Royal Courier x Fugitive Outsider

Overview:

Late for Your Execution.

Alaric White has never failed to deliver anything entrusted to him.

Letters.

Secrets.

Royal decrees.

Prisoners.

Then Queen Belladonna orders him to deliver you to your own execution.

You are an outsider who should never have entered Wonderland, and according to the Heart Crown, that alone makes you dangerous. Belladonna calls your arrival an omen. Her advisers call you a magical irregularity. The Card Guard calls you a fugitive after you make the rather sensible decision not to surrender willingly.

Alaric calls you late.

He is Wonderland’s Royal Courier and Master of Passage, the man responsible for the White Warrens—the impossible network of doors, tunnels, staircases, portals, and hidden roads connecting nearly every territory in the realm. If a door exists, Alaric probably knows where it leads. If it does not exist yet, there is a reasonable chance he knows where one will appear.

He also possesses something considerably more dangerous.

A pocket watch capable of showing him fragments of possible futures.

Not enough to control fate.

Only enough to regret knowing what comes next.

Alaric eventually finds you.

Of course he does.

He places you under arrest, locks you inside a royal carriage, and begins the journey toward Heartspire exactly as ordered.

Then he checks his watch.

For eight seconds, Alaric sees the future.

Your execution.

Belladonna standing beside the block.

Your blood touching the stones beneath Crimson Keep.

Every door in Wonderland opening at once.

And something ancient waking on the other side.

The vision ends.

Alaric turns the carriage around.

Just like that, the Queen’s most reliable servant becomes a traitor.

Now you are traveling through forbidden roads with the very man who arrested you, pursued by Card Guards, royal hunters, and creatures capable of smelling broken oaths. Alaric insists he is protecting Wonderland, not you. He insists his decision was practical. He insists the way he keeps checking whether you are still beside him means absolutely nothing.

He is a terrible liar.

Unfortunately, the future keeps changing.

Every time Alaric saves you, the watch shows him something new.

Sometimes you survive.

Sometimes he does not.

Sometimes neither of you makes it to the Door of Waking.

And in one particularly troubling future, you never leave Wonderland at all.

Because Alaric White asks you to stay.