An Unlikely Devotion

Chapter Seven (Background)

A/N: this one is... a pre-meeting of sorts, one to kind of set the vibe for the rest.

Again comments are my lifeblood!! anything you think, even if it's constructive criticism, is welcome.

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The sound of the crowd was overwhelming, leaving the normally confident young woman in the middle of it with an urgent, primal need to find a corner within which she might cower for a moment. Throngs of people flooded the streets, obscuring the cobbled stones below their numerous bodies. Alice found it difficult to find steady footing, having lost a shoe upon landing, wherever she was, only a few moments prior.

She wasn't sure where or when she'd intended to go, but it most definitely wasn't here, wherever here was. She'd not even expected it to work, the little bauble of hers. It had been a gift from a suitor of her older sister, unappreciated and tossed to the wayside until Alice had found it tucked in the back corner of a writing desk drawer. It was wrapped up in a little box, a length of ribbon with an inscribed tag on the end kept it tied shut those few years.

The inscription on the paper tag was in Latin, and as Alice had never been overly studious it had taken her weeks to translate. Once she had, however, she had to of course follow the instructions it offered. Even if it was nothing but a knickknack it wouldn't hurt to try, the worst that could happen was that Alice would remain in London, before an open door leading only to the next room, with a handful of useless tin in her fist. The best, she would end up wherever it took her. Alice only hoped she could find a way back eventually, now that the latter had come to fruition.

After a few moments of baring-gathering Alice decided it wouldn't hurt to stay for a moment to watch the festivities, she was already there after all, and it seemed quite important. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on, and didn't seem to speak the common language of the land, but it was a duty she had to herself to allow fascination at least twice in a day. This would be her first, hopefully the second was just as exciting.

Her fine blue dress stuck out quite a bit in the crowd of grey and tan. She hadn't had a chance to look too closely before being swallowed by the mob, but now noticed that it was made up mostly of young men around her age and older labourers. The odd kerchiefed grandmother and teenaged girl dotted the sea as well. They were surrounding a large wooden platform, meant for making speeches Alice assumed.

The buildings that lined the square they were in looked a deal more urban than anywhere she'd spent much time in. Sprawling brick beasts with whitewashed columns and pillars, all of which showed signs of neglect and age, and all tightly packed together down every street as far as the eye could see.

Large red banners flew proudly above the heads of the crowd, thick fabric snapping with the wind that whistled through the narrow hallway of buildings. Alice recognized the script on them, but could not quite place it. She'd most definitely come across it before, in reading perhaps, but couldn't quite place it. It was quite harsh and a bit sharp, most likely Asiatic in origin, Eastern European even.

A crushing silence fell over the crowd before she had time to think of it further, and Alice watched with a deep curiosity as a man began to climb the wooden steps of the podium. He'd been standing to the side of the platform with a handful of other men just beforehand, the rest of whom stayed where they'd been as he took his place before the railing.