentalists tend to be assholes- not that I have anything against mother nature.}

Lowering to see the flowers better, she sat on the path. "There are so many flowers here. Tiger-lilies, roses, daisies, violets… I'm surprised they thrive so well out in the middle of nowhere like this. They seem so neat for a random field."

"I agree, but I still find it interesting. Do you have a favorite type of flower?"

"Uhh, well, I guess not… I dunno. I do like lots of different flowers. I guess my top favorites would have to be the lotus, magnolia, bellflowers, primroses, honeysuckle, roses, lilies, and the forget-me-not. Those are the ones I like to draw most… Oh, and those cactus flowers that only bloom at night."

"Uh huh… So you base them by how much you draw them?"

"Hey, I'm an art person. It's kinda what I do." she snapped back. "And what about you? Got any preferences for a particular plant?"

"Not specifically. Though I like more fragile flowers."

{Fragile flowers? I would think that they might be more of a hassle. Then again, I'm no flower expert.}

Elise was curious about flowers. They had always seemed important to people. They were gifts, decorations, messages, a hobby, even medicine, and many other things to people. Plus, she enjoyed drawing them. Organic shapes were her forte, geometric artwork often causing her to be at a loss of ideas. But organic shapes flowed onto the paper. Still, her main subjects tended to be people, no matter how much she drew flowers and other objects. Funny how a majority of famous works depict people, as if the height of artistic talent requires and understanding of how humans work. One thing was certain though, Elise's mind trailed off. Her train of thought was hard to keep on track, and it wandered around, staring at the flowers, fidgeting with the leaves.

"Don't plants can scream in agony…" She thought out loud. Elise gained a liking to thinking aloud, with a nonchalant disposition. "They just scream at such a high frequency that nobody can hear them."

"…what? What are you talking about?"

"Eh? Oh, guess I was just thinking out loud again."

"Is that a… normal thing?" He seemed a tad confused. Oddly enough, to Elise, this made him seem like the most normal person here. At least to what she would place in the category "normal".

{A normal response, hm? Hadn't gotten that from anyone else since I'd arrived here.}

Regardless, she decided to change the topic to a more what was probably a more comfortable subject. "I-I've never seen this many flowers in one place before. I've been out in the countryside before, but those were all farms with crops like corn."

"Really?"

Elise let out a sigh. "Nope. I haven't ever been in field of flowers like this. I haven't been in a real forest before coming to this world, and the cities here are different than the ones I'm familiar with." Her voice wasn't quite sad, but seemed disappointed. She had an average life up till now, and dreamed big, but rarely ever tried to do much. Elise was too indecisive with things. Opinionated, yet indecisive. Couldn't even choose one favorite flower.

"Just what kind of world are you from?" Again, he sounded a bit baffled. He must have been so used to these things that it was hard to imagine a place without something close.

Elise was amused by his reaction. "Hmm… A world with people in it. Same as here. Really, did you expect anything else? People are people. You said so yourself that I look like any other person."

{Seems totally normal. Same response I would expect from a "normal" person back home if I said similar things.}

"Still, I like these flowers. Simple, pretty, and I'd like to draw these. I kinda wonder if different flower lead different lives, maybe? Look at that! I'm starting to ramble again." Picking herself up, she dusted her skirt and socks. They were dustier than expected. Probably hasn't rained in a while.

"I don't think it's rambling. I suppose it's good to think about little things." Shifting his weight back and forth on his feet, Landon looked like he was thinking hard about this. "I don't know if the flowers live differently than each other besides what nature intended, but it seems nice to be a flower. Less things to worry about. You could just flutter in the wind. You won't need to worry with things like being replaced. It doesn't really matter."

"Again with the being replaced thing…" Getting sick and tired of hearing about replacement Elise cut him off. This whole idea getting repeated over and over by most people here made her restless. She was sick and tired of hearing people constantly mull over something that wasn't simply true. Not to her it wasn't.

"Lucky little foreigner. You don't have to live the same as us."

"Wha-? What do you mean by that?"

{Is he trying to taunt me, or is he being literal?}

"You mean the game, don't you? You'd be right that I honestly don't get it. What's up with this whole 'role' thing anyways? And everybody keeps moping about being replaceable, when that's just not how things work!" The dark-haired girl started to get worked up at this point, but before she could think of more to say, she was cut off.

"Yes. It is." With that he left Elise to stand alone on the path towards white territory.

{J-Just what the hell was that? He just rebuked everything I said without explanation and left!}

Still, the girl didn't choose to follow the gardener, and just went on her way.

-~:{+}:~-

Getting off the train, the foreigner was glad she arrived at the correct station, not far from where she met Humpty Dumpty. She vaguely remembered where she was going from the first arrival. It was lucky too, seeing as certain lines were only one way, so she would have been truly lost if it was the wrong path to take. Even more fortunate, a known face was there to meet her, just as depressed as last time, however.

"There you are. We've been wondering why you took so long to get back."

"Sorry Edwin. I was sidetracked and had to stay longer than I intended… Were you going to fetch me or something?"

"Well, Aria was worried about whether you'd arrive back safely. I had nowhere else to be, so she sent me… Come on, she's wanted to have tea with you…"

With a sigh, as one would expect of him, he walked alongside the wall surrounding the city, Elise close behind. And as usual for her, the train of though in her head was miles away from it's track. Her frustration at Landon had subsided a bit, and she begun to wonder exactly what he meant by his words. Although she claimed to never understand most things, she still found this world to be a mystery. A mystery found by a curious person. A sudden shiver went down her spine, disturbing her trance. She noticed Edwin stop in front of her. A short distance away she could see a person who looked as if he was some sort of traveller, with bags and walking clothes. Another faceless, but he was different. He lay on the ground, unmoving, covered in blood. Elise gulped in an attempt to calm down, and scanned the scene, not moving from her spot, distracting herself by looking for details, any details. His clothes looked worn, his bags were empty, and there were trademarks that looked like there were a wagon that wasn't here. She digested the information, but she dare not move closer alone, as Edwin just watched stationary and silent.

{What happened to this man? Are there bandits in the woods here? And right outside the city walls? Should I go help..?}

Even if she wanted to move, her body wouldn't let her. The brunette looked on, curiously. She didn't like this. Observing the scene, shadows approached the body. And to her surprise, the body faded, leaving only a timepiece in it's place. These dark figures took the clock, and left. She still refused to move, processing what had happened.

{…w-what...?}

Silence. It didn't feel like silence, as her mind was trying to understand. It was that feeling one gets when they don't realize the silence, as their mind is too loud.

"You were bound to find out eventually…" Taking her wrist, he forced her to move, or else she would have forgotten that she had limbs, dragging her towards the city gates. She was scared, but not because of the events that took place before her. Realizing this, the worry just mounted. That pang of morbid curiosity that overrides normal fear. A fascination. An oddity. It was unusual. Unpleasant. Even unwholesome.

Notes: I think my tendency to ramble when speaking is seeping into my writing… But I think I'm getting the hang of this. And I've been writing longer chapters.

Don't worry, this isn't the last of the gardener. I'll add more to him as we go along.

Yes, Elise is a midwestern girl. She's loves her internets and a bustling pace, but she's quite used to the country too, but she's not a country girl. I thought it would be easier for me to write this sort of background, since I'm in the midwest right now…

And some plants do send signals of pain or dismay when damaged. Also, science/psychology and personal experience has taught me that some people are environmentalists because they're assholes who want to prove to themselves that they're not that terrible. Either way, someone's trying to save the planet, I suppose.

As always, reviews and feedback is always appreciated. I won't bite