Note to readers: this (©¨§ª®) looks really good in word documents, but not so good here, i'm not willing to go to the work of taking them all out, but i just wanted to give you a heads up
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It was raining softly when Weaver’s body entered the newly churned ground in the palace courtyard. Her mutilated body was covered in a single sheet of Wonderland’s finest silk, with tiny forget-me-not and vines of woe embroidered around the hem. The preacher delivered a beautiful sermon, and before too long an interval had passed there were only two pairs of eyes dry in the area. Oddly enough these eyes belonged to the only two living relations of the deiced, Hatter Madigan and Homburg Molly. This however did not seem to surprise the funeral attendees as they filled out expressing their condolences to the father and daughter. Milliners never cried. As Queen Alyss Heart went by she reached out and touched Molly’s arm, forcing both to bite their lips to repress tears. Hatter Madigan, saw none of this, he didn’t even see the gray courtyard. His mind was far away, back in the days before Redd had terrorized Wonderland, when he could sneak away every once in a while to have secret meetings with Weaver. Then his thoughts came crashing back to reality, and he felt like crying, but his millinery training suppressed this urge almost as soon as it came. He had thought Weaver dead before, why was it so much harder this time?
The preacher came over to Hatter an placed a small seed in his hand, and he vaguely wondered why the parson had waited until all the guests had gone to the reception to ask him to plant the Here After seed. Hatter took the seed as if in a trance, and offered it, palm outstretched, to Molly. She swallowed and shook her head, she couldn’t do it either. Some people took comfort in planting the Here After seed, and seeing the beloved one’s head portrayed in fragrant flowers, but both milliners knew all too well that this was the only way they would ever see her face again. So despite the risk of letting himself show his emotions for the first time he could remember, Hatter kneeled by the new grave and tenderly pushed the here after seed into the damp earth. Immediately, vines and flowers sprung up, twisting and pruning themselves into a flowery copy of Weaver’s face. Hatter turned his face away from the plant, and felt a strange burning sensation somewhere behind his eyes. Behind him he heard a sort of strangled cry, and then a small thump, as Molly lost all self-control, and sunk to her knees, sobbing.
The sky opened and let down buckets of rain, hiding both Molly’s sobs and the solitary tear running down Hatter Madigan’s nose.
Suddenly he stood not looking at the Here After plant, and put his arm around the shaking Molly, gently guiding her inside Heart palace.
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When Molly awoke the next morning, curled up in a spacious round bed, covered in blue wonder-silk, she honesty didn’t remember where she was or how she got there. Then she vaguely remembered Hatter guiding her into one of Wondronia’s finest suites the night before. Sleepily she rubbed and realized she had slept in her clothes. Some how, the night before she had taken off her millinery things, but had still tucked herself into bed wearing her dark green millinery trench coat. She noticed her bulky suitcase by in one corner (or as close as you could get to a corner in a circular room). Subconsciously she had realized that they must be in one of the grand Hotel’s towers, but it wasn’t until she looked out of one of the curved windows, that she fully comprehended how luxurious a place she was in. Far below her window small children ran towards the Whipsnake rollercoaster, spinning T-cups and the Total ImmEX, where players could put on dulled down millinery equipment and take on the character of Hatter Madigan in a completely safe environment. She glanced up to see the synthetic clear sky. From almost any point in Wondronia’s huge grounds, you could hardly tell it was completely indoors, especially since all the beautiful greenery looked so luscious and wild. She let her mind mull over all that had happened in the last few thermite lunar cycles, from finding out that Hatter Madigan and Queen Alyss Heart were alive, to battling Redd Heart. From finding out that her father was Hatter Madigan, and that her mother, Weaver was still alive, and then loosing her again.
Swiftly she strode over to her milliner’s backpack and took out the worn crystal with the picture of her mother in front of the Unnatural History Museum, before she had even become part of the Millinery. Weaver had been the only civilian in the Millinery. She had been the “lab brains,” the one making all things the milliners used to fight, while they were out actually fighting. Suddenly she dropped the crystal back into her knapsack, she couldn’t think about her mother now, not so soon after she was dead.
All of the sudden Molly was fuming with anger. Why had Hatter and Weaver even opened the possibility of her? She reached up and touched the H-shaped vain below her left ear, the mark branding her as a halfer for life. Why? Why her, a weird mix of the greatest Milliner in history, and a civilian.
