Jane Crocker considered 'Alice in Wonderland' to be a lovely piece of literature.
She found it to be quite difficult to go wrong with such a classic. She herself was even guilty of developing a few pastry designs inspired by the tale to unveil once she took over Crockercorp. The thought made her quite giddy. Sweets inspired by the classic story would surely bring smiles to the faces of both the young and old for years.
Crockercorp brand name sweets at that.
Oh goodness could it get any better?
She was rather proud of herself for the idea and just recently had been so anxious to test out her ideas that she decided to bake up a few things to test out the idea. It was a bit of a pain of course, considering she had to sneak into the kitchen at nearly midnight to get anything done.
Her father had even grounded her from necessities like baking. To someone like Jane, baking was definitely considered a necessity, so to think that her father would ground her from even that was unheard of. It was getting a bit ridiculous, after all there had only been a few measly assasination attempts, nothing more. She understood that her dad only meant well but restricting her access from something like this would be the equivalent of an attempt on her life so she didn't see the harm in baking up just a few things. So after donning a clever disguise, mustache and all, she made her way into the kitchen one night without her dad having the slightest clue. She made sure to give herself a mental pat on the back. (for both her successful sneaking around and her use of such a crafty disguise) She then proceeded to spend the entire night , or more accurately morning, on her baking.
It ended up being quite worth it after producing these few lovely sweets. A cupcake with a cheshire cat theme was the first thing she had managed to bake up. Chocolate with a large amount of pink icing glazed across it, she had crafted a large grin across it and cat like eyes that virtually melted into the pastry with her clever use of icing. Granted it looked a bit messy as this was merely her attempt at testing out her ideas but it fit in a way. She had giggled. Not bad crocker, not bad. It could have been much better but you always have to start somewhere.
Directly afterwards she worked on two more cupcakes. She once again showed her skill with icing by creating a top hat structure on one of the cupcakes, decorating it in flowers and such spread sporadically around it which she hoped would give it a 'mad' feeling. She was aware that her imagination wasn't necessarily the best and maybe she wasn't exactly award winning with her design ideas but she loved creating these silly sweets so she remained rather proud of herself nonetheless.
The other cupcake was rabbit themed but it looked even messier than the last two, as it had been getting later after all. After abandoning that one she had decided she might just have time for one more. She had one more cupcake remaining and decorated it in Alice's honor. Why she couldn't forget the protagonist now could she? That would have just been rude and she liked to keep herself from being rude in most situations. She tried to create the cupcake in the likeness of Alice's beautiful blue dress but the night was not getting any younger and she found it harder and harder to continue.
She awoke with her face buried in the cyan cupcake's cool icing.
She mentally scolded herself for being this foolish as she quickly tried to rid the scene of any remaining evidence of her crime. Her dad would surely be up soon. She wasn't sure on the time and decided not to waste any by looking at the clock and quickly made her way upstairs as soon as the kitchen was clean. Naturally she had taken the cupcakes with her. It was only after setting the cupcakes aside that she realized how truly early in the day it still was. In turn this caused her to realize how truly tired she still was. She lazily tucked herself into bed, removing her glasses and snuggling up to the pillows that decorated the bedding. She glanced at the cupcakes which she had sat on the window sill. As her eyelids fluttered closed she reminded herself to try one or two after her nap, after all she couldn't let such a classic tale go to waste.
Jane slowly opened her eyes, giving them a moment to readjust. She reached for her glasses but upon doing so quickly realized that that would be a bit impossible as they were already on her face. That's odd, she thought. She was positive that she had removed her glasses.. but she had been so tired she really wasn't in her best state of mind. Also she wasn't tired at all now.. she felt as if she had rested for a decade, a century even. She gave a warm smile. She allowed her eyes to finish adjusting and then finally got a good look at her surroundings, not that it did much good.
"Oh..."
Well wherever she was it was certainly not her cozy little home. It appeared to be a type of forest. A 'type' because she couldn't classify this as a normal forest, if there was such a thing. The surrounding trees were of a dark color that she couldn't quite place. Depending on how she looked at one it could be either brown,purple,black or any mix in between.
That was only touching the surface of her odd surroundings. The ground upon which she stood was similar yet somehow managed to be even darker and ambiguous in color. However that all seemed change with each step she took. Every time her foot hit the ground small specks of the ground would change color slightly, tending to take the form of bright pastel colors.
