entrancelogs | + Somewhere a Grandiose Carnival Was Going on in the Sky +

"It's kinda weird...the movie was more card-themed. I dunno, this place is all kinda mixed up. Lots of different, like..." She waves her hand a bit, trying to think of the right word. "References and stuff, all jumbled together."

She almost turns to stare at him again, but catches herself.

"Wait, really? But--no, I thought she definitely makes them. Doesn't she say she made them?"

"She can make them," he corrects. "The Red Queen says they were always gonna exist, with or without her. They're like...our relationship to Wonderland given personhood, I guess."

Which...to be fair, that all depends on how much you're going to trust the Red Queen. The people who live in Wonderland full-time aren't always the most reliable in terms of inside information. But the Red Queen seems...more lucid than most.

The key word there might be "seems."

"Dude...holy shit. I had no idea. Does George Mason know? Cause she's doing that whole revolution thing, right, with her articles and all? Oh man, do you think the Mirrors know that she might not have even made them?"

She's wondering if this is common knowledge and she's just an idiot who misinterpreted things, or if this is actually something very useful.

"But if they're our 'relationship' to Wonderland, then...why do they end up being so different? I always thought it was cause the Queen made them to be like that on purpose."

"Oh yeah. She was the first to know." Nothing really gets past her, but everyone - the Mirrors in particular - have had it burned into their heads for so long, that the Queen of Hearts is their lady and god, that unlearning it is a process.

"The Red Queen called them...manifestations, I think, of our 'connection' to Wonderland. Said they'd...they'd exist with or without the Queen of Hearts. She can make them, but they'd be there without her anyway."

And she made them hers. Through dependency. Through engineered conflict. Potentially an intentional strategy, or simply...what she's like.

"Holy shit."

She's quiet for a second, staring at the ground, trying to process all of this.

"I'm having a hard time getting my head around this. But like--the point is that she didn't make them. Right? She didn't actually make them. She just convinced them that she did. Because she can destroy them if she wants, right? So--someone's gotta tell them. Holy shit. They need to know."

"Yeah," says Tim darkly. "The problem there is that, even if she doesn't really make them, she still has them in her power. She still has them at each other's throats."

She made them dependent on her, just like the Red Queen said. She's using them, drawn them under her thrall, cultivated them into an army. And because she's in a position of authority, because she can Unmake them, she can do whatever she likes and restrain them however she wants.

It's sick.

"But why would..."

She trails off. It doesn't really matter why, and Mae can probably guess anyway. The Queen of Hearts is petty and childish, and probably just wanted some people she could easily boss around. Some toys to play with.

It makes something dark and raw start to twist inside her. The same something she felt in the bottom of the mine, a year ago now.

"We need to stop her. She's evil."

"I dunno if I'd use the word 'evil,' but yeah, I think - I think she's the root of it." Not exactly an unpopular opinion, but voicing it aloud helps him feel like he's got a goal, maybe. The illusion of one, anyway. "And I think that, if we wanna make any headway with the Mirrors, she's gotta be our target."

How does one even begin with that kind of thing?

Hell if he knows. She's not easy to get ahold of, and the Mirrors are pretty loyal to her - and those that aren't are willing to fake it for their own personal gain.

"No, that's evil." She says it with the air of someone stating the weather. "She took a bunch of people, convinced them she created them, and keeps them in line by spying on them and threatening to kill them if they go against her. That's evil. That's dictator-level evil."

There's a lot of reasons why someone might do that, but none of them matter. None of them excuse it. There was a perfectly legitimate reason why she bashed Andy Cullen's face in all those years ago, but that doesn't excuse it. There was a perfectly legitimate reason why all those old idiots in the mine were doing the shitty things they were doing, and even if Mae can understand it, that still doesn't excuse it. And manipulating, threatening and controlling an entire population of people is on a completely different level.

"Someone should kill her."

She knows that's easier said than done, but God does saying it make her feel better. Maybe that makes her a terrible person, but oh well. She'd been willing to give the Queen of Hearts the benefit of the doubt until now.

