The Champion’s Hatter: Part Three
“Have you seen all of Underland?” Alice asks, her fingertip tracing patterns on Tarrant’s bare chest.
The sheets rustle as he shifts beneath her, pulls himself closer, more fully into the hollow created by her body as she leans over him, her head propped up on one hand. His fingers skim along her back. “I’ve seen a fair amount of it.”
She smiles, gives in to temptation and leans down to press a kiss to the skin just below his small, dark nipple. “I’d like for you to show it to me.”
“Underland?” he confirms, a hand tangling in her unbound hair as the other molds itself to the curve of her hip.
“Um-hm...” She watches her hand travel down his torso and her fingertips investigate his navel. He twitches, giggles. Alice smiles, happy to see and hear him being so much like his old self. And especially happy that it’s her touch that has elicited those reactions. She lays her palm flat against his stomach and he relaxes.
“We could go together. Just the two of us,” she continues. The idea has such appeal that she’s sure she must be grinning like an absolute fool. “No more stares... No more odd looks... No more whispers that stop the moment we enter the room...”
With a sigh, she lays her weight upon his chest and presses her forehead to his shoulder. “I’m so tired of being gawked at. Perhaps we should have married first, but...”
“I doub’ tha’ woul’ha’stopped ’em, love,” he murmurs, his arm coming around her.
She slides a knee between his thighs. “Why do they think this is so strange? You and I?”
Tarrant is silent for a long moment. “Can ye no’ guess, my Alice?”
“Oh, I suppose I can,” she grumbles. She looks up and his fingers trace the lines of her unhappy expression. “You’re a hatter. I’m a champion. And so on and so forth. How quickly they’ve forgotten everything you fought for.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not forgotten,” he differs gently. “But my current status... yes, they do see that as an... oddity when we’re together. Perhaps we shouldn’t meet so openly...”
“I’ll not keep this a secret, Tarrant. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“No, no, of course we haven’t. Perhaps we have done something impossible and that is why you so confound them?”
“Impossible? It’s impossible to fall in love?”
His smile is both sad and amused all at once. “For some, I believe it is.”
“Well,” Alice declares, “it’s beginning to annoy me. They’re beginning to annoy me. I hate the way they ignore you and disregard you... I hate it, Tarrant.”
“So you wish to go away? See Underland?”
“Yes. With you. If you’ll come with me.”
“Alice... there is no one else I would wish to accompany and nowhere else I would wish to be.”
She grins and presses another kiss to his sternum. “Then I’ll talk to the queen about taking a leave of absence. How long do you need to finish your current work?”
“I could begin our journey at any time,” he assures her. Alice doesn’t protest when he turns, gently rolling her onto her back, and then leans in to nuzzle her neck. “At any time,” he murmurs again, apparently finding the words to his liking and worthy of repetition. “Although, I doubt we’ll find many comfortable beds along the way.”
“Duly noted,” she replies. Alice thrusts her fingers into his thick hair and urges his lips up to hers for a kiss.
Yes, Tarrant makes an excellent point about the... inconveniences of a long journey. She keeps this in mind when she speaks to the queen the next day.
Mirana’s dark eyes light up when Alice mentions her ambitions to tour Underland - and Alice can’t help expressing her plans enthusiastically - but then a small, worried frown furrows the queen’s brow.
“Who would be going with you on this venture?”
Alice braces herself for the inevitable reprimand. She doesn’t - not for one moment - believe the queen will be happy to hear who her travel companion will be. “Tarrant.”
Alice expects the queen to look scandalized or at least sigh with exasperation. She does neither. She looks... disturbed. “Alice...”
“And before you ask, no, we will not require a chaperone. I’m a grown woman, Your Majesty, and Tarrant is an honorable gentleman.”
“Yes, I realize that, Alice. However...”
Alice resists the urge to cross her arms over her chest. But she does arch a brow in confrontational inquiry.
“Well, you see, Alice. There are many... dangers in Underland...”
“I’m sure Tarrant is aware of them.”
“Ah, yes. No doubt. However, Alice, should you require... assistance... or find yourself... in need of aid, I am not sure...”
Alice feels her patience snap. “You trusted this man to lead you away from harm, at the cost of losing his entire clan. You allowed him to initiate a Resistance that was intended to return you to the throne. You trusted him to help me fulfill the prophecy in the Oraculum and yet you have misgivings about his capabilities now?”