Various flora occupied the area, flowers that Jane had never set eyes on or thought of. Everything had a type of mystic aura to it. Now she should have been having a very drastic reaction to all of this but Jane was a somewhat sensible person and had come to terms with the fact that she must be dreaming. Well she at least had convinced herself that she must be dreaming or otherwise she really would have begun to freak out and that always gets out of hand quite quickly.
While she may have been sensible, focused was another story all together. She had only just now noticed a change of wardrobe. Her normal blouse and skirt had been replaced with a dress. A ridiculously long dress, one would have to lift up the edges to trek very far. Or very much at all for that matter. It was light blue in color and rather frilly and almost reminded her of-
Alice's dress.
Ah yes that was it.
That must have been it.
She had just spent too much time so late at night baking Wonderland goods for her brain to handle that she dreamed about it.
She should wake up soon though, she never really slept for too long. She considered wandering off through this imaginary forest until she awoke but as far as she knew this could be a nightmare and she'd rather not take the risk. (too much sugar had not always been kind to her in these past years so she wouldn't have been surprised) So she instead opted to sit down peacefully until time passed and she woke up.
"OH COME ON NOW!" yelled Jane at the top of her lungs as she pinched her arm with all of her might.
For the 20th time at least.
She sighed looking at her now red and aching arm. She had waited peacefully for quite a while, what felt like hours, but nothing happened. She figured a simple pinch would wake her up for sure. 20 simple pinches later and no such luck. At one point she had even tried smashing her head upon a nearby dream tree but she was fairly sure it started moving afterwards so she quickly scampered back to her previous spot.
She puffed out her cheeks, becoming rather flustered. This was becoming pretty frustrating. She certainly didn't mind dreaming, especially with such beautiful scenery but it was starting to bother her that she usually only sleeps for a couple hours at a time and this had clearly been much longer.
She sighed.
Maybe if she kept moving she would wake up soon. She hiked up her dress and went on her way, being careful not to trip. (That had happened a few times on her way to that nearby tree)
The entire area was incredibly silent aside from her own footsteps and occasional frustrated sigh. This continued for quite a while until Jane was sure she had heard something a bit off. An extra footstep. Occasionally she would hear an offbeat thump out of tune with her slow walking pace. She was positive that someone else was nearby. She stopped walking to gaze in every direction. No one in sight. No one was there. She sighed again.
"Good golly was I really this tired?" She asked herself.
She didn't expect an answer. "Hell if I know. If you're tired maybe you should lay- ... lie... lay.. which one was it again? Eh, maybe you should ..sit down?"
Jane probably jumped 5 feet in the air. She easily could have made even better air without the dress weighing her down. She managed to choke out a "W- who goes there?" followed by a "Hello..?"
No reply. Jane was about to sigh and complain about the sugar getting the best of her once again when she noticed something... or smelled something. A foul pungent smell that very nearly took the breath right of her. A shocking but rather recognizable odor. Alcohol.
It had to be fairly close to her or it wouldn't have managed to be making her as nauseous as it was so quickly. She turned her head. It must be around here somewh-
"Hi."
Jane let out a squeak that more than likely qualified as an inhuman creak as she launched herself backwards away from whatever it was that had startled her.
She had stumbled back and landed flat on her bottom (in quite an unflattering pose).
Jane looked up up to be greeted with a stranger's smile.
Honestly.
Only the smile of the stranger. Not the stranger themselves.
This was certainly one of the strangest things Jane Crocked had seen.. second only to a few other sugar induced hallucinations that she preferred not to speak about.
In front of her was the smirk of a person.. supposedly. It looked like the mouth of a human.. pretty feminine based on the lips.. yet the teeth looked as if they had been sharpened and filed down to a point. The mouth continued to smirk at her for a few seconds before the other facial features revealed themselves to the bewildered girl.
It was a girl.
Human or not.
It was definitely a girl.
She had a femine face framed delicately by light blonde hair.. which had a slight peach-ish tint. Though that very well may have just been the lighting in this strange area. Her eyes were a bold pink that could captivate one for hours.. not that Jane had noticed.. too terribly much.
She had a set of cat ears upon her head and Jane was positive that one of them had moved a bit. Upon closer inspection the girl also appeared to have a tail and wore some rather interesting clothing that she could not quite describe with mere words.
It was a sight to be seen for sure.
Jane might could have lived without seeing it though.
"I said Hi."
The girl repeated and Jane stood up.
She hesitated for a moment before replying. "Hello.."
As soon as she did so the strange feline girl grinned as wide as she could in Jane's direction. Jane would admit that it was a bit adorable if not for the fact that she was still fairly terrified.
Then it hit her.
"The cheshire cat..."
