Cedric poured the cardamom-clary sage-lavender oil that Sofia had given him for Wassailia into his cauldron and mixed it in while it heated, breathing the spicy-floral fumes it gave off as it cooked. He was currently using the oils in a recipe from his spellbook called the 'Sweetest Dream Potion', which he had heard would give him a good night's rest. He sorely needed one after tirelessly making Sofia's Wassailia gift and doing all of the magical decorating around the castle over the holidays.
He had attempted this potion only once before, or so he thought. Between the years past since magic school and the fatigue he felt after the holidays, Cedric didn't realize that the simple sleep potion he'd made in school, the 'Sweet Dream Potion', was not the same potion that he was making now. Though similarly named, the 'Sweetest Dream Potion' was very different, and to say the least, much more potent...
But he did not realize this, so he thought nothing of gulping down the entire vial of potion once it was ready. "Hmm, now let's see, the potion will take effect in 30 minutes or so, so I should be able to..."
Cedric blinked as a strange sight suddenly popped up in the corner of his eye, and he quickly turned his head to confirm whether or not it could possibly be real. Sure enough, Princess Sofia's gray rabbit was sitting in the middle of the floor, dressed in the strangest red and gold vest and coat.
The sorcerer raised an eyebrow at the creature. "What...? Rabbit, what on earth are you doing here, and who put you in that ridiculous coat and-"
Suddenly, to Cedric's great shock, the Gray Rabbit pulled out a golden pocket-watch from within his coat, and seemed to jump with fear at what he saw on it. Then, to Cedric's utter bafflement, the beast actually -spoke-, aloud, "Oh my fur and whiskers! I'm late! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"
"W-What...?" Cedric mumbled, but instead of answering his inquiry, the rabbit suddenly leaped into a hole that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, in the middle of Cedric's floor. Peering down into the hole, which seemed to go on forever, Cedric was abruptly overcome by a wave of dizziness, and he fell over, into the darkness of the hole.
Wormwood watched with a strange look in his eyes and his head cocked in confusion as his master, for whatever reason, swayed and then fell forward onto the floor almost immediately after drinking that smelly potion...
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Time seemed to slow down in that weird, dark hole. That or it was so deep Cedric couldn't keep up with how long he'd been falling. Neither sounded like great options, so he simply waited patiently until he eventually landed on the bottom. He unfortunately had lost his wand before falling into the hole, so that wouldn't do him any good.
Eventually his fall slowed more and more until he landed softly on his feet in the middle of a hallway. On either side of this hallway there was a line of doors that seemed to go on forever. But since that was impossible, Cedric started off down the hall, looking for an exit.
After an immeasurable amount of time, Cedric finally came across the final door at the end of the hall, which the Gray Rabbit had just exited through before closing the door - An incredibly tiny door - Behind him.
Peering at the impossibly little door, Cedric at first wondered how he would get in. Then he noticed that there was a little table nearby, and on that table there was an incredibly tiny key, which obviously belonged to the tiny door, and a bottle that was labeled with a piece of paper that read, 'Drink me'.
Cedric picked up the bottle and glared at the simple instructions written on it, talking aloud to no one in particular, "Now this is just ridiculous. Who would drink from a random bottle they found lying around, just because it said 'Drink me'? There could be anything in this bottle, bleach, poison-I have to drink this bottle." He abruptly announced, taking off the cork and downing the contents before he could stop himself. "Good lord. Why on EARTH did I just drink that-WHOA!" He exclaimed as his body tensed up, and the room around him seemed to shoot up as tall and as quickly as bamboo shoots.
But the case actually was that the room hadn't grown at all - Cedric had in fact shrunk. He was now just small enough to fit through the door, and luckily, since he'd had the good sense to keep the key in his hand while he shrunk, he was able to get through.
He found himself in a pretty little garden, beyond which was a pretty little house, and the Gray Rabbit was sitting outside of it, tapping his foot impatiently and glancing back and forth from his watch. As soon as Cedric walked up, the Rabbit began to scold him, "Why, Mary Ann, what ARE you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!"
Cedric stared openly at the hare, his mouth slightly ajar for a moment or two. "...Actually, you know what? No. I think I've had quite enough of talking animals for today, thank you! I'm going to go find some humans in all this madness." And with that, he simply stomped on by the Rabbit's house without another care for it.
