CHAPTER 350: WHAT I SAW-II

Alice swept her green eyes at her now stained dress and then lifted her gaze toward Ariel, forming her smug smile. She nodded briefly and turned around, "Yes, I am alright. I suppose it was an accident."

"My apologies, the maid didn’t mean to do harm," Ariel bowed and Alice shook her head gracefully.

"Why should you be the one to apologize? Certainly it is the maid’s fault but I do hope that she learns from her mistake that is all, I am not upset, Princess."

But for some reason something felt off to Ariel.

Was it how willing Alice was to forgive that felt out of sort to her?

Or the fact that... the servants who would never usually drop or spill things to her would be so careless as to drop something to Alice who they respect and fear?

Ariel knew best that there were many more women out there who could go as far as to drop things on purpose to blame others. This one felt the same but it wasn’t to punish the maid, it was to gain her attention and bring her here.

"I am grateful for your understanding," she gently spoke to Alice, "Well then, I have to return so the maid could finish braiding my hair."

"How about I do it instead?" Alice offered.

Ariel stared at her, blinking.

In the end the two had moved toward the garden. They had opted to sat on the floor of fountain, surrounded by the pretty lake water on their left and right. Blooming on top of the water surface was none other than water lilies.

"This isn’t your first time braiding someone else’s hair, Lady Alice?"

Alice who had comb through her hair with her fingers hummed, "I have done this before to Circe. Before she was known as the great first witch and before she had formed a contract with a demon. I was there with her."

"You seem close," noted Ariel, probing without question.

"We were, after all we had spent half of our life together in the forest far from here. She was chased out for her power while I was more interested in finding someone with similar power as me."

That sounded like they were close friends... but why does it feel slightly different?

Like a tone of negativity under that said friendship.

"Then you must have known what had happened to her?" Ariel inquired and at this, Alice chuckled.

They can’t see each other’s expression but somehow Ariel felt as if she could understand Alice better now just by hearing her voice.

"Did no one ever spoke transparently to you regarding her?"

When she shook her head, Alice laughed, "Why of course. Morpheus that coward."

"Coward?" Ariel noted and Alice nodded.

"He didn’t want to tell you the entire truth of what had happened because he didn’t want to look back to the past and feel hurt again." Alice then plopped one fresh braid on her shoulder and leaned forward, whispering to her ears, "After all to him, he was betrayed by Circe."

"Betrayed because she chose to protect someone else instead of the coven?" Ariel turned slightly and Alice furrowed her eyebrows.

"Yes. If you have known someone for your entire life and they had always promised to protect you only to break that promise when someone new had came, wouldn’t you be hurt?"

Ariel thought about it, thought about her own younger sister and how she would feel if she had protected someone else instead of her.

But it didn’t feel quite right.

Perhaps because her relationship with her sister is sisterhood while Morpheus’s feeling toward Circe felt more like a love.

"But that’s not all," said Alice as she sat down, "Morpheus you see, he wasn’t always the strong man he is."

Ariel raised her eyebrows, intrigued, "What kind of person was he before? Do you know him as long as you knew the First Witch?"

"A little less," said Alice. "But we were both in similar positions, so we came to understand each other. Morpheus lost his parents when he was still a boy, and since then, he lived on the streets, beaten blue for stealing food, forced to eat loaves of bread already molded or trampled under a hundred shoes. It was a kind of life I knew all too well, because I’d lived it too. He always knew he was different from everyone else, and the world knew it as well. And the world... has never been kind to those who are different. He never had a place that truly felt like his own, somewhere he could be accepted and understood."

Ariel stared at Alice’s face, wordless as she put herself in Morpheus’s shoes.

"But eventually he met Circe, someone who he sees similar to him. They understood each other best, like two close friend whose soul were the same color. It was to the point that his loyalty to her was as strong as a diamond shackle, something that won’t break. Then appear the human King."

"The King of Versailles."

"Yes," Alice tipped her chin, "He was a man that shines like the sun, apparently. I have never seen him to confirm how he looks but when he became the King, everyone in Versailles rejoiced and even the sorcerers and other witches felt that they were finally accepted. But suddenly one day he changed all his edict. He admonish the witches, put them on stakes and even burn them on fire."

Ariel frowned sharply, "But Circe wouldn’t allow that."

"No," Alice answered, "She didn’t just allow it to happen, she had called the witches she knew to be brought to that plain for them to be killed. She watched as it happened, stood still as everyone was burnt. I was there. I didn’t get to see the cowardly King who had covered his face but I knew what I saw."

"What did you see?" Ariel asked, her throat dry as Alice turned at her, grinning sharply.

"A face of a woman who rejoiced at the death of the people she once swore to protect with her own life."