In the Rough, chapter 23/40
Title: In the Rough (23/40)
Author: alittleoddish
Rating: Teen Mature
Characters: Alice/Hatter, Jack/Duchess, Charlie
Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Syfy's Alice.
Summary: "But this is starting to sound like a quest! Quests are such a pain, Alice, they really are. All horseback and food rations and traveling in groups and no truly hot tea, with significantly less sex against trees.”
Warning: This chapter contains… (sigh)…
A/N: …You know what? I’m just going to change the rating on this sucker. There’s sex and blood and violence and then more sex just because I feel like it, and yeah I could just keep posting warnings, but why bother? -_-;; I swear there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, you guys! But part of the reason why I wanted to write this was because the characters in “Alice” are adults. I wanted to give them a big scary adventure, and basically…
Well, confession time, people. The whole reason I wrote this story is because I wanted to give everyone a chance to be more badass. That was my big motivator. They were great in the original series, every single one of them, but I knew that they were capable of more, and I wanted to write that. So this Grand Epic was born, and we’re swimming through the halfway-point, everything-goes-to-shit-point right now, and it’s going to get (believe it or not) a lot. More. Crazy.
I’m having fun. I hope you guys are.
Enjoy the chapter.
Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five,
Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten,
Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One, Chapter Twenty-Two
***
As dawn broke the next morning, a terrible scream ripped through the air, followed by a maniacal, gleeful laugh. The two sounds mingled and echoed across the still surface of the Lake, sending birds flying from their nests in search of new roosts.
Lory and Scree were reunited once again, and in the pale orange light of a Wonderland sunrise, the winged beast bore its master back to their domain… and the prey that lay waiting for them.
***
Hatter woke up the next morning with an enormous crick in his neck - sometime in the night he’d slid from his sitting position on the log to end with his neck propped up awkwardly. He groaned and cracked it expertly, but winced as the hand he brought up to massage it throbbed with its own pain.
The previous night’s events came flooding back to him - the fight with Alice, the subsequent punching of the tree (he looked over guiltily at the split bark, still oozing fresh, gleaming tree sap), and Charlie’s pitiful attempts at cheering him up. Hatter looked down at the still-sleeping Knight with a shake of his head.
Stupid old man, he thought, although the sentiment lacked any sort of malice, and he took great care not to wake up him when he rose and prepared the horses for another long day’s ride. Buckling the saddles with practiced absentmindedness that belied the flurry of guilty thoughts buzzing underneath, he surreptitiously scanned the trees for a bright blue spot that would signify Alice’s sleeping bag.
--n’tgetsickifshedoesshe’llneverheartheendofit--
There was a soft flump behind him.
He froze. Silence fell once more, but it was too late - he could sense her presence like he was standing next to a lightning rod. It made his skin tingle and the hairs on the back of his arm stand up. Sure enough, he turned around slowly on his heel, and Alice was standing eight feet away, her sleeping bag lying at her feet.
She looked horrible, he noticed, all wrinkled clothes, puffy eyes and matted hair. Then again, upon reflection Hatter realized that he probably didn’t look so hot either, days from his last shower and right hand covered in bandages.
Then, simultaneously, they both said: “I didn’t mean to hurt you…” the ends of their sentences trailing off into silence.
“You go first,” Hatter said.
Alice didn’t meet his eyes. “…but I still think I’m right.”
Hatter nodded slowly. “Then I guess we’re at an impasse, because logic’s on my side.”
A little crinkle appeared between Alice’s eyebrows. “Excuse me-“
But their budding argument was suddenly interrupted by a loud screech filling the air, sending both of them into an instinctive huddle on the ground, bringing their hands up to cover their ears. Charlie, for his part, jolted awake from his sleeping position as though he’d been electrocuted and immediately reached for his armor. “Oh no…” he moaned, fumbling with his chainmail. “It’s impossible…”
Hatter ran over to help him, readjusting his hat as he did so. “What was that, Charlie?” he demanded sharply. The knight looked up at him, pale with fright enough to match his snowy white hair.
