by Ninja Cat in the flesh >:)

AN: I DID IT!!!!
Two chapters in two days, really...I deserve an award. AND I ALMOST DIDN'T MAKE IT BUT I DID. I DID I DID I DID I DID.

Short AN, I have to go to bed soon since it is a Sunday after all. (grumbles)
Sorry for the total fillery-ness of this. It actually was kind of fun to write. When I actually take the time to understand Kathrin and get into her she's quite the cool character :3
The next few chapters will probably be a lot like this because there's some walking and travelling and other kind of semi-boring stuff that needs to happen before I can get them to the next "big scene" which will be FUN WITH A CAPITAL F.

Alright. So. Yeah.
Please comment, even if this is your first time clicking! Feedback from someone who isn't a regular reader is always a pleasant surprise and also very helpful.

The Author is Listening To: Frost~Rachael Sage LINK (Heard this song at my friend's dance recital. Gorgeous isn't it?) 

VICTOOOORYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY~!!!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 38
A Long Way to Go

            I woke up sore and perhaps more tired than I had been when I went to sleep the night before, if that even made any sense.

            Dimly I wondered if last night had been a dream. There was no trace that Cheshire had ever been there at all, no footprints and no marks of his passing. All I had were the words he had said still ringing in my ears.

            “You could say that I’ve come with the intention of offering you…some assistance.”

            I shook my head to clear it of his taunting voice.

            A greyish light was already spreading across the plains and I rolled over stubbornly, pulling a corner of my blankets over my head. I could hear Hatter rustling around in the grass not far away and I knew it was only a matter of time before she came over to wake me up.

            Last night had been awful. It’s hard enough to fall asleep knowing that you are perfectly open to the elements. But after being ambushed by Cheshire sleep became nearly impossible. It felt like I had only drifted off a few minutes ago.

            It was deathly quiet. There was no sound on the plains save for the noise Hatter made as she moved through the tall grass. Then suddenly, another sound made my prick my ears inquisitively.

            “Glad to see you’re awake.”

            There was a quiet moan and I realized with a jolt that it was Kai’s voice.

            “How do you feel?” Hatter asked.

            “Fantastic.”

            Hatter chuckled and I could hear the relief in her voice. “Well, at least you’ve got your sarcasm back. Do you think you can stand?”

            “Not right this second, no.”

            There was more rustling and I was finally curious enough to roll out of my cocoon of blankets to see what they were doing. It was a crisp, cold morning and the dewy grass shimmered in the early sunlight.

            I looked at the two of them through the lashes of my half-closed eyes as I lay on my side. Kai was sitting up, he looked pale and weak with dark circles under his eyes that stood out starkly against his pale skin. Tenderly, he examined his right shoulder, where the bullet hit.

            Contrary to what I thought I saw the night before, there were still some remnants of the wound left. A mangled scab had begun to form. It didn’t look deep, but it was still raw and oozing blood. I shut my eyes tight as memories of the wound came unbidden into my mind.

            Slowly, I sat up as well, cringing as my back cracked in at least five different places. I flopped forward at the waist, stretching my arms to touch my toes; trying the rid stiffness from my body.

            Hatter was tearing a large white cloth into strips before carefully folding them and handing them to Kai. I watched as he wrapped them around his bare shoulder, wincing with each wind of the fabric.

            With a sigh, I wriggled out of my bed roll and into the cold morning air. I shook the dew and grass from the blankets before rolling them up again as tightly as I could. Finally, I sat back on my knees and exhaled slowly.

            All three of us sat in motionless silence and I could tell we were all letting the reality of our situation sink in. We were stuck. Our horses were gone, our coachman dead and our coach rendered useless. There was no going back and no one would come find us, for as far as anyone back in Tormoren knew, we were still well on our way to the White Palace.

            “What are we going to do?” I asked, a little desperately. I thought I already knew the answer, but I hoped I was wrong.

            “We walk,” Hatter responded simply.

            “What?!”

            Kai and I spoke at the same time.

            Hatter looked up at us like we were the crazy ones from where she had already begun packing away her few belongings. She shook her head in disappointment. “What else were you expecting?” She asked incredulously, her tone was suddenly a little angry. “We can’t just wait here for something to happen. Somehow, some way, we’re going to have to get to the masquerade before the Blue Moon.”

            She stood up, hefting her knapsack in one hand. “And if I have to drag you two there on my own I swear I will.”

            Something told me she wasn’t kidding.

~*~*~*~

            You have no idea how quickly “pleasantly warm” can become “burning hot” on an impossibly large stretch of plains.

            When we set off in the morning the going was pretty easy. There was no breeze yet, but it was pleasantly cool as the sun still sat low in the east. We walked along the edge of the road, leaving behind a trail of trampled grass in our wake.

            The walking wasn’t that tough, since I had nearly nothing to carry. Hatter had salvaged me one black dress, very similar to the one I was wearing now and my trousers with the cotton shirt. Those were wrapped up in a knapsack along with my bedroll and it weighed very little.

            The only thing I had to grapple with was the incredible boredom.

            Hatter and Kai, as you might imagine, are not exactly the conversational type. So, as we walked in the direction of the hazy mountain in the distance and the sun climbed steadily higher in the sky and the air around us quickly goy warmer there was almost no sound.