“More than ever.”
Alice disregards the protests of the tea service - “We’re not all empty yet! Sit and have a bit more tea before you stomp off in a tizzy, luv!” - and stands. “Why would you say something like that?” she demands.
“Because... when love opens our eyes to that one person, it often times makes us blind to all else.”
“Tarrant would never neglect my safety.” She turns toward the door, stops, then confronts the queen once again and accuses mockingly, “Are you trying to tell me - as tactfully as possible - that he’s not really there? That because I’m the only one who sees him, he isn’t real?”
The queen says nothing in reply. Alice shakes her head, frustrated, and turns on her heel then marches from the room.
She passes a pair of frog footmen who startle guiltily when they notice her approach. A trio of courtiers glance at her with poorly executed subtlety. “Madder than a hatter!” she hears one of them whisper, sotto voce.
Alice glares at them all, dares them to speak their minds to her face.
No one does.
Which is a pity as she’d love to shout in their perfectly painted faces about courtly manners and such. Perhaps she’s mad but at least she doesn’t ignore a war hero when he’s standing right in front of her. And least she doesn’t pretend not to hear him speak! Courtly manners. What a joke. What an utterly worthless joke!
Alice turns away from all of them. Let them say and think what they will. She cannot control them, nor would she waste her time trying even if she had the power to do so!
She storms out of the castle and into the company of the trees. These whispers do not judge her, do not label her, do not insult her with their insistence that she must not believe her own eyes, her own ears, her own skin! What would the queen have to say if she knew Alice has been Tarrant’s lover for nearly a week now?
Despite her temper, Alice smiles at the image.
Tarrant finds her not long after her abrupt departure from tea, sitting under a particularly sympathetic-looking specimen in the orchard.
“Alice,” he whispers and she looks up, startled.
“How did you find me?” She’d taken so many turns through the expansive garden, she’s relatively sure she’s gotten herself lost. Only the fact that she is once again too busy brooding to worry about finding her way back to the castle has kept her mind off of the possibility.
He smiles and sinks down to the ground next to her.
“I overheard you and the queen.”
She huffs. “Half of Marmoreal probably did.” They’d been speaking quite... forcefully near the end of that conversation. The reminder only brings back her desire to leave, to be gone and away from all these people who think she’s completely and utterly off her head!
“How can you stand to be treated this way?” Alice challenges him. “I can’t bear it!”
He wraps an arm around her shoulders, presses his cheek to her hair, and sighs. “I’ve always been a bit beneath their notice, Alice. Now even more so.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“I know you don’t. I know.”
She turns her face toward his neck and inhales deeply. His scent calms the remaining traces of aggravation that his presence had not already soothed away. “Let’s leave tomorrow.”
“We could...” he agrees, a reluctant tone in his voice.
“But?”
His arm tightens and she feels the muscles beneath her cheek cord with tension. “Perhaps you might wish to finish the tour you’ve already begun first?”
“Of the castle, you mean?”
“... Yes.”
She sighs. “I don’t suppose there’s some Underlandian superstition about leaving unfinished things?”
He chuckles ruefully. “A superstition? No. But it’s common sense that they will demand to be finished at one time or another, and finishing them in a timely manner is always preferable.”
Alice considers that for a moment. She also considers the fact that he isn’t reprimanding her for wanting to run away like a spoilt child who believes she’s misunderstood by her parents. She appreciates this very much, especially because that is precisely how she has been behaving. With a wry grin, Alice shuffles her plans for departure aside.
“I’m fortunate to have so saganistute a hatter,” she whispers after a while.
He presses his lips to her temple. “And I am fortunate,” he agrees, “to be the champion’s hatter.”
*~*~*~*
“And here we have the Royal Haberdashery, Hightopp Workshop,” the carpet announces, waving one of its many tassels at the closed door on her right.
Alice smiles, sighs. At last! She’s been touring the castle for nearly three weeks in total and she’d begun to wonder if her curiosity would ever manage to lead her here!
She’s particularly proud of the fact that she has managed to keep herself from reminding Tarrant that she’s still waiting to try on one of his fanciful hats. Today, however, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to contain herself.
