Alicia's true form was yanked out of place, disorienting her as she raced to keep up with the hazy rhythm of her breathing. Her eyes took in the unfamiliar surroundings; no longer the garden of the Crimsonmane villa, but a crowded ballroom, stifling and lined with marble. Adults in long robes and wide hats bustled about, while children darted around in dark robes, some holding sticks in their hands, even.
A large banner reading "Welcome to the New Admission of Camelot Academy of Magic class 1067" was set up near the entrance. The banner, though was just a mere welcome, stole Alicia's breath away. She rubbed her arms, a chill of panic starting to creep into her bones. She hurried through the apathetic throngs of parents and children towards the exit. However, Dreams always found ways to thwart escape. A tightly locked door, for example. Another example? The wall where the door rested suddenly lunged at her, sending her scurrying in the opposite direction!
The wall came to a halt as Alicia turned her head and gasped at the examination room, a glass-blocked stage like a telemedia unfolding before her eyes. Behind it, children were marching towards a group of examiners who were lending them a twirling stick. A girl's fist clenched around the twisted stick, and an invisible vibration shot through both it and her hand, eliciting excited cheers from the crowd from just a mere twig shaking. But when a boy took his turn, the stick in his hand remained stubbornly still, causing his face to swell with disappointment as the testers produced other equipment to evaluate him. His parents greeted him with heavy sighs. Alicia could see a younger version of herself standing behind her cousin, drawing closer, and close, to the hall of shame.
"Not this again...!" Alicia pleaded. But to whom did she plead? Hundreds of people around her did not believe she was real. Patriarch Alasdair was next to her, amiably chatting with some strangers nearby, extolling his own House Crimsonmane for humbly preserving the tradition of subjecting their children to basic testing at the magical academy, despite the fact that they were bound to become wizards since Crimsonmane was breed of pure, superior practitioners.
One by one, the red-haired children showed off their twirling wand skills and walked out as if their futures were already bright. Alicia tried to intercept the door, only to be easily pushed back. She resorted to banging on the door and throwing a chair at the glass, to no avail. It seemed that in this dream world, the doors and glass were the strongest in the entire universe, or perhaps Alicia was simply the weakest lady in the universe. She thought of Orb, but how the Divine had cursed her, Orb was not in her waist bag.
As Alicia gave up trying to break through the seemingly impenetrable space, Little Alicia took her turn. Her nose limply pumped air into her aching lungs as she turned around, crouched down, covered her ears, and closed her eyes. A turning point in her entire life. And simply watching the flashbacks acted out by the puppets was too much for her.
"This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real...!" she kept muttering, shaking her head until she desperately pinched the skin of her hand, then slapped her own face, until the slap turned into a fistful of punches. "I don't want to experience this, let me out of here! Let me out of here! Please! Let me out, Let me out, Let me out!"
Pristine water seeped from her eyes. All the doors in the place, and she remained trapped in her own nightmare. The relief of her plight could only be found in the master of nightmares, whoever that might be.
Suddenly, Alicia's hands, which had been tormenting her, were forced behind her back. Black tendrils wrapped around her legs, lifting her off the ground. Alicia screamed as the tendrils numbed her nerves.
Behind the glass, Little Alicia picked up a stick.
The entire audience waited for almost half a minute, but the shiny stick did not quiver in the slightest.
Cracks rang out in the air. Alicia turned her head in the other direction with her eyes closed.
"Don’t do that!"
A wry scream pierced the girl's ears as giant, hairy hands gripped her head from either side, forcing it to face forward. Its shallow fur gave off the scent of decay. She had guessed: the Deer-Man was intercepting her on the spot. Her noggin could feel the hot vapour smelling of fishy meat.
"Let go!" Alicia wailed. "Let go of me!"
"A strong man is a man who conquers his past!" the wry voice echoed through the air. However, that could not have been his true intention. Suddenly, all ten fingers transformed into sharp claws, and they pressed down on Alicia's eyelids, forcing them open to keep her round eyes dry!
"I've had enough of these bloody memories! Please, please let me go!"
