Aitora: Hey, last chapter! And it's a bonus one. This is set before any of the Wonderland stuff happened, so yeah.

Ace: What's it about?

Aitora: Oh yeah! It's the meeting of the Heart residents! Lily gets to meet you guys!

Ace: So it's being told?

Aitora: Yup! On with the chappy!

My father took mama Alice and I out to dinner again.

And they forgot me. Again.

They forget me so much, all of the workers here know me as a friend. Even some of the regular customers recognize me!

Now that I think about it, my outfit and hair don't help much.

My hair is in it's usual pink-curls with cotton candy blue highlights. Although, with the humidity, it's more wavy than curly.

My outfit consists of an all pink dress. The design is pretty plain: rose pattern in white, stops just above my ankles in a flowing manner, ruffles underneath, the sleeves are short-sleeved, stopping in the middle of my upper-arm, a light lace on my waist, and a pair of pink shoes.

Overall, it makes me look innocent.

I work with Charlotte, the head chef, by bringing her desired ingredients to her.

At about 9:00 pm, I help the manager, Riggs, do the dishes and close the shop.

He takes me to my house and makes sure I make it through our broken window. We don't even try to fix the lock, that or my parents never even noticed.

I make it in and father doesn't even notice, neither does mama Alice.

I slip up to my bedroom unnoticed and think about dinner. Even though we go every three days, it's still nice to think about it.

Today mama Alice said I should improve my knife throwing, and father said my dressed looked pretty.

We ate a lot of food. Father convinced mama Alice to try some of his food. I think they even forgot I was there. They said I could have whatever I wanted and asked what I wanted, but once the waitress ordered our food, they forgot to order mine.

It's a good thing we eat there regularly and that the waitress knows what I get, or I wouldn't have gotten my food.

Every once in a while they compliment me, otherwise they criticize me when they remember I'm there.

I start to tear up, thinking they don't love me and wondering what this feeling is.

'No! They do love me! They are generous, help me choose clothes, feed me, have me babysat when they go on their dates, and even train me to make sure I can protect myself!'

Despite this reassurance, I fall asleep crying, the black hole in my heart still there.

My last thoughts before I fell asleep were: 'This must be what loneliness feels like.'

I land on my feet like a cat in an unknown area. I hear a dark ominous voice talking to himself wondering when Lily would get here.

'Lily! That's me! What does this guy want from me?'

I quickly pull out my katana I sleep with and peer around to find a figure for the voice but I find nothing, just a colorful mass of swirls.

"Ah, you're finally here!" The voice says. Turning cheerful, the voice continues, "You're in the Dream Realm and for me to decide if you can come to our world, I want to see how you will communicate with us."

I didn't understand a word the voice said, it was all gibberish to me. Either way, I remember all the voice says.

"You will be meeting the Heart residents for a tea party, and don't worry, the tea is your favorite."

'Okay, that I understood.'

Giving up on finding this mysterious figure, I start asking questions.

"Where in the world am I?" I say.

The voice replies with, "You're not in your world per say. More like in between your world and our world, the Dream Realm to be exact. Didn't I already say this?"

"You're confusing pirate."

"Thank yo- Hey! I'm not a pirate! How did you even get a name like that!"

I then retort with, "Simple, I can't see you and you talk a lot. Talking means you're not a ninja, so you must be a pirate!"

I could tell he was surprised (Well, at least he sounds like a he) because he couldn't find a good comeback.

"Anyway," he says finally recovering, "Off to see the Heart Castle residents and enjoy some Black tea!"

The scenery changes to that of a rose garden of all colors: Red, blue, yellow, violet, you name it. In the middle of of the scene, was a table, filled with tarts, cookies, and other sweets. There was four people, tow of them fighting with a sword and a gun, the other two drinking tea.

The two fighting had a man with white rabbit ears. He was the one with the gun. Rabbit Ears was yelling something unintelligible at the man with the sword. The man was just laughing away in his red coat, deflecting all bullets shot at him with his sword.

Then comes the two who are drinking tea. The male was stuttering, asking the two fighting to stop. The female was wearing a heart filled dress, just drinking her tea peacefully, as if this was a regular occurrence.

I walk up to her, deciding she was the best to talk to first.

"Is this normal for them to be fighting?"

"Oh yes, it is quite annoying." She says, turning to me. I was still wearing the dress, the one I wore to the restaurant.

The second she saw me, I swear hearts replaced her eyes.

'What in the world?!'

"Oh my gosh you are too cute!" She gushes at me and hugs me tight, completely forgetting her tea.

It suddenly gets quiet as my entrance gets known to the others.

"Um, who are you?" The other male drinking tea said.

"I- I'm Lily, w-who are you?" I barely say because the girl was choking me.

"Oh where are our manners! We are Vivaldi, the red queen, that is the King, that is Ace, the idiotic knight, and that is Peter, the white rabbit." The woman, now known as Vivaldi said. When she said this, she pointed at the male drinking tea, the man with the sword, and the rabbit eared male, respectively.

