A/N: This is going to be rather short; I think there are 2-4 chapters left.
- not proofread, I sincerely apologise for any grammatical mistakes, grammar is not my forte and I will try to find a beta reader as soon as possible. Also, while the general idea of Alice running into these kinds troubles is not new, I hope that I will be able to let this turn out the way I want to and hopefully show something new about the characters I use along the way. Or I will fail.

Anyway, please enjoy this and feel free to criticize etc. m(_ _)m

Disclaimer: I don't own HnknA.

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SUMMARY: [The foreigner has seen quite a lot during her stay in Wonderland. Still, this was the first time that she got turned into a small, dainty doll. And who if not Joker has his hands in this whole incident? However, it's up to his counterpart to take care of the problem.

Along the way, Alice will once again be reminded of the fact that Wonderland is indeed a bitter place for many of its residents. ]


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When the right time came, Wonderland changed into various colours, starting from the bright orange of autumn leaves that the March Hare adored, up until the mild pink of the cherry blossoms in the Castle of Heart. The new circumstances proved to our dear foreigner once again that she would probably never get used to the illogical structure of this wonderfully dangerous and unpredictable world.

The visits of Joker's circus have become a part of the girl's routine, accompanied by card games and occasional conversations with the circus master and his counterpart. As much as she hesitated to admit it, the change of season was not the only reason why she became used to visiting the dangerous pair of role-holders. Certain things and events happened, one of which she happened to relieve in her mind as she looked distantly out of the frozen window glass of the Tower of Clover. How often did the day change to night since then?, she wondered.

Ten or twenty times, perhaps?

Time was not significant in this world, yet she couldn't help but cherish all the wonderful and perhaps maddening moments she encountered here. With a pensive sigh, she let her mind wander back to a certain event which took place a couple of days ago.


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The young woman was on her way to the bright circus tents. Her way lead her through the Joker's forest, full of different objects, arrows and other stuff which was related to the circus.

She passed various signs without paying much attention to them since she was already used to the miscellaneous objects which hung in the weirdest of places here and there. While making her way through the forest, however, she almost tripped over something in front of her feet.

Cursing her lack of attention, the girl looked down to identify acolourful and relatively small object that she almost stepped upon. It was a toy, shaped as a brown bear wearing blue shorts and a shirt striped in black and white. A big red bow decorated the throat area, making it look quite adorable, in her opinion. She also noted that the feet were quite big for such a small body; they were quite flat as well so that the upper half of body doesn't fall over while standing or walking. Almost immediately she recognized it as a wind-up toy due to the big metal fly on the small back. It was supposed to walk on its own and a memory quickly came up in her mind when she was smaller and used to play with such toys, too. They brought her joy and she would often laugh happily while watching the toy as it tried to walk around.

Whoever has lost it must be quite sad about the loss, she figured.

On the other hand, it was normal for people in Wonderland to throw away old, unneeded things and forget them quickly. If something is broken, then replace it – this is how they normally think.

But the toy looked alright and she wondered silently just how exactly it ended up here, on the road in Joker's forest.

It was not an unusual sight; the foreigner would often find various toys and dolls scattered around the circus when visiting the circus master. The sight was quite eerie, for the small objects would always be there when no one was around, except for her and Joker, of course. From her unintentional visits of the prison realm she remembered that even the other place which Joker ruled was filled with these things. However, they looked abandoned and gave off an unpleasant aura. Most of them were either broken or were missing an arm or leg. Not to mention the ones that looked more like a mix out of different animals.

Shaking her head the foreigner cleared her head from the uncomfortable thoughts. The toy at her feet seemed innocent and quite normal, at first sight. While a normal resident of Wonderland would just step over it, the young woman felt bad for the small toy. She couldn't just ignore it and leave it here. She remembered that there were many children among the staff; the foreigner often saw the circus children running around the place and chances were high that this small toy belonged to one of them. Moreover, the loss of the favourite toy was always a tragedy for a small child.

With that on mind, she bent over and lifted the small thing. The plastic felt cool against her hands as she took a closer look at the abandoned toy.

