Villainess Of Hearts

The discussion with Alexander didn't take too long—he claimed that he didn't want to make his mother worry about the two of them being in the same room for an inordinate time. The blushing young man left and bidded her a goodnight.

Rosalyn Lockhart freshened up and then slipped into the bed.

She tried not to think about who owned the bed and how it smelled like strawberries and other sweet stuff, instead she stared out at the ceiling. She had managed to stifle her reactions whilst she was with the man but her gaze flickered around the room. There was a switch to turn on the lights and not chandeliers, something that resembled like a square mirror that reflected different people on screen.

Alexander, the one she was wedded to, he had explained as much as he could—but seeing the real things still left her breathless. The Queen of Hearts couldn't sleep and listened to the wild beating of her chest, this was insane.

But she needed to sleep.

To see the Time Man and ask for help?

This wasn't in his jurisdiction wasn't it—going back in time, perhaps. But this was another world. She took deep breaths and sighed, "If I am here then where did the other two head to? Perhaps they are in their appropriate places and only I am the one who was mistakenly thrown here."

Such thoughts were worrisome, and yet she confronted them head on.

What would she lose? Her position as Queen. And the thought of it didn't exactly seem so terrible when the idea of her not being able to return and see the people that she wanted to see and be with were ripped away from her. She wouldn't see Gine, her brother, she wouldn't be able to eat Mary Ann's tarts and neither would she be able to have tea with the Hatter.

"Ah, I didn't have much chance to talk with Catherine… albeit she was head over heels since she saw her husband and didn't even pay much attention to me," she whispered to herself and closed her eyelids. The image of a shyly grinning cat man came to her mind and she sighed even more so. "I haven't gotten the chance to visit the Blue Forest either…"

Home sickness.

She didn't think that would be possible. The Queen of Hearts thought more about people than she did her worries about the state of the Castle if both she and the King were gone—her eyes opened at it and then she resumed closing her eyes. "The Time Man can deal with it, he already gave me countless chances."

The Queen of Hearts relied on him far too much, didn't she?

This kind of need made her feel a little sick, she had no desire to be a burden to him and yet he assured her that… she somehow convinced him? The details seemed to blur itself in her mind, and she pressed a hand to her forehead. "Hah, I need to see him now."

She shut her eyes and concentrated.

.

.

.

.

.

It came naturally to her like breathing on water—well, that was difficult. She was no fish, but she had nothing to compare it with. One moment it was inky darkness and then it turned gray and soon she was back into this strange realm or world.

This place that was supposed to be Time Man's and perhaps even of others.

Memories of bridges, rivers and other places that beckoned for her to join them reappeared in the corner of her vision. But this was not her time. The Queen of Hearts had other places to go to, and so she leapt on one of the blocks.

The space between the black and white boxes was even more disparate than usual. One wrong move and she would be a goner, and so Rosalyn Lockhart leapt as carefully as she could. Feeling both weightlessness and heaviness at the same time—one box and then another.

She kept to the white boxes without any trouble… until the boxes itself began to move and dart along the path. The Queen of Hearts gritted her teeth, "Is this some kind of game?" She did not know if this was done by the Time Man because if this was part of his domain then she wished to hit him in the head or at least complain vehemently.

Her gaze stuck to a distance, and she thought that there was something that looked like a table in the distance and a cloaked figure.

Rosalyn Lockhart mustered her courage and moved. One, two, three—she jumped and fell.

Until her fingers grasped the ledge of the box and she cursed herself. While initially feeling like she could have jumped like some bunny amongst the bunny, now that she was hanging… she felt heavy and tired. Her arm was weary and her fingers were slipping.

Her fingernails dug into the box and felt pain course through her fingers.

Was this how the Queen of Hearts faced her end? Stuck in a place between worlds and fall into oblivion? This couldn't be it and yet her toes felt the coldness in the air sucking her in and beckoning her to fall.

Something in her guts screamed about permanent death.

This was the Time Man's world—or he was part of it, but not everything was his. Abyss. Darkness. Neverending.

The bridge and the old lady now didn't seem so frightening. The river of forgetfulness or whatever it was that made a person pass over to the afterlife didn't appear terrible now. Her identity was focused on her position, she was a Queen. The Queen of Hearts. Known for her cruelty and love of tarts.

But it did not matter here.

Would her story as a Queen even actually survive? She could not control anything. If someone were to choose to erase her, then they could. The Queen had already seen people blotted out from life and memory.

She would have ground her teeth, but she would bite her tongue down—she heaved and tried to pull herself up. Her arms went slack, and she dug her fingernails deeper into the box, ignoring the stench of blood that filled her nose. The Queen of Hearts struggled and felt her hands grow clammy.

"Why is it so hard…" she asked.

And found a question returned to her—why was she struggling deeply for this? All the prestige, titles and honor that her parents wanted for both her brother and her were meaningless here. Who would remember those? Who would remember her?

She was meaningless here.

The futility of the struggle and her efforts made itself known to her. Rosalyn Lockhart huffed and clung on to the cube, desperately. She bit on her lip and tried to muster the strength to do it one more time and then another, but she couldn't. If she had known then perhaps she would have eaten fewer tarts or perhaps exercised more, but would such things actually affect her situation or were they all for naught—all she had to do was let go and it would end.

This would end.

"Haaah—" Her eyes widened, and she lost her voice at the pair of blue eyes looking down at her. Her long blonde hair falling down over her shoulders and the woman bending down to look at her with the same wide-eyed look.

She offered a hand, "A-ah, are you okay, Miss?"

"Do I look like I'm alright?" she hissed at Alice. And this really was Alice, not the child, but the one who had grown up—everything about the way the woman moved testified for it and yet the Queen of Hearts did not take her hand.

What were the chances that the woman was tricking her?

What if she let her fall?

The image of the woman laughing maniacally and crushing her hands with her foot appeared in her mind and was so vivid that she couldn't help but trust it more than this woman who had popped out of nowhere.

… falling down seemed more acceptable than touching this woman's hand.

"You're bleeding," Alice's eyes widened, and she kneeled down—

Rosalyn Lockhart glared at her. "Don't touch me. You'd worsen things by trying to pull me up… I'm—you're too weak to pull me up." She wouldn't mention how heavy she was—she would rather drop to the chasm than admit such a thing.

Not that there was anything wrong with her weight…

Seeing this woman's face was enough to put her thoughts back into order, didn't it? The Queen of Hearts wasn't exactly happy about this realization, and the sensation of pain and tiredness came back tenfold. She bit hard enough on her lip to draw blood and stared at the woman's face, "What do you think you're standing around there for, Alice?"

The woman's eyes widened, and she waved her hands, "A-ah, but you said… how do you know my name?"

"Do you think that matters more than getting me out of this endless void? Just pull me up now."

"But you're right, I don't think I can help you up on my own," Alice fidgeted and started to look over her shoulder. "I'll call for help. Can you still hang in there, Miss? I'll be back here quickly."

The Queen of Hearts managed a tight smile, "What do you think? If you're going to call for help, then go do it now—"

"Young Alice, why did you run out of nowhere?"

"I told you that I saw someone—"

It didn't take less than a second for his hand to touch Rosalyn's and with one just pull, the Queen of Hearts floated up in thin air and looking back at the cloaked man. His sharp blue eyes stared back at her and she could barely make out his face from this distance.

This was…!