#vindictivefeline

   The Cheshire motto: "Cheshires can take care of themselves."

                        It should've been: "Cheshires only take care of themselves."

    Cedric's father is an arrogant shithead, and how he treats the Jabberwocks is exactly how everyone else treats them--banished, exiled monsters; things that have no consciences and are a mistake to bring into the world; cursed beings that have no place in society and only exist to destroy--so they were removed from society, and Cedric's father was a proponent of that cause despite being directly related to them by blood--and they share the shapeshifting ability, the sensitive senses, and sometimes the disappearing (Caden can eventually learn this skill).

    The Jabberwocks are killers, yes--but not always, not really. They're not in their right minds when they kill. Their shapeshifting is into monsters, and when they turn into that, it's very hard to control--in fact, most of the time, there is no control at all. However, where the Jabberwocks turn into monsters that kill; the Cheshires turn into cats... Cats that slowly, slowly, slowly become more and more and more insane.

    Cedric never talks when he's a cat, but his dad does. Want to know why? Because cats don't talk. Not unless... you're mad--or they're mad. And Cedric's father is the epitome of mad.

    Cedric knows madness better than anyone else, even Caden. Cedric firsthand got to see his father’s insanity growing up. At first it wasn't much, riddles here and there, little tricks every now and then--but then it became an obsession. It was forgetting the time and day, making up a nonsense language and acting like it was English, hoarding unnecessary items and claiming them as other things--and then the pranks... The pranks became malicious.

    Pranks are meant to make people laugh, to be harmless jokes--suddenly, he can't tell the difference, and Cedric is the test subject. Near death experiences become frequent, laughable occurrences and happenstance. However, there are those bouts of consciousness, where Cedric's father knew exactly what he was doing, and he would lean in close to Cedric and just whisper, "I'm preparing you for the job you have to do." Because being a Cheshire isn't just a title; it isn't parading around the castle and being pampered, or stopping passersby on the road and distracting them and getting them lost. That was what kept them sane. Being a Cheshire meant that one day, inevitably, Cedric was going to lose his mind.

    It didn't matter whether he was in Wonderland or in the human world, or any other realm for that matter; it might even make it worse. Inevitably, Cedric was going to lose it.

    And this is the difference between him and his father--where his father embraced insanity wholeheartedly, Cedric was more reserved, less psychotic--and he knew, because he learned early on; he knew what his father wanted from him, and Cedric had decided...

    He didn't want to be like his father at all.

    Caden, on the other hand, has no choice but to be a Jabberwock, an uncontrollable monster just seething beneath his skin. His mother was not of Jabberwock blood, but his uncle was; however, impure. The power of the Jabberwock is gained and earned, much like how insanity is gained for the Cheshires.

    Jabberwocks start out insane. When they turn five, they start hearing the voices. When they're seven they start seeing things. When they're nine they start sleepwalking. When they're thirteen they start doing things while sleepwalking--like maiming things, setting traps with malicious intent though they are not conscious of it, taking prey in the middle of the night (Caden’s woken up in pools of blood more than once). Once they're a teenager, the monster breaks free, and it will kill, and it is very hard to control.

    Jabberwocks, as people, have an amazing amount of patience and control, supposedly. They have to, or they risk killing innocents. The killing in particular is what got them banished, but really they're normal--less arrogant than the Cheshires, honestly.  Jabberwocks are not known for backing out if a fight.

    Where Cedric will run at the first sign of conflict, Caden will stand up for himself, but what sets Caden apart from the rest of his family is that he won't immediately turn to violence. Bringing out the Jabberwock is a last resort. Caden will talk and negotiate and reason first, and only when lives are in danger will the Jabberwock be released, but to put his moral code in the Jabberwock's head is very hard to control and keep straight when all either of them can hear are the voices and the screaming and see the hallucinations. It's hard to discern what to kill and what not to; what is real and what isn't.

