Summary: Alice comes over for tea at the Hatter's but drinks something forbidden and now she's...small? She must wander wonderland in search of the antidote, avoiding the role holders who might want to play with her 'being doll-sized' at all costs.
AN: for the chapter names, I will name the '6 impossible things before breakfast' from the Alice in Wonderland movie and if Alice doesn't get the antidote by the end of the sixth...I'll improvise :). Enjoy!
Chapter 1: A Potion that Makes you Shrink
Tea at the Hatters seems the least normal compared to other territories. The Mafia boss aka Blood Dupre would be most pleasant at the tea party whereas if he has decided to do business with you, it is advised to you fairly: RUN! It'll give you one more day of your life. At some point, that little thought was enough to pressure a certain someone's departure.
However that was the least of one's problems, Dee and Dum, the Tweedles were cute and fairly innocent to any living human being but even at today's tea, they hid their favorite scythes behind their chairs as to make sure the party wouldn't get boring for children like themselves.
That just left Elliot March, Blood's right hand man (or was it left?). Now, Elliot is-.
Well, he is-.
He is the prime March Hare who is too stubborn to let the guest foreigner, Alice Liddell to tug at his rabbit-like ears. That has to be a crime somehow.
Alice sat at the far end of the table in between Blood and the twins. From there, all she was visibly concerned about was the Tweedle's scythes that sparkled their sharp ends at Alice almost mockingly.
"onee-san, is staring at our scythes!" Dee announced gleefully
"She must want us to test it on her!" added Dum. The idea sunk in and her face drained completely of color.
"now now, we mustn't frighten the young lady out, she is too precious to be leaving so soon" that seemed dreadfully suspicious coming from Blood himself. So Alice ignored the man's comment even as he started to play with a dangling strand of her hair.
"That's right, Alice hasn't tried our famous White tea yet" Elliot said
"Oh, hasn't she?" Blood brushed at her bangs and Alice immediately shook him off.
"What's 'White' tea?" she grimaced
"Oh, we're not talking about anything related to Peter 'White'" Elliot chuckled and shook his hands in front of him, relieving Alice.
"It's this special tea we stol- er, bought from another territory. It's no doubt, pure white even the steam is lighter than usual. Plus, it tastes just like carrot cakes!"
"Stupid newbie-hare, it tastes nothing like carrot cakes, it tastes more like" Dee thought for a moment "chocolate"
"No it doesn't, it tastes like caramel!"
"All the more: chocolate, brother. Everyone knows they're the same" Dum seemed to contemplate a great deal on that last note. The three continued to bicker but Alice hardly paid any attention to it. She tried to think of a tea that held a flavor of carrot cakes, chocolate AND caramel.
"Must taste…special" she said
"It is special" she heard Blood say at her right, her head swiveled toward him.
"It manipulates your taste buds whichever flavor you consider favorable" as he briefly explained this, two maids approached the table holding two stout teapots, placing them down cautiously and quickly leaving.
Nothing was different with the teapots considering appearance, they both had the same Plain Jane design and both were just, white. Porcelain white.
"One of 'ems White tea the other's boss' personal tea" Dee hyped up, halting his short fight with the hare.
"So how will you know which tea to drink?"
"We guess!" Dum smiled
"It's kind of like a game" Elliot went on
"And guests are normally the first to play" Blood gestured to the teapots and Alice hesitantly reached for the one on the right.
"How will I know which tea is which?" she might as well have asked 'what will you do to me if I drank the wrong tea?'
Blood smirked "you can tell by the taste" Alice neurotically gulped in a sizable amount of saliva before pouring some tea for herself.
"Anyone else want to go first?" she attempted for the last time but it died down in silence.
"No? I guess not" she sighed. No turning back, she thought. She sipped.
Saying it was good would be a terrible understatement; it was amazing, warm, creamy. She couldn't help but finish the whole cup in less than five seconds, a few drops sinking in the top of her dress. It left this peculiar craving at the tip of her tongue. She licked her moist lips.
"Is this White?" too late. She peeked at the transparent tea and saw her own reflection however nothing was white in terms of hue.
"You lose!" the twins snickered.
"Ok, I lose" Alice raised her hands up in defeat.
"So what kind of tea is THIS then?"
"Black" came Blood's voice
"Black Tea"
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Alice's eyes fluttered open to the queer loud sound of curtains flapping harmoniously at her window side and also due to the fact that the sun was literally blinding her. This never happened before in Wonderland, she'd normally wake up to Julius' clocks being noisily fixed in the other room.
Getting up to a sitting position, she realized that she wasn't at the clock tower. Her eyes were still partly blind because of the morning wake-up call and all she could make out with her terrible eyesight was a prestigious overlarge cabinet beside a beautiful overlarge lamp.