“Shall I knock?” she wonders aloud. Perhaps that would be more disruptive than merely letting herself in?
“Not if you’re expecting an answer!”
She grins. Yes, Tarrant can be very... focused when he’s... busy. Her memory calls forth the nights she’s been the recipient of that marvelous Focus. She shivers at the remembered feel of his hands. Her blood races at the recalled sight of him leaning over her, the sensation of him filling her, fulfilling her every desire.
“Well? Are you going in or shall we continue with the tour?”
“I’m going in,” she replies. “Although, perhaps we’d better continue our tour another day.”
“As you like!” the carpet answers and then falls silent.
Alice places a hand on the latch, presses down and then inward. The door creaks open on neglected hinges and the corner of the door itself carves a trail in the floor, stirring dust motes. Alice expects to find a room full-to-bursting with cheerful chaos and the sight of her lover bent over some hat or other, oblivious to the world... She expects to distract him with a kiss on his neck and a hand beneath his vest and...
Alice steps into the hat workshop.
And stares.
Bolts of fabric molder on the shelves, so covered with dust she cannot make out their original color. The sewing machine is draped in cobwebs. The window is grimy with years of neglect.
And there is no Tarrant Hightopp here.
There is no one here.
Nor has there been... for years.
*~*~*~*
“Your Majesty, this is ridiculous! How can you expect me to continue training that mad Uplander as your champion? She talks to figments of her imagination, spars with them, holds their hand, takes tea in the gardens with them!”
Mirana gently interjects, “I do believe that you’re under a misapprehension, Sir Reginald. There is no them. There is only him. Just one... figment.”
“One or twenty, it doesn’t matter! You know as well as I do that warriors with excessive imagination are assigned watch over the Outlands and not charged with the protection of Marmoreal. Imagination - or in the Alice’s case, madness! - has no business being so near Your Majesty. It’s the way things have always been done.”
“I’m aware of this, sir,” Mirana replies, resisting the urge to massage her temples. “But things need not always be done in the same manner as their historical precedent indicates they must: I will not hold a bit of madness against anyone. It’s quite an admirable feature to possess here in Underland.”
The captain of the White Guard takes exception to the reminder. “Admirable in a hatter, perhaps, but not in a warrior charged with your wellbeing, Your Majesty.”
“We’re all concerned,” a fish butler stutters.
The queen does not reprimand him for speaking out of turn, as her sister might have done. She gives him a kind smile. “Yes, I understand she has been behaving a bit... strangely...”
“Why,” a frog footman croaks, “I heard her speaking to nothing but air the other day. In the library. Called it a name, too.” He does not say the name. Everyone knows what name he speaks of.
“Right you are,” Tweedledee concurs. “The Alice ain’t quite right in th’ head.”
“Ain’t quite left, either,” Tweedledum asserts. “Wouldn’ be right if she were only one or the other!”
Nivens McTwisp shudders as he clears his throat. In his usual wavering voice, he points out, “Your Majesty has asked me to keep an eye on the Alice from time to time and you’ve heard my reports. That said... that is... she is mad, but perhaps in the way the Hatter was. Merely mad. Nothing more.”
“And you would have a mad champion charged with the protection of the queen? Need I remind you of where the madness led the Hatter?” the captain argues vehemently and the white rabbit cringes behind the nearest body for protection from the vitriol. “Is that an acceptable risk, McTwisp? The repetition of that historic event?”
“Someone must tell her,” a courtier declares with righteous indignation. The pronouncement is received with murmurs of agreement and fervent nods.
Mirana stares for a moment, then drops her gaze.
Suddenly - oddly - she is reminded of the Battle of Frabjous Day. Even before that, however, she had sensed something... wrong with their champion. Despite tending to Tweedledee and Tweedledum following their miraculous escape from Salazen Grum, Mirana had noticed Alice, just a ways further down the white stone drive, conversing with... someone. “Where’s your hat?” Mirana had distinctly heard.
She sighs. She should have guessed then. She should have realized that Alice hadn’t noticed Mallymkun’s tear-streaked face, liquid sorrow that had trekked through and then matted her pale fur. She should have made sure that Alice had heard the news. But she hadn’t. She had permitted Alice the space she’d thought the girl had needed.
Had that been a mistake?