"Ah, but how can you tire of these memories? You clutch them to your chest with such intensity. Now, observe this pitiful spectacle with your very eyes, Alicia Crimsonmane! You! Deserve! It!"
As the examiners scrutinised little Alicia with the scanner, they shook their heads without facing the audience. A simple gesture that elicited the crowd's gasps. Alasdair amongst them felt as though he had a heart attack. He leapt to his feet and was the most outraged of all.
"Conduct the test once more!" he bellowed.
The examiners refused. The decision was final.
"Test her again! Someone has tampered with your equipment to sabotage us! There cannot be a Crimsonmane without the gift of magic!"
The others just stared at him as a pitiful denier. Fury blazed that old man's gaze. He gnashed his teeth at the faces before him, particularly at his beloved granddaughter, crying and choking in the corner. The other Crimsonmanes could not bear the weight of the shame and hastily left the room, leaving the real Alicia and Little Alicia to lament their loss.
"Grandpa... don't go..." they moaned, drowning in their despair.
Suddenly Patriarch Alasdair twisted his neck to his juvenile granddaughter. So fiery was his gaze, his eyes truly melted with fire! A hoarse, echoing, multi-layered scream escaped from the Old Horse's throat. There was never a fragment of this event in the girl's memory.
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"Whose child are you?" Alasdair demanded, his tone soft but deadly.
"It’s me, Alicia Crimsonmane, your granddaughter!" Alicia cried out, rebelling from the pitch-black bondage.
Alasdair screamed again. The entire audience snapped their necks to focus on the bespectacled lady. Their eyes, smouldering with flames like those of a candle.
"There is no Crimsonmane that is not clean!" his spat was brutal. "Ailsa, your mother, has committed a grave offence! Whose seed do you belong to? Bastard!"
Tears in Alicia's reddened eyes stung more than ever before. "Please stop calling me that!" she begged. "I am truly the daughter of Ailsa and Donar! I am not Bastard!"
"Bastard!"
"I am not a Bastard!"
But her pleas fell on deaf ears. Alasdair and the rest of the audience began to chant in unison, their voices ringing out like a chorus of demons.
"Bastard!"
"Cursed child! Cursed!"
"Unclean!"
"Die!"
The Deer-Man chuckled at their cruelty, still holding Alicia's eyelids in a bid to dry her eyes out with the onslaught of spite. She deserved to be alone in a sea of enemies who wanted nothing more than to see her suffer. She was graced with scorn. She earned their spit. All those mockeries and the Deer-Man was far from satisfied.
"The purity of the Crimsonmane Family has been corrupted," Patriarch Alasdair pronounced his verdict on Alicia with cold contempt. "I lament the time I held you, kissed you, loved you. My body has been violated by your unclean presence! The Crimsonmane must remain unsullied!"
"Grandpa...! Please stop!" Alicia's voice was a faint whisper.
"You must be erased from existence!"
They continued to spew venomous words and wished for the demise of the innocent woman. But not a single wand was raised, no magic was cast. They only desired for Alicia to die a horrible death, drowning in their spittle and contempt.
"Bastard! Bastard!"
"Destroyer of purity! An ulcer on the skin!"
"Die, Bastard!"
Alicia was so stunned that she fell over.
Then she found herself lying on a sofa in one of the rooms in the Crimsonmane family villa, the residence of Patriarch Alasdair.
"What was that?"
The young princess had a tumultuous stream of dreams. Failing even the simplest academy entrance exam had left her feeling despondent that she had hit the realm of slumber. Little Alicia dreamt about the worsening of her life eight years later, with only herself and two other men in the family, and for another two years of acquiring a small orb that turned her into the most powerful witch in the world, until her enemies suddenly took interest in her. She went on to dream about encountering the Tree of Knowledge, finding one of the most potent mages in a foreign land, and ended up in a nightmare of an entrance exam that was far from the real thing.
"It's just a dream," Little Alicia muttered to herself. Children's wild imaginations were both a blessing and curse, after all.