"Gosh, I'm still at the Mansion" she cried in epiphany.
What happened at the tea party yesterday? She couldn't remember. Waking up in the guest room of your tea party host's mansion seemed pretty natural but why couldn't she remember all this?
"Onee-san, are you awake?" incredible banging came from the exterior part of the door and Alice clutched at her throbbing ears.
"Quit banging the door!" she cried
"Oh, so she is awake" Dee's voice, she could tell.
"Hm, I don't think we should bother her in the morning" (Dum)
"Yeah, she might not like it... Let's take a vote!"(Dee) Alice groaned in disappointment.
"Your right brother, all in favor of going in?" (Dum) a moment of silence followed.
"Majority wins" the door slammed open with a resounding BANG and all could do was cover up her ears yet again to keep herself from growing deaf.
"Stop being so noisy in the morning!" she complained, turning to face the towering twins so she could give them a piece of her mind. And when she meant 'towering', she meant it. They could almost pass for the Twin Towers back in the real world, especially in their gray checkered pajamas. Alice cocked an eyebrow at them.
"Hey, did you guys get taller?"
"Did we get taller? Or did you get smaller?" Dum pointed a shaky finger at her and Dee just bobbed his head, both were in a state of pure shock.
"What are you talking about I'm not-" she abrupt her objection once her tiny fingers grappled a very thick and rather heavy blanket sheet, her legs being completely shackled in a sea of bright blue and cartoon stars. She eased them out, her long striped socks resembling white worms entangled in aqua.
"Onee-san is a Barbie doll!" that's when it all made sense, the blinding light, the loud sounds the curtains made and the overlarge furniture. She scanned her body for any change. So far: none, let alone the fact that she was the size of a plastic doll.
She would've screamed, kicked, cried, do tantrums, anything to get her body back to its original height. Anyone normal would've done that and yet she was frozen shocked.
Then again, this was Alice. She was different.
She looked up at Dee and Dum, their big faces closing in on her in observation. "This is a dream, right?"
Dee suddenly began to grin. "If it was, then this is the best dream yet"
"Agreed brother, I like the idea of onee-san being a doll" Dum gave out a laugh but the foreigner paid less attention to it. She was too distracted pinching her arm multiple times only to successfully yelp like a Chihuahua.
"Ok, so I'm not dreaming"
"Could've fooled me" Dum remarked. Alice paced the matress in a worrisome pattern. It was so large that it appeared to her like the Western desert. 'it must've had something to do with last night' a voice in the back of her head caused her fingers to snap like a detective with a clue.
"Dee, Dum, what happened last night?" she faced the two boys who had big grins on their complexions which could've been invisible if she was her normal size.
"You want to know, really?"
Alice huffed out a "Yes". And just like that, it was as if she had sold her soul to two living devils.
"Play with us then, onee-san!" clapped a-very-happy Dee.
"Yes onee-san, play with us" Dum captured her right arm between his thumb and pointer finger "and we will tell you everything!" Alice gazed at them suspiciously, her eyes narrowing just as quick.
"Promise?"
"Promise!"
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"Onee-san, hold still!" Dee cried, bringing down his axe.
"No way that's gonna happen!" Alice dodged the weapon and ran like her life depended on it. And upon reaching a dead end, she whirled around just in time to see one of her two enemies lower down a-
"Wait a sec', I need a drink" being small, she jumped on the 'start' button to pause the game and dashed outside the Tweedle's room towards the kitchen.
"How will she open the fridge?" Dum tapped on his PS3 console, careful not to click any buttons. His brother shrugged
"Beats me, I guess she'll go for the Pepsi we left on the floor when we were watching 'Spongebob' last night" true enough after two consecutive minutes, Alice came back, struggling with a half-filled Pepsi drink that was precisely her height.
"How about giving me a hand?"
"Nah, come on, Onee-san! I'm about to slice you up" she groaned, she was getting tired of this. Dropping the enormous soda drink, she grouchily put both of her hands on her hips and stared hard at their crouched backs, finding the pattern of their shirts pretty interesting in this height.
"Enough games, Dee, Dum, what happened last night?" Dum peeked from behind his shoulder before shifting his entire form towards the living doll.
"No clue"
"What?"
"He said 'no clue'" his counterpart reversed himself.
"I heard what he said" said Alice. She would've smacked them in her normal height but under the circumstances, she didn't.
"so, you guys LIED to me?" she glared at them as if they were traitors, which was almost a convincing label with what they promised.
"Hey, we kept our promise, onee-san!" she cocked her eyebrow yet the two children didn't notice it.