At the very mention of that phrase the girl lost her grin and her feline ears flattened against her head.
"Awww... I didn't even get to properly introduce myself and ya already know my name. How rude" She whined.
Jane shot her an unimpressed look and the girl giggled. "Geez I'm only joking, girly. Sometimes other people do know my name! For some strange raisin. Uh. Reason. Yeah that's it. Reason." The girl chuckled a bit nervously.
Jane shook her head, this was all giving her a bit of a headache. This isn't exactly how she remembered Alice's adventures in wonderland.
"Well I would hope that most people do know Alice in Wonderland and would be able to recognize you.. granted you aren't exactly like the one I remember."
The girl tilted her head nearly completely parallel with the ground, immensely curious. "Alice?" She laughed. "Whaaas that?"
Jane wasn't in the mood for a lengthy explanation, especially to someone who appeared to be a character from said story but decided to humor the girl nonetheless.
"Alright... essentially its a story about a young girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole after chasing a rabbit, landing in a strange land.. 'wonderland' if you will, and she meets a variety of goofy characters in this magical land, and there is a queen, and all sort of crazy things. Even items such a bottle labeled "DRINK ME" whose contents cause her to shrink down, and a cake labeled "EAT ME" which causes her to grow and honestly it's a bit too much explain but.. it's pretty magical. "Jane gave a small exasperated smile.
The girl gave a strange look after hearing the impromptu explanation but nodded and smiled anyway. "pff that sounds really strange" she said dragging out the last word a bit.
Jane had come to notice the girl occasionally stuttered on her words, dragged them out, or occasionally completely misused them.
"Excuse me Miss... cat.." Jane spoke up
"Yeessss?"
"Um.. Excuse me but are you.. drunk?"
The 'Cheshire Cat' laughed.
"Only sometimes. More importantly Miss.. alice-"
"That's not my name that's only the character who-"
"well miss Alice that story sure sounds neat! But I have like... no idea what it has to do with us and our land. I mean.. the only thing you'll find that'll tell you to 'EAT ME' is me!" At this the cat girl leaned in closer to Jane with a wide smirk, allowing Jane to clearly smell the alcohol lacing her breath.
"Eh!"
Jane stumbled back a bit, face completely red as she tried to hide it in her hands. This was most certainly not how the story went.
The feline girl couldn't possibly contain her laughter and was happily nearly busting a gut as the flustered Jane waddled away from her awkwardly.
"Pfffshh.. I was just gettin' your goat."
She tilted her head a bit.
"Maybe literally.. I mean I bet ya could fit a goat down here, eh?"
The feline girl reached over and began to lift up Jane's overly large dress, lowering her head as if to take a look.
"E-EXCUSE ME!" Jane squeaked and tried her best to push the girl's hand away but really only gave the appearance of flapping her limbs around.
The feline girl snicked. "Aw you're soo cute.. anyway girly. Yeah, sounds pretty strange."
Jane was working on recomposing herself after that personal space invasion.
"I- i think you're right. This isn't at all like the story I remember.. there wasn't even a rabbit hole. Then again I'm just dreaming so whatever does it matter?"
The girl gave her a questioning smile.
"Dream? Well I don't know what ya mean.. but I can say one thing. Who needs a rabbit hole? Dreams are pretty deep ya know. You dont just end up in them when ya fall asleep.. you could have fallen down a dozen holes before you ended up in your dream.. hey who knows. Maybe your whole life was the fall up until when you landed here."
She smiled slightly and glanced at the ground.
Jane found it rather unsettling. She also found that a rather odd thing coming from this girl.
"Well dream or no dream.. rabbit hole.. cat hole.. whatever holes you fantasize, I think ya better get going."
She grabbed Jane's hand and began to lead her forward, she swayed a bit as she walked with her.
"Things get pretty crazy here and it's best not to stay in one place for too long. You're here for a reason 'dream' or no dream.. and it's best you get going. Aha I mean I wouldn't want ya to end up like the last chump who laundered around here!" She giggled and acted as if whatever had happened to this poor 'chump' was basic information that everyone knew.
Jane was rather thankful she didn't know.
"Anyway Alice.. I suggest ya get going. I'd miss you if ya didn't."
Before Jane could reply the girl was already strutting off in the distance, her laughter lingering. The more she walked the ground changed to a brighter pink color.
She called back one last time.
"Bye Alice!"
Jane shook her head and called after her "My name isn't Alice it's-"
She was gone.
No where in sight.
Not even her infectious laughter remained.
Jane sighed.
Oh goodness.
Might as well get going.