Author's Note: I'm picking it up from the end of Hatter's flashback, when the White Queen's party is interrupted by the Red Knight.
The Hatter stood in a charred and bloodied battlefield. The White Queen was riding to safety on her armored stallion, riding away through the broken forest, blessedly unharmed. What was once a great party was now in ruin.
"Shame," thought Hatter "to waste all that tea." He kicked the shard of a broken teacup lying in the blackened grass. Somehow he felt numb. The burn on his left forearm sizzled and smoked and felt like agony. His hat was damaged, and would not heal itself. The Dormouse would be able to help him with that. As much as she hated borrowing out her needle-sword, she would spare Hatter's hat a patch or two.
The Mad Hatter stepped gingerly over piles of debris and smoking remnants of a wooden something. He noticed a frail feather with hot red ashes eating its tendrils away. The grass was red at the tips.
It had been a wonderful party indeed.
The Hattress leaned over as they clapped in rhythm to the lively tune. "Say, Hatter?"
"M'lady?" Hatter responded.
"Could you tell me the difference between a raven and a writing desk?" she whispered as if it was a most important secret.
Hatter was stumped, but unbothered. "I was under the impression that one cawed while the other sat in your study and rotted out slowly," he murmured.
The lovely Hattress giggled. "Now, Hatter, don't be silly."
.
"Don't be silly."
"What was that, Hatter?"
"Nothing."
The Dormouse blinked at him, then continued with her hat-patching.
"Ooh, that good-for-nothing red big-head," grumbled the March Hare as he paced up and down the tea table, stomping on old tea bags. He rolled his R's more when he was angry. "Bloody knights come and threaten the White Lady. Bloody good-for-nothing big-head-following scoundrels those redheaded metal contraptions storming in on our party. What nerve the bloody redheaded menace blasting fire at the White Queen why I never..."
"He's got more focus about 'im when he's angry," the Dormouse noted with a glance at the Hatter. "Haven't seen him this angry since tea taxes went up..." and she went back to mumbling and sewing.
"Fellows," said Hatter, not raising his eyes or his voice. Both looked up. The Dormouse's tail waved, her needle paused in mid-stitch.
The Hatter looked at a spoon on the table. "What is the difference between a raven and a writing desk?"
"Well, I dunno, Hatter," said Dormouse in a scolding manner, thinking this was some sort of game. "Do you want your hat stitched or not?"
"The Hattress is dead."
Both gasped with honest shock. "Dead?" the Dormouse repeated.
"Dead."
"Dead!" The March Hare let out a wheezy noise and stumbled backward dramatically. He scrambled so as not to fall off the edge of the table, but ended up doing so anyway. He landed with a soft plop on the Hattress's high-backed wooden chair on the Hatter's left. His head appeared over the edge of the tablecloth, the grey-furred faced cloaked with daze and confusion.
"Hatter," Dormouse said sternly. "Are-you-sure?"
"Positive." The Hatter did not look at her.
"B-but..." the Hare's eyes rolled back into his head and he shuddered.
"I saw it," began Hatter. "The Red Knight came riding in, all hearts and one eye, and took his stallion galumphing around the place. Fire-everywhere. And he charged right up onto her. And trampled her."
"No..." the Dormouse put both tiny white paws on her cheeks. "My poor dear."
"I don't think she felt a thing," Hatter lied. "Painless death."
"Emily!" the Hare wailed. "Emily, why?" He threw his paws to the sky and fell backward onto the chair, out of sight. That was what he called the Hattress-Emily.
"She didn't feel a thing," Hatter repeated.
"Hatter, snap out of it," the Dormouse scolded half-heartedly. "You're drifting again. The Hattress wouldn't like that. Stay with us, Hatter."
"She didn't... no." Hatter's eyebrows furrowed. "No, you're right. She wouldn't like that one bit."
"Good boy." The Dormouse made three quick little stitches on the final patch. "There you are." When he didn't reach for his hat, she stretched up onto tip-toe and threw it onto his charred orange hair. Then he looked more like himself, but also less.
"You'll see her again, Hatter," she said softly. She placed a tiny paw on his forehead and patted him gently.
"Emily..." the Hare murmured from his sprawled-out position on the Hattress's seat. "Emi-lee Hatterkins..."
