Fitting
He had it.
The perfect and most becoming 'Alice' hat.
Providing she was the precise Alice size he was thinking of when creating it.
It was so utterly Alice that it could not possibly be adorned on any other Alice than the one it was destined for. If it wasn't Alice, it wasn't worn.
It was a most Alice-y hat indeed.
Maybe that's why he liked touching it. When he was waiting.
She had tumbled into Underland twice before; it was bound to happen again. Like fate kept opening up the very earth itself to throw her back in.
A delicate teabag being dunked over and over and over. Up and down, clear fresh air into murky mystery; dark and suffocating.
But delicious.
Yes, he was almost positively sure that to Alice, Underland was deliciously dangerous, or dangerously delicious, or whichever order she decided was most fitting.
It didn't matter all that much.
So long as she came back, and he could present her with her Alice hat, and then converse with her on how well he had created the headpiece that was so Alice, and see her wear it, she could call Underland a ditch full of rotten squimberries for all it was worth.
He was touching it now.
The hat.
He had wanted to have a gift ready when she returned: twice she had been a guest to their land and he had been without a present to... present to her. And he highly doubted it proper manners and etiquette where she came from to offer tea only to have it just miss ones' head.
It was tea, in fact, that had inspired him to make Alice a hat.
In a way.
Collecting the few cups and teapots still intact after arriving back home, to the tea party that had seemed to never end, to the constant waiting, the Hatter had noticed a definite weight to one nearest to his oversized and tattered armchair.
A solid weight; not at all like tea. Not at all.
It was quite the surprise finding blue silk stuffed away in his beloved tea vessel.
It was Alice's. She too had been thrust into the teapot along with her then oversized garment.
Hiding.
Since she wasn't in need of it anymore, he decided in an instant to put it to good use; waste not want not.
And so it sat nearest to him upon the shambles and clutter of Thackery's tables. It was not to be toyed with, played around, or to have any Tomfoolery in it's vicinity.
His comrades in madness were the first to discover that the hat was not to be trifled with when Mallymkun attempted to crawl under the hand stitched edges that seemed so inviting for one of her stature; when Thackery threw a jug of milk a little too recklessly to Hatter.
He felt the madness consume him momentarily, dark swirls around keenly yellow eyes and dropped octaves that felt out of place coming from within him.
And just as quickly, it was gone.
Like his mind.
It was fine, he was fine, so long as the hat stayed Alice.
Soft, blue, simple.
It even smelled like Alice.
But it was lacking a most important component, a greivous and most terrible loss.
It had no muchness.
It had no muchness when she was wearing the garment, so naturally it had none now.
That is why it was imperative and certain, in his mind, that she would come back.
Only then would it be fit for Alice.
A true Alice hat.