Dictator-level? Well, yeah. She's a Queen. She's prone to throwing fits when she doesn't get her way, or over perceived slights, regardless of how logical or illogical they may be. She's done, he's positive, undeniably terrible things to keep herself in power. To the Mirrors, to the Reals, to god knows who else. Alice, probably.

But killing her?

"We don't even know if that's possible," he says quietly. "People don't really die here."

It's simple, as far as Mae is concerned. She remembers the state of her own world before she came to Wonderland. And sure, she understands power vacuums, and there's the chance that some other equally terrible Mirror could take over in the Queen's absence. But could it really be as bad as it is now? Especially if they found a way to get rid of whatever lets the Queen simply Unmake people.

Killing isn't objective. Everything that happened in the mine drove that home.

"No, but we don't know if the denizens have to follow the same rules. The Red Queen was just talking about how Bill is gone. He 'went inside' or something. Even if it's not the same, I bet she can still be like, permanently taken out. If it's all really chess, I mean--queens can get knocked off the board."

“I don’t think that’s the kind of solution that holds weight here.” He really doesn’t want to have to be blunt with her to the point of rudeness, given the disastrous first few times they’ve met, but she’s talking about straight up murder here. No matter who deserves it or not, he -

He hasn’t forgotten how it feels.

How impossible it is to live with it after.

"Then we take her power away. She needs to be stopped."

She hates this. It feels like it should be simple. She's idealistic enough to feel like it should and realistic enough to know it's not.

The worst part is she can think of one person who would very much be on board with the idea of assassinating the Queen of Hearts. She's pretty sure Frank Castle has been looking for an excuse and an opportunity the entire time he's been here.

She's gotta calm down. She thinks she might be stressing Tim out. It's fine. She'll go to the Destruction Room later and it'll be fine. She folds her arms and takes a deep breath.

"...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get all...creepy and murdery. I just. I dunno."

"Look, it's..." He trails off. Stops. It's not fine, really. It'd be a lie to say that it's fine, but that in and of itself is fine too - he's a liar, isn't he? How does he go about saying what he needs to without just...shutting her down?

Making her feel like she's being creepy?

"I don't disagree. It's just not - it's not that simple. And I don't like seeing people dead if I can help it."

He's even doing that thing Lori does. Lori gets anxious, and Mae can see it happening, and Lori tries to play it off like it's not a big deal--at least until it spills over and she starts hyperventilating. Mae stays quiet while he talks. Let him get around to it.

He must not have the best impression of her, huh? Needlessly taking out her aggression on inanimate objects and threatening the fantasy version of his friends...breaking glass on the roof just because it feels a bit more real...

And now casually saying that someone should just die.

She feels like she should apologize again, but this is probably something she shouldn't make a big deal out of. It's one of those things that will turn into an apology party, where everything gets awkward and no one really wants to talk about anything anymore. She doesn't want to upset him more than she already has.

She can put her viciousness aside for now.

"Nah, you're right. It's not that simple, I know that. We can just leave it at 'she needs to be stopped', right? This is all way too morbid to talk about at a carnival."

She pauses a beat.

"Or actually, I guess carnivals are kinda creepy anyway? Like the weird sort of creepy that clowns are. Except that there's also funnel cakes, so like, it's hard to be creeped out when you're eating a funnel cake."

"I've never had one," he says, suspecting that what she's doing is redirecting what they were just talking about of her own accord, but not...not really certain enough to call it out as he sees it. That'd probably be pretty rude. Everyone has their vices.

Who's he to try and deny Mae hers?

For what it's worth, he doesn't seem terribly put off. He's known more violent people. Including people who have attempted to tie him up and interrogate him for information, people who have attempted to kill him, and...probably worse, now that he thinks of it.

"Dude, really?"

She smiles brightly.

"We totally need to go get you one, then. They got an Oreo flavored one, it's insane. I think I saw a pumpkin flavored one too? Which holy shit, I wish I'd thought of that back at pumpkin chunkin'."

Honestly, she would really rather go eat some funnel cakes and talk about how great carnival food is than talk about murder, anyway.

