Title: Wonderland (1/?)
Author: silvermoon8705 (dk323 on livejournal)
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Merlin/Arthur, Morgana, Gwen, Nimueh, Freya
Spoilers: Takes place post-S2
Disclaimer: The show Merlin is property of the BBC. Don't own Alice in Wonderland either. No money is being made.
Summary: Merlin finds himself in Wonderland, but the situation gets even more complicated when Arthur follows after him.
Author's Notes: This is a Merlin/Alice in Wonderland fusion, I suppose. This is more reminiscent of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), but changes have been made accordingly. I'm wondering what everyone thinks of this. I do have an idea of where to go with this. The reason why things are the way they are will be further explained in the next chapter. All I can say is poor Merlin. ;)
~ * ~
"Morgana?" Merlin said out loud in surprise.
He had been out hunting with Arthur when he stopped his horse at the sight of Morgana ahead of them. She was wearing a silken white dress, a color that looked odd on her as Merlin wasn't used to seeing her in such pale clothing. She was looking around as if someone were going to jump out at her, appearing quite tense and impatient.
"Merlin, what is it?" Arthur asked him. He brought his steed to a stop beside Merlin.
"I think that's Morgana," Merlin explained, feeling rather puzzled as to why she was here. Shouldn't she be with Morgause somewhere hidden? Arthur and his men hadn't been able to locate her in their search a few weeks ago now.
Arthur peered up ahead and he nodded. "Yes, I think you're right, Merlin."
Morgana was holding on to something silver and round that was dangling on a chain. She opened the cover of the round object and looked at it with her brow furrowed, muttering to herself.
"We should follow her," Merlin decided.
Arthur just stared at him incredulously. "There's clearly something off about her," he pointed out. "We're not going to follow her no matter how familiar she looks. It could be a trap. A magical trap."
"Not everything can be explained away by sorcery, Arthur," Merlin told him reasonably.
Arthur raised his eyebrow at him. "Really, Merlin. What would you know about magic? Do you deem yourself an expert in magic?"
Merlin bit his lip, looking rather uncertain. "No, of course not."
The prince nodded. "Well then. I'm glad that we understand each other."
Merlin nearly fell off of his horse in surprise when he saw Morgana appear beside him.
"I'm running late here. If you would follow me, then that would be lovely," she told him impatiently, her hands on her hips – the silver chain with the round shiny object at its center now around her neck.
"Er, what?" Merlin said, unsure of what to say. What was she talking about? Why did they have to follow her?
"Morgana, what is this about?" Arthur demanded.
Morgana raised her hands in a huff. "Oh, honestly! Hatter is getting madder by the second. I simply do not have time for this."
"Are you Morgana?" Merlin inquired, wanting confirmation. She clearly didn't seem like the Morgana they knew. And he certainly had never heard of this Hatter she spoke of.
Morgana gave him a somewhat annoyed look, and she continued looking rather impatient. She peered at the round object with due vigilance before she answered him, "Yes and no. My name is Morgana. There's no time to explain. As I told you, I am running late."
"What is that?" Merlin asked her, intrigued, pointing at the round object she was looking at.
Arthur gave a great sigh, but Merlin flashed him a quick grin before turning back to Morgana – or not-Morgana – whoever she was.
"Oh, this?" Morgana said, pointing to the round object. Merlin nodded. "This is a pocket watch. It's a device to tell time. It hasn't been invented yet. Now, if you would please – could you follow me?" She requested of him.
"Where are we going?" Merlin asked her as he moved forward on his horse.
Morgana shook her head when she noticed Arthur following after Merlin on his own horse.
"I only need Merlin's assistance. It would be best if you stay here," she informed Arthur.
"I'm not letting Merlin go off who knows where," Arthur told her in no uncertain terms, his tone firm.
"Hatter doesn't want you to come! Stay here," she repeated urgently.
"Who the hell is this Hatter?" Arthur wanted to know, sounding very irritated at Morgana not explaining the situation clearly enough.
"Someone who cares about your safety, you idiot!" Morgana shouted at him. Then she said more calmly this time, "Now just go back to Camelot. Merlin will come back before you know it."
Arthur looked very displeased. "Come back? Come back?" he said incredulously.
Merlin tried to placate the blonde. "I'll be fine, Arthur. Just go."
Arthur could not believe what Merlin was saying. "You're going to trust her, Merlin? We don't even know exactly who she is. She may look like Morgana but--"
Morgana interrupted him. "You know, this is all very well and good, but we really must be going now, Merlin."
"Don't worry, Arthur. I can handle myself," Merlin reassured him.