"We said 'we'll tell you everything' but we know nothing so no point in the 'everything' part, right?" the fact massaged itself rather slowly into Alice's head. For a moment there, it seemed the twins had outsmarted the older foreigner but then again, with her being this size, the excuse was obvious. Not only had her physical appearance shrunk but her brain has shrunk too.
"So why didn't you guys just tell me you didn't know anything? I could've asked Elliot or Blood"
"We wanted onee-san to play with us!" they chorused innocently.
She slapped a hand to her forehead, repeating things like 'I should have known' or 'just kill me now'. Alice decided that she better do something before the 'fun-sized' effect grows permanent. She whirled around swiftly and headed for the door.
"I'm going to try Elliot, I think he'll know what happened last night" she expected them to whine, complain or whatever children do when they don't get what they want but they just remained...quiet. Eerily quiet. Her eyebrows furrowed once she felt this strange aura, a tingling goose-bump trailing her skin. Her left foot paused mid-way.
"Dee? Dum?" she peered over her shoulder and saw them with their scythes, raised and sharpened so skillfully it sparkled at the end.
"er, I'll be going, alright?" she faced them, attempting the best mother-like face she could recreate. Their dark expressions didn't falter.
"Oh but onee-san can't leave now" Dum nodded
"Yes, we haven't finished our game yet" a glint shown in both pairs of eyes and Alice took a hesitant step back.
"I'll finish the game with you guys when I get back to normal size"
"It's okay, onee-san, we could finish it now" said Dee
"I agree so where was I?" Dum tapped his chin thoughtfully. Alice's instincts tugged on her, demanding that she'd get a move on fast.
"Oh right, I was going to slice you up" this wasn't a game any more, Alice realized.
There eyes blinked into a malicious unnatural blood-red pigment and although, it was normal for one twin to have those eyes, it just wasn't the same this time. Their blood-shot orbs had no sign of the children they were moments ago. It was similar to their youth disappearing and in its place, possession, need, want. Dum stretched his limb thus bringing up his weapon and that was a signal to Alice.
Run. She did. Her hands curled around bits of her aquamarine dress, allowing her to uplift her dress an inch to allow her feet to move. She missed Dum's scythe by a second.
"No fair, onee-san cheated!" he cried, chasing after the tiny figure. Dee's scythe came hurtling towards her, slightly cutting the sleeve of her dress and stuck to the wall on the opposite end.
"Mission: throw-weapon failed, brother"
"It's alright brother, we have her on the run" the truth in their words calmed Alice less and she searched for an escape route. Only one option since Dum went to shield the door. The window. She made a wild dash for it, dodging a rain of her-size action figures and scary knives. She grasped the curtains of the window and began to climb.
"She's escaping!"
"No duh!" the foreigner panted, easing up to the base of the open window. She could already smell the fresh cool air that seeped through the rectangular opening.
RIP! Alice toppled to the ground and the curtain fell on top of her, sandwiching her painfully. "good throw, brother" one of the Tweedles remarked but personally, she didn't care which one. She's learned that with her being so fragile and tiny, garments and cloth were always heavy so she crawled out of it with much difficulty. Her waist was still caught in the curtain when she spotted the item used to cut the curtain.
A butcher knife. What the hell was a butcher knife doing in the kid's room?
"Quick, brother! The window!" Dee didn't have to be told, he charged for it.
Alice had two options in ten seconds. Give in and let them finish their game which ruled that they should kill her. Or the neighboring mouse hole one foot away. She grunted, no way is she going in there. It was an open doorway leading outside however it was decorated with spider webs and dust bunnies. It was dark and gloomy like the outer part of it was so far away. No sign of any living critter so far but who knows when one will decide to go home.
"Now onee-san can be our toy forever" Dee's maroon eyes sparkled.
"Yes, forever and ever" Dum walked melodramatically her way, holding up a black-hilted knife.
Their 'special treasure'. She remembered them mentioning it to her and that they wanted to...try it on her. Ok, maybe creepy hole in the wall didn't look so bad.
"So long boys!" Alice called back. Eyeing her exit, she scrambled inside. The knife skimming past the split ends of her hair just barely.
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"Um, brother?"
"Yes, brother?"
"Why is my scythe stuck to the wall?"
"You tell me, brother. Why is our curtain cut?"
"dunno..."
"..."
"Well, I'm hungry"
"Lets go, brother, I think there's a cake outside"
AN: I like HnKnA so much I couldn't resist putting this up ^^. I'm not done with this yet, that's pretty much all I'll promise.
Review pls! Cookies for those who will. Seriously, my mother just baked a pack. If I do get a review and my story doesn't suck, I'll update by this week.
Thank you anyway for reading, 'till next time! ;)