Wandering off into the forest, the sorcerer began to dearly wish that a friendly, familiar face would arrive to greet him soon. He soon got his wish, however, unfortunately for him, that familiar face was attached to a blue caterpillar, and he didn't look particularly friendly.
"B-Baileywick...?" Cedric breathed out in sheer confusion, watching the normally hard-working steward sitting on a mushroom, lazily smoking from a hookah.
Baileywick's face gave him a short glance, then went back to his pipe, sucking in a lungful of vapor and then blowing the blue smoke out at Cedric, "Who... Are you?"
The sorcerer balked at the bad habit, and coughed as the smoke flew in his face. It was a simple enough question, but in this situation, which was the furthest thing from simple, Cedric wasn't really sure how to answer, and ended up blathering his confusion for a moment. "To be completely honest - I hardly know myself, just at present... I knew who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then..."
The Blue Caterpillar Baileywick glared at him sternly and demanded, "What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!"
Cedric raised an eyebrow and threw his hands up in utter exasperation, running out of patience. "Explain myself?! YOU explain yourself! Explain why you're a bloody blue caterpillar and why I'm only three wretched inches tall, explain that!"
Caterpillar-Baileywick sniffed in displeasure, "How rude! I am exactly three inches tall and it is a very good height indeed!"
Cedric scoffed, "Pft. Speak for yourself. I think I'm done here, human-caterpillars don't count..."
"Ugh! Wait!" The caterpillar called after him. "I don't know why I'm doing this, but I'll give you a helpful hint! One side will make you grow taller..."
Cedric stopped once he heard that there was a way to get taller, "Wait, one side of what?"
"...and the other side will make you grow shorter."
"The other side of WHAT?" Cedric insisted impatiently.
Which caused Caterpillar-Baileywick to lose his temper too, "THE MUSHROOM, OF COURSE!" He exploded, pointing all of his many caterpillar-hands down at the mushroom he was sitting on, which he then promptly crawled off of and away from, taking his hookah with him and grumbling something about clueless inter-dimensional tourists.
As soon as the weird bug-man had crawled a good distance away, Cedric headed over to the mushroom, and took a big chunk out of the top and the underside of the mushroom, trying not to think about the fact that Caterpillar-Baileywick had been sitting on it a moment ago.
"Alright, now which side is which...?" He wondered aloud, hesitantly sticking out his tongue and testing the underside first. But to his horror, that just started to make him micro-tiny, and the small pebble next to him started to look like a mountain. Quickly, he bit a chunk out of the other side of the mushroom just before it became too big to hold, and thankfully that brought him back up to his proper size.
"Phew!" He rubbed his forehead with relief, then bent down and picked the rest of the mushroom up, separating the two halves and putting them in his pockets for later.
After that he went along his way through the forest once more. He was pretty much just wandering aimlessly for a while, until he came across a house. A stately house, right in the middle of the dense forest. Why not.
Bouncing around in front of the house, King Roland and Queen Miranda were playing like little children in the most ridiculous of outfits - Bright red, high-waisted trousers, oversized blue bow-ties and yellow caps on their heads with spinning tops.
More than a little scared, Cedric wanted to simply walk past them, but was too morbidly curious to resist asking, "Your majesty, why are you dressed like that...?"
"Because!" Miranda exclaimed first.
Roland followed her, "Everyone expects there to be a Tweedle Dum!"
Miranda picked up after him, "And a Tweedle Dee! Even though we're not in this book!"
"Yeah, we actually don't come in until the 'Looking Glass'-sequel!" Roland finished their 'explanation', beaming in a weirdly proud way.
"...Oh... Okay..." Cedric answered very slowly, backing away from all that nonsense until he reached the front door, then promptly retreating into it as fast as he could.
He realized pretty quickly that he'd just jumped from the pan and into the fire. Literally, almost, because for some inexplicable reason, the front door of the house ended up leading into this person's kitchen, and there was a cook standing over a cauldron with an open flame underneath it, tossing a seemingly endless supply of pepper into the bubbling soup.
Next to the cook, Princess Amber was sitting with a baby Prince James in her arms, who was screaming his lungs out, probably because he was irritated by all the pepper - That or he was scared of that madly grinning cat in the corner. But then Cedric realized, if anything, he was probably scared of his sister, as she began to recite in a freaky way, "Speak roughly to your little boy, and beat him when he sneezes! He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases!"