.
The river was secluded and almost devoid of fish. The occasional forest creature ventured a drink, but the current was usually too strong for their liking.
Hatter knelt close to the edge of the water, staring into the foamy rapids. There hadn't been rain for days, so he didn't understand why the current was rushing so. He cradled a small black-and-purple hat in his lap.
"Contemplating a swim, Hatter?" A silver smile appeared in the air above the Hatter's head.
"Yes, actually. How did you guess?" he said conversationally.
Cheshie materialized. "I'm good at guessing games, Hatter. And you look like you need a good dunk in the river to wake you up." He reached one blue-and-grey paw into the water and splashed invitingly.
"Do I?" Hatter fingered the rim of the small hat. The Cheshire Cat narrowed his eyes.
"Hatter, as fascinating as this river must be to you, I must advise that you leave." The Hatter looked up at this. "The Red Knight is afoot," Cheshire whispered.
"I know that," Hatter shrugged. "Of course I do. What the Red Knight does is the Red Knight's doing, of course, and who am I to judge the Red Knight's doings? Of course I should leave, yes, of course. Batty Red Knight, galloping about, batty batter Hatter, just waiting, waiting, sitting, waiting. By the river! Ooh, the river, why do I sit here, waiting, staying, batty Hatter... batty bloody Hatter just waiting for his death to come. Just waiting..." The Cheshire sent him a mighty splash of cold river water. He fell silent.
"...Yes, well. You should go back to the party. Is it not almost tea time?" Cheshie drawled with a hopeful grin. Hatter sighed. He let the water drip down his face.
"It is indeed." He stood up, pants muddy from the riverbank. He wound up and tossed the Hattress's hat mightily out into the river. It landed with a tiny splash and began bobbing violently down the rapids.
"Did you..?" Cheshire smiled and shook his head, deciding that it was not worth asking a Hatter anything.
"Cheshie..." Hatter murmured after a while, watching the river although Emily's hat was long gone. Twigs and leaves tumbled downstream, smacked roughly against the rocks and disappeared beneath the foam. "Would you like to come to tea?"
He turned around to look for the familiar curling smile, but the Cheshire Cat was gone.
"Right then." Hatter's voice rumbled with disappointment. "I thought not."
.
"Hatter! You're all wet!" the Dormouse tutted and fussed as the Mad Hatter approached his chair. The March Hare burst into a wild fit of laughter. He threw his spoon through the air. It hit the Dormouse and knocked her over.
"Why you!" She raised her thick needle and screeched a battle cry. The Hare sobered up quickly and groped for another weapon on the table. He snatched the lid of the Hattress's favorite tea pot and hurled it at the Dormouse. She ducked and screamed with laughter as it smashed on the other end of the table. Just as she was about to swing at the Hare, she was lifted by a rough Hatter hand.
"What have you done?" he growled at the Hare as she struggled and fought, her vest pinched between his fingers. He tossed the Dormouse down onto the table. She landed in a bowl of sugar.
"I-but-OHH NO!" The March Hare sprang up out of his seat and clambered onto the table. He dived off the other side and began picking the shards of teapot lid up in his arms, frantically muttering "Oh... no no no... oh no." The Mad Hatter glowered at him.
"Forgive him, Hatter!" the Dormouse scolded, struggling over the lid of the sugar bowl. "He didn't know. He can't judge like you!"
"Well-teach him, then!" Hatter yelled ridiculously. He threw his hands in the air in mad exasperation. Then his anger subsided. "This is madness," was his epiphany. "Without her..."
"Oh no no no no..."
"Stop it, March," Hatter sighed. "It's just a lid."
The Hare shook his head, his face upset. "No, gotta save her. Gotta-OW!" He held up a forepaw. Blood welled from a cut made by one of the shards.
"Oh, dear." The Dormouse climbed down to where the hare sat in the grass, nursing his paw and murmuring.
"We're on our own now," Hatter prompted, glaring into the forest as if the Red Knight was just behind a tree.
"Down with the bloody Red Queen," the three said automatically. The Hare whimpered, but was shushed by the motherly Dormouse. "For Emily?" the Hare murmured.
The Hatter was grim. He reached for a shard of the teapot lid and fingered it like a particularly fascinating collectable coin.
"For Emily, indeed."