And then Morgana beckoned him to follow where she led. Merlin directed his horse to go the way that Morgana was walking.
Arthur muttered his frustrations under his breath. There was simply no way that he would allow Merlin to go off alone. Who knows what trouble his idiot manservant would get into without Arthur there to look after him?
So he followed after them keeping a slight distance behind the other two, though he could see Morgana noticing him doing the exact opposite of what she requested. But she didn't try to stop Arthur – rather deigning to roll her eyes instead and keep moving forward.
Soon, they reached their destination, which appeared to be a big hole in the ground.
"It would be best if you got off your horse," Morgana said.
Upon seeing the hole, Merlin was feeling rather uncertain. Why did she stop in front of a big hole?
He climbed off his horse and he went over to her. "What do you want me to do?" he asked her.
She nodded at the hole. "Move closer to the hole, right at the edge there," Morgana directed him.
Arthur reached them then, quickly getting off of his horse.
"Merlin, what are you doing?!" He exclaimed as he saw Merlin walking dangerously close to the wide hole in the ground.
Merlin turned around at the sound of Arthur's voice, but he disregarded his words. He felt a peculiar pull from the hole. He went a few more steps before he was near the hole's edge.
Morgana said, "I hope he's right about this," and then she pushed Merlin forward so that he fell into the hole.
"Merlin! What did you do?" Arthur yelled at her. "You tricked him!" He accused her.
She only gave him a peeved look. "Certainly not," she denied firmly. "Fair warning though, if you follow, I can not guarantee that you will end up where Merlin is. He has a destination attached to him, but you do not. Goodness forbid you end up in the wrong place."
Before Arthur could give her a sharp reply, Morgana jumped into the hole herself and she was gone.
Arthur couldn't resist growling in sheer frustration. He walked cautiously over to the hole to investigate it better. He saw that the hole was a very deep one and he couldn't tell where the bottom was as the hole grew darker as he peered down into it. The hole could have been a bottomless one for all he knew, but then again, Morgana – or whoever she was – had said that the hole did lead to somewhere. That there was a destination attached to Merlin, whatever that meant.
While he wasn't especially eager to jump into the hole after Morgana's warning about him landing in the wrong place, Arthur wasn't ready to leave Merlin on his own. For all he knew, the not-Morgana had really tricked him and his manservant was in great danger now. And only Arthur knew where he went and only he could help him.
So with that thought in mind, Arthur took a deep breath and released it, made sure his sword was secure on his belt and he jumped into the hole.
~ * ~
Merlin landed in an odd, circular room after a long fall down the hole where all manner of objects -- musical instruments, desks, chairs, beds and the like – flew about around him.
He was startled to find moving images on the walls around the room.
There was a moving picture of what looked a lot like Freya, but she was wearing a shining white dress of a style that seemed fancier than not-Morgana's silk dress. A two layered necklace graced her neck, pearl on top and diamond on the bottom. The most striking difference was that Freya's hair was a pure white color, though it clearly wasn't due to age as she still appeared as young as the day he first met her in the bounty hunter's cage. He still felt a numb pain at losing her a few months ago, but seeing her here – alive in some form – helped to ease his heartbreak just a little bit.
Freya waved at him, a warm smile on her face, before she seemed to fade away and the image of her disappeared from the wall.
Then he saw a woman -- who looked incredibly like Nimueh -- wearing an elaborate red dress on the wall before him. Restrained by two men donned in red before Nimueh, Merlin was surprised to see someone who looked very much like him. His look-a-like was wearing a curious hat with a wide rim and a top of the hat sticking out at a considerable height with the very top being flat. It was all together a rather absurd looking hat, Merlin thought. And it was strange seeing it on someone with his likeness.
Nimueh appeared quite angry as she said furiously to the man who resembled him, "How dare you favor my goody-two-shoes sister over me!" she exclaimed in outrage.
"Oh, sorry," he said, though he didn't sound all that sorry. "I'm not fond of people whose solution to punish offenders is to cry, "Off with their heads!" It serves no point, really," he finished, shrugging.
Nimueh's expression was that of barely restrained fury. "Fine then! I sentence you to house confinement, an eternal tea party you will have. You will surely go mad in no time, Hatter!"
The Merlin look-a-like appeared unworried about the sentence. "I quite like tea, actually," he remarked idly. "And the chocolate biscuits…those are good."
Nimueh did not appreciate his calm attitude. "You are infuriating! And I will find out where you're hiding your special companion, Pendragon, you mark my words!"
He only laughed in her face. "He could be right under your nose and you still won't see him!" he shot back at her, finding the whole matter rather amusing.