Before Alyss had regained power in the queendom Molly had truly considered herself full milliner, but ever since Hatter Madigan had returned and had said to Bibwit Harte, “She’s a Halfer.” Her self-esteem on her skill level had been seriously depleted.
True, in Wonderland she was second only to her father when it came to combat, and she was the only person, milliner, or halfer to have completed level Z in the total ImmEX milliner training, but still… would she ever be good enough to really join the millinery. The only reason they had let her in before was because there were so few pure milliners, and even those few left were in hiding. Now that they were returning and building up the milliner race again the only reason she would be allowed in was if her father or maybe queen Alyss herself stepped in. Why had her parents ever gotten together it he first place. And why have her? They knew the turmoil her life would become because of her birth. Why her? Why Molly?
Molly brought her mind back to the present. She decided she shouldn’t dwell on what she couldn’t change, and should go on with life, like her mother would have wanted her to.
Automatically she snapped on her wrist blades, and belt sabers, dragged a brush through her hair a few times before putting her borrowed hat, (her own was still in Borderland, although she had managed to find the rest of her millinery equipment before they fled, her beloved hat had been nowhere to be found.) flattened into a sort of Frisbee of blades, into her coat’s inner breast pocket. Out of an old habit she made the silken bed, and threw her back pack onto it. Then she proceeded, only pausing to swallow once or twice, to climb down the spiraling staircase into the grand living room of the Madigan turret.
When she came down, Hatter straitened from his sorrowful position to see Molly come in. He stood and came over to her, and not quite knowing what else to do, put his hand on her shoulder. Then he did something unexpected, and very un-Hatter-Madigan-ish. He stooped his head, to the top of hers and kissed her forehead, leaving a sad sort of little smile on both their faces.
The two stood like this, smiling into each other’s faces for a long time before Molly finally broke away, and turning toward the kitchenette, asking Hatter what he wanted for breakfast.
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When Alyss awoke in her grand “queen’s” bed in Heart palace, she almost forgot where she was as well. Then she remembered all that had happened since she had left earth, through the pool of tears. She remembered her Aunt Redd’s jump through the Heart crystal, her return, and subsequent battle, which had only been terminated by almost blowing up the heart crystal, and imagination it’s self. Automatically, she tried to lift something up with her imagination, only to find that nothing happened, at this she slipped out of bed, and into her royal attire, and pulling on her second shoe, opened the door to find Bibwit Harte standing in front of her.
“Alyss!” he said in a worried, quavering voice, “Hatter Madigan and Homburg Molly have gone missing!”
Alyss could tell the tutor was going to continue, until she said something, so she cleared the matter up as best she could, “Bibwit,” she said in her most soothing tone, “they’re in mourning they probably went somewhere to get away. We know from last time that they’ll show up if we need them.”
The albino tutor looked flustered, but he nodded his head, making his great ears flap about as he did so muttering, “Yes, they’ll come back if we need them, yes…”
While he was so preoccupied, Alyss thought this might be a good time to try and put her shoe on all the way, but Bibwit had other ideas. He grabbed her arm, and started listing off all the things she had to complete that day. Alyss sighed and neatly signed the forms he waved in front of her, to liberate some of the people wrongly sent to the crystal mines during Redd’s tyrannical 13-year rule. Then she saw a young guardsman coming up the hallway, and she smiled despite herself.
A soft, but firm voice spoke to Bibwit, “I know there a lot of duties that are pressing for the queen to deal with, but she does need to eat.”
Bibwit looked completely flustered, “You haven’t eaten?” he said, as if looking through a haze, “Oh dear, you really must eat, how silly of me, yes, yes, you must eat!” And with that, Bibwit steered her toward the dinning room, where a grand feast was laid out.
Alyss sighed, she really didn’t like all this attention, but it at least Bibwit seemed pleased to give it to her, so she went along for the ride. Next to her Bibwit again began reciting to her all the things that must be completed before the day was over.
“You must have a report from both the captain of the guards, and at least someone from the millinery, since the top two of that department have gone missing…”
“They’re in mourning Bibwit!”
“Yes, yes quite right… as I was saying, you simply must visit the crystal mines today, the conditions there are atrocious, that will take up most of the day, but it must be done Alyss.” Alyss nodded and began eating her breakfast, thinking how complicated it was being Queen.
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