“I haven’t heard that screech in years,” he intoned dramatically, buckling on his escutcheon hurriedly and reaching for his boots. Hatter followed his lead and started collecting his stuff, too, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed Alice doing the same. “I thought the Royal Family had imprisoned the thing years ago, before they launched the attack against the Knights, even-“
“Charlie!” Hatter bit out through clenched teeth, “What is it?”
The old man gulped. “I’m afraid it’s the Scree.”
Right on cue, another screech split the air, causing every member of the party to cry out and attempt to cover their ears, which were almost vibrating with the intensity of the sound.
It was getting closer, Hatter realized. And although he had never heard of a Scree in his life, he had the very strong impression that it was not a beast he would like to meet. “We’ve got to run,” he said simply.
Turning on his heel, he sprinted back to the horses, a full-armored Charlie at his heels, and jumped aboard. “Alice!” he yelled, holding out his hand. “Get up here!”
She scowled at his hand and opened her mouth to say something no doubt rude, but just as she did so another screech sounded. Hatter was able to stay in his saddle and bite back the cry of pain this time, but he noticed that a trickle of blood had started to leak out his nose. He wasn’t at all sure what the sound waves this creature created would do to a person up-close, and he didn’t want to find out.
“It’s too close!” Charlie called out from atop Guinevere. The three of them couldn’t ignore the crashing sounds of something very large approaching them at high velocity through the trees. “We’ll never ride fast enough to outrun it… we must hide!”
“WHERE?” Alice yelled, ignoring Hatter’s still-outstretched hand and climbing atop Pat’s back instead.
Charlie just gestured with his hands and ran off, Guinievere snorting with relief. Hatter took up the rear of the line so that Alice would be protected in the middle, and Charlie led them through the trees on the outskirts of their campsite. Hatter was about to gripe that for people who couldn’t afford to run from the beast, that was sure what it looked like, when through the densely-packed foliage he could see a large stone wall that he hadn’t noticed in the darkness of the previous night. “Charlie… is that a cave?”
“I spotted it last night while you two were fighting!” he answered.
“Why didn’t you tell us so that we could’ve slept there for the night?” Alice asked.
“I didn’t want to interrupt!”
Hatter had a scathing comment on the tip of his tongue, something about priorities that would doubtlessly have been very clever if not for the large metal bird that came crashing through the trees behind them at that very moment.
It was about twenty feet wide and long enough to block six lanes of traffic, its entire body made of large, jagged pieces of shiny silver metal. At the end of each giant wing and at the tip of each foot was a single smooth, metal claw long enough to skewer two men if they stood unfortunately close to one another. Little red eyes peeked out from above its beak, staring at the three of them with laser-like focus…and sitting on top of its head, red feathers smooth and gleaming and wearing a maniacally triumphant grin, was a bird-like man with pointed features that Hatter didn’t recognize.
Hatter didn’t know why he stayed turned around on his saddle for so long - his rule had always been “don’t look back” - but whether it was out of trying to absorb what he was seeing or the shock of the sudden beast or just plain fear, he looked at it long enough to lock eyes with the bird-man controlling it.
For a second, they just stared at each other.
The bird-man leaned close to the beast’s head and said something too quietly for Hatter to hear, and just as Hatter had narrowed his eyes in suspicion and opened his mouth to yell a warning to Alice, he saw a gleam of silver, heard a whooshing sound, and-
Throughout his life, Hatter had been tortured, assaulted, and imprisoned more times than he cared to recount. It was the downside to being a professional con man and occasional spy-almost every part of his body had been, at some point, electrocuted, sliced, bruised, twisted, burnt, bleeding, and/or broken.
But, in all that time, he had never felt pain quite like this.