There had been a moment during the battle on Frabjous Day and then following it when Mirana could swear she’d seen the Hatter fight, stand at her side, Futterwhacken... That would have been impossible, however. Despite how very much she’d wished otherwise. She’s never asked the Tweedles why they’d applauded, if they had also seen... the same thing she had.
Perhaps that is why all of them - herself included! - have permitted Alice to enjoy her delusions for as long as they have: none of them want to accept the reality that they live in; none of them want to give up the impossible vision of a mad hatter on a battlefield, a mad hatter who had fought and danced and then disappeared...
Yes, they say things become terribly confusing on battlefields. Mirana recalls when she’d watched Alice consider the vial of Jabberwocky blood. She’d watched as Alice had turned away from them all to address someone who had most definitely not been there...
“Be back before you know it!”
“How could I forget?”
“Hatter, why is a raven like a writing desk?”
That had been the moment; yes, Mirana should have stepped forward then. She should have told her - and firmly! - that should she return, Tarrant would not - could not possibly! - be waiting for her.
And yet...
That seems to be precisely what has happened. At least in Alice’s mind.
She considers the tiled floor in the shining reception hall, where this “emergency” meeting had been called, and recalls Alice’s glowing smile - had it only been yesterday? - at tea when she’d announced her plan to tour Underland with...
The queen remembers that beautiful expression, so full of love and happiness and life. She does not wish to destroy that. In fact, it would go against her vows, would it not? To destroy something so precious? So full of... muchness?
She had vowed not to harm another living creature. Half a fortnight ago, Mirana had believed that allowing Alice her... delusions would eventually do more harm than good. She had been in favor of telling her, had entrusted - no, she had assigned! - that task to Mallymkun.
“When you judge it to be the Right Time, Mally, I wish for you to inform Alice of the Truth.”
“Yahr Majesty... I can’t...”
“It will be painful for her, at first, but she will recover. Trust me on this. When she is ready to Know, she will ask you. And you must tell her.”
Mirana feels the prickling sensation of hot tears gathering in her eyes.
She looks up as one elderly gentleman declares, “I shall locate the Alice and handle this matter at once!”
“No!”
Everyone comes to an immediate and sudden halt. The White Queen has never shouted before - had never even considered it! - but now, as she looks out upon the assortment of startled expressions, Mirana realizes she must have done just that.
“Do not speak to her of this. This is something I will not force upon Alice. She will realize the truth in her own time. And she will be fortunate if she never does!”
With that, the queen stands and sweeps from the room. She does not stop until she finds herself in the royal kitchens. Her hands move of their own accord as ingredient after ingredient lands in a clean, metal crucible. It’s not until the teaspoon of Wishful Thinking begins to simmer and steam in the vessel that she realizes which potion she has created: Omnichosen.
The queen regards the concoction in the funnel-shaped reducer and stares. Does she dare? She is The Queen, after all; would it not be supremely selfish of her to indulge in the Omnichosen, the potion which will reveal Mirana’s strongest desire? Monarchs are not generally permitted to have Desires, for they lead to all sorts of Bad Things... Envy, Lust, Selfishness...
Mirana is the White Queen and the servant of her people. The servant of Underland. But... does that not also mean she is Alice’s servant? Should she not do whatever she can to make the Right Choice with regards to her champion’s future?
She does not fool herself: this potion will not show her the Right Choice. No potion in all the world will do that. But it will show her her own heart. And she hesitates to see it. For, really, anything at all could be concealed behind her morals and duties.
Anything.
But is it not better to Know? Should she not know herself as thoroughly as possible? Is this not one of her duties?
Mirana stares, blindly, into the bubbling broth. To tell Alice the truth or to let her be... to keep her here at Marmoreal for her own safety or set her free...
Mirana closes her eyes, leans down, breathes in the fumes and reaches for her greatest, singularly most longed-for desire...
A woman with blond, wavy hair sits on the top of a cliff, watching the sun rise over the far off wild country of the Outlands...
She leans to one side as if supported by another’s arm, another’s warmth, another’s presence...
“Mirana’s visiting today. And she’s bringing Mally.”
There’s a moment of silence and then she laughs.
