Lola was once again tasked with listening to the woes of her subjects. She hadn’t taken this job as queen of wonderland willingly rather it was thrust upon her by the mainframe which she didn’t really fully understand the purpose of. It was a large computer that made binding decisions in the absence of a leader such as picking out the next one. Before her was a white rabbit with a comically large pocket watch ranting and raving about being late to some sort of function at the queen of hearts palace.
Lola wasn’t sure how shed explain to the rabbit that the queen of hearts had been dead for several years in fact that being the previous ruler that Lola was replacing.
“I’m oh so late i need access to the tunnels at once.”
The tunnels were sort of a system of tubes that she used to get around. However it was just for her use as they wont allow anyone entry if they aren’t a royal.
‘You continue to waste the courts time. The tunnels are off limit. Begone with you’ Lola said trying to sound serious which made her seem more colder and meaner than she really was.
The rabbit was escorted off the premises. Lola sighed simply out of sheer boredom. She lay down in her throne in what could only be described as a bisexual seating arrangement.
‘What is on the agenda for today?’ Lola asked her assistant, Ganieda. Ganieda was a rather short woman with brown hair and a very welsh look to her. She was the sister of Merlin and herself a skillful mage. Lola thought having a mage as an assistant would come in handy so she hired her.
The two of them had become fast friends although Ganieda or Gani as she liked to be called was often irritated at Lola’s attitude towards the office of queen and her responsibilities. Lola played more fast and loose with the role and Gani was more serious. Frankly some inhabitants argued that Gani is what kept the land of fiction running more so than the queen.
Lola was wearing an extravagant black dress with lots of frills that swayed back and forth in the light breeze. Her hair was the color of ravens and her skin pale as snow or maybe white chocolate. She was prepared for the day to be rather boring but held herself back from audibly groaning.
“Well, there isn’t too much. Only thing I can see here is that Jenny Everywhere requested to make Saturday “free pizza day”
“Of course she’d want that. I’m always up for pizza but I’m not just gonna make it free. The bakers need to be compensated”
“How about 50% Off Pizza Day?”
“Sure, go ahead with that”
Gani scribbled some stuff down in her notepad that she always carried. it was like a second brain to her, always updating with things that needed to be done. Lola had suggested she’d switch to some sort of PDA but Gani had a whole system that worked for her and was more comfortable simply using her trusty notebook.
A bright light all the sudden sparked in the middle of the court, blinding both the queen and Gani. It was like a small ball of lightning with sparks going around everywhere but not causing any damage.
After it subsided what was left was a small bear looking creature although it resembled more a sort of teddy bear and was standing on two feet. Its “fur” was yellowish brown and he seemed really confused. He looked around and saw the two of them and was taken aback.
“Where…where am I?” he said, trembling.
“You’re in the land of Elcarim” Gani said approaching the bear.
“Land of…what?”
“It’s a universe of sorts, people and beings just kind of appear here. We aren’t sure but don’t be afraid. I’m Queen Lola of Wonderland” Lola said, sitting upright for a change.
“I’m, i just, i…” the bear continued, babbling in utter confusion.
Lola never liked dealing with this. It can be such a shock, to be thrust into this world. It was not up to her, that is just how the realm worked. There was nothing that Lola could do to ease the pain of people appearing here with only some of their memories from before arrival.
The queen stood up from her throne and slowly approached the bear. She proceeded to embrace him and give him a warm hug. It was something that always made her feel better.
Tears started to stream from the bear’s eyes it was just a lot of emotions to deal with at once.
“My name is Winnie. Winnie the Pooh” he said as it came to him.
“It’s alright Winnie. I know what it’s like and I’m here for you” she said, continuing to hold him to which he embraced her back. Lola made some soothing noises to try to calm him down.
The two of them were like this for a while until Winnie let go of the embrace. “Thank you. This is just, a lot to take in. I’m not sure what to do now”
“Tell us Winnie what is the last thing you remember now?” Lola asked.
Winnie thought about it for a bit. “Having cups of honey with my friend Tigger. Is he here?”
“I’m sure he will be eventually. We don’t really know how the process works exactly or when it happens just that it does. In the meantime you should go to your place and maybe get settled in” Gani said. “Also I think you can make many new friends here. Although there’s certain areas I’d avoid. Here’s a map. I color coded the dangerous places and marked where you live and how to get there from here’
Gani was more bureaucratic than Lola, she wasn’t as big on emotions. I guess that was a reason that Lola was a popular queen despite her lack of ambitions, people felt safe coming to her with her problems and she was usually sympathetic, at least when it was an actual problem such as what Winnie was experiencing instead of the white rabbit continuing to complain about his watch or something.
