Chapter Text
Sirens. That was the first thing the citizens of Wonderland heard before a torrent of soldiers swarmed the streets and forced them into their homes. Sometimes they were so careless it wasn’t even their home they were pushed into, but they stayed the night out of fear of a beheading.
This is Red’s dystopia.
Quiet streets, the brick still warm with wispy memories of sunlight as an eerie red glow overtook the kingdom.
This is where Red thrives.
Distorted shadows, creatures stretching across the roads of their own accord, any citizen swearing they moved.
This is where Red strikes.
With a swiftness and agility born of years of a cruel and tyrannical mother, she becomes one with the shadows, wide, silent steps taking her from building to building. She can feel the scaffolding beneath her feet, feel the breeze in her hair. It isn’t cold, not yet. A balmy air and cluster of buildings have made sure of it.
She stops when she hears soldiers walk by, their armor clanking in unison as they patrol the fear-stricken streets. This is no place for a rebel. Or perhaps it’s a world begging for rebellion.
She scales the walls of the castle, her body a live wire as she hauls herself up, brick by brick, inch by inch, until she’s over the wall and in the perfect blind spot.
It took months to perfect this.
Her belt is heavy with paint balloons and canisters of spray paint, and she feels herself growing lighter as she hurls the balloons at anything paying homage to her mother. Paintings, statues, murals, plaques. It all has to go.
Soldiers shout at the disturbance, watching bright red blossom across the queen’s face, frozen serenely in time. They know they’ll be blamed. Red feels a smile tug at the corners of her lips as she crouches behind one of the pillars. She thrives in chaos.
Adorning her cloak once more, she makes a break for the main wall, her canister already open with her finger on the trigger. This would have to be quick.
She hastily mumbled the words to herself as she sprayed them in messy writing, having never actually graffitied anything. Shit. Maybe she should have practiced?
As soon as the last letter is complete in bright blossoms of paint, she flees, using the shrubs and shadows to guide her escape. Once she’s safe, she catches a fleeting glance of her work. Viva la revolución. She read that in a book once. It felt fitting for how this world treated her. How her mother treated her.
-
“Maddox!” Her celebratory cheer was dampened by the man’s incessant mumbling and bumping around, like a drunk on the side of the street.
“What did you do this time, Blue?” He slurred out, his hat askew. It was said that madness ran in the family. Red wished it didn’t.
“What we talked about?” Her brows crinked in both confusion and frustration. How was it that a man of such knowledge was also so forgetful? “The vandalism? To spite my mother?”
“If you really want to spite your mother, I say off with her head! ” He shouted with some wild gesticulation meant to imitate her mother. Someone who had never met Maddox Hatter would likely assume he was drunk. Red could never be sure, as there always seemed to be bottles scattered about his inventions. She was doubtful that rum was necessary in whatever he was creating.
“Mads, you know I can’t do that. And besides, even if I wanted to, that would just speed up the process of getting me onto the throne.” She sighed, using her arm to clear the couch of clutter in one fell swoop. Maddox gasped.
“No no no, this is no way for a future queen to behave.” He rambled on, scooping gears and scraps up into his arms before depositing them into a cardboard box that Red knew he wouldn’t touch for at least a couple months.
“I don’t want to be queen.” She spoke exasperatedly. Maddox was often her only confidant, but at times it felt like speaking to a brick wall or a stuffed animal that happily chatted on with their canned lines and embroidered smile.
“Doesn’t want to be queen…” He muttered, slogging through his inventory with a concerning amount of crashing sounds. “Who doesn’t want to be queen?”
“I-” Her protest was cut off by the sound of guards in the hallway, their shouts muffled through the ornate doors. “Shit, I need to go.”
“Go? Go?! But we haven’t even had tea!” He cried, his project long since forgotten. He began to rummage around one of his overcrowded tables, digging through piles of scraps and half-baked inventions. “Where did that silly mouse put the sugar…?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Wait.”
She froze, not because he had told her to, but it was the most lucid she’d ever heard him speak.
“I have something for you.”
He stumbled over to one of his cabinets, tripping on about a dozen things in a mere four steps. It opened with a scraping sound of poorly crafted woodworking, and he pulled out a pocket watch, though ‘pocket watch’ was generous for what it was.
“What is that?”
The oversized chain rattled as he held it up, a plate sized clock staring back at her.
“I’ve invented… time travel.” Though he spoke like an exuberant businessman, Red couldn’t help but scoff.
“Yeah,” she scoffed, “and what’s next, you’re gonna tell me you made a shrink ray too?”
“No!” He sounded more than offended by the mere implication. “Next… why… It's my unbirthday! A very merry unbirthday, to me, to me? to me? Yes me! A very merry unbirthday to me… ”
He continued to prance around, waving his hat about and singing that song that seemed to serve no purpose other than to entertain himself.
Red sighed and took the watch. Despite his lack of mental cohesion, he was a genius deep down. Maybe for once, he’d actually invented something useful.
She ventured back to her room with a blanket of tiredness overtaking her body, the adrenaline of tonight’s events draining out like a viper.
Her room was a far cry from Maddox Hatter, with plush harley quinn patterned pillows and hearts out the wazoo. She also had a stash of books, but those could only be accessed by prying out the floorboards beneath her bed. They were volumes her mother would disapprove of.
She laid back on the heart-shaped mattress– her mother had a very particular taste in interior design– and inspected the ‘time travel machine’ that Mads had given her in all its glory. Springs were sticking out of it, the clock itself ticked out of time with each second, and the metal was poorly welded shut. It seemed a miracle that it even ticked, much less time traveled.
What a shame. Maybe if it worked she could go back and straighten out her mother.
-
Red woke to the sound of maids entering her room. She groaned and pulled the duvet over her head, though it was a futile battle she was fighting. What her mother wanted, she got. Sunlight flooded through the large windows, piercing even the thick cover of the blanket.
“Miss, you need to wake up. The Queen is calling the court early today.”
Red groaned. She knew exactly why.
-
“Today we are here to punish a blatant act of vandalism and rebellion against my kingdom.” Red heard her mother’s authoritative voice before she even entered the court, and an acute sense of dread overtaking her. This was going to be a long day.
“Red! How nice of you to join us.” Her mother’s condescending tone was not lost on her, but she steeled herself against the normal hostility. “I need your help in assigning this gentleman his punishment for letting a vandal disrespect our kingdom and by extension, us.”
“It’s your kingdom, not mine.” She mumbled, her eyes cast to the ground. She didn’t like looking victims in the eyes, and this soldier was no different. She could hear him sniveling at the queen’s feet, hoping that some uncharacteristic sense of mercy would overtake her and spare him.
“Red, you are my heir.” The queen prompted, nudging her towards the soldier. “So assign him a punishment.”
Rhetorical request. It was always off with their head, off with their head! Still, she couldn’t bring herself to sentence this man to death.
“I say… off with… his hat.” Her brain was screaming that this was a terrible idea, but she snatched the hat off his head anyway and tossed it aside. “You’re fired with a dishonorable discharge.”
She didn’t need to turn around to know that her mother was livid.
“Red.”
“Your Majesty!” Maddox Hatter stumbled into the public court with a letter clutched in his hand, looking more disheveled than usual. “I have a letter from Auradon!”
“Auradon?” Her mother’s expression shifted. They hadn’t had contact with Auradon for years. “Well, out with it. What does it say?”
“It invites the Princess Red to attend Auradon Prep.” He spoke with about as much disbelief as Red herself was feeling.
The court was silent.
Red prepared herself to watch the letter go up in flames.
Her mother smiled.
“Sweetie, how’d you like to go to Auradon Prep?”