“I don’t mind being your interpreter at all,” she assures that there-but-not-there person and, after another silent moment during which she must have received a reply of some sort, she leans toward the individual Mirana still cannot see, and purses her lips in a kiss.
“It is my pleasure, Tarrant. And it always will be.”
Gasping, Mirana opens her eyes and blinks at the sight of Thackery shivering opposite her worktable, a wooden spatula in his paws.
“There, there,” he soothes, his eyelids twitching. “We’re al’righ’nauw, Yer Majesty.”
“Yes,” she agrees, smiling. “Yes, we are, Thackery. We are indeed.”
*~*~*~*
“Tell me where Tarrant is.”
Mallymkun looks away, determined to enjoy the lovely sunshine in the garden, determined not to let that non-memory return to her. “I’ve tol’ yah! No one knows where th’Atter’s gone! Besides,” Mally asserts, “yah’re th’ one keepin’ track o’ ‘im these days, ain’t yah?”
“I’ve been to the hat workshop,” Alice says.
Mally hunches her shoulders and places a paw on the pommel of her hat pin sword. “Well, that shoulda been enough for yah, then! Yah know where ’ee’s not and yah know where ’ee would be if ’ee could!”
Alice blinks, her face blank with shock, her eyes brimming with suspicion. Mally does not want to see the answer to the riddle there in her eyes. The Hatter is safe and well so long as Alice does not know!
But she Suspects. Before Alice can ask a question that Mally cannot avoid with accusations and careful phrasing, she turns away. She’s desperate enough to consider joining that idiotic meeting in the throne room. Not because she believes for one minute anyone other than the queen will care in the slightest about her opinion regarding Alice’s madness (and the queen already knows Mally’s thoughts on the matter!) but because it is away from here! From Alice and her damned demanding curiosity!
She points herself in the direction of somewhere else... however, she is not fast enough.
Alice demands, “Where is his hat?”
Mally, in the midst of storming off, pauses.
“Give my regards to the White Queen. Along with this.”
“No... NO! WHA’ ‘AVE YAH DONE!?”
“I’ve... dealt with the leader of the Resistance and in a very timely manner, thanks to you. Why, in another few moments, the Hatter’s accomplice might have actually succeeded in freeing that mad fool!”
“Yah... yah...”
“Bid you farewell, Dormouse. And, oh, don’t forget to take this with you when you go. We can’t have bits of rubbish cluttering up the queen’s lovely castle, can we?”
“Mallymkun?”
“No, Alice,” she whispers. “No. I don’ care how muchy yah are... Yah’re not wantin’ teh go there.”
“I am. Show me where it is.”
Mallymkun looks up and into the determined face of the Alice, the Queen’s Champion. And she has to look away. “Maybe I’m no’ wantin’ teh go there.”
“I need to see it, Mallymkun. Please.”
The dormouse takes a deep breath, rubs her stinging eyes, and nods. This, Mally finally understands, is something she cannot fight. The queen had been right all along: Alice would come to her for answers and Mally would have to give them. “Al’righ’,” she sighs with defeat. “I’ll show yah.”
Maybe it’ll put a stop to the madness, Mallymkun thinks...
Hopes...
Dreads...
*~*~*~*
Alice stares at the plaque. Reads it. Reads it again.
By the time her tears have spent themselves, Mally has gone. And that’s just as well. Alice does not want to tell her she’d been right: Now that she’s here, Alice knows she hadn’t wanted to come. To see. To know.
When she finally finds the impetus to move, her joints protest; her muscles feel stiff. She does not let that stop her. Alice reaches above the memorial and gently lifts a battered, beaten, blood-splattered top hat from its honored perch.
No one stops her when she heads down the hall to her room, the room she’s shared with Tarrant every night for the last week-and-then-some. No one dares to remind her that it’s dinner time. Or, perhaps they do. Perhaps she simply doesn’t hear them. She can believe that now; she can believe it’s possible that sometimes she simply cannot hear them.
She enters her room and he’s there, waiting. Always waiting, even when he arrives, he seems to be... waiting. Solid, still, solitary. A sentinel. He stands at the window, gazing out at the very-very-late afternoon sky. It’ll be dusk soon.
Alice lays the hat upon the bed - their bed - and approaches him, wraps her arms around him, buries her nose in his vibrant hair, inhales.