Cedric's mouth dropped with horror but she went on with her creepy poem, "I speak severely to my boy, I beat him when he sneezes. For he can thoroughly enjoy the pepper when he pleases!"
After a short, stunned silence, Cedric mumbled to himself, "Wow, I knew someone as selfish as Amber probably shouldn't have kids, but that is messed up, even for her..."
The 'Duchess' Amber suddenly got up and threw the bundled baby James over at Cedric, who of course caught him on reflex. But when Cedric removed the blanket from the baby, James had turned into a pig, of all things!
Cedric put the porky prince down immediately. "Uh, yeah, sorry James, but I've recently adopted a strict no-humans-turning-into-animals-policy..." He mentioned, slowly backing away to the back door.
But that weird grinning cat followed out the door after him. "Don't you want to know where you ought to go from here?" It asked.
Cedric rolled his eyes and answered the cat, even though he didn't want to, "I don't really care, I just don't want to be around all this madness anymore!"
The Cat tsked at him, "Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"I'm not mad!" He immediately defended, "How do you know I'm mad?"
"You must be." Answered the Cat, "Or else you wouldn't be here."
Cedric actually stopped to consider that. "Damn, that kind of makes sense... Oh, but I'm not about to be called mad by a Cat! Aren't there any other humans around here?"
"Hmm... Well, the Mad Hatter is a human, and he lives down that way." The Cat gestured lazily in a random direction.
"...Are there any other humans that aren't mad?" Cedric clarified hopefully.
"Sorry. Can't help you there." The Cat answered, the grin bigger than ever. Then, that grin was all Cedric could see, because the rest of the Cat had disappeared.
"Oh, that is really creepy..." He remarked in a whisper, then quickly backed away from the weird Grin and went off in the direction of the 'Mad Hatter'.
He eventually came across another house in this forest of mostly trees and some oddly placed houses, and in the backyard of this house there was a tea party going on. And to Cedric's great surprise, this 'Mad Hatter' that the Cat had referred to was none other than his own Father, Goodwin, in a gigantic, green top-hat. His mother, Winifred, was also there, sporting a pair of brown rabbit ears and whiskers on her cheeks.
Mad-Goodwin looked up from his sip of tea at Cedric, and asked him very seriously, "...Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
At first Cedric was caught off guard. Always wanting to please his parents, his first inclination was to try to make sense of what he'd said and try to obey it somehow. "What-Is this a riddle? Alright, I believe I can guess that..." He added doubtfully, wracking his brain trying to guess the answer. Why WAS a raven like a writing desk? Was it because both beaks and wood are hard...? Oh that didn't make any sense!
His Mad-Father pressured him after a while, "Have you guessed the riddle yet?"
Cedric sighed wearily, "No, I give up. What's the answer?"
"I haven't the slightest idea." Mad-Goodwin snorted.
"Nor I!" March Winifred added, bursting into giggles with him.
Cedric went slack-jawed, utterly offended by their trickery. "You might do something better with your time," He huffed back at them, "Than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers!"
After leaving his Mad-Parents behind, Cedric wandered through the woods again until he eventually came across a castle. In the courtyard of this castle, of all people, Princess Ivy was standing, in a dress with white and black hearts all over instead of butterflies, scowling over a rose-bush that had red paint smeared on all the flowers. She demanded to know in a shrill scream, while weird little Card-People ran around her in a panic, "WHO has been painting my WHITE roses, RED?! Who's been painting my roses red?! Who dares to taint, with vulgar paint, the royal flower bed? For painting my roses red, someone will lose their HEAD!"
The Gray Rabbit suddenly appeared next to Cedric once more, nudging him, "This part actually wasn't in either of the books at all!"
Cedric slapped his forehead. "What ARE you talking about!"
Alerted by his sudden cry of exasperation, Ivy suddenly shoved her finger in his direction. "YOU! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!"
Cedric's eyes bulged out, "WHAT? Wait, stop - I didn't paint your roses!"
"Off with his head anyways!" She replied dismissively.
"On what charges?!" He demanded to know.
To which she shrugged carelessly, "I just plain don't like your face!"
