Announcements, everyone! Doubtlessly, a million-trillion-gazillion of you are going to be pissed after reading this chapter. The reason is this: This entire chapter is boring. I repeat; Bo-ring. The only point of this chapter was to get Alice to the castle so that she can re-meet Blood in the next one... Yesh humans, zis is simply a part of my evvvviiiil plan... Mha ha ha haaaa! The reason there is so much AliceXBlood in the next chapter because I have decided to stick in AliceX moments which ever character, that and Blood has to have a reason to dislike Alice and call her a slut at ever given moment...
Blood: A reason? I already HAVE a reason. And that is the fact that Alice is, indeed, a slut.
Alice: Shut up, hat-man.
Me: Another reason is because Blood just HAS to find out what Alice calls him in his head... Heh heh heh...
Alice: Why are you talking about the next chapter? After all, you did roasted every person whom is reading this' time and effort.
Me: Right... Sorry! Next chapter will be better, I promised! It's about-
Blood: They already now!
Alice: Essu-chan doesn't own any of the nKnA series...
Blood: ...But feel free to sue her.
Me: HEY!
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"Urgh..." Alice moaned, pausing for a moment to massage her aching feet. The directions hat-man had given her to get to Vivaldi's house were far from clear, and though Ace and Peter both had offered to be her guide, she had decided against it.
That and the fact that she had never, ever, been to this part of town.
Taking in her surroundings, the blonde sighed. She was completely surrounded by huge, fancy houses with tall windows and doors. Everything was big, extravagant, and expensive. Hat-man, of course, had told her that the house was the biggest one on the block... Yet all of the houses appeared of be the same size. She had been walking for hours up and down the same street, searching for 'the biggest house' in an entire neighborhood of 'biggest houses'.
Forget about a needle in a haystack this is like searching for a needle in a pile of needles!
She didn't even want to be here! She had either wanted to go to work (she had an after school job that allowed her two free days per week. She usually didn't know when to take free days, but that didn't mean that she had wanted to spend them like this!) or stay after school to finish the work she needed to make up for missing class. Unfortunately, she couldn't use that as an excuse to stay away from Vivaldi, considering her teacher hadn't been happy about her skipping. Oh no, she hadn't been happy at all. She's been absolutely giddy. Alice had never skipped class before, and considering she was slightly... antisocial, her teaches were always bothering her to go make friends. She also always got perfect grades, so her teachers didn't mind her missing a class or two.
She frowned, harder than she already was, and continued scanning over the buildings. Finally, something caught her eye. At the end of the road there a was a really big house. No, a castle. It was covered in hearts, roses, and other various shiny and expensive-looking things. It was so tall the top appeared to disappear into the clouds... Of maybe that was just her imagination. All around it a huge yard, complete with perfect looking red roses, a fancy archway, and rose bush maze, lead up to the main house. The doorway was a work of art in itself, intricate carvings (mainly existing of hearts and roses) wound up twin columns and found their way on to the handles of the doors. All of this was a lovely pure white marble along with red and pink accents, except for the door. This was made out of a beautiful, dark wood which was (probably) mahogany. Or some other nice wood that Alice didn't know of. This too, was carved with hearts and roses, which appeared to be the recurring theme of the... House? Somehow, calling the gorgeous structure a house just didn't seem right.
There's no way...
Hat-man had said that the house was big, but... He had never said anything about it being a castle!
I'll just go and ask for directions. That's all. I don't really suspect that it's Vivaldi's house.
Biting her bottom lip, the girl straightened out her uniform skirt and fixed her bow before tugging up the hood of her sweatshirt. Then, working up her courage, she took a deep breath and walked toward the maze.
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"Right this way, miss Alice." A solider, who wore a red uniform with a tall black hat, bowed carefully to her, making sure that they never made eye contact.
"Um... Th-Thank you? Y-You can stop bowing to me now." She tugged on the hood of her sweatshirt, covering her eyes.
Ever since she had entered the building, random soldiers had been bowing to her, calling her 'miss' and other fancy names and, all in all, treating her with perfect, complete and utter... Respect. It was disturbing. And she hated it.
"Miss Alice, please come this way." The soldier called to her softly, almost imploringly, as if he were begging her to follow him.
"Er... Right," She had absolutely no idea how all of them knew her name. Unless she was wrong, and this actually was Vivaldi's house... which absolutely impossible. There was just no way, no way, that Vivaldi lived here. She refused to even entertain the possibility.
The inside of the castle was pretty much the same as the outside. Beautiful. It looked like something out of a fairytale. As she slipped up the stairs, gorgeous red carpets and vases full to the brim of red roses shone on polished wooden tables. All of it practically screamed perfect.
So perfect it was almost scary.
Soon, they made it to a spiral staircase which led up to long corridors. After walking through the endless pool of red for what seemed like forever, they finally made it to a tall, white door with (if it were even possible) more red rose patterns than ever before seen by anyone.
The solider raised the great golden door-knocker and let it go with a resounding thud. He looked nervous.
Remember the plan, Alice! Go in, get directions, and get out.
"Come in!"
