Epilogue: Afternoon of July 27th, 366 (Alice)
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Alice sat out on the terrace of a town cafe, enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of cake. The sun was shining, a pleasant cooling breeze blowing through the air, and the couple on the table next to her were discussing how the Slandhaile kingdom's first prince had been passed over for the throne after some sort of hushed up scandal. All in all a perfect day. Not that she'd been trying to get Raymond punished in particular; she had just wanted to cause enough of a mess that by the time anyone figured out that the whole scheme was actually just a glorified escape plan they wouldn't realistically be able to come after her.

She wondered what Emily thought when she found out the person she was conspiring with to frame Alice was in fact Alice herself. It must have been a real shocker. Maybe no-one had ever told her, and she was living in blissful ignorance. No rumours of Emily's fate had reached this far. Alice had crossed several countries, swapping out disguises and methods of transportation as she went, to ensure no-one from her previous life could find her here. Although she had needed to stop walking or riding between cities alone, after becoming concerned that someone would be able to follow the trail of dead bandits. It was amazing how many otherwise normal travellers seemed willing to stoop to robbery when passing by a lone girl.

There were no rumours of Alice herself either, or the rest of her family. Once they worked out that she had orchestrated the whole thing herself her family would lose any leverage they had over the king, but it was unlikely that they would be punished on her behalf either.

Her snack finished, Alice stood and returned to the bakery that had taken her on, happy with her new and simpler life. Queen Isabelle would no doubt consider it a complete waste of talent. Then again if the queen could see people as 'people' rather than collections of skills then Alice wouldn't have had to flee in the first place. Alice had her new life here, well away from expectations and politics, and was determined to enjoy it fully.

Announcement

And that's the end of the story. I've read a bunch of not-really-a-villainess type stories where the alleged villainess wants to get banished, but in many of these stories they seem rather passive about the whole thing. They just sit around and let it happen as the actually-evil heroine convinces every last boy in the school how bad the 'villainess' is, usually just by being very pretty and crying a lot. This short story came out of the question 'What if the villainess was a bit more proactive, and actually conspired with the heroine to arrange her own banishment?' Lots of plot holes happen, it turns out. (Just how did Alice convince a body double to admit to treason in front of so many witnesses anyway? That could have gone soooo badly wrong...)

But plot holes aside, I had fun writing it, and I think I got a reasonable amount of personality into the characters for a short story. The ending went through a couple of variations. In the original, Emily ended up nunneried and Raymond ended up dead, but I think this no-one-really-wins-or-loses ending fits the theme of the story a bit better. Also, my proofreader tells me that 6 year old Alice is the best Alice. I've promised that my next story that involves humans will have more 6 year olds.

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