She doesn’t ask him why he’s not working. She doesn’t ask him why he is merely staring out a window. And when she doesn’t ask, he Knows.
His hands cover hers. She waits for him to fidget, to shift, to breathe.
He doesn’t.
Because he doesn’t have to. Not anymore.
The tears return with the Whisper she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. The Answer she had been determined to defy. She has no choice now but to accept it.
“I found the hat workshop today.”
His fingers curl around her hand.
“And Mally showed me where they’ve been keeping your hat.”
Tarrant’s warm, rough, real fingers interlace with hers and hold on. Tightly.
“You died. Both you and Chessur. At Salazen Grum.”
He doesn’t deny it.
“How is it I can see you? Touch you?”
“Perhaps it is because you are also dead, Alice?” he speculates softly. “Perhaps half of you died when I did. Perhaps half of me lives in you. I cannot say.”
She’d been expecting this - or something like it - true, but she cannot... She is not... She won’t...!
From somewhere deep inside, she finds a force of contrariness strong enough to give her the strength to fight the un-defeat-able. She shakes her head. She hears the words. She knows she should believe it, but she can’t.
“No,” she asserts, her arms tightening around him until her muscles ache. “You’re not... You are Not.” If a word could be law, those three would have been pillars of Underland.
“Here,” she says, stepping back and scooping up his hat from the bed. She holds it out to him.
Tarrant regards her, every line of his body illustrating the ache he feels. “I cannae wear it, Alice. No’ any launger.”
Stubbornly, she closes the distance between them. Tarrant does not protest when she lifts his hat and places it squarely upon his head. Releases it.
And they both watch as it tumbles, plummets to the floor.
Alice glares at it through her tears. In her lifetime, she has believed in many things - impossible things! - but she cannot believe this. Not this.
Tarrant’s fingers gently press against her chin, tilting her face up to his.
“I cannot fight beside you on our journey, Alice,” he tells her, his own eyes sad - so very sad - and yet free of tears. No, he’ll never cry again. How fortunate for him!
His fingertips caress her jaw, her cheeks, smear her tears. “I cannot give you a family. I cannot even be seen on your arm. I cannot be introduced to your friends. I cannot... be real to anyone other than you.”
“But don’t you see?” she manages despite her aching throat. “You always have been. That’s why I said you were a dream. Not because you’d already... and I’d been... No, I said that because if you were real then... then what I’d felt was real and I couldn’t... not then, I couldn’t... But now...!”
“Now, Alice,” he softly interjects, “everyone believes you are mad.”
She smiles even as tears fall freely from her lashes. “All the best people are.”
The Hatter’s top hat lies on the floor, forgotten, as Alice, the Mad Champion of Marmoreal, steps into her lover’s arms.
*~*~*~*
I don’t like to remember my demise. A messy and all-around unpleasant affair, truth be told. Not painful so much but... sudden. And rather undignified. I hadn’t even been wearing the Hat. And as I don’t care for the feeling of Regret, I choose to overlook the fact that I’d died at all, in the midst of learning Tarrant’s shape for the love of a hat and the taste of that forbidden curiosity of mine: friendship. We’d been caught unawares and promptly slain and that hardly matters now, in any case. I am here and I must admit I’ve yet to be disappointed. Here is an interesting sort of place for those possessed of innate curiosity, such as myself.
My skills are no longer required, which is a shame. In fact, I hadn’t even been permitted to use them to heal those nasty Bandersnatch scratches on the Alice’s arm. But of course she’d been patently uncooperative in that regard. Had denied me my moment of Importance. She’s lucky I hadn’t held that against her! Why, it’s quite an honor to be offered treatment by someone possessed of Evaporating skills, especially someone as proficient as I!
I sometimes find myself moderately concerned about that - the absence of a qualified healer in Underland. What will become of unwitting victims of Bandersnatch love taps now? How many creatures are as brave as the Alice, willing to befriend the frumious creature to receive the cure? Yes, I’d been a much more palatable alternative. Back when I had been an alternative...
But enough of that. There’s no point in venturing where nothing can be gained from it.
And speculating on things gained...