    Cedric and Caden as cousins is quite something though.

    They never actually grew up together. Their names were tossed around here and there, and Cedric went to Caden’s house more often than Caden when to Cedric’s, but it was only once or twice out of the year (whatever a year was in Wonderland) that they ever played with each other in person. Cedric calls his cousin’s home—the fort, the dungeon, the prison, but the correct term should be the Castle, whereas the Cheshires own what they call the Playhouse.

    The Jabberwocks do indeed own a castle, a large fortified structure complete with a moat and drawbridge akin to the Queen’s palace; however, while the Queen’s palace is made of white marble with embedded rubies, the Jabberwock Castle is built of obsidian and black granite—strong materials to keep the cursed monster within the walls of the luxurious prison. Windows, beautiful stain glass, are fortified with bars to keep the beast in. There is a dungeon in the lower levels of the castle, where it is cold and damp, complete with cell chambers and chains.

    Each cell was a Jabberwock family member’s. One is a large room with paintings all around the room. Another is an even larger room with mountains of gold in it. Another is a smaller room with a hoard of bones—mostly animal. Each one belonged to a Jabberwock kin; each one was their own, decorated, and stylized in their nature and likes.

    Caden’s own cell was a large ballroom with a high, large, clear window that let the light of the moon in unobstructed. He owned a doll that was about half the size of himself, and in the corner of the room was a bed and a wardrobe. The bed was large—a proper bed for perhaps a prince, soft and comfortable. This was more or less Caden’s bedroom. In the daylight, he roamed the gardens, which were pretty green hedges, a maze of sorts, that was changed every month (whatever a month was in Wonderland), and each “month” he would go out and navigate the maze (there was one time he lost his way and was stuck in the gardens for a full two nights). Caden enjoyed drawing the flowers and watching the nature around him blossom; however, his uncle put him to work. His work was that of housework—cleaning, cooking, training. Training? Training to be a Jabberwock, as his uncle said, and that meant he was supposed to hone his powers, control the beast within him, but it isn’t that simple.

    Too many times had Caden been set upon the nearest village—and once the Jabberwock was out, there was no reeling him back in—so the dungeons it was. The only place to keep him in check, in control, was the dungeons, where it was cold and damp and Caden—not the Jabberwock—could instill some sense of dominance and control over the beast. And when Caden wasn’t doing that, he was shelving books in their grand library—a second story addition to their mansion.

    By night, he was holed up in his room, reading or sewing, as Caden very much liked embroidery. But then there was that doll. He sewed dresses for that doll, make it hates and scarfs and the like, and in the dead at night, he would put on some soft ballroom music, and he’d dance with the doll in the moonlight, excited for the day he could eventually leave home—for he’d made a pact with his mother and uncle that when he was older, he would get to choose to come and go as he pleased, so long as he had the Jabberwock under control. His uncle had been more reluctant.

    While Caden lived a caged life, Cedric’s was no less chaotic. Caden had his own internal struggles dealing with insanity and hallucinations—but Cedric had to deal with external insanity: his father. His mother had left when he was just a toddler, for whatever reason, he did not know.

    Cedric’s own home was made of peach marble and riddled with trap doors, booby traps, and hidden pranks around every corner. Essentially, they were a clown house year-round (whatever a year was in Wonderland). Cedric had been kicked down the stairs, thrown off the balcony, nearly drowned, nearly hanged, and much, much more. That wasn’t the traumatic part for him, though. Physical injury was easy to recover from—but mental scarring. No. Imagine 3AM talks with his father about the existence of a higher power—and then an unresolved debate; a quarrel about the meaning of life and death, only for a morbid chuckle; a spat about the duality of right and wrong, only to have his father slink away and leave him with no answers.

    Existential crises were daily panic attacks—and at some point, everything just became numb to Cedric.

     These are the differences between the Jabberwocks and the Cheshires.

                  The Jabberwock motto: “Red suits.”