His brain absolutely exploded, every neuron firing and dying all at once. His vision went red and blurred, and it was only Bill’s expert training that caught Hatter as he slumped over, instead of letting him crash to the ground. For his part, Hatter wasn’t sure if he was crying out, or even just crying, all his senses were jumbled and gone and out of control as the giant metal claw withdrew from his torso where it had speared him, not through the belly-button, but width-wise. The beast had been almost surgically accurate in its aim, exactly piercing through that scant five inches of vulnerable space between the bottom of his ribs and the top of his pelvis to leave gaping holes the size of tennis balls on either side.
As a result, the single swipe would effectively annihilate almost every single organ in the torso… except for the heart and lungs. In fact, the only thing keeping Hatter’s chest connected with his hips was the scant half-inch of skin and sinew composing his stomach and back.
Hatter thought he heard someone screaming…but then he was gone.
***
”HATTER!”
Every thought, every survival instinct completely fled Alice’s mind at the onslaught of Hatter’s screams, his inhuman cries of agony that chilled her blood and stopped her breath. She had yanked Pat around mid-gallop just in time to see the giant metal claw withdrawing from his torso, and the rivers of blood that streamed out of the open wounds and down Bill’s flank.
Not caring about the giant monster that had gored him not even five seconds ago, not caring about Charlie, and certainly not caring about her own personal safety at the moment, she could do nothing but ride furiously towards Hatter, screaming his name in a desperate and futile plea for consciousness, and catch him as he finally fell silent. Her stomach rolled at the sight of his hot blood flowing down her clothes and soaking into her top, already pooling on the ground.
There was just… Alice whimpered, her shaking fingers fluttering over his open wounds, wanting to help but scared to touch for fear of making it worse.
…There was just so much blood.
“Grab Bill’s reigns,” someone murmured hastily into her ear, and she obeyed. She could feel Pat’s hooves pounding the ground furiously underneath her, and some part of her mind registered the sensation of movement and the sound of the beast pursuing them, but all she could do was watch Hatter’s face, the only part of him not covered in blood and gore, and count his breaths. To look anywhere but at his face would probably cause her to faint at the moment, which, she knew, would do no good to anyone.
If she just looked at his face, she could just pretend that he was sleeping.
***
Lory wanted to laugh. The sense of victory coursing through his veins was elation defined, the smell of Wonderland blood intoxicating. Sure, it hadn’t been necessary to kill Hatter… but he had just been sitting there! Such an easy mark, after all this time, all this evasion and delay, and he had just been sitting atop that horse!
Really, Lory thought with a smirk, I would have been a fool to pass up that kind of opportunity.
Of course, the woman came riding to his side within moments, screaming her head off. They were playing right into his lap! Lory nudged Scree with his foot. Immediately and without further instruction, Scree surged forward with Lory riding coolly on his neck, one of Scree’s feet slowly outstretched to grab the girl…
But at the last second, the Knight surged forward and grabbed the two of them, pulling them out of harm’s way. The stupid girl didn’t even seem to notice, Lory realized, his mouth twisting into a disgusted sneer. He and Scree rose back into the air to try another dive, but by the time they had turned around the Knight had dragged their group into a densely packed cluster of trees.
Lory used Scree’s claws to rip down the treetops and clear a path, but they were too slow - as soon as the view was clear, the three travelers had vanished into a hole on the side of a large stone outcropping. A cave, no doubt. Lory scowled - he should have known, should have anticipated this kind of evasive maneuver. This part of the forest butted up right next to the Endless Cliffs, and the place was covered with little nooks and crannies.
Lory was not discouraged, however. Rather, he tapped into the trait that made him different from the rest of his assassin compatriots: patience.
He nudged Scree again with his foot, and she settled into one of the treetops still left intact… before turning both herself and Lory invisible.
(One of her more flashy talents, Lory would admit. Besides, of course, how very shiny she was. Lory had always liked shiny things… He was half-bird, after all.)
