Muchness
The Mad Hatter watched Alice carefully out of the corner of his eye. She sat with her hands clasped on her lap, sitting on her pile of books. He was talking, but of what he wasn't even sure. Something about the slaying of the Jabberwocky perhaps?
He noted how her blonde hair spilled about her shoulders in shiny ringlets, as though her silky locks had trapped the sun's light – or what little there was nowadays, what with the Bloody Big Head running things – within them. Her eyes carefully watched the goings-on, as if she couldn't quite figure out what to make of what she saw.
Memories filled his mind – or what was left of it. Images of a little blonde-haired girl, clad in a blue dress and apron, sitting in that very chair oh-so-innocently. Little hands grasping her teacup, a bright smile on her face. They all knew she would be the one to free them. She had the muchness; she just needed to be a little bigger, a little older.
But then she left, as suddenly as when she'd dropped into their world. None of them forgot her, the little girl who had brought a ray of sunshine to their dark and gloomy world. The girl who would one day bring more sunshine to their world when she freed them from the Bloody Big Head's rule.
And now she was back, smaller than what she was, but that was just because of the pishsalver. Nothing the White Queen couldn't fix when they got to Marmoreal.
But she was different – and it wasn't just the size. Her muchness, which had been so bountiful the first time she had come, was gone. She didn't have that Alice factor she had brought with her as a little girl, didn't have the courage to do mighty things. And those mighty things required muchness in order to be done.
His thoughts continued tumbling even while he yelled in Outlandish at Cheshire. Mallymkun calmed him down, and he sat down once again, still thinking about Alice. Maybe she didn't have quite as much muchness as she did before, but there was still a small fragment there.
He knew it. He knew their Alice wouldn't let them down.