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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[prescience]

Of course they were upset. It was a very upsetting affair. You agree, don't you?

["I don't think I like this game," she had said, as if she didn't remember its consequences at all...and, in fact, Oriko is certain that's the case.]

But I wanted to come before the night got away from us... because tonight, we'll be giving up another memory.

[twinverses]

Throwing someone in an oven is worse than just making them go to sleep.

[She agrees. Why did it have to be so mean? Yet she felt better after it. That was... disturbing in of itself. At the mention she sets her foot down.]

I can't help, I'm sorry... Making them go week by week is the most I can do.

[prescience]

[It...yes???

But, on the other hand, she thinks: Probably not for the person who's dead.

The Queen isn't getting any closer, so she'll eliminate some of the distance between them, walking closer to where they had their tea party the last time.]

Because we are in the Forest, right? Or perhaps...giving you some of our memories helps you with your own?

[And if it's both, then: Well.]

[twinverses]

[Well, they're both dead already so it doesn't really matter! Probably. Probably.

She hesitantly continues walking.]

It's the Forest, yeah. It's just how it works... It usually works really, really quick. People go fast.

[She shakes her head.] My memories are long gone. [She raps her own head.] Mm, the Forest and Alice can't help that at all.

[prescience]

[The hollow tap of the Queen's knuckles against her own skull is jarring, but it reminds Oriko of something she already knew, something easy to forget.]

It must have been hard to get used to... even before Alice.

[Pushing too much more will turn this into an obvious interrogation. She's here to keep the girl company, after all.]

I see you've been reading the book I brought for you. Is it everything you hoped it would be?

[twinverses]

Mm... I wandered around a lot. It was a long time so it doesn't matter now.

[Does she hear the own noise in her head? No. It's just a tap, why would it be hollow? Nonsense.]

Oh, yeah! I've been reading it a lot. It's got a lot more fighting than I normally like but I like that how Bilbo is the hero even if he's a coward at the start. Have you read it, Miss Oriko?

[prescience]

[She pats Alice's head, just once, when her sad story is over, just to encourage her to keep talking. Poor, pathetic thing.]

Characters who learn to do the right thing by the end make good heroes.

I haven't; I think I must have stopped reading books like that a long time ago... I was actually hoping that you might be able to recommend me some.

[twinverses]

[It's just the right thing to do. She brightens even more at the slight bit of affection.]

Mm, yeah! He might be a thief but being one helped him and the others out in the end. [Don't tell her it ends in a big war. It'd break her heart.]

Me? Well, I've read a lot and a lot of books but I don't know if you'd like any of them... [Oriko's practically an adult, after all. Would she think her stories were childish? It was a sudden, silly worry but she couldn't help it.]

[prescience]

[All that death ahead of her...and yet it's something Oriko can't warn her about, so she'll have to discover it herself.]

Maybe it'll turn out that I don't enjoy it as much, but I want to know what you like. Maybe something important to you or that you never get tired of?

[twinverses]

[How unfortunate.]

The Alice books! About Wonderland and the land beyond the looking glass! [She beams at these words. Still. She pauses.] But you've probably read them already, Miss Oriko.

[prescience]

Of course I knew about those. [She smiles, apparently at the display of enthusiasm. It seems just like the Queen Alice to bring this up.] It's obvious to me that you love them very much.

You don't feel the same attachment to the films, though, do you?

[twinverses]

No. They came out after I died; I've never seen them.

[prescience]

Well, you might never, given that they were destroyed...

[Maybe it surprises her a little bit, that Alice didn't seem to know about that particular video massacre.]

Are there other things that you liked reading?

[twinverses]

T-they have been? Maybe I should talk to my Alice about that once I can get to the media room!

[Why. Why did someone have something against her favorite story?!]

Oh, I read a lot of things... the Oz books were good. Dorothy really had a good head on her shoulders.

[prescience]

I'm surprised you didn't know. Maybe the Alice-san who is a cat was only trying to protect your feelings.

[A gentle wedge, the implication that one might keep something from the other.]

We could all learn a thing or two from Dorothy, couldn't we, seeing as - like her - we've been spirited away to a place without explanation.

[It's certainly not the exact book she's looking for, but there could be information of a different nature worth looking into there.]

[twinverses]

Mm, maybe. I'm sure there was just an accident.

[...She doubts, though.]

Yeah! This is like Oz, isn't it? We even have talking animals.

[prescience]

[She gives Alice a smile that's still friendly, but a little too knowing. It isn't right to lie, even to ourselves, is it?]

Yes, and all of us are on our own journeys, looking for our own reward...

I don't know who'd play the role of the witch, though.

[twinverses]

[Why does that smile hurt?]

...Franziska?

[Alice, that's mean.]

[prescience]

[That (actually pretty mean, yes) comment gets a little chuckle out of her.

Oriko's opinion of Franziska has soured in the wake of the trial, knowing she flinched so impotently in the face of death. Could she even be an ally with that attitude...?]

Are the two of you not getting along?

[twinverses]

[Children are vicious.]

She made me cry when Ib died... I'm not like those mean adults.

[prescience]

She doesn't seem to take death particularly well. For someone so interested in a lawyer's work, perhaps she should consider that?

Still, I don't think she qualifies. We're supposed to be on the same side of this fight, aren't we?

[twinverses]

Maybe she's just the lion.

[That's not much better!]

...Is my Alice the witch? [She. Doesn't like that idea.]

[prescience]

I think some people would say that. The wizard? It's her power that keeps us here...

What do you think, Alice?

[twinverses]

In the end the wizard had no real power. He was just an old man with a bunch of trinkets and pretty words.

[She thinks on it.] There were other magical people in Oz but the wizard himself was no wizard. He was just from, um, Omamaha? [She's from England and nine. What the hell is Omaha?] I don't think that my Alice is like that...