Lory settled into a comfortable position, scratched Scree on top of her metallic head, and waited. The girl had to come out sometime. There were numerous caves embedded in the Endless Cliffs, but all of them were dead-ends. Once the Hatter was dead, which would be any moment now…. the only place for Alice to go was into Lory’s waiting arms.
***
Once they had gotten Hatter off the horse and reclined him on the ground, he stirred and moaned, coughing little spurts of blood that trickled down his lips. He mumbled nonsense words, ravens and writing desks and crumbs, and didn’t seem to recognize Alice’s fervent pleas or the way she clung to his hand.
“Ch-Charlie!” she begged, watching him kneel down with a package of large leaves in his hand. “Charlie, what are we going to do? Tell me what we’re going to do!”
“Liffaleaf,” he said grimly but firmly. “Help me, Alice, we haven’t much time. Now, we’ve got nothing to knock him out while I take care of him, so while he’s floating in-and-out of consciousness it’s your job to hold him steady.”
Alice bit her lip and nodded, sniffling and placing a shaking hand on each of Hatter’s shoulders but throwing her weight on them to hold steady. “What are you going to do?” she asked in a trembling voice, sounding for all the world like she was a lost, abandoned 10-year-old again.
“Liffaleaf is the great healing plant of Wonderland,” he explained quickly. “Really the only healing plant, it’s all we ever need. I just need to stuff his wound full of it--“
“No!” Alice interrupted. “No, are you serious? Stuffing a gaping wound with leaves, he’ll die--“
“Not Wonderlanders!” Charlie barked at her. Alice froze-she’d never heard Charlie use that tone in her life, and certainly never at her. “You are still so naive about our world, Alice, and unfortunately I don’t have time to explain, so for now you’ll just have to trust me! Now hold him steady-“
But Alice wasn’t prepared, and Hatter’s first jolt under her hands caught her by surprise. At the first touch of Liffaleaf being stuffed into his body, he roared in pain like a wild beast and jerked madly. Gritting her teeth, Alice threw all her weight onto his shoulders, pinning him to the ground as he writhed and screamed, Charlie stuffing leaf after leaf into his wound.
It’s almost over, Alice kept repeating to herself. It’s almost over, it’s almost over, it’s almost over…
Eventually Hatter fell mercifully unconscious once more, the pain simply too much for his senses to bear and rendering him suddenly limp under Alice’s hands.
“Finally,” Charlie sighed. “I’m halfway done, Alice, but there’s more yet to do. Go start a fire, get it as hot as you can and put the blade of my sword in it. Bring it to me when it turns red.”
Alice nodded and dug out some of the tinder they kept in Pat’s satchel. Within minutes she had stoked up a reasonable fire, Charlie’s sword resting on the ashes and making odd squealing, crackling noises as it grew hotter and hotter.
“Are you going to sear his wounds shut?” she asked, impressed at how sturdy her voice sounded given that the man she loved most in the world was lying on a floor, in a cave, stuffed with leaves as his only medical aid, and that she had just proposed melting his flesh back together with a red-hot blade.
“Yes,” Charlie said simply. “It’s the only way to keep the leaves from falling back out, since he’s got holes on either side.”
Alice nodded, not trusting her voice. When the blade turned red she grabbed the sword’s hilt and handed it to Charlie without a word. Equally as silent, he took the proffered sword, covered the wound with half of one of the leaves, and pressed the flat of the blade against it.
The only thought that Alice could hold on to was that Hatter stayed unconscious for this part - it was just enough for her to stay conscious, hearing the sizzling of his seared flesh, the smell of it mingling with the burnt Liffaleaf. When he had finished, leaving the edges of the leaf still glowing hot, Charlie moved to Hatter’s other side. Immediately he continued stuffing the gaping, bleeding mass full with every other leaf he had until there was none left but the half he had saved for searing it shut.
Alice forced herself to watch, and when Charlie sat back on his heels, looked at his handiwork and sighed, she finally excused herself, going as far back into the depths of the cave as she could manage before dropping to her knees and retching.
