Jester in Chess

~Chapter Twenty-Two~

Looking around, one might have thought a wedding had taken place. Red rose petals made a carpet of the forest floor, the hollow woods exposing just how far the petals had been scattered, and in what directions. At night, the tall trees seemed to stretch into oblivion, the reach of the branches molding into the night sky, a dark cavern above them. The sun lazing into afternoon, the infinite height of trees hardly lessened. The trees, like prison bars, were especially tall in this square, taller than those in square where they had camped, and taller than the trees in Afyve, where the pumpkin patch was located. This square was closer to Red Queendom. One more square and they would be in the Red Queendom. They were so near the end...

Jest recalled the observation his sister had made when they had first left Betou, how she had noted, in awe at the rippling texture of everything, how the colors of the world had appeared whimsical and swirly, the entire world a rolling marble—

Now that he was paying attention again, he saw that the colors of the world had turned muddier, like smooth watercolors overlapping. But rather than clouding into brown, everything in the forest, everything under the sun, everything but the whitest of whites, was tinged with a filter of the palest red.

The tree he sat under was sturdy under his back.

Lily asked him a question, and he looked up, noting how her pale face was, for the most part, unstained by the red. As he stared, his eyes drifted to find what else had been kept clean. And with Lily's question, he thought about the one who would have been intrigued by all that he saw.

To answer her, he just shook his head.

Hatta, a nearby statue beside him and who, still decked in his white suit, remained starkly untainted, jerked, leaning down to grip Jest by the shoulder. His violet eyes were wide. The white of his eyes were similarly pure.

"She's been captured?"

"Where did you think she was?" Jest said dully.

"Hiding! I thought she was hiding! Or brooding alone to herself, as she seems to like to do!" Hatta clamped a hand over his face. "But Tweedledum... he isn't here either, is he?"

"He's been snatched up too," Jest explained. "And so was I, at some point. As you must have noticed, Raven is here, but he came with Tweedledee. Tweedledee is my current hope that Jacquie and his brother will be retrieved as I was."

Hatta slumped, leaning against a tree. "I... I hope too." His face was expressionless, his lips a thin line. "I don't know if it would have made much of a difference but... that makes me wish I hadn't stayed behind. Or that you all had stayed behind with me. It would all be overdue, but I wish I knew how we could have prevented this..."

"Did you get the pumpkin you wanted?" Jest asked.

Hatta, a bit limp, shook his head. "The ones I wanted were too stubborn. I did get this little thing though." He reached into his pocket, pulling out a pumpkin. It fit snugly in Hatta's palm. It was tiny. "I figured I could use it as an accent decoration, if not the hat itself."

"That would be nice for a hat," Jest said.

"It will."

Lily leaned back on the tree Jest sat under. "Should we be leaving again soon?"

Jest closed his eyes, focusing on the repetitive twittering of a bird. Opening his eyes, he nodded. He cupped a hand over his mouth, aiming towards the top of the trees, as topless as they were. "Raven?"

Raven cawed, dodging through the maze of the trees, arching downward. He propped himself on the thick roots of Jest's tree. Jest turned his head to perceive him. Raven's feathers, as black as they were, also remained untouched by red.