How delightful it had been to realize that the Alice is possessed of the Sight! Why, she had Seen us and Heard us as if our bodies hadn’t already been thrown into the bloody moat around Salazen Grum and would eventually end up in Gummer’s Slough. (I still shudder to think of all that mud and muck and slime clinging to my lovely coat, but, as I’ve mentioned before, that is neither here nor there. Or rather, it is there and I am here and therefore have no need to ponder it whatsoever.)
But yes, Alice had Seen us and she had spoken to us and Heard us and I have never seen Tarrant so utterly and unashamedly overjoyed as he had been when he’d realized...
And then she’d touched him. He’d been on the verge of babbling himself into a serious Misunderstanding with the object of his overflowing affections and the Alice had Touched him!
Why, I’d nearly fallen right out of the air!
Never, in all the impossibilities of Underland, had I imagined that Tarrant and the Alice... That they would be capable of... That they’d been so blessed...
Yes, I’d seen this once before. Once and only once. And in all my lifetime, I had not seen it again. Not after my own parents - rather atypical Cheshires, if you ask me! - had passed on. (Although passed on to where I am irritated to admit I don’t know. I have not encountered them since arriving here. But, then again, here is a rather vast sort of place...)
Death, it seems, had been outmatched. For there, in the moonlight, on the drive to the castle at Marmoreal, the Alice had grasped Tarrant’s arms, had looked, for all the world, as if she could actually feel the fabric of his brilliantly blue jacket and his flesh and bones beneath her hands. In that instant, I witnessed such relief in Tarrant’s expression, I’d known precisely what he must have been thinking: he’d reassured himself that he - we - hadn’t perished in that wretched dungeon cell, cleaved by the knave’s sword. The poor, mad fool had been sure we both lived still. That those horrid moments had been nothing more than his mad mind playing tricks on him again.
I hadn’t had the heart to correct him, for I had also wanted to believe that. Yes, I’d wanted Life again with all my greedy little feline heart.
And so we’d gone to war.
And so the Alice had won.
How, in all the possibilities of Underland, Tarrant had managed to actually stick that bloody Jabberwocky with a sword I do not know, but he had! I could speculate on this for a significant amount of time indeed - for I have before! - and only the same three possibilities ever come to me: first, the Jabberwocky, being near death itself (as foretold by the Oraculum) had entered that Place In Between where Tarrant and I had found ourselves and was, therefore, vulnerable to Tarrant’s attack; second, the Fates (if they truly exist although I fear they must) had permitted the interference to save the Alice; third, for the safety of his still-living half, Tarrant actually could (and perhaps still can) manifest himself for a moment.
Or perhaps longer. Yes, it had been Longer, hadn’t it? The Red Queen had Seen him as well, shouted. The Knave had fought him, hadn’t he? And following the dreadful slaying and such, Tarrant had prevented the man from attacking the Red Queen. He’d then Futterwhackened to the applause of everyone.
At the time, I’d fancied that the Powers had been permitting him the chance to say his farewell. (My own farewell had been satisfying, I admit. I’ve always had a fascination with hats and to carry the crown from the Red Queen to the White had been quite the honor! Why, my paws still feel warm from touching its golden surface! Hmm... yes, a rather lovely moment all-around!) Yes, perhaps the Powers - or, perhaps, Fates - had allowed us, two unsung heroes, a moment for our good-byes, a moment to finish what we had begun, but, considering Tarrant’s prolonged farewell, perhaps, it is possible that...
Well. Many things are possible in Underland, after all.
Many, many things, with the exception of the Alice remaining behind. She’d left, and with her departure, our Time had run out. I’d felt the pull of the Other Land just as Tarrant had. He’d fought, resisted. (After leading the Resistance for so long, I would not have expected anything less from him!) But, in the end, he’d joined me here.
I attempted to make our existence here... bearable. I had thought, as I am no longer a cat in need of Evaporating skills or even a survival instinct, perhaps I could be a cat in need of a friend.
Tarrant, the idiot, had not seemed to notice the change.
He’d moped. He’d mourned. And then, suddenly, after an incalculable amount of time, he had startled, looked up, and smiled.
“It’s Alice,” he’d lisped. “She’s returned to Underland. Do you see her, Chessur? Just there? Across the bridge?”
No, I most certainly had not. And I’d been quite put out about it, too! And I’d been equally irritated when Tarrant had taken a lurching step toward that bridge which only he could see.