***
Next Chapter
Leave a Comment
Author: alittleoddish
Rating: Teen Mature
Characters: Alice/Hatter, Jack/Duchess, Charlie
Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Syfy's Alice.
Summary: "But this is starting to sound like a quest! Quests are such a pain, Alice, they really are. All horseback and food rations and traveling in groups and no truly hot tea, with significantly less sex against trees.”
Warning: This chapter contains… (sigh)…
A/N: …You know what? I’m just going to change the rating on this sucker. There’s sex and blood and violence and then more sex just because I feel like it, and yeah I could just keep posting warnings, but why bother? -_-;; I swear there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, you guys! But part of the reason why I wanted to write this was because the characters in “Alice” are adults. I wanted to give them a big scary adventure, and basically…
Well, confession time, people. The whole reason I wrote this story is because I wanted to give everyone a chance to be more badass. That was my big motivator. They were great in the original series, every single one of them, but I knew that they were capable of more, and I wanted to write that. So this Grand Epic was born, and we’re swimming through the halfway-point, everything-goes-to-shit-point right now, and it’s going to get (believe it or not) a lot. More. Crazy.
I’m having fun. I hope you guys are.
Enjoy the chapter.
Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five,
Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten,
Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One, Chapter Twenty-Two
***
As dawn broke the next morning, a terrible scream ripped through the air, followed by a maniacal, gleeful laugh. The two sounds mingled and echoed across the still surface of the Lake, sending birds flying from their nests in search of new roosts.
Lory and Scree were reunited once again, and in the pale orange light of a Wonderland sunrise, the winged beast bore its master back to their domain… and the prey that lay waiting for them.
***
Hatter woke up the next morning with an enormous crick in his neck - sometime in the night he’d slid from his sitting position on the log to end with his neck propped up awkwardly. He groaned and cracked it expertly, but winced as the hand he brought up to massage it throbbed with its own pain.
The previous night’s events came flooding back to him - the fight with Alice, the subsequent punching of the tree (he looked over guiltily at the split bark, still oozing fresh, gleaming tree sap), and Charlie’s pitiful attempts at cheering him up. Hatter looked down at the still-sleeping Knight with a shake of his head.
Stupid old man, he thought, although the sentiment lacked any sort of malice, and he took great care not to wake up him when he rose and prepared the horses for another long day’s ride. Buckling the saddles with practiced absentmindedness that belied the flurry of guilty thoughts buzzing underneath, he surreptitiously scanned the trees for a bright blue spot that would signify Alice’s sleeping bag.
--n’tgetsickifshedoesshe’llneverheartheendofit--
There was a soft flump behind him.
He froze. Silence fell once more, but it was too late - he could sense her presence like he was standing next to a lightning rod. It made his skin tingle and the hairs on the back of his arm stand up. Sure enough, he turned around slowly on his heel, and Alice was standing eight feet away, her sleeping bag lying at her feet.
She looked horrible, he noticed, all wrinkled clothes, puffy eyes and matted hair. Then again, upon reflection Hatter realized that he probably didn’t look so hot either, days from his last shower and right hand covered in bandages.
Then, simultaneously, they both said: “I didn’t mean to hurt you…” the ends of their sentences trailing off into silence.
“You go first,” Hatter said.
Alice didn’t meet his eyes. “…but I still think I’m right.”
Hatter nodded slowly. “Then I guess we’re at an impasse, because logic’s on my side.”
A little crinkle appeared between Alice’s eyebrows. “Excuse me-“
But their budding argument was suddenly interrupted by a loud screech filling the air, sending both of them into an instinctive huddle on the ground, bringing their hands up to cover their ears. Charlie, for his part, jolted awake from his sleeping position as though he’d been electrocuted and immediately reached for his armor. “Oh no…” he moaned, fumbling with his chainmail. “It’s impossible…”
Hatter ran over to help him, readjusting his hat as he did so. “What was that, Charlie?” he demanded sharply. The knight looked up at him, pale with fright enough to match his snowy white hair.