Came the call from inside, a soprano voice that seemed to echo off the stone walls, making it sound all the more intimidating.
The solider nodded to Alice.
"Well than Miss Alice, I'll just be going now! I hope you and her majesty have a wonderful time!" Then, turning on his heel, he practically ran down the hall and away from the blonde haired teen.
"What are you waiting for?! We said too come in!" The voice of 'Her Majesty' (as the solider had called her) sounded very impatient. And Alice did not want to anger, whomever she may be, this 'Her Majesty'.
So, not giving herself time to think, the girl closed her eyes and pushed open the door.
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Her Majesty's bedroom was not at all like Alice had imagined it. Instead of being the perfect, intimidating queen's chamber she had envisioned, it was adorable girl's bedroom. Stuffed animals littered the floor and mounded on the bed and chairs. The closet was full to the brim of cute dresses...
"We are glad that you have come." The girl whipped her head around to see Vivaldi, decked in a beautiful red gown, sitting on the floor playing with a particularly adorable teddy bear.
So it was her house!
She quickly tried to hide her surprise.
Be polite, just be polite and everything will be fine.
"U-Um... Er... N-Not to rude b-but why did you invite me here?" Alice managed out, still extremely worried.
Vivaldi continued on, ignoring the blonde girl, "No matter how many times We invite cute girls over our house, they never come. We are always left up waiting for them until an indecent hour."
"I-I'm sorry to hear that..."
The purple-haired woman pouted, glaring at the wall, "Even though We go through all of this preparation... Making sure that we had enough cute dresses for them to try on."
"Wh-What?"
"But no matter!" She brightened considerably, "Alice is here with Us now so We will not dwell upon these things!"
"Good idea...?"
Vivaldi nodded, "We always have good ideas. Now, come with Us to the closet!"
Reaching out, she gripped the teen's hoodie-clad arm and dragged her toward the huge walk-in closet.
"W-Wait! What's going on?!"
Either the woman hadn't heard her, or just didn't care because she continued walking as if Alice hadn't said anything.
"Now here is where We have spent the majority of Our time picking out dresses for you! You will find what we've picked out right here..." She gestured toward a giant pile of multi-colored dresses, all of which seemed like they would cover too little for Alice's tastes.
She said for me...?
There was no way she could put them on. Partly because ninety-nine percent of them were indecent, and partly because...
One or two of them might uncover her bruises.
Biting her bottoms lip uncomfortably, the blonde haired girl frowned a Vivaldi, who was busy examining the dresses and Alice, as if deciding which would look best on her.
"Um... Excuse me, V-Vivaldi?" Somehow, calling her by her first name seemed disrespectful, "I don't think it would be such a good idea if I tried on the dresses..." Vivaldi gave her a horrified look of anger, and she quickly backtracked, trying frantically to come up with an excuse,"I-I mean... I'm all dirty form traveling here and I would hate to get them dirty!" She blurted quickly, hoping that the women would fall for it. Unfortunately, she didn't.
"Oh. That is all you are worried about? You had Us worried for a minute." Yanking on the girl's hand she began to drag her toward a monstrous bathroom that was made entirely out of white marble.
Oh no.
"W-Wait! I mean, it's fine!"
"No no, you are correct. We think you will look cuter if you are clean. Now get undressed."
"B-But..."
"Before I make you," She finished.
Alice gulped.
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The sound of running water filled her ears as Alice, wrapped in a towel, lowered herself into the bath. A rushing torrent of water gushed from the shining facet, dampening her towel and causing it to cling to her in a very immodest fashion.
"You have nice curves. We wonder why you always cover them up with your horrible sweatshirt." Vivaldi, who had followed her in, observed, scrutinizing her carefully, "Oh well. No matter. Now we want you to take off your towel, too."
The younger girl didn't comply, instead a tomato blush spread over her features and she tugged on the fabric, pulling it tighter around her body.
"We said take it off! We're both girls and We will look away, We promise." As if to prove her point, the purple-haired woman stood and faced the doorway back into her room.
Sighing in defeat, Alice slipped off her towel and put it on the side of the tub, sliding deep into the water and hoping there was enough bubbles to cover the bruises on her midriff. And not a second too late, for as soon as Vivaldi heard the piece of fabric hit the side of the tub, she spun around and began rolling up her sleeves before opening one of the many bottles of various liquids and stooping to kneel beside the tub. She then dumped the blue contents of the bottle in her hand, before working it into a lather and scrubbing it into Alice's hair.
"Ow...Ow!" Alice swatted at the woman's hand, which was still pulling through her hair in a rather painful manner, "I can do that myself, thanks!"
Vivaldi gave an exaggerated sigh, "No, you probably can't. Have you ever seen this type of product before?"
When Alice gave no answer, and instead looked away, pouting, Vivaldi snorted.
"That's what I thought!" She said triumphantly before continuing to scrub at the teen's hair.