I remember I’d opened my mouth to shout, to call him back, to stop him.
And I remember I hadn’t done any of those things. I hadn’t even tried. I’d remembered you see, that Connection between Tarrant and the Alice that Death had not been able to break. And I had realized: it is not - and never will be - my place to try to keep him from her. Not even for my own selfish cat’s sake.
When that bridge had appeared before Tarrant, he’d taken it. And without a single backward glance. He might have looked back if he’d had a reason to. But I’d never given him much of one. And certainly not one that could ever rival the offer of being with his Alice again!
I am a cat, after all, and my kind have never had much use for friendship. Even if I had versed myself in it, dared to become skilled at it, it would have made no difference at all. Not in the end.
I may be selfish and a cat but even I cannot avoid the truth all the time!
Still, after all the hullabaloo over it, you would have thought he’d remember to take his hat along with him! Now I look after it, of course. Just until the next time I see him. And I wonder (just a bit) if he’d intended to leave it behind for me. If he’d remembered our bargain or if he had meant for it to be a parting gift, a thank-you for my brief attempt at friendship. I shall have to ask him when I next have the chance...
I consider him, you know. Upon occasion. I wonder where he is. I wonder if Alice has become any more... cooperative this time around. If she still insists Underland is all a dream. If she still frowns at Tarrant’s excited ramblings and riddles.
Although I highly doubt it. No, I’m quite sure she’s kept that muchness of hers. No doubt Tarrant is in an excellent position to enjoy it, even! And, I’m not ashamed to admit it: the thought makes me smile one of my true Cheshire grins.
Perhaps I should have warned Tarrant about... that. I should have warned him that those sorts of activities have Consequences. After all, how else would someone be born with a natural talent for Evaporation?
But no. I think - in the end - it’s best that I hadn’t mentioned it at all when I’d had the chance. Even if it would have been... friendly to do so. That might have resulted in something... detrimental to my legacy.
Underland needs more individuals who possess Evaporating skills. They make the world more interesting, after all. And that, certainly, could never be a bad thing.
No, not in the slightest.
*~*~*~* The End *~*~*~*
Epilogue
*~*~*~*
Notes:
So, you still have questions? You’re curious? Well, I shall do my best:
(1) Stayne: There was a misunderstanding during Mally’s interrogation. She was defending Tarrant out of love but, as Stayne does not understand love he assumes she’s trying to protect the real leader of the Resistance out of loyalty. In his mind, she’d just confirmed that the Hatter is the mastermind behind the on-going rebellion against the Red Queen. In my mind, I imagine him marching off to gloat and make sure there are no rescue attempts happening. Of course, he interrupts the latter and... *ahem* Yes.
(2) The Uprising: In the film, the Hatter organizes the uprising in the Red Queen’s court, but I can easily imagine Mally - enraged and out for vengeance - managing to do something similar with the aid of the Tweedles and Bayard's family and, yes, even an unusually muchy McTwisp.
(3) Triumphant Return: Right, so, Tarrant is holding the Tweedles’ hands as they return to Mamoreal... or is he? After all, that’s what Alice sees through the spyglass. Actually, the fact that no one greeted Tarrant or Chessur when they arrived, despite their bravery, made me a little Suspicious. Why was Alice the only one to interact with them? Even Mally didn’t stick around... Which got me thinking about all the times in the last bit of the movie when the Hatter and Chessur’s interactions with others are limited to themselves... and Alice. When I realized that... well, can you blame me for considering the ghost angle?
(4) The Hatter’s Top Hat: After the fuss dies down on the battlefield, Nivens McTwisp hands the Hatter his hat. Yes, I realize I didn’t show McTwisp’s perspective on this. I declare we shall assume that just as Chessur could touch the crown in That Moment, the white rabbit could return Tarrant’s hat to him.
(5) The White Queen’s Champion: Even if Alice goes on a tour of Underland, she’ll still be the queen’s champion. This fic is different from my main series, One Promise Kept, so the duties of the champion are different. Alice stays in Marmoreal during the story because she has nowhere else to go, honestly. She trains because she isn’t completely opposed to fighting on the White Queen’s behalf again. But she doesn’t have to stay in Marmoreal. If the queen needs her, she’ll summon her. Otherwise, Alice can do whatever and go wherever she likes.