“I haven’t heard that screech in years,” he intoned dramatically, buckling on his escutcheon hurriedly and reaching for his boots. Hatter followed his lead and started collecting his stuff, too, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed Alice doing the same. “I thought the Royal Family had imprisoned the thing years ago, before they launched the attack against the Knights, even-“
“Charlie!” Hatter bit out through clenched teeth, “What is it?”
The old man gulped. “I’m afraid it’s the Scree.”
Right on cue, another screech split the air, causing every member of the party to cry out and attempt to cover their ears, which were almost vibrating with the intensity of the sound.
It was getting closer, Hatter realized. And although he had never heard of a Scree in his life, he had the very strong impression that it was not a beast he would like to meet. “We’ve got to run,” he said simply.
Turning on his heel, he sprinted back to the horses, a full-armored Charlie at his heels, and jumped aboard. “Alice!” he yelled, holding out his hand. “Get up here!”
She scowled at his hand and opened her mouth to say something no doubt rude, but just as she did so another screech sounded. Hatter was able to stay in his saddle and bite back the cry of pain this time, but he noticed that a trickle of blood had started to leak out his nose. He wasn’t at all sure what the sound waves this creature created would do to a person up-close, and he didn’t want to find out.
“It’s too close!” Charlie called out from atop Guinevere. The three of them couldn’t ignore the crashing sounds of something very large approaching them at high velocity through the trees. “We’ll never ride fast enough to outrun it… we must hide!”
“WHERE?” Alice yelled, ignoring Hatter’s still-outstretched hand and climbing atop Pat’s back instead.
Charlie just gestured with his hands and ran off, Guinievere snorting with relief. Hatter took up the rear of the line so that Alice would be protected in the middle, and Charlie led them through the trees on the outskirts of their campsite. Hatter was about to gripe that for people who couldn’t afford to run from the beast, that was sure what it looked like, when through the densely-packed foliage he could see a large stone wall that he hadn’t noticed in the darkness of the previous night. “Charlie… is that a cave?”
“I spotted it last night while you two were fighting!” he answered.
“Why didn’t you tell us so that we could’ve slept there for the night?” Alice asked.
“I didn’t want to interrupt!”
Hatter had a scathing comment on the tip of his tongue, something about priorities that would doubtlessly have been very clever if not for the large metal bird that came crashing through the trees behind them at that very moment.
It was about twenty feet wide and long enough to block six lanes of traffic, its entire body made of large, jagged pieces of shiny silver metal. At the end of each giant wing and at the tip of each foot was a single smooth, metal claw long enough to skewer two men if they stood unfortunately close to one another. Little red eyes peeked out from above its beak, staring at the three of them with laser-like focus…and sitting on top of its head, red feathers smooth and gleaming and wearing a maniacally triumphant grin, was a bird-like man with pointed features that Hatter didn’t recognize.
Hatter didn’t know why he stayed turned around on his saddle for so long - his rule had always been “don’t look back” - but whether it was out of trying to absorb what he was seeing or the shock of the sudden beast or just plain fear, he looked at it long enough to lock eyes with the bird-man controlling it.
For a second, they just stared at each other.
The bird-man leaned close to the beast’s head and said something too quietly for Hatter to hear, and just as Hatter had narrowed his eyes in suspicion and opened his mouth to yell a warning to Alice, he saw a gleam of silver, heard a whooshing sound, and-
Throughout his life, Hatter had been tortured, assaulted, and imprisoned more times than he cared to recount. It was the downside to being a professional con man and occasional spy-almost every part of his body had been, at some point, electrocuted, sliced, bruised, twisted, burnt, bleeding, and/or broken.
But, in all that time, he had never felt pain quite like this.
