Would you speak with a queen? Or a cat? (AUDIENCE HALL)

[twinverses]

Need something? Want to complain more directly to your cute hosts or maybe you want to bargain with your memories? Maybe you just have a favor. Regardless, this is the place to do it! Just knock on the Audience Hall's door or just call for the Alices and they'll answer.

Of course, if you want to speak with a particular Alice just note that in your toplevel as long with the date and rough time it's happening. They can be contacted IC-ly throughout the day.

For the final week, in person meetings with the Storyteller (formerly known as the Cat) aren't possible. Alice, obviously, isn't talking to anyone either. However! The Storyteller can be called to talk throughout the castle so just say where you're yelling at her from.

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[octopups]

[Amdi looks like he's about to object, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he takes a moment to gather his thoughts (and his members) back into sync, and looks up at her with several pairs of eyes.]

Um, I came to talk about Alice.

[twinverses]

[That seems to make her pause. Soften somewhat.]

Mm... let's talk.

[octopups]

[He nods, still a little nervous but seemingly encouraged by her reaction.]

The Queen said... that before she came here, there was only one Alice, but then that Alice fissioned and then there was the Queen and there was you. Is... is that true?

[twinverses]

Fission--

[Okay, she pauses. Then nods. It seems that this is a subject she's more willing to talk about. Her voice is sad but that's expected.]

Yeah. It's something like that. She was lonely and I... 'Nursery Rhyme' change to fit whoever summons me. She wanted someone who was like her. To be her since no one else could interact with her. So we both were Alice.

[octopups]

[Amdi thinks about this for several moments, looking around at himself. His Tinish analogies are not as well suited to this idea.]

So... so "Nursery Rhyme" did exist before that. You were another person, and then the girl in the hospital "summoned" you, and then... you both became "Alice" together?

[twinverses]

No, we didn't meet in the hospital.

[There was a few moments of silence trying to explain this. It was hard to explain this normally.]

She had already started calling herself Alice by then. When I felt her crying out.. [She stumbles on this. She's shouldn't feel bad about this. She shouldn't have emotions.] I felt that it was enough. I let myself be summoned. My Master chooses my form for me then.

[Most would choose fantastical creatures. Protectors or friends so unlike that what they normally would meet.]

I'm just a fanciful creation dreamed up by whichever child summons me. Alice... all Alice wanted was a friend. She only knew herself so I became her. We were Alice.

[octopups]

[Amdi stares up at her as she speaks. He's obviously trying very hard to understand, but he has rarely looked more like eight dumb animals faced with some unknowable complexity than he does now.]

B-but... that girl, that "Alice", you... you were still part of her, right? So... so even if the Queen isn't here anymore, since you're here, is it still kind of like...?

[He's clearly dancing around something.]

[twinverses]

I was.

[She's just going to. Sit down on the throne. Their throne. Her throne. If it helps it looks like she's just as confused as he is. It simply how things are for her.]

Our connection... was broken long before we came to the castle. If it wasn't I would have known what Oriko was doing. I could have stopped her. I could have stopped it before the trial.

[If only things were like they should be, her voice seems to say.]

That's why killing her didn't stop me. That bond was broken a long time ago.

[octopups]

[Amdi doesn't follow right away. He stays near the door, bunched up, small.]

So... so she's really gone.

[A pause.]

I wanted to be her friend.

[twinverses]

I didn't say that exactly.

[She looks down at her hands.]

I think she wanted more friends than just me. It's hard to accept that.

[octopups]

Huh?

[Several of him him finally look across the room at her. But he pauses once again before he speaks.]

... Why is that hard?

[twinverses]

If someone only liked being around one of you... wouldn't you feel jealous?

[octopups]

Huh??

[Okay that absolutely confuses him in a new and different way.]

That would just be weird! All of me are me!

[twinverses]

Mm, yeah, I guess it would be.

[She sighs.]

Of course there's no way a reflection could ever truly be the real thing. A book is a book. A person is a person.

[octopups]

... Oh. [Now he gets it.]

[Amdi is still for a moment, but then, slowly, all of him walk up closer to the throne.]

Um, I... I think you're a real person.

[twinverses]

[She glances at him from the balcony before standing up again to... jump off the balcony so they can have a proper talk.]

I'm not the 'real' Alice, though. I can never be her.

[octopups]

[The jump off the balcony makes him scoot backwards nervously a couple of feet.]

Y-yeah, but you're the real... you. You're, uh... really different from her.

[For instance, Amdi was never lowkey concerned that the Queen was maybe possibly gonna hurt him just for being annoying. Like he is now. For instance.]

[twinverses]

[It's not much but she does step back away from him to give him more comfort. She's not going to attack, at least?]

Am I? Has the story drifted that far off course? [There's something... a hint of the sadness that the Queen once carried. They were, after all, two halves.] I guess that's how it is...

[octopups]

[Amdi appreciates that, but he still stays a bit bunched up.]

[But... he also recognizes that sad tone.]

Does... does it need to be a story? With a "course"? Can't... can't things just happen?

[twinverses]

Does it need to be a story? [That seems to put her off balance just a little.] Everything is a story. A life is a story.

[octopups]

I mean...! [Nervously] I-I guess, when it's over, it's all a story to someone else, but...

But when it's still happening, it's just your life, isn't it?

[twinverses]

Maybe in the present but wouldn't you say memory is like a story? You look back at it.

[octopups]

I... I guess, kinda.

... Is that why you keep taking ours? To have more stories?

[twinverses]

Oh, that's just a side effect of the Nameless Forest. [Shrugies.] Though, I have to be careful otherwise everyone would end up like Oriko within minutes.