            I tried to distract myself by examining the scenery or doing my multiplication tables, but my thoughts always managed to wander. And with every step that hazy mountain in distance never seemed to draw any closer.

            Something strange I noticed as the minutes wore on was how often my thoughts would drift away and end up focused on Kai. I stared at his back while trying to appear like I was looking somewhere else. Sometimes I almost convinced myself I was.

He was in pain; I could see it in the way that he winced every now and then as he moved the knapsack on his shoulder. Sweat stood out on his face and he had a serious, concentrated expression on his face.

Though, as I started thinking this I was brought back into reality with a jolt. I realized I was staring and looked away quickly. It was perfectly normal to be worrying about him, but for some reason it didn’t feel right to stare.

            Eventually, when I couldn’t keep my thoughts away from the subject any longer, I started to think about home. I thought about Skylar and my other friends back at my home in the states and allowed myself to wonder what they might be doing. Did they know I was missing?

            And of course there was my mother. An unexpected sort of lightheadedness came over me when I thought about her. It might have just been the heat getting to me, but thinking about my parents made me kind of weak at the knees.

            Surely my father knew what had happened by now; in fact he was probably there in England with my mother. That couldn’t be going well.  

            My parents rarely fought when they were with each other. They only seemed…cold. It was if they always tried to pretend that the other didn’t really exist; like they had never been together and shared a life in the first place. It was always awkward, but not necessarily bad.

            But who knew how they were dealing with the stress? I knew my mother would not be handling it very well, but my father…I wasn’t quite sure.

            What would they think now, if they could see me?

            I smiled at that, because I knew if I ever got back--

            No.

            When I ever got back no one would believe what I had to say. I was living a fairytale and if I tried to tell the truth…I would just be another Alice.

They’d think I was crazy.

I shuddered at the thought.

How long had I been gone anyway? The thought struck me and I realized I didn’t really know. At this, a feeling of panic began making my heart beat quickly. There was no time in Wonderland; Hatter had told me that long ago. So, was there no way of knowing how long I had been gone?

Maybe not.

Maybe I wouldn’t know until I got back and asked.

Frantically I began counting the days in my head, struggling to recall everything that had happened to me in the last few days. It all felt fuzzy and far away, like it had happened years ago instead of just a few days ago.

The total number hit me like a physical blow and I thought for a terrifying second that I might actually collapse, right there in the middle of the grass.

Eight days.

I had been missing for eight days.

Sure, maybe it wasn’t really that long. But in that moment it felt like a life time.

It was then that I really couldn’t hold it anymore. For the past few days I had kept my loneliness and my longing locked in a box and trained myself not to think about any of it. But suddenly, now that I had a more defined idea of how long I had been gone, those feelings burst forth without my permission.

Furiously, I rubbed at my eyes as tears leaked down my cheeks without any sobs to accompany them. I didn’t want Hatter or Kai to see. In fact, even I wanted to pretend that I wasn’t feeling what I was feeling.

“I’m not lonely,” I thought with determination as I stared down at the ground.

“I don’t miss my parents.”

“I am perfectly fine.” 

            I was lying.

~*~*~*~

            That day was a long one.

            The sun beat down on us relentlessly from morning until night when it finally disappeared below the flat horizon behind us. Hatter trekked on at the front of our small precession and kept going even when the moon finally began to appear above the mountain before us.

            It hadn’t grown any closer all day…or at least, no closer than I could see.

            We had found no water all day and even though none of us said anything, I knew it was something that weighed on all our minds. My mouth constantly felt dry and sticky like I had taken a bite of cotton. There was no way we could keep going for more than a few days like this.

            For a while I thought Hatter was just going to keep going through the entire night. But Kai spoke up before I did. He simply stopped walking. Hatter looked over her shoulder at him as she slowed down.

            I had been too focused on hiding my face that I it had been a while since I had glanced at him. He looked awful.

            Not as bad as he had the night before, but still gaunt-faced and tired.

            “We should rest now, Hatter,” He said simply. The exhaustion showed in his voice.

            We set up camp a few yards away from the road. With no tree to shelter us like the night before I felt more exposed than ever.

            A cold wind blew persistently across the plains, making the grass rustle and whisper violently. It seemed that the minute the sun disappeared the temperature dropped ten degrees. Hatter managed to get a fire started using twigs she had broken off from the tree, but it looked fragile and tentative as each gust of wind sent its flame nearly shuddering into smoke.

            I laid my blankets as close to its heat as I could. It cast thin shadows across my body as I wrapped myself deep in the warmth of the blankets.

            Kai peeled away his bandages and though I could barely see him I saw that the strips of fabric came away with dark stains. He lay back in his blankets but I somehow knew he wasn’t asleep. He was too still, too quiet. I remembered how exhausted he had looked and pitied him.

            Hatter was the last one to settle in for the night.

            I drifted in and out of sleep for a while as I stared at the fire. She stood over a few feet away from us, staring alternately at the sky and then out across towards the horizon. When she finally came over and pulled the thick blankets over her long body I was nearly asleep.

            “You alright?” I asked drowsily.

            “Fine,” she responded quietly, “Try to get some sleep. We have a long way to go.”

            And even though I was barely conscious those words still filled me with dread.

  © Copyright 2012 Samantha M.