His brain absolutely exploded, every neuron firing and dying all at once. His vision went red and blurred, and it was only Bill’s expert training that caught Hatter as he slumped over, instead of letting him crash to the ground. For his part, Hatter wasn’t sure if he was crying out, or even just crying, all his senses were jumbled and gone and out of control as the giant metal claw withdrew from his torso where it had speared him, not through the belly-button, but width-wise. The beast had been almost surgically accurate in its aim, exactly piercing through that scant five inches of vulnerable space between the bottom of his ribs and the top of his pelvis to leave gaping holes the size of tennis balls on either side.
As a result, the single swipe would effectively annihilate almost every single organ in the torso… except for the heart and lungs. In fact, the only thing keeping Hatter’s chest connected with his hips was the scant half-inch of skin and sinew composing his stomach and back.
Hatter thought he heard someone screaming…but then he was gone.
***
”HATTER!”
Every thought, every survival instinct completely fled Alice’s mind at the onslaught of Hatter’s screams, his inhuman cries of agony that chilled her blood and stopped her breath. She had yanked Pat around mid-gallop just in time to see the giant metal claw withdrawing from his torso, and the rivers of blood that streamed out of the open wounds and down Bill’s flank.
Not caring about the giant monster that had gored him not even five seconds ago, not caring about Charlie, and certainly not caring about her own personal safety at the moment, she could do nothing but ride furiously towards Hatter, screaming his name in a desperate and futile plea for consciousness, and catch him as he finally fell silent. Her stomach rolled at the sight of his hot blood flowing down her clothes and soaking into her top, already pooling on the ground.
There was just… Alice whimpered, her shaking fingers fluttering over his open wounds, wanting to help but scared to touch for fear of making it worse.
…There was just so much blood.
“Grab Bill’s reigns,” someone murmured hastily into her ear, and she obeyed. She could feel Pat’s hooves pounding the ground furiously underneath her, and some part of her mind registered the sensation of movement and the sound of the beast pursuing them, but all she could do was watch Hatter’s face, the only part of him not covered in blood and gore, and count his breaths. To look anywhere but at his face would probably cause her to faint at the moment, which, she knew, would do no good to anyone.
If she just looked at his face, she could just pretend that he was sleeping.
***
Lory wanted to laugh. The sense of victory coursing through his veins was elation defined, the smell of Wonderland blood intoxicating. Sure, it hadn’t been necessary to kill Hatter… but he had just been sitting there! Such an easy mark, after all this time, all this evasion and delay, and he had just been sitting atop that horse!
Really, Lory thought with a smirk, I would have been a fool to pass up that kind of opportunity.
Of course, the woman came riding to his side within moments, screaming her head off. They were playing right into his lap! Lory nudged Scree with his foot. Immediately and without further instruction, Scree surged forward with Lory riding coolly on his neck, one of Scree’s feet slowly outstretched to grab the girl…
But at the last second, the Knight surged forward and grabbed the two of them, pulling them out of harm’s way. The stupid girl didn’t even seem to notice, Lory realized, his mouth twisting into a disgusted sneer. He and Scree rose back into the air to try another dive, but by the time they had turned around the Knight had dragged their group into a densely packed cluster of trees.
Lory used Scree’s claws to rip down the treetops and clear a path, but they were too slow - as soon as the view was clear, the three travelers had vanished into a hole on the side of a large stone outcropping. A cave, no doubt. Lory scowled - he should have known, should have anticipated this kind of evasive maneuver. This part of the forest butted up right next to the Endless Cliffs, and the place was covered with little nooks and crannies.
Lory was not discouraged, however. Rather, he tapped into the trait that made him different from the rest of his assassin compatriots: patience.
He nudged Scree again with his foot, and she settled into one of the treetops still left intact… before turning both herself and Lory invisible.
(One of her more flashy talents, Lory would admit. Besides, of course, how very shiny she was. Lory had always liked shiny things… He was half-bird, after all.)
Lory settled into a comfortable position, scratched Scree on top of her metallic head, and waited. The girl had to come out sometime. There were numerous caves embedded in the Endless Cliffs, but all of them were dead-ends. Once the Hatter was dead, which would be any moment now…. the only place for Alice to go was into Lory’s waiting arms.
