ʚĭɞ ― CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT : THE BLACK RABBIT / ALICE LIDDELL ... VALTR.
Oh, but you've heard this story before, haven't you? Perhaps a little skewed.
LEGEND , NIGHTMARE , TRAVELER , MADWOMAN , SACRIFICE , QUEEN , OUTSIDER ... Once upon a time, a girl fell down a rabbit hole and stumbled her way through Dnalrenow. She took left as she meant right, bantered with the Bandersnatch among their flower fields, shared tea with the Fae Folk, wrestled with the jubjub birds, gossiped with the weeds, disobeyed the will of the tyrannical Queen of Hearts, and most important, chased her beloved Black Rabbit. Dnalrenow, devastated and empty from the Final Days of Reflection that had rendered its old world barren, burst to life in the presence of Alice Liddell, whose imagination was so endless, whose curiosity was so never ending, whose heart was so immense, she singlehandedly breathed a soul once more into the realm... however short lived it would be.
Across Dnalrenow she tore, chasing the black rabbit throughout every domain she restored until she came before the haughty and bloodied Queen of Hearts. There, they entertained one-another with quips and croquet, of tales of conquest and far off dreams. In a desperate bid to save the Queen's own card troops from a most brutal and unfair execution, she took paint brush in hand and aided in covering their mistakes : white roses, planted in place of blue. Paint applied ‘pon their petals, she was caught blue handed by the Queen of Hearts committing this unforgiveable crime, who forewent all known processes of justice and instead ordered her execution for such an unseemly and disgusting offense.
... the black rabbit was never real, silly girl. She was chasing a delusion, something her heart created to pull her away from the suffering and drudgery of her life back home. Dnalrenow chided her, drug her by dress and hair to the Queen's rusted guillotine, and affront the entirety of clambering nightmare, her head severed from her neck at the cold, sharp edges of the Queen's unforgiving blade. This skin she had never wanted, and this world she had never known were stolen from her. She swore the black rabbit had held her hand as she'd died. But perhaps that was just her delusion, too. A final attempt to comfort herself, as darkness swallowed the land.
So, woe is you. Your tale didn't end very well, did it? Well ... neither did his. The original isn't the only original : everyone has a reflection when they look in the mirror, and rather silly of you to think that it's just yourself looking back when Alice Liddell's shadow has thus far followed you everywhere else you've fallen. Reckon if you stare at yourself long enough, some of your features start to look a little different, don't they? That's not... you, really. And the world inside the reflection isn't home. It isn't Wonderland, either. At least, not anymore. It used to be. You've been following in the footsteps of a ghost more than you have a white rabbit ... but it's time those nightmares paid their due. Shame the Red Queen went and offed your head.
ALICE LIDDELL ... through the Looking Glass, he's the same, but ever so slightly different. No everyone can be so forgiving : some reflections hold secrets, and some hold grudges that consume an entire land, cover it in the darkest of rot. The Alice that escaped Dnalrenow is a myth, a legend. People refuse to talk about her like she never even existed, hailed more as some kind of fallen god than a simple dreamer who passed through the lands ... but the nightmare fae, they know better. The nightmare realm, you've heard from the maw of the Bandersnatch themselves, is called Dnalrenow : it's not just a pocket for nightmares, it's an entire realm, a reflection of Wonderland itself. The only thing it has in common with the world you'd fallen into is A USURPER SITTING ON ITS THRONE.
He calls himself Valtr. But he hadn't always. You think he's lying to you, the way he smirks each time you call out to him. Whatever you know him as, it's not what the rest know him to be. The nightmare fae are terrified of him ... but he's their Queen. There's no book written by the Dormouse to fill you in on this one, only the word of terrifying creatures you encounter in these hallowed, dreary woods.
Alice left Wonderland, but that soul died in Dnalrenow. Captured and killed via guillotine by the Queen of Hearts, his vitriol for his own murder cast an apocalyptic shadow over the entirety of the realm, turning Dnalrenow into a soulless, lifeless, hollow shell of what it had once been. It wasn't always the land of nightmares : it held hearts, people, societies, once. All of them fell in the wake of Alice's rage, a magic so violent and powerful that it tore the foundations of the very world straight from the ground. Unprotected by the Jabberwock's magicks, Dnalrenow became overrun with dark, dark magic, and thus overrun by the nightmare fae who flooded it once the breach between their realms was torn open. Who else but the catalyst of the destruction would raise to rule the lands he had torn asunder.
Flesh rebound by the fae, Valtr rose from the dead to usurp the throne left occupied by the fallen Queen of Hearts. Having turned Dnalrenow into a blackened, iced over wasteland, he donned the title Queen of Nightmares in her honor and mockery. Like a phantom, he haunts Wonderland's reflections, a reminder that not every fairytale has a happy ending : and that not every leading force is meant for an ending at all. In a bid for vengeance against the wrongs and humiliations that were committed against him in life, he seeks to shatter the Looking Glass, allowing Dnalrenow to flood into Wonderland. He seeks not only to plunge the world into eternal night void even of the stars, but also to slaughter the Wonderlandians for what he sees as reflections of his murderers.
He still reclaims his name as Alice Liddell, but upon your stumbling into his realm, he opts to hide his identity. To what end...
ADDITIONAL NOTES ... Valtr's characterization is HEAVILY INFLUENCED by the muse I am writing with, as he is meant to play as a literal mirror to them as the defacto "original Alice" (so to speak.) His eye color, for example, will always match the color of the muse I am playing against. Similarly, his natural hair color will be the same - bc although it's black, that isn't his natural hair. His personality / mannerisms will also often reflect them ... for muses who are softer in nature, he will be more subtly manipulative / gentler / softer toned, vs for muses who are more abrasive, he tends to be more talkative, loud, and obnoxious. He shares habits that they have : flicking their wrist, twirling their hair when speaking, biting their lip, facial ticks, spinning pens while speaking, clicking his tongue, insert [muse trait here], etc, as examples.
If we wanted to get more in depth with a plot, he could share powers they have, speech patterns, physical traits, heights, so on.
Basically I take small details from peoples muses when we write together with Vatlr and incorporate those details INTO his character bc he Is Them, shifted slightly to the left. Same soul, different people. So, (one of the ways) muses can generally will figure out Valtr is Alice Liddell in the long run is by realizing the similarities between the two of them and making that connection.