Just as she suspected, the toy looked undamaged at first sight, the inner mechanism seemed broken, though. Carefully, she flipped it over and examined the metal fly at the back of it and tried to move it with her free hand. To her disappointment, it seemed stuck and refused to move. She had to admit that she was not an expert when it came to technology, the foreigner didn't even have a slightest clue how to fix a broken toy. But leaving the poor thing here on the floor was not an option, either.

"Oh, what do we have here?"

The girl almost sprang up as she noticed a familiar presence behind her, almost immediately she connected the smooth sounding voice to a certain role-holder she came to know well enough. There was only one person who would shamelessly sneak up from behind and scare her while still pretending that it was a coincidence and wasn't meant to scare the foreigner. The blue-eyed girl let out an exasperated sigh and turned around, it was no use speaking to the owner of the place with her back to him.

Immediately her eyes met the expected sight of the circus master. His lonely ruby red eye was focused on the object in her hands.

While he was still busy with looking curiously at the toy, as if it was quite unusual of her to hold such an object, the girl's mind registered that the Joker in front of her was White due to his calm and even manner of speech. Since she was dealing with White it wouldn't hurt to reprimand him a bit, she thought, at least he would listen to her and react normally.

"I really hope that you won't scare me again like that, Joker." Although her tone gave way slight annoyance, it didn't seem to affect the jester at all.

"Hm? Hmm?" His gaze still seemed to be glued to the broken toy in her hands, as if he was contemplating a certain idea. Finally, his eye met hers, as if finally recognizing her request. "Oh, but it's much more fun to look at your face when you're surprised, my dear Alice. Aside from that, though…" His hand gestured towards the wind-up toy as he chose to proceed, "…you seem interested in this little guy, do you wish to keep him?"

"Huh?" She stared blankly back. Why would he let her take what originally belonged to his territory? She hesitated. "But… is it really alright? Maybe one of the circus children lost it?"

"Oh, no, please don't worry about it." The red head made a careless gesture with his hand, as if showing that it was not important at all. "I can tell that nobody wants him anymore. Well, at least no one who would find that guy's company enjoyable."

"That's… kind of sad." The girl looked over the rejected toy, then finally made up her mid. "I will take him, then. But please tell me if someone will miss his toy, okay?"

A wide smile spread across the circus master's face.

"As you wish, young lady. Now, shall we get going? I'm sure that you didn't come to look at the forest only. Did you get bored of the current season? If so then let's get to business quickly, I can't allow the foreigner to get bored, after all!"

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Time passed by quickly with Joker's company, although the term itself seemed wrong; the girl has already learned that time stood still in Joker's territory. How that was possible was still a mystery to the clueless foreigner, although she herself has given up on trying to understand the logic of this mad world a long time ago. It's easier to accept it that way, though Nightmare's constant praises about her supposedly good adaptation skills were indeed quite annoying from times to times.

Right now she was heading back to the territory she stayed in, the Tower of Clover. It was not a long way back compared to the distance between the Heart Castle and her place, the girl soon found herself eagerly climbing the stairs of the enormously huge building. The girl felt uneasy ever since she parted with Joker, remembering his gaze with a glint of amusement as it followed her like a shadow until she was out of his sight.

The wind-up toy, still in her hands, reminded the girl of her original goal. There surely must be a way to fix the small bear, she thought.

Perhaps Julius could help her?

He was a clockmaker and should be able to handle a small problem. Besides, the foreigner was sure that a clock's mechanism was much more complicated than this one. The idea seemed good, for now at least. Still, it was not proper to beg Julius since he was always busy. There was always another box of damaged clocks upon his table before one is aware. She would have to wait until he had some space to breathe; a toy could wait for a while and was not nearly as important as a broken clock.

The rest of her walk went by uneventfully and soon she entered the guest room she was occupying in the Tower of Clover. The girl took a deep breath while noticing that the air was quite stuffy. She quickly opened the huge window beside her bed to let the fresh and cold air enter the room while leaving her new possession on the nightstand.

