A Fox Surrounded in Darkness (Twisted Wonderland x Encanto nb!reader)

Chapter 5

Your pov...

Italics- thoughts

Walking down to the Main Street gave me time to look around the campus some. Mr. Crowley was right, this place is huge. For a person without magic, cleaning the entire campus is impossible, but with my Gift, I could easily get this place cleaned up and have it looking as clean as a museum for as long as it stands. I kinda wanted to dress the part for being a cleaning staff, so I wore a plain white button down shirt with a pair of tan capris. Once we hit the Main Street within campus, Grim and I stopped to look around.

"Wow, so this is Main Street, huh? This is incredible," Grim beamed. "I didn't get to see much of it yesterday."

"That's because you were kicked of campus," I giggled. Grim looked at me and frowned.

"Shut up, don't remind me," he growled then turned his attention to seven stone statues that were on either side of the pavement. "What's the deal with these seven statues? All their faces look pretty scary."

"They look oddly familiar to me," I observed. I looked between all the statues and realized that they were out of storybooks that my aunt used to read to me and Myrtle as kids. I believe I also seen the movies of them when I got a little older.

"Like, this lady here looks like she's got some reeeal anger management issues," Grim says as he gets closer to one of the statues. I look at it and try to remember who she is. The Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland? Wasn't she a villain in the story? If she was, why make a statue of her?

"You don't know the Queen of Hearts?" A voice behind me asks. I turn around to see a male with ginger hair and a heart tattoo near one of his red eyes. He seemed to be wearing what I assumed was the school uniform that student wear here.

"Queen of Hearts," Grim repeated back in a question. "Is she some kinda big deal?"

"She was a queen who lived in a mazelike garden of roses long, long ago," the ginger explained. "She was a strict woman who prized order above all. She wouldn't tolerate a rose being off-color, or her playing-card soldiers being out of step. She basically ruled over a kingdom of madness, but not one of her subjects dared to defy her."

"I don't think that's how the story went," I interrupt. I believe she was more of a controlling tyrant who got mad when things didn't go her way.

"You wanna know why," the ginger continued. Grim was practically jumping in anticipation and I sighed. We aren't gonna get this cleaning done at this rate. "Because the punishment... for breaking a rule was immediate decapitation!"

"Wah! That is seriously messed up," Grim gasps.

"Pretty cool, right? I'm a big fan," the ginger says. That's so not cool. I remember all the times had to do things I didn't want to do because if I didn't, I would get sent to see her and it would be off with my head. Thinking back on it now, it was a pretty effective way to get me, my siblings and cousins to behave. "I mean, who would bother to obey a queen that was kind all the time?"

"Yeah, true. A leader needs to be strong," Grim agrees.

"I believe leader should be fair and just to her subjects," I voice out. "People shouldn't fear their leader."

"But puttin' that aside..." Grim ignores my statement and I huffed. "Who're you, now?"

"Name's Ace," the ginger greets. "I'm a first-year student here, as of... today! Pleased to meetcha!"