Winnie took the map and thanked her. Lola had one of her servants escort him to his place just to keep him safe. She always felt good about being able to be there for her subjects when they first appear in the realm, because she knew from experience how traumatic it could be.
“You have such a way with the citizens yet you complain about being Queen” Gani said.
“That’s because between stuff like this is a lot of boring work”
“Perhaps you are more suited as a therapist?”
“Maybe”
For the rest of the day nothing really happened and the Queen went to her chambers to read a book. Lola was unsure how books could even exist in a place that’s meant to house like multiverse link copies of fictional characters or whatever they were. Although she is pretty sure these were the same books found outside the land of fiction. However she felt that should create some sort of recursion but it was probably best not to think about it too much.
She enjoyed reading but it was also weird given she knew a lot of these characters personally so it felt a bit like invading people’s privacy. Again, it was something she simply compartmentalized in the back of her mind and didn’t dwell on. The whole realm was weird just by it’s existence and how it actually worked wasn’t even understood by her despite having access to the world mainframe.
Lola wasn’t even sure what this place was really called. Sure the locals seemed to call it Land of Elcarim and her country within it was Wonderland. However the mainframe says the place is called U-FFF. Whilst pondering both these questions and reading the book, it didn’t take long for Lola to fall asleep. She loved reading but it made her very sleepy.
The next day she was woken up by a loud knocking on her chamber door.
“Your highness. Lourdes? Are you in there? Something has happened that requires your attention”
Gani entered the room only to be met by Lola changing like a scene in a cheesy romcom. Lola was unphased by her presence but a clear blushing emerged on Gani’s face.
“What is it Gani?” Lola asked as she put on a shirt to match her skirt, a more lighter look than her typical frill-filled gown.
“Oh ehm, yes eh you remember Winnie the Pooh? From yesterday?”
“Yeah?”
“Well the Relinquists have him?”
“What do you mean have him?”
“He has been kidnapped and in his place was a note to you! The servant you sent was injured and is now in the healthcare wing”
Lola took the note and looked at it. It was written in Nanyayaal, the language of the society of free cats or the relinquists as they were called by Wonderlandiands, but she was able to translate it. It was roughly something like:
We want access to the mainframe
In return you will get the bear
-Felix
Felix the Cat, was a frequent thorn in her side. He was the leader of the Relinquists who viewed this realm as a prison and wanted to burst it open like a bubble, but Lola was not sure that would be good as she had no idea what the consequences would be and it sounded like it would lead to the destruction of this world, so she declared their movement a terrorist organization.
“That Felix ugh…”
“What should we do your highness?”
Lola thought about it for a minute, not certain how to handle this. She didn’t want anything to befall the poor Winnie the pooh, he had a rough enough time getting situated and now he was in the hands of zealots. Perhaps this would be a lesson to be careful what one wishes for as Lola had been complaining about there not being enough excitement the day before.
“Hmm, I’m not sure?” Lola said, continuing to think. “Perhaps a bait and switch. Like a decoy mainframe of some kind, away from the main one. They don’t know the location of the real one”
“Brilliant”
“Have some servants start work on the fake mainframe. Just tell me telepathically when you are done and where to bring Felix”
“Of course! So you’re off to meet Felix then?”
“Indeed. I’m sure he is gonna want to see me alone, so I wont bring any guards. But shouldn’t be an issue. I’ve faced worse thing than Felix the cat”
“Alright, I’ll get right on with the plan” Gani said leaving the room and going to put the plan into actions.
Felix the cat and his cronies lived in the meow-tree forest, a wooded area that they had declared to be an independent nation. Lola did not recognize their claim but most people left them alone.
The meow-tree forest was a bit of a way from her palace but not too far, certainly short enough to make it on foot. She was mostly worried about Winnie the Pooh, he’s so little and only recently came into this world. A cruel move to go after him.
As she entered the meow-tree forest she was stopped by a few cats and escorted to their headquarters where she saw Felix and a tied up Winnie the Pooh. Felix the cat was an anthropomorphic cat with large eyes, drawn in a way that reminded her of old cartoons. While in his cartoons he was jolly and fun, here he was always angry and quite the revolutionary, having banded all cats of the land into their own sort of society.
