entranceway | BREAKING } from Ace of Spades, the Wonderland Blog of Georgia Mason, entry #14

The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.

On Monday, in front of a crowd filled with Mirrors and Reals, the ground opened up beneath the Queen of Hearts and swallowed her up into a bright light. In her place, the White Queen, long thought dead, was restored through the boxes of donated memories. Anywhere else, the war that's been brewing for months would be the big story of the day, but Wonderland has never been anywhere else, and the much-touted war turned out to be a chess game. The Red Queen beat the Queen of Hearts, she took it poorly, and then the real story started.

Before her resurrection, the White Queen was the sister about which we knew the least. The earliest record I have found is a memory revealed during a Wonderland party. It shows the three queens as children.

[Embedded video.]

More recently, one of the Red Queen's gifts revealed another memory. It was, fittingly, tied to a white queen chess piece. It showed the White Queen's murder, from the point of view of the perpetrator.

[Another embedded video.]

The killer used the Vorpal Sword and either was or appeared to be one of the White Queen's sisters. I have received confirmation that she was murdered from several sources, but no one has been able to or willing to identity of the killer. The Cheshire Cat said that "perhaps" it had witnessed the murder, but when pressed for an actual name, said, "I'm smarter than to make enemies of them." The Red Queen confirmed her death, but as for the identity of the perpetrator: "That is something I cannot tell you, for I was not there." The Queen of Hearts declined to comment.

While signs do point towards the Queen of Hearts as the murderer, there is only circumstantial evidence so far. Even the White Queen wasn't certain. She assumed the Queen of Hearts, but had no memory of the actual event. "I fell, right to the ground and the next time I opened my eyes was the first time you all saw me. Everything else I remember, my life before that betrayal."

But on further questioning, that's not all she forgets. She claims she never ruled over anything, but Tweedledee and Tweedledum informed me that the Duchess had served her once. I managed to speak to the Duchess before she vanished. "There has been one other, one single proper Queen, the one who ought to be here still. Her loss is greater than you could ever imagine, bad enough to have an impostor sit in her place, do not do not presume that more such vermin could be in the cards." Her implication was clear: the White Queen is gone, and one of her sisters is an imposter who has taken her place.

The White Queen has no memory of the Duchess, or of ever ruling anything before her resurrection. Her role, as she remembers it, has always been keeping peace between her sisters and wielding the vorpal yarn. That much, at least, is consistent in all reports of her character and with her actions so far. She seeks peace between Mirrors and Reals and wants everyone to stop fighting.

We saw the results of the White Queen's quest for peace two winters ago in an alternate Wonderland shown to us in a shared dream. According to the residents there, it was a Wonderland ruled by the White Queen after she had defeated the Queen of Hearts. There had been no events since she had taken over. But no one on the Real side remembered ever having a life before Wonderland, though their Mirrors' memories remained intact. The Real memories were being kept in jars, each labeled with a name, locked away in a secret room.

The White Queen claims she does not have the power to do this. She might be telling the truth, but considering how many gaps there are in her memory, she also might not know. As always, Wonderland leaves us with more questions than answers, but for the moment, at least, the Mirrors seem to be in better hands than they were before. Let's just hope it stays that way.

[As usual, Georgia leaves copies of the article close to several mirrors, and leaves hers uncovered in case anyone wants to talk about it. They deserve to be informed about their monarch.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( Clementine wishes she had that kind of compassion, but she no longer does even if she agrees, no one should live like that. She worries about the threats they might pose on all of them if given that freedom more than anything. )

Yeah. You never realize how important having choices is until you don't. Do you think we can ever really change anything?

I think we already have.

...how?

Well, it wasn't us who overthrew the Queen of Hearts in the end. But things were already changing. The Mirrors were not happy. There were many who were ready to turn on her as soon as they got the chance.

The truth always changes things.

Guess it just doesn't really seem that way to me.

Seems like it happened cause it was always going to. No matter what we did. Maybe because of those boxes, but no one really chose those either. I don't know. Doesn't feel like we did anything, but I get that's not a great feeling to have. I'm not trying to take it away from anyone else. ( if they want to believe that, if they want to believe they made a difference, they should. if georgia does, she should. might as well hold on to that, hold on to something.

she doesn't really know anymore. )

[There's a bit of a pause before Georgia responds. She's trying to figure out how best to put this.]

Are you the same person as when we first met?

No.

Not by a long shot.

Neither am I. And you're part of the reason why.

We might not have toppled the Queen, but we helped change individuals. Sometimes, that's the best you can hope for. No one can change the world alone.

( Clementine glances down at her own hands, staring as they become fists, as her eyes burn, as she wishes she was different than she is- in a lot of ways. It's a strange way to feel but it's what she has been feeling.

She doesn't know that she has belief or hope in people- in their ability to change anything about the world, but she does know at least this: )

You changed me too. In good ways. I don't like who I am in my own world but I like who I am here. That's part because of you. ( there's a pause. ) And I hope whatever change I brought to you was for the better too.

Absolutely for the better.

[Not quite enough for her to get openly sappy about it, maybe, but certainly enough for her to feel... warm. She hasn't loved many people in her life in any particularly meaningful ways. Really, just Shaun. But Clementine....

She wonders, sometimes, if this is what being a sister is supposed to feel like. She thinks she could get used to it.]

I like who you are here too. And I may not know the girl you are at home, but I do believe you're still inside her. I hope you makes your way out someday.

( That makes Clementine smile softly when she mentions it's for the better, when Georgia has this belief that somehow the person she is here can be the person she is at home. She doesn't know that she believes it (because of the nature of her world, because caring for other people enough to do the 'right' thing is what gets you killed), but it's really good to hear anyway.

Georgia's family, and she's really, really glad to have her here in Wonderland. )

Thank you.

That means a lot.

BREAKING } from Ace of Spades, the Wonderland Blog of Georgia Mason, entry #14

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