Ace laughed. "Tell you what, because you look pretty ad I like you little girl, I will call you princess!" He said with a smile.

'T-that doesn't even make sense!'

"What are you saying idiotic knight! Since she is pretty you have to call her by her name," Peter yelled.

Peter starts shooting his gun again, and Ace and Peter went back to their fight, this time for a different reason.

I sit down, having some tea, while Vivaldi and the King start talking about some court subjects, so I decide to get lost in my thoughts.

'If Ace and Peter fight a lot with their weapons, like Vivaldi said, that means weapons are normal. This must mean to protect yourself, you need to carry one. Then that means Vivaldi and the King have one too.'

'All these weapons might put me in danger, so should I trust them?'

'Well, they opened up to me easily enough, so I guess I can trust them.'

'Now, onto more important matters, Vivaldi is such a long name! I need to shorten it. Viv? Viva? Oh! How about Vi-chan! Yeah that's it, now to ask if it's okay to nickname her that.'

"Vivaldi?" I ask, making her stop talking. She seems to be relieved I made her stop talking politics.

Seeing me across from her made me see the hearts in her eyes again, and in an almost dreamy way she said, "Yes? What is it Lily?"

"May I call you Vi-chan? I think it makes me look cute, you know?"

'Better play it safe and give her a reason. She seems to be the type of person who loses her temper a lot.'

She gasped, "Of course you can! Oh you are o cute! I'm so happy I decided not to have your head!"

The King sweat dropped and I laughed, at least until the words hit me.

'Wait, what? Have my head? Now that doesn't make any sense.'

Ace and Peter finally stopped fighting. It seemed to me Ace won, because Peter had his clothes demolished while Ace didn't even have a scratch on him.

"What are you doing, sitting all by yourself princess?" Ace asked, still smiling.

I gave a small sarcastic smile, "What's it look like I'm doing? I'm having tea with knight stew." (I had gotten stew earlier.)

"Oh? It looks good, it must be very wonderful to have at night," Peter added, playing along.

I could tell we got him because his smile faltered. He recovered quickly though and said, "It must be very good, if Sir Peter and princess like it. Why don't I try some?"

He reached towards me with a spoon and took some of my stew.

"Hey That's cannibalism! Give it back!: I yell, guarding the rest of the stew.

"Kinda hard for it to be cannibalism if you get your stews wrong. This is carrot stew," Ace started smiling again.

"Well then how do you know what knight stew tastes like? You had to try to know the difference. Still cannibalism," Peter retorted with a triumphant smile on his face.

I brimmed with happiness because Peter and I won. You can tell because Ace couldn't think of anything to say.

"W-well I must be waking up, good morning everyone." I hear the King say.

We all say good morning and Vi-chan leaves too. It's just the three of us now and we all enjoy our tea party until Peter says I can't reach my plate without having to kneel on my seat.

"Well there's an easy fix to that!" Ace laughs. Ace then stands up and puts me on his lap.

"See? Easy fix!" Ace says.

Throughout the conversation, they found out I could do many things and have a slightly uncontrollable temper. Peter sees me becoming mad, and says he has to get to paperwork and find Ace's tent.

"No, don't leave me with him!" I yell as leaves.

"Aw, you hurt my feelings princess," Ace says, faking being hurt.

"Oh shut up knight. Be chivalrous and obey your mistress." I retort back.

"Mistress? No I obey my princess! If I obeyed my mistress, I would have already woken up!" Ace clarifies. His logic doesn't make sense to me but I ignore it.

We bicker back and forth when the scene changes to that of a lake,where we are on a small island with pure sand. My dress turning into a red sundress making me look like I know more than I'm supposed to.

"Great! This would be a perfect time to listen to your heartbeat," Ace says, carefully putting me on a nearby hammock and laying next to me. (Keep in mind I was sitting on his lap.)

"What?! Why do you want to do that," I stutter.

He ignores me and rests his head on my chest. After ten minutes I started to soothe his hair andgave up on speaking.

We kept this up for a long time, and it lasted until we both woke up.

I rise out of bed with a smile onto my face, knowing I would see them again when I fell sleep. It was a promise made during the tea-party.

Even though my parents forget about me a lot, I have the Heart residents to keep me company when I'm down.

Throughout the year, Lily trained, fought, and was consumed by the loneliness her parents gave her. The only thing that kept her going, was the Heart residents. Ace listening to her heart beating became regular when her father went on military departure. Her mother, Alice, started to give her more attention when he left, but she still got ignored when Alice fell into depression. Lily indulged herself with work and training so she could sleep longer.

Her father only paid attention to her when she did well in training. Only when she finally came to the other world, did she let go of her loneliness and become happy.

Aitora: Done! If I ever decide to, I might make a manga chapter for this bonus, because it'sone of my best works! I just don't have an art account so I don't know where I'm going to put it up for you guys to see.

Ace: Nice job! Never had any idea Lily's parents ignored her that much.

Aitora: Yeah. Anyways, thank you for staying with me through this! And see when I finally get another story up!

Total: 6 pages. Longest chapter yet.