After thinking about her options, she finally settled on calling it a day and rested her tired body on top of the fluffy bed sheets. The soft material felt good against her tired frame as she relaxed, letting her guard down. Her azure eyes stared blankly at the familiar white ceiling, then, after a while her gaze turned towards the nightstand and studied absentmindedly the broken toy.

The said bear was sitting bravely on the even surface, its cute glassy eyes facing the girl directly. The brunette stared at the cute thing for a while, still thinking of any imaginable ways to fix it.

A sudden glint in its round and clear eye, however, caught her off-guard. Alice blinked. It might have been a simple trick, something caused by the light which came from the opened window. Yes, that must be it. I'm quite tired, after all. I'm just imagining things.

Despite her mind's protests, her reason still telling her that it was just the light, she focused her gaze once more on the toy's eyes.

They seemed so… frighteningly alive, she had to admit.

What came next was something that she had difficulty to describe and understand later on. What she remembered out of it was the fact that a strong breeze suddenly entered the room, causing the windows to open wider, letting more light into the dark room. Some of it fell upon the broken toy, the light was apparently reflected by the glassy eyes and blinded the surprised girl. Her eyes closed out of instinct, her hand flying up to shield them from the bright rays.

Then, she heard a dull clacking sound at her right, exactly where the nightstand was; something hit the floor. And odd feeling struck her.

Something's wrong here.

The foreigner tried to open her eyes but some force seemed to hold them tightly shut. Moreover, her body started to lose its strength, it was as if something was sucking the very life out of her tired limbs.

Now she was really scared. Wonderland was not a safe place, that's for sure, but it's even scarier when you can't understand or see the cause of your discomfort.

The foreigner's body was still laying upon the now crumpled sheets when a quite big shadow bent over her. Using all her will, she forced her eyes to open up, even for a little bit. The figure, right above her, was quite blurry, the shape reminded her of a human being. A quicken glance to the right confirmed her suspicions - the nightstand was empty.

"Who is it? Or what?" Her voice came out far too weak, she meant it to sound angry but it looked like her vocal cords were lacking energy to obey her wishes.

Much to her surprise, she received an answer, in a quite high and childish voice, there was a slight metal sound to it, she noted absentmindedly.

"Sorry, lady, please bear with this for a little while, okay?"

Bear with what, exactly?, she desperately wanted to ask.

"I only have this one chance so please forgive me!" This time, the voice seemed louder and more human-like.

Her body, on contrary, felt… unusually numb, all of a sudden. She wanted to raise her hand, to grasp whoever it was and demand a decent explanation, but her arm refused to move and with dread she realized that she was beginning to lose the feel of it.

Then everything went black as a shadow consumed the rest of her mind, pushing her body into an unknown place.

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"Alice."

"Alice?"

A deep voice filled the entirely empty halls of the Tower of Clover. A man with strikingly long ultramarine hair made his way through the wide corridors until he stepped in front of one of the many doors.

He was so sure that he heard Alice's voice back then… Normally she would show up by the time she was back but today seemed to be an exception.

And Julius (this was indeed the clockmaker himself) didn't favour such exceptions at all. His mind was at peace as long as the young woman showed up, if only to make him some nice smelling coffee. Whenever she forgot to do so, he noticed, his mind would make up crazy ideas and make him even more uncomfortable. What if something has happened to her?

The clockmaker cautiously opened the door and peeked inside. The girl's room seemed empty. The only thing which seemed off was the fact that the large windows at the back of the room were wide open. The coldness has already filled the room and a cold chill ran down his spine. Julius frowned; he clearly did not enjoy the sudden change of temperature.

How unusual. Normally she would close them tightly when she's out.

The blue haired man shook his head. It was rare for the girl to forget something as simple as that. What made her open the large windows in the first place? It was winter, after all.

Slightly irritated, the clockmaker entered the room and shut them tightly, only to leave as quickly as possible. It was not proper to be in her room without the girl's approval, anyway. Finally, he took the safe option and decided to wait for the foreigner's arrival in his room instead, hoping that she would come back safe and sound.