As the Card-Soldiers began to advance, Cedric finally snapped from the absurdity of it all. "That's it!" He snarled, pulling out the top-half mushroom piece from his pocket and shoving the whole thing into his mouth. Immediately he grew into a towering giant, and he grinned madly down at all the little people scurrying about underneath him. Consumed by his lust for power, he cackled as he picked up a whole handful of Heart Queen Ivy's soldiers and threw them up into the air. "Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards! And now I'm the KING of this CRAZY WORLD~! AHAHAHA~!"
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Princess Sofia had been having a nice dream about having a tea party with all her animal friends, when suddenly her amulet began to glow, and a human guest unexpectedly appeared at the end of the table. She was a pretty young girl, with long hair the color of a daffodil, and cornflower blue eyes.
"Hello Sofia." She spoke up politely, her voice like a living doll's. "My name is Alice."
Sofia gasped, "I think I know who you are! But, I didn't know you were a princess...?"
"In fact, I am a queen, my dear." The child answered with a bright smile and a curtsy, causing Sofia to marvel over the regal, child-like queen. "But listen please, for I didn't come to brag about that - I came to warn you, dear Sofia, that your friend Cedric needs your help. I'm afraid to say, he's gone a little mad. He's in a dream world, you see, and if you don't convince him to wake up soon, he might never want to leave..."
"Oh dear." Sofia answered with a little sigh. "Well, would you be kind enough to take me to him, Queen Alice?"
Alice reached out with her tea-cup, and clinked it with Sofia's, instantly transporting them across time and space. The next thing Sofia knew, she was standing in a chaotic castle courtyard, where a gigantic Cedric was standing, laughing maniacally as he threw little card-people up into the air, exclaiming, "I'M THE KING NOW! KING CEDRIC THE GREAT! MUAHAHA!"
Even though she was like a mouse compared to him now, Sofia didn't feel any fear in going up to him, and tugging on the hem of his robe. "Mister Cedric? Maybe you should wake up now...?"
He immediately stopped laughing and looked down at the little princess by his feet in confusion, "What? Why on Earth would I want to do that? I'm a giant here now, I'm the KING! I can do whatever I want!"
"Oh, Cedric..." Sofia patiently sighed. "You're not the King, you're our Royal Sorcerer. We'd miss you if you didn't come back..."
Cedric crossed his arms petulantly, "That's not true! Nobody in all of Enchancia respects me or my magic..."
The Princess glared lightly at the giant, placing her hands on her hips and scolding him, "No, -that's- not true! I respect you, Mister Cedric. And everyone else does too, even if they don't always say it. After all, if the King could do magic, he wouldn't need a Royal Sorcerer - So really, if you think about it, you're just as important to the kingdom as he is!"
Winding down from the emotional overload, Giant Cedric plopped down on the ground next to her, gloomily settling his chin in his hands. "Do you really think that...?"
"I know it, Mister Cedric. Now won't you please come home with me?" She pleaded softly, patting his gigantic knee.
"Oh, alright..." He finally agreed reluctantly, "But how do we do that?"
Alice walked up to the strange pair, producing a key for them and pointing to a door that had appeared from nowhere in the middle of the garden. "Just use that last piece of mushroom to shrink down, and go through this door, and you'll be back home again."
Sofia hugged her new friend, "Thank you for the help, Alice!"
After shrinking down again, Cedric gave the queenly child a small bow as he passed her, then he followed Sofia as she used the key she'd been given to open the door. A blinding bright white light washed over them from the doorway, and before they knew it, they found themselves waking up in their bed, and on the floor, respectively.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Cedric slept in the next morning, which wasn't uncommon so nobody said anything about it. After breakfast Sofia started heading to his room to check on him, but instead she found him in the hallway, rubbing his head and groaning. She exclaimed, "Oh, Mister Cedric, I was just looking for you! Are you alright?"
He yawned and stretched out his arms, popping his back. "Hmm...? Yes, I suppose I am... I had the STRANGEST dream last night, but for some reason I can't remember it now..."
Sofia giggled and shrugged, "Oh well! Are you all rested up, at least?"
He blushed a little and scratched behind his head, "Well, yes, I suppose I do feel well-rested now..."
"Good! Because I've got a magic test coming up that I could really use your help on! Will you help me, please? You know I -really- appreciate your magic!" She added coyly. "I'm really glad you're our Royal Sorcerer, Mister Cedric!"
He smiled back at her, and yawned again, "Oh, alright... But only because flattery will get you everywhere, ohoho~"
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO