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Amadeus the Bandersnatch

Female Reader x Male Monster

The lands just beyond the royal palace are a confusing labyrinth of woods, villages, flower gardens, and a massive lake that changes in size. There are also the chessboard fields, but no one really talks about them since the Queen War ended. Beyond the Rose Garden, there is a village that is more well-off than some of the others. It was a place where the palace staff purchased all their supplies; as such, the people in the town prospered. Just outside of Rose Village, there is Pig Village, a much bigger place with more people and less money. There is a great expanse of woods separating the two towns, as well as the great gate at the edge of Rose Village.

I pass through that gate every day, sometimes multiple times. I blend into the people of Rose Village, all of them beautiful, tall, shapely, and possessing an air that makes one want to choke it from them. It's a place of privilege and entitlement, so everyone believes they are better than their fellows. I much prefer Pig Village, where the people all struggle and so all understand one another. I won't say each place isn't without its good and bad, but Pig Village is the much more tolerable of the two.

I have been going into Rose Village for some years now, sneaking my way through the gate and making myself one of the Roses. I then rob people blind. Not exactly the best thing in the world to do as a profession, but there are people who do much worse. Landbarons, tax collectors, politicians; those are thieves who have a veneer of respectability. I want none of that, though. Being a 'lowly thief', as people like to put it, makes me feel better.

Anyway, I steal from the rich and give to the poor. The people of Rose Village won't miss the bits and baubles I take from them, and if they do, they can easily have them replaced. The people of Pig Village need them more. What I steal, I am able to sell to provide for the hungry, weak, and sick. The Pigs are grateful as well, often giving me things I need. I could live off the garden vegetables and home-baked bread I receive for years, but I always end up sharing.

For the most part, my job is fairly easy. The hardest part is dressing to look like a Rose every day. The corsets, shoes, and hair are all extremely suffocating. I can see why Roses opt to become housewives and pop out a few children so they don't have to dress so confiningly day in and day out. After all, raising kids isn't easy, but dressing up is tough. I'm used to it, though, which makes it easy for me to blend in. Back in Pig Village, my best friend, Alix, makes my dresses and styles my hair. His talent is so great, and yet none of the Roses know because he's a Pig.

The other hindrance to my job is the High Sheriff, Amadeus. He absolutely loathes me and has sworn to capture me at all costs. I am everything he despises, and we've fought multiple times. The old man has lost more to me than he has at poker.

Amadeus is a Bandersnatch, a dangerous creature in the Mirror Lands. Bandersnatch are born with a curse, sometimes inherited from a distant relative; for others, it just happens. They were employed during the Queen Wars as the highest-ranked knights, and used their abilities to take down enemies with a single stroke. For the most part, Bandersnatch have a normal appearance when they aren't roused. Amadeus is eight feet tall, and has thick gray hair with black streaks along the temples and from the tip of his widow's peak. He usually keeps it slicked back, but I've seen the veneer come undone and how wild it becomes. He's got a white mouth that opens all the way to his sharp, pointed ears. His mouth is full of jagged, horrible teeth and a thick, black tongue that's forked. His eyes are big, perfectly round golden orbs with pinpoint irises dead in the center. Well, the right one is; the left is covered by a patch. I've seen the black take over his entire eye before, and that's never good. His face is completed by a small nose with a dent in the center, and flared nostrils.

Amadeus likes to flaunt his position, showing off his slick uniform while towering over the Roses with his impressive physique. He's past middle age though, so I'm sure he's not the force of nature he was in his youth. After all, if someone as tiny as me can knock him on his ass regularly, what threat can he really be?