"I never knew her personally," Everless cautions. "Hatter did - although I think you knew Lionel better?" she says in his general direction.  

"Regardless, my impression of Queen Sophia, when I saw her during public appearances, was of someone to whom ruling came naturally. She seemed..."

The raven trails off.

"I am no great judge of character," she says after a moment, "but the impression with which I came away was that a world in which Sophia was anything but a queen was unthinkable." 

Audrey frowns slightly. "How so? What about her made her queenly?"

"She...commanded attention," Everless explains haltingly. 

"And loyalty. She barely had to speak to have everyone around her jumping to obey."

Hatter offers his own perspective.

"Sophia was always aware of her duty to her people, and so she always had to be the queen they deserved. She commanded loyalty because she was loyal first."

He smiles at the memory, but it seems to be bittersweet. 

"She sounds like the kind of person I would like, if only I could meet her..."

Audrey sighs. "If she was so wonderful, though, why did Marcella want to take over?"

"Paranoia?" Faramund suggests. "Or perhaps jealousy?" 

He elaborates, "It would not surprise me to learn that she simply could not bear to have another wield power over her."

"You'd think that, but I'm fairly sure there are less strenuous and dangerous ways of not having anyone wield power over you than taking over an entire kingdom." 

Audrey sighs. "I realize this is awkward, but... the former Queen was a person, and people have flaws. What were hers?"

Hatter seems to be the expert on the topic of Sophia. "She valued justice over mercy, sometimes to the point of appearing harsh," he begins.

"She believed, very strongly, in the good of the many outweighing the good of the individual - not necessarily a bad thing," he clarifies, "but it was sometimes seen as such by those who found themselves in the latter category."

His voice is crisp and harsh, trying for disinterested professionalism but not quite managing. 

"For someone with such a high regard for the system and the chain of command, she was remarkably unwilling to delegate, and preferred to personally oversee as much as possible. She would sit in the court hearing cases and laying down judgements, or ride out to inspect the border, while Lionel - "

He stops and swallows, then continues, "Lionel tried to convince her that these were tasks for their ministers."

"... She hadn't learned..." 

Audrey shakes her head and smiles slightly to herself, like someone who's fallen for the same prank twice.

"It's hard to put this into humanwords, but... she was... too invested. Too caught up in everything being her personal responsibility. Cared too much, thought of things as hers..." 

She looks up. "Do I have the shape of it?"

"...Yes, that is a fair description." 

He looks a little astonished.

"I can believe you're the same person," he says. "There's no other way you could sum up Sophia so well without meeting her." 

Audrey looks down into her lap, and sighs.

"I guess there are some lessons that come harder to queens."

Hatter opens his mouth to reply.

Just then, a loud clatter comes from the direction of the kitchen, along with a flurry of panicked cheeping. 

"...Oh dear."

Audrey hurries in the direction of the panicked cheeps. 

There is a tiny bird zipping around the room, yelling and crashing into things!

One of the things happens to be Audrey's face, as soon as she steps through the door. 

She eeps and does her best to duck! 

This does not, in fact, prevent her from getting a bird in the face. 

"...eep." 

Jabberwock stops flapping around and plops to the floor.

"Sorry." 

Audrey rubs her forehead and winces. Fortunately she doesn't seem to have been caught by Jabberwock's talons.

"Ow." 

The tiny bird seems to get even smaller, curling up in a little feathery ball of remorse at her feet.

Audrey gets down on her hands and knees, and gently pats the ball of bird. 

"Don't worry, it's okay..."

Fluttery shiver. Tiny sad noise. 

Hatter comes up behind Audrey, but stops a safe distance away.

"What happened?"

"Jabberwock panicked, probably because they were alone in a strange place, and started flying around wildly trying to escape and flew into me. I'm okay, I'm just not sure if they are." 

"Ah."

He takes a step back.

"I'll just...give you some space."

Audrey pets the ball of bird a little more. 

"Would you like to go outside?"

The ball becomes a little less ball-shaped. A little beak pokes out. 

"Outside? Fly?" asks a tiny, tentative voice.