***
Once they had gotten Hatter off the horse and reclined him on the ground, he stirred and moaned, coughing little spurts of blood that trickled down his lips. He mumbled nonsense words, ravens and writing desks and crumbs, and didn’t seem to recognize Alice’s fervent pleas or the way she clung to his hand.
“Ch-Charlie!” she begged, watching him kneel down with a package of large leaves in his hand. “Charlie, what are we going to do? Tell me what we’re going to do!”
“Liffaleaf,” he said grimly but firmly. “Help me, Alice, we haven’t much time. Now, we’ve got nothing to knock him out while I take care of him, so while he’s floating in-and-out of consciousness it’s your job to hold him steady.”
Alice bit her lip and nodded, sniffling and placing a shaking hand on each of Hatter’s shoulders but throwing her weight on them to hold steady. “What are you going to do?” she asked in a trembling voice, sounding for all the world like she was a lost, abandoned 10-year-old again.
“Liffaleaf is the great healing plant of Wonderland,” he explained quickly. “Really the only healing plant, it’s all we ever need. I just need to stuff his wound full of it--“
“No!” Alice interrupted. “No, are you serious? Stuffing a gaping wound with leaves, he’ll die--“
“Not Wonderlanders!” Charlie barked at her. Alice froze-she’d never heard Charlie use that tone in her life, and certainly never at her. “You are still so naive about our world, Alice, and unfortunately I don’t have time to explain, so for now you’ll just have to trust me! Now hold him steady-“
But Alice wasn’t prepared, and Hatter’s first jolt under her hands caught her by surprise. At the first touch of Liffaleaf being stuffed into his body, he roared in pain like a wild beast and jerked madly. Gritting her teeth, Alice threw all her weight onto his shoulders, pinning him to the ground as he writhed and screamed, Charlie stuffing leaf after leaf into his wound.
It’s almost over, Alice kept repeating to herself. It’s almost over, it’s almost over, it’s almost over…
Eventually Hatter fell mercifully unconscious once more, the pain simply too much for his senses to bear and rendering him suddenly limp under Alice’s hands.
“Finally,” Charlie sighed. “I’m halfway done, Alice, but there’s more yet to do. Go start a fire, get it as hot as you can and put the blade of my sword in it. Bring it to me when it turns red.”
Alice nodded and dug out some of the tinder they kept in Pat’s satchel. Within minutes she had stoked up a reasonable fire, Charlie’s sword resting on the ashes and making odd squealing, crackling noises as it grew hotter and hotter.
“Are you going to sear his wounds shut?” she asked, impressed at how sturdy her voice sounded given that the man she loved most in the world was lying on a floor, in a cave, stuffed with leaves as his only medical aid, and that she had just proposed melting his flesh back together with a red-hot blade.
“Yes,” Charlie said simply. “It’s the only way to keep the leaves from falling back out, since he’s got holes on either side.”
Alice nodded, not trusting her voice. When the blade turned red she grabbed the sword’s hilt and handed it to Charlie without a word. Equally as silent, he took the proffered sword, covered the wound with half of one of the leaves, and pressed the flat of the blade against it.
The only thought that Alice could hold on to was that Hatter stayed unconscious for this part - it was just enough for her to stay conscious, hearing the sizzling of his seared flesh, the smell of it mingling with the burnt Liffaleaf. When he had finished, leaving the edges of the leaf still glowing hot, Charlie moved to Hatter’s other side. Immediately he continued stuffing the gaping, bleeding mass full with every other leaf he had until there was none left but the half he had saved for searing it shut.
Alice forced herself to watch, and when Charlie sat back on his heels, looked at his handiwork and sighed, she finally excused herself, going as far back into the depths of the cave as she could manage before dropping to her knees and retching.
***
Next Chapter
Leave a Comment