The scratching, digging sensation in your head fades as the pills in your system soothe the wrath of the specter in your skull. Still, you are weak and dizzy, your throat bruised and bandaged, your face and ears scarred and scratched. It still hurts to breathe, there are times when you stand to quickly and almost drown in the blood that pours from your nose. You still have that same nightmare sometimes, lost in that dark hospital, hunted by ugly facsimiles of your loved ones hell bent on devouring you. When you wake up the ghosts of their teeth still graze your skin. As the Cheshire cat leads you down to the castle dungeons you shudder and try to push your mind away from such personal matters. The air down here is musty and damp, slime coats the walls, and shy mushrooms peek their glowing heads from cracks in the stonework like eerie organic eyes.
The walk is a short one to a cramped, shadowed cell with no bars. The walls here hum with the same wards that nearly killed you during your quest for the Looking Glass. A writhing net of thorny vines covers the entrance to the cell, nearly obscuring the prisoner inside. You feel the thorns beneath your skin stir as you approach, for a second you hear a voice whisper something sweet and drowsy before it succumbs to the medication in your system. You swallow your apprehension and coax the vines aside. In the cell sits a stranger with white hair that barely makes it past her chin, of her two long ears one is tattered almost beyond recognition. Half her body is covered in ugly unnatural burns, her arm and leg on one side end in scarred over stumps, missing are her prosthetics carved from some strange bloody gemstone. She regards you with her lone ruby eye, you can see death itself thinly cloaked in the fury within that eye. Her hatred makes you giddy, unsettled and nearly manic. Panic rises in your chest the longer you hold her stare, Cheshire touches your shoulder and you realize you were trembling, bordering on hyperventilating. You shut your eyes and shake your head to clear it.
With a frown you eye the stranger, finally noticing the wounds that zigzag her flesh with weeping red ribbons, the bullet holes that glare like eyeless sockets. It's a miracle she's still alive. You drop the thorn barrier completely and enter the cell, the wards depleting your magic until you can hardly move. Cheshire stands outside with wide, worried eyes that change colors every other second. The stranger doesn't move, still glaring at you with an anger unquenchable.
"I am Jack, favorite grandcub of the Winter Wolf-queen Rionna, offspring of her eldest son, Frost Prince by birthright. Prince of Wonderland by choice." you say aloud to the stranger, trying to mask your fear with an air of professionalism, she is predictably unimpressed.
"I can smell the human in your blood. You are some filthy witch's halfbreed bastard who thinks he has right to a kingdom long dead, you are nothing more than a pathetic scavenger picking at the corpse of a creature divine. You have no right to be here." she hisses in a voice like venom, blood and foam flecking her lips like a rabid animal. You don't recoil at her words, your hand coming up to undo the bandages at your neck. The skin there is bruised and raw, thorns of all sizes poking through the thin flesh like an unnatural collar, they twitch like a cat's whiskers as they finally feel the cool air. The stranger stares, face blanching.
"The mark of the Queen's favor..." her voice drops to a reverent whisper as she struggles to sit up, fingers brushing delicately along the thorns. You feel them shiver and hear someone sigh. You grab her wrist with more strength than you should be able, catching her eye with yours, her pupil grows ever wide until her eye is nearly swallowed by black. Something within you forcibly opens the door to her mind, your mouth moves without your consent and speaks in a voice not your own.
"Who are you?" says a voice as smooth as watered silk by moonlight, "Why have you come here?"
The stranger gives a lazy, loving smile, like a junkie shooting up for the first time in days. You can taste her adoration, like honey on your tongue, you crave more of it.
"I am Kyward, Lady of Warrens, the Beast of Caerbannog. Long ago I swore my life to the Red Queen of Wonderland, in return for saving my life after the filthy human Knights laid waste to my Warren." as the stranger speaks your mind is flooded with snippets of her memories, glimpses of the past. You see the siege on Caerbannog Warren, the destruction of countless centuries of history and art as the Knights search for the whereabouts of the Grail.
"We were craftsmen, clockmakers, mapmakers and sheep herders. The Knights had heard tell of a relic, a map made from the skin of a God, one that could show them the way to the Grail. We had no such map in our possession, the Knights accused us of lying and we paid the price with our lives... I was but a girl then, a naive guard in training with more luck than sense." the Warren was ransacked and burned, bombed with spells and crude grenades until it was nothing more than a smoking hole in the ground. Only a handful of survivors remained, scrawny children shielded by Kyward during the attack, and her younger brother Kermes. Your grandfather. Something twists in your gut but you dare not draw back just yet, there are tears pouring from Kyward's eyes, and yet she smiles to sweetly at you.
"The Queen, in her infinite benevolence, took us in and made use of us. She taught me how to wield the blood of men as my weapon, she made me her champion. I lost her during the war, I slept for a long time, often soothed by drink. When I saw the castle bright and new I thought she'd come back... But all I found was you." you can feel her anger rising, nearly overpowering your tentative control. You start to pull back, your own voice returning as you do.
"I'm her great grandcub, your brother was my grandfather. We meant you no harm, I only wanted to fix this place, return it to the way it was before the war..." blood trickles down your chin and you start to scooch away as Kyward starts to come out of whatever trace she was under. There is pain in her eye when she looks at you again, she says nothing more as you close the net of thorns and leave her to her sorrows.