And then the scene on the wall disappeared before Merlin's eyes. He didn't know what to make of what he had seen. So apparently, his look-a-like was named Hatter, the same person who Morgana had mentioned to him and Arthur perhaps? The woman who resembled Nimueh was some sort of ruler, a queen maybe. Merlin took a wild guess and assumed that Freya was the sister Nimueh had talked about – after all, what other reason was there for him seeing an image of Freya?
"Hey, Merlin. We should get going," Morgana spoke up from behind him.
Just managing not to lose his balance at the shock of her appearing so suddenly, he turned around to face her.
He waved his hand at the walls. "I saw these images… I don't understand what they were about exactly, but it was all very strange," Merlin told her.
"You'll find out soon enough," she assured him. "I must get you to Hatter's though. Come along, follow me."
And Morgana waved her hand over the wall in front of her and it turned into a door that opened with barely a touch from her.
She beckoned him to follow her, which he did, albeit a little uncertainly about what he was getting himself into.
Merlin found himself in a beautiful, almost breathtaking forest with tall and thin trees and flowers of every color all around him.
"Where am I?" He wondered, looking around with great interest. He felt rather enchanted by his surroundings – the woods outside of Camelot could not even compare to the beauty that he saw here.
Morgana looked to him and she told him, "This is Wonderland, Merlin. You're in a different world now. I'm sorry to say you couldn't visit under better circumstances, but we can do little about it. Your help is needed."
"Help with what?" Merlin asked.
"We can't talk here. Hatter will explain the situation to you. The Red Queen is always on the lookout for the Resistance. She has spies everywhere."
Merlin recalled the image of Nimueh in red and he asked, "Is the Red Queen's name Nimueh?"
Morgana nodded. "Yes, that's her name. You learned that from the images on the wall?"
"Yes," he confirmed to her even though it wasn't exactly true. He had just been going by assumption -- of what he knew of his world, but Morgana didn't need to know that.
"Well, I'm glad that you took care to remember them," Morgana said, nodding.
Merlin wanted to know more. "I saw this other woman though – dressed in white. Even her hair was white. Where I'm from, her name is Freya--" he explained.
But Morgana stopped her walking abruptly and placed her hand over his mouth quickly. "Ssssh! Not a word! I told you – the Queen's spies are everywhere!"
"Who is she though? Is she really Nimueh's sister here?"
Morgana said to him in a hushed whisper. "Yes, she is. Freya is the White Queen. Now, don't speak another word of her or else the spies will suspect you as an enemy of the Red Queen."
For the rest of their journey to Hatter's house, they walked in relative silence. Merlin saw a striped, purple cat with glowing green eyes grinning almost obscenely at him from his place perched on a tree branch. But then the cat vanished into thin air as if the creature possessed magic of its own.
They reached Hatter's dwelling not long after he encountered the strange, disappearing cat. The first thing that Merlin noticed was a long table covered with tablecloth and laden with crockery, assorted cakes and biscuits, tea, and utensils.
Despite the great length of the table, only two people sat at it. One was Hatter – Merlin was certain of it upon recalling seeing his image in the circular room – who sat at the head of the table. He was wearing his hat and a dark blue waistcoat with a pale blue collared shirt underneath and dark trousers to complete his outfit. He also had a long white beard was attached at his chin. Merlin was certain that the beard was a poor attempt at a disguise as Hatter not only looked like Merlin, but he was close in age to him as well as far as he could discern. His hair, at the very least, was still as dark as Merlin's and certainly not white as the beard was.
Maybe Nimueh had been right, Merlin thought. Maybe Hatter had managed to go mad as a result of her sentence.
The second person looked startlingly like Arthur to Merlin's shock. The blonde man was dressed more casually with a white collared shirt and a red tie that was loose at his neck, and he was clad in light grey trousers. The Arthur look-a-like had his feet up on the table casually and he looked rather bored as he flipped through the pages of a book entitled, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
"Hatter! Pendragon! You have a visitor. His name is Merlin," Morgana announced to the table's occupants, rousing them from their inattentive state. Apparently they were too busy being preoccupied – Hatter drinking his tea while deep in thought and his companion (Pendragon, was it?) reading his book – that they didn't even notice the arrival of him and Morgana.
Hatter looked up first and he smiled upon seeing the two of them.
"Just in time for tea!" He exclaimed.
And then Hatter did the last thing Merlin expected, he climbed up on to the table and walked the length of it until he was in front of them. Quite calmly, Pendragon, apparently expecting the action, had taken his tea cup and plate off of the table to save them from being jostled.