For Alice, the bath seemed to take forever. First, Vivaldi washed her hair with so many products that she lost count of them all. Then, Vivaldi gave her a washcloth, rubbed a certain kind of soap onto it, and ordered her to scrub her body. This repeated several times, each with a different brand of soap. Eventually, when Alice was just thinking that it would never end, Vivaldi announced the true reason behind all of her primping.
"You are going to accompany Us on the school field trip."
The girl stared at her in surprise, "The what?!"
"Field trip, of course. To the beach. You will be accompanying Us, Our brother, and the rest of Wonderland."
"Errr.. Actually, I wasn't really planning on going, so-"
Vivaldi gave her a look, silencing her. She sighed slightly, before opening her mouth to explain, "Vivaldi-"
"Do not call Us that. It makes Us feel like We are a stranger to you. You will call Us Vivi."
Alice froze.
'It makes Us feel like We are a stranger to you.'
"So... Does that mean..." Her eyebrows crinkled and she looked at the older woman in confusion.
"Does that mean what?"
"A-Are we... f-friends...?"
Vivaldi face-palmed, groaning loudly, "Well, obviously! We do not invite people over to Our house if We do not want to be their friend! We wonder what kind of strange world you come from."
But Alice wasn't listening. All she could think about was the single word Vivaldi-Vivi-had used.
Friend.
It had been three years since she had last had someone had said it to her. And, for some odd reason, it made her insanely, ridiculously happy.
She smiled to herself slightly.
"Why are you smiling? Did something We said amuse you?"
Alice's smile changed from a tiny pull at the corner of her lips to a full out grin, "Nope! Nothing at all, Vivi."
"We are glad, then. Here-," Vivaldi stood up, washed her hands, shook them off, and then went outside the bathroom. When she returned underwear in one hand, and Alice's bow in the other, "Put these on."
The girl stared at them for a moment, before biting her bottom lip in confusion, "Why not my school uniform? Why my bow? ...And what about my hoodie?!"
Vivaldi sighed, completely blowing off Alice's comment, before pulling out a white bottle of lotion.
"Get out of the bath. You may wrap yourself in the towel."
"But Vivi-"
The purple haired woman quickly grabbed a red, heart embroidered towels from one of the many spaces beneath the sink. Then, she walked over to the side of the tub and handed it to Alice.
The blonde rolled her eyes, grabbing the towel and getting out of the bath before scrambling to cover herself.
Vivaldi, still holding the lotion, turned around to face the wall, "Put your underwear on!"
"O-Okay..." Alice finished drying herself off, ringing out her hair quickly before complying.
"Good." Vivaldi said, turning back around. The other girl squeaked in surprise and tried to cover herself, blushing, but the woman paid no heed and instead squirted some of the lotion into the palm of her hand before walking toward Alice, who was still desperately trying to cover herself.
She can't see my bruises... She can't! Its been such a long time since I was over to another person's house... She just can't!
Fortunately for Alice, the shower room was still extremely misty, and Vivaldi could barely tell where the blonde was, let alone see the details of her midriff. So, closing the distance between them, Vivaldi quickly but efficiently covered every inch of Alice's exposed skin in lotion, rubbing it in thoroughly. When she reached the stomach area, Alice had to bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain, but she managed. She always did.
Finished with her work, Vivaldi stood back and smiled, "Now, We will have to leave for a while, but We are sure you will be fine in here without us. Go ahead and pick out whichever dress you would like. We hope We will be able to return soon..." She frowned deeply, glaring at the wall, "We would like you to know, though, that We are glad you have come. We have invited lots of other girls in the past but... None of them ever came. They always blew us off. And do not tell Our brother this, but-" She leaned over to whisper in the other girl's ear, the soft ringlets of her purple hair lightly brushing her shoulder, "We were very lonely! So thank you for coming."
And with that, she turned and left.
Alice sighed softly, smiling at her eccentric friend. Perhaps she wasn't the only one who had problems making friends. She left the bathroom, her feet leaving wet footprints on the tiles as she walked. Once she was out of the bathroom and back into Vivaldi's room she began searching through the dresses until she found one that suited her tastes. It was light blue, with an attached apron and striped stockings (she had found these with the outfit). It was the least showy of all of them, it stopped directly above her knees and didn't have a low-cut collar. Finally, she sat down onto Vivaldi's stuffed-animal-covered bed, running her hand over the velvet red bedspread. Sighing contentedly, she leaned back onto the mattress, enjoying the slight rose scent that seemed to linger on everything in the castle.
I wonder who Vivaldi's brother is... Oh well, it doesn't matter. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough...
The soft cushions seemed to envelop her, enticing her with their delicious scent.
I'll just close my eyes for a minute... I won't go to sleep... I'll stay up and wait for Vivaldi...
And with that final thought, her closed and she drifted off to sleep.
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Heh heh heh... Oh Alice, dear, you'll be finding out who her brother is sooner than you thought! But anyways, wasn't that boring? But this is (I think) the last introductory chapter; pretty soon we'll get to the interesting stuff! And as for those who say 'We do not find THAT interesting!'... Well lemme just say...
YOU KNOW YOU WAAAAAAAAANT IT! ;) ;) After all, that IS the whole purpose of nKnA, isn't it?