It doesn't take a lot for him to oblige. With a shrug, he stuffs his hands in his pockets. Why not? A little discussion about murder, a little theorizing about Mirrors, conversations about horrifying stuffed bears, and now funnel cakes. Par for the course as far as his experience of Wonderland is concerned.

"What is a funnel cake, anyway? Something...funnel-shaped, I'd guess?" It's fine if he's out of his depth. He's pretty sure Mae isn't the type to mock him for it.

No one here really has been.

She's wandering toward the nearest funnel cake vendor, totally expecting him to follow without question.

"I think it's more to do with how they're made. See, check it out."

She points as they come up on one of the stands, where one of the creepy vendors is drizzling batter into a deep fryer.

"It's basically just fried dough, but they like, drop it in through a funnel, so it ends up kinda all noodly. That way you can pull bits off and eat it like that. And you dust it with powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar and it's freaking delicious. Uh, I guess to sum it up, it's like a weird-looking donut."

She points at a freshly made funnel cake that the vendor is handing off to some other carnival-goer.

"I can't believe there's Oreo-flavored ones, that's the best thing I've literally ever heard. I had deep-fried Oreos one time but they are rich as hell. I couldn't eat the whole thing."

Well, she's right there. He's following for no other reason than it just seems like the thing to do, hands stuffed in his pockets and everything. The rich, sugary smells and blurred neon blazes of this entire other world humming by are still overwhelming, but he compensates by fixating solely on Mae and her description of how funnel cakes are made.

"Do they grind up Oreos for that, or what?" He has no clue how this works. "Why would you deep fry one, anyway?"

Unfortunately, he's rather certain that he already knows the answer to that one. He's lived in Alabama for his entire life. People deep fry anything, given the chance.

She nods. "For the funnel cakes, yeah, I think they must. They probably just mix it into the batter. But then you have actual deep-fried Oreos and just like, holy shit. I mean, you know how it's like an American thing to just fry literally everything? You dunk an Oreo in batter and fry it and then you've got like this, completely perfect little donut thing with an effing Oreo inside."

She grins at him while she orders literally four funnel cakes. One for him, three for her, and she can share if he wants.

"Have you ever heard of deep-fried butter? It's exactly what it sounds like. See, that's just going too far."

"I grew up in Alabama," Tim says wryly. "Unfortunately, I've kinda learned that there's a market for this sorta thing. But, uh - butter is a new one."

If something is deep-fry-able, he's certain it's been done. Even if it isn't, he's certain someone has made the attempt, no matter how ill-advised.

He watches one of the funnel cakes be assembled in its entirety, wondering how anyone could possibly eat the entire heaping ziggurat of sugared and whip-creamed dough.

"You wanna split it?" he says, after a moment. "I really don't think anyone should be eating an entire one of these things on their own."

"Ohhh, man, yeah. That'll do it. So like, what's the deal with grits anyway?"

She tried some really bad grits once and did not see the appeal. It's also literally the only Southern food she can think of right now.

Mae's mouth is absolutely watering as she watches the vendor fry up the funnel cakes and ladle them out onto paper plates. Everything gets a healthy topping of powdered sugar.

"Oh man, yeah, I'm gonna be sick for days, but that's Future Mae's problem. But yeah, if this is your first ever funnel cake, better to take it easy."

She taps one of her funnel cakes against his own like she's toasting.

"Hell if I know," he admits, because honestly, most of how Alabama operates is a mystery to him, and maybe always will be. He'd be just fine if that ends up being the case.

God, he swears he can smell the sugar steaming off the thing, and the weird little "toast" shudders puffs of powdered sugar free, shedded from the mass like flakes of snow. He pinches a fragment of the fried dough free with a tweak of his fingers, and it's precisely as rich as it smells.

"...damn," he says, swallowing. "I feel like I've already gotten a cavity."

But...hell with it. You only live five times.

He's gonna have more.

"Haha, I get that."

Some regional foods are just baffling, even to the people who live there. There's scrapple around where Mae lives, and she's pretty sure it's the worst thing ever invented by people.

Mae takes a bite and a blissful smile crosses her face.

"Oh my Goooodddddddd." She absolutely speaks with her mouth full. "I know right? So good."

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