Fortunately, no one heard her shout. The villa was quiet, with only a few of Crimsonmane's kin, servants bustling about with their tasks, and the dwarf butler Whucksmire in the distance directing other servants. Her thoughts immediately went to Ailsa, her mother, and she began to embark on an in-house expedition for her.
She ran into several servants. When she asked, "Where's Mama?" they quickly shuffled off. Without thinking, Alicia wandered around again and met a number of uncles and aunts of the girl's many uncles and aunts because of how complicated her family tree was for a child to comprehend.
"Has anyone seen Mama?"
They suddenly glanced at Alicia with cold stares, though their ruby eyes shone as fire.
One of her uncles, representing the hearts of all, was kind enough to reply, "How would we know? Find out for yourself."
They walked away from Alicia. This time her brow furrowed and her heart ached. She had never seen her family members act like that before.
She entered the giant guest room and tugged on the shirt of another Crimsonmane, making the red-bearded man turn to look at her. His gaze was even more sinister than the previous family member, causing Alicia to take two steps back.
"U-Uncle Ulysses?" asked Alicia.
"What?" His reply was toneless.
"Did you s-see Mama...?"
"Dinnae ken. Dinnae care. Piss off!"
"What's wrong with all of you? Can’t anyone help me?"
Uncle Ulysses' arm flew up and slammed into Alicia's smooth cheek, causing her to fall down and freeze in shock.
His face twisted in a grotesque manner, suddenly sour, like the face of a dead horse. "Mind yer tongue, ye Magicless Crimsonmane! Once again ye dinnae ken yer place, I'll gie ye a taste of true magic!"
To Alicia, it seemed as if an evil magic had possessed her entire family. Though she wanted to voice her thoughts, she could only scrunch up her face and cry out loud, like any other child. She picked herself up and ran outside the villa, colliding with her cousin Spencer in the lush green garden.
"Oi, use your eyes, you idiot!" Spencer screeched. "Oh, look. Who else but Four-Eyed Alicia?"
This time Alicia did not have the guts to retaliate. She inched to the left, but Spencer also shifted his foot right into Alicia's path. The little girl leaned to the right but the other children blocked her as well.
"I want to find Mama, leave me alone," Little Alicia whimpered, her voice barely audible.
Spencer and the others laughed. "Why bother? Why do you think yer maw isnae here? It's because she's ashamed of herself, and ashamed of you, unclean Crimsonmane!"
"No way! Mama’s not like that!"
"My maw and da say that your maw has defiled this family by giving birth to you! How could I be related to you!" Spencer hissed in disgust.
"Mama is Crimsonmane's proud witch! How dare ye mock her!" Alicia retorted angrily even as her voice trembled.
Spencer puffed out his chest, strong enough to knock Alicia down again. "Oh, why, what are ye gaun tae dae, Four-Eyes? Summon Whucksmire? Or are we having a cast and clash right noo? You're kidding, aye, have a magic battle with me?"
Alicia could no longer stand the treatment and decided to turn around. How the Divine had cursed her. All the servants and family members she had met earlier were standing tall behind her.
"You heard us before, right?" added Spencer. "If any of us can't do magic, that person must be 'removed' from the family tree!" With his wand, Spencer blasted out dozens of purple threads, entangling Little Alicia's neck! He raised his wand, and so Alicia was lifted up until her feet could not touch the grass.
"M-M-Mama... H-help...!"
"We don't play with our words, Alicia. Vanish now, Bastard!" Spencer sneered
Alicia's face turned a sickly shade of blue, her tiny thumbs feeling numb and useless. Her legs flailed in all directions as the coils of glowing purple tightened around her neck, searing her palms as she desperately tried to break free. The taunts and jeers of "Vanish now, Bastard!" echoed throughout the house, growing louder and more vicious with each passing moment.
Just as Alicia's life was about to be snuffed out, she caught a glimpse of the Deer Monster standing behind her tormentors, its voice joining the chorus of hate. The magical bonds began to seep into her skin, and her body was getting heavier and heavier. But soon, something strange happened: she felt light from the neck down. Her eyes travelled downward.
Her head was still floating. But her limp form was already lying on the grassy ground. []