“Felix, let him go!” she demanded.
“Lourdesni! Naya mulath nimaya yautauta?” Felix asked.
“Yeah I got your message. I feel writing it in Wonderlandian would’ve been more helpful. You’re lucky I’m bilingual”
“Nim yalnya muyalnya thamz yaal”
“Yeah, yeah, reject my language or whatever heard it before. Now. Will you let Winnie go? He isn’t the one you have beef with”
Felix nodded towards fellow cats who let Winnie the pooh go, he was so happy that he went and embraced Lola.
“You go on home and lock your doors. I’ll take care of things here”
Winnie nodded and ran out of the woods towards safety.
“Now, you want to see the mainframe?”
“Thinz muyalnya thamz!”
“Lets go then, and you don’t have to keep calling me that”
Felix just laughed in response. The two of them along with a few of the cat cronies walked outside the forest.
“The fake mainframe is ready its in the basement of the palace” Gani said telepathically.
Everything was going to plan, so she just kept walking and acting like they had the upper hand here. Once they arrived to the palace they went to the basement as Gani had instructed them where a large piece of machinery was now located.
“Here you go!” she said, gesturing towards the machine. “the mainframe!”
“Na nim” Felix said, walking towards the mainframe.
“Sure go ahead” she said.
Felix walked towards towards the mainframe replica and started to push buttons. He had been studying ancient texts about this thing for months and was sure he’d be able to figure out a way to burst the bubble keeping them in the realm. However he had never seen depictions of it as it was only meant to be accessed by a select few.
He started to press buttons and lights started to flash on the lights on the side. But soon after it just stopped. He was confused, this was meant to be the writings that would make it disintegrate the realm, at the very least it was meant to do something.
Felix got angry, realizing this may have been too good to believe. Slowly he turned around and his face was not that of an angry cat, but that of visceral hatred towards Lola.
“Naya taitam! Thamnya nuz naya!” he screamed, a loud hiss following his words. He proceeded to jump at Lola, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground.
Lola tried to push him off but he had his claws dug into her arms, he then extended one of his claws to absurd length, to the point where it looked more like a small dagger. Lola proceeded to headbutt him which made her able to be free from him a bit.
However her victory was short lived as Felix had extended all his nails and clawed at her already weak arm, causing a gaping wound and parts of muscle to fall to fall to the grounds, the bone was at this point visible and some arteries.
Lola held her arm to try to stop the bleeding but this had weakened her considerably.
“Hnng, I can’t let you get the real mainframe” Lola said through gnashed teeth. “We don’t know what that will cause”
“Munzi thinya” Felix screamed as he was about to slash her throat this time. Lola flinched and braced herself for this being the end of her. However the slash never came. She opened her eyes to see what was up and Felix had been captured by a magical beam of some sorts which was coming from Gani’s staff.
“Gani! You saved me” Lola said weakly but before she knew it she had passed out from the blood loss.
Gani just smiled. “You’re welcome”
Felix was banging on the wall of the bubble he was caught in. The other two cats had also been placed in magic bubbles and were meowing, but nobody could hear them due to the soundproofing of Gani’s magic.
When Lola came to she was in her chambers, her arm was healed but still had bandages to aid in the recovery process. She sat up, her arm still hurt a lot from the scuffle.
“How are you Lourdes?” Gani said upon entering the room with some soup.
“What happened?”
“Well I trapped Felix and his cronies and they are now locked in the dungeon in seals. Plotting and protesting is one thing but attacking you and kidnapping residents is quite serious so I don’t think they should be loose in the country”
“I suppose not, at least until we figure out how to establish peace with them. Although I feel the rest of his society ain’t gonna be pleased now”
“Perhaps but it had to be done to protect the mainframe, they could’ve killed us all if they got access to it”
“Yeah” Lola said, taking a sip of her soup. “Th..thank you for saving me”
Lola’s face was redder than usual. She still wasn’t used to relying on someone but she tended to trust Gani more than anything else when it came to that.
“I’m just happy you are safe”
Notes
Translation of what Felix was saying in Nanyayaal, the language of cats:
- “Lourdes! You got my message?”
- “I reject false queen’s language”
- “yes false queen”
- “let me”
- “You liar! Death of you!”
Lourdes Garamond is an original character created by me.
Winnie the Pooh and Felix the Cat are both in the public domain.
Ganieda also known as Gwendydd is a character from a Welsh legend and therefore has never had any copyright.
The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.