Tim Burton's Pandora Hearts

Can a Dream Make You Mad?

When Alyss awoke, at first, she didn't see her room—the safety, the reality, of it; her bed with the soft, white sheets, the books and dolls surrounding her. With the dream blurring her senses, her dolls would surely come alive, the shadows were deeper than the walls they fell upon, and no doubt reddened eyes would peer from that black before long. The strangeness of the dream still swam before her eyes, that place, that Wonderland, that...Abyss...

"Alyss?"

The six-year-old turned, and saw another version of herself, but with brown hair instead of white. This sight, however, was not some figment of her far-flung imagination; the two violet eyes, wide with worry, belonged to her twin sister.

The dream again? those eyes asked her.

Alyss nodded.

Alice, her sister, sat up, yawning and stretching.

"I had the dream too, a few nights ago." She grinned, "But I wasn't scared!"

"Y-You weren't?" Alyss repeated, as if the notion was unthinkable.

She paused, then shook her head. "Nope."

"Why not?"

Her sister turned to pick up the stuffed animal beside her and grinned, holding it right up to Alyss' face. "We have Oz to protect us," she bonked her on the nose with plush, black rabbit, "idiot!"

"That isn't very nice!" Alyss whimpered, rubbing her nose, though quickly found her own, identical, rabbit toy, sitting on the pillow beside her. "Oz," she whispered softly, picking him up, holding him tight.

A little bell jingled as a black cat jumped on their bed, as if to say: Hey, what about Cheshire?

"And Cheshire will protect us too, of course," Alice added, though she glared at the cat as he let Alyss scratch him behind the ears—animals and Alice never really got along.

"But!" Alice exclaimed, "If my sister needs additional encouragement," she held out her hand, "let's talk to Father."

"Really?" Hope lit in Alyss' eyes, though fear attempted to dampen it; "don't you think he'll be mad?"

"You don't think he'll be able to resist his daughter's adorable face do you?"

"Thanks, Alice." She giggled.

"I was talking about my face!"

"Hey!"

As a smile starting to spread across her features, Alyss took her sister's hand. They hopped off the bed, Alyss still holding Oz tightly in the crook of her other arm. Cheshire leapt off the bed to follow them.

Alice led her through the checkerboard hallways, toward their father's study, whose unmistakable laugh reached their ears. If they were honest, it wasn't a very nice laugh—it had a rather mocking note to it, but its presence had become comforting to the two girls. Her brown-haired counterpart squeezed Alyss' hand, flashing her a smile, as if to say See? He won't be mad.

"Well, gentlemen, the only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible," they heard him say.

"You have an odd way of thinking," said another man.

"You think it'll ruin me, don't you?" Levi—their father—chuckled as if ruin was a hilarious notion.

They crept cautiously into the doorframe. Their father was the man sitting the midst of the three other dukedom representatives, leaning backwards on his chair. Levi was wearing a blue waistcoat, and had hair of a similar color to Alyss', which he never could get to cooperate, so it was almost always tied into a sort of messy ponytail, with part of it falling in front of his face. Upon spotting the twins, now highlighted in the office's glow, his words stopped in their tracks.