"Well! I have spent enough time here as it is," Morgana said. She checked her pocket watch again and she hummed as she noticed the time. "I must be on my way. You'll be fine here," she assured Merlin.
Merlin wasn't too certain about her statement upon seeing Hatter's long beard falling off of his face and his look-a-like grinning at both of them. Merlin was eerily reminded of that brief encounter with the grinning cat. It wasn't all too reassuring.
Regardless of his worries, Morgana went on her way – leaving Merlin with two people who looked familiar, but at the same time, they were complete strangers to him.
Hatter took his arm and he led him over to sit at the table next to Pendragon.
"Would you like some tea?" He asked.
"I think he would like to know what the hell is going on, Hatter," Pendragon put in, clearly the more sensible of the two. He set his book aside.
Hatter bit his lip, and then he shrugged, and smiled brightly. "Tea first! Making sense later!" He decided cheerily, heading back to his place at the table.
Just then, a small, white mouse popped up out of a sugar pot near Merlin. "Did I hear right? Do we have a guest?"
"Yes, Guinevere, he's the one," Pendragon answered her with a sigh.
Merlin stared at the mouse. The mouse's name was Guinevere? What in the world --?
The mouse stared back at Merlin. She looked like she was studying him, trying to decide if he was "the one" as Pendragon had said. Merlin had no idea what he had meant by that. All he knew was that they required his help for something – possibly to defeat the Red Queen, Nimueh? That made the most sense at the moment.
Guinevere turned to face Hatter. "Isn't the person supposed to be a little blonde girl wearing a blue dress? I don't understand."
Pendragon burst out into laughter at that. Merlin grimaced. What was she talking about?
"We are going a bit off the beaten path, Gwen," Hatter told her. "All is going as it should," he reassured her.
Gwen crossed her arms, looking in disbelief at him. She didn't look reassured at all.
"I don't believe it," she said firmly.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you…" Merlin told her, unsure of what else to say, but feeling bad for not meeting the mouse's expectations.
Hatter clapped his hands. "Oh, don't mind Gwen! She has been reborn as a mouse. That can make anyone feel off-center," He was quick to cheer Merlin up.
"Er, reborn? What do you mean by that?" Merlin wondered, feeling terribly confused.
"All in good time!" Hatter told him as he poured him some hot tea.
"Milk and sugar?" he asked Merlin, waving two small pots at him.
"One milk, two sugars," Merlin said.
Hatter gave him the requested amount and then he sat back in his seat.
He clasped his hands together and he looked directly at Merlin, a serious expression on his face. "Now, Merlin, tell me: why is a raven like a writing desk?" He asked him as if it were a deep, intellectual question.
Merlin blinked at him. Pendragon hit Hatter upside the head. "Shut up, Hatter," he said to him. Hatter only grinned cheekily at his companion.
Merlin felt that this was going to turn into a very long day…
~ * ~
"We found him in the royal gardens, my Queen," one of the men in red informed her.
"Let go of me," Arthur demanded, feeling especially annoyed.
So this is what Morgana had meant by ending up in the wrong place. Now it looked like he himself was in deep trouble and had come face to face with an unpleasant monarch from the looks of her. The Queen looked pretty, yes, and young as well; but she had a stern, cold expression on her face that made it quite clear that she was one not to be trifled with.
He saw Morgana, now in a deep red dress, standing off to the side with the other courtiers, a displeased look on her face as she saw Arthur. He was sure she meant to say, "I told you to stay put, but you didn't listen!"
The Queen stood up from her throne seat and went down the red velvet-covered steps to get a better look at Arthur.
She placed her manicured hand, nails painted blood red, on his face. She turned his face left and right, Arthur glaring in annoyance at her all the while, until the Queen appeared satisfied.
She removed her hand from his face, stepping away from him. She declared, "Hatter is mad, true, but he keeps Pendragon too well-protected. This can not be Pendragon. Hatter would never endanger him in such a way."
Arthur thought it best to keep quiet about how his surname was Pendragon. It sounded like Pendragon was not a friend of the Queen along with Hatter as well. He wasn't about to dig himself into a deeper hole.
"But," the Queen continued silkily, "his physical resemblance to Hatter's companion is enough reason to pay a long overdue visit to Hatter's abode. Take this man to the dungeons!" She commanded the two men restraining Arthur.
He swore under his breath as he was led away out of the hall. Arthur knew one thing for sure – he had found himself in the middle of one big mess.
Back in the throne room, Morgana paled slightly. Everything was beginning to unravel, far sooner than expected. And Merlin had just arrived! They were running out of time. She had to inform Hatter of what had happened before the Red Queen came to visit him.
~ * ~
