So I originally wrote this for Shuffle, this group of oneshots I was going to do, but since I got bored just writing unconnected oneshots, I just decided to delete Shuffle and post this one as its own story. And here it is! Enjoy!

Directions From A Cat

Alice Hamilton was a cat person. That being said, she was not a Cheshire Cat person. Although, to be perfectly fair, would you try to make friends with your dead cat that was now displaying that famous creepy grin? Yes. Yes, you would, because that is awesome. Alice, however, was not you. She was Alice. And Alice was not a Cheshire Cat person.

"Oh…that's weird."

Understatement of the century, Alice, thanks.

The cat in question, however, simply retorted, "In Wonderland, sweetie, the weird one is you."

Alice blinked in surprise. Blinked. That's all. Sad how she was starting to get used to this sort of nonsense. " Great," she snorted, with a tiredness in her voice that had nothing to do with the fact that it was late at night. "A talking cat. Just what I need. Now I just need to find the singing flowers and hedgehog croquet balls to get the full Wonderland experience." The cat studied her tail for a distracted moment with curious expression on her face, and Alice couldn't help but wonder if she was only talking to herself. "Hello?" the martial arts instructor asked curiously.

"Huh? What?" The cat looked up, surprised. "Oh. Sorry 'bout that. It's just so fluffy!"

"Your tail?"

"What else, my tongue?" the Cheshire Cat snorted, rolling her eyes and giving the fluffy in question a bored flick about. "And so this is-,"

"Hey, wait a minute." Alice interrupted, making a face. The Cat rolled her eyes and melodramatically sighed, gesturing with a paw for Alice to ask her question. "Isn't the Cheshire Cat supposed to be a boy?"

Awkward silence.

At that point, the Cat muttered something that sounded quite suspiciously like either "just bloody frabjous" or "must study crab guts".

Eyes widening just a bit in surprise, Alice asked, "Excuse me?" Quite reasonably.

"You can't believe everything you read in books," grumbled the Cat, and then as an afterthought, "Especially not books that have been so very wrong so many times." Alice gave a little nod, because the Cat was making very good, clear sense, now that she thought about it. Ignoring Alice's minor epiphany, Cheshire finished the sentence she had started before the brunette had interrupted with a rather awkward question about genders. "And so this is the Alice of Legend everybody's going on about," she purred in a way that sounded almost bored and studied Alice with a bemused smile. "You don't look all that."

Alice cocked an eyebrow. "Neither do you," she said, a bit offended. "After all, all you've got is an obnoxious smile that happened to look bigger in the Disney film, thank you very much." The Cat looked perplexed for a moment, and Alice expected she was trying to figure out the meaning of "Disney". Not bothering to wait, she demanded, "Look, what do you want? Why did you lead me here?"

Oh, but you're not here," the Cat told her rather plainly, flopping over onto her back in a way that made Alice wonder if she'd made the Disney quip a bit too soon. "You're there."

"I'm where?"

"Exactly."

"Okay." Alice nodded slowly, processing the information. She though it over for a minute, then announced: "I have no idea what that means."

"Then you're halfway to where you're going to be." Cheshire lazed over a tree root, grinning smugly at the confused girl before her.

"What do you want?"

"Milk," announced the Cat, flipping back over onto her stomach. "But that's irrelevant."

I would like to strangle you, Alice thought before mumbling, "This is going nowhere," and heading off the way she'd come.

"Oh, you don't want to go that way," called Cheshire, to Alice's surprise.

The girl in question stopped. "But…I just came from this way." The Cat nodded, which didn't much help. "Then why…?"

Sighing, the cat stretched out, stood, and wandered over to where Alice stood. "It all depends on where you want to go," she explained. "You ought to go that way," she paused, and pointed with her tail in the direction Alice had been headed, towards the safety of the campsite where she wouldn't have to be alone if trouble should come. "But you'll need to go that way," she added, pointing in the opposite direction, this time in the direction that Alice didn't know led to the Hearts Casino. "You want to go that way," she continued, pointing back towards the campsite. This seemed strangely repetitive to Alice, who did not have anyone to explain to her that the Cat was referring to certain Wonderlander at said campsite by the name of Hatter who was, at the moment, more or less curled up in a ball on the ground and cuddling his hat. "And of course," Cheshire said, winding Alice up for the Grand Finale, "if you're not sure where to go, you should close your eyes, spin around in a circle so many times that you lose count, and then go, without opening your eyes, whatever way strikes you as," she pointed a final time, this time straight up. "That-a-way."

Poor Alice, who was by this point beginning to feel a bit dizzy even without the countless spins, gave the Cat a rather harsh look and matter-of-factly said, "That makes no sense."

"Then next time, bring a map. That way you don't have to get your directions from a cat." Cheshire said, flashing her trademark grin. "Toodles!" she told Alice cheerily, and then disappeared before the brunette's very eyes, leaving only her grin to linger for a few extra moments and then, nothing.

Alice frowned. "You know, nobody talks in riddles in New York," she informed the empty air around her before looking around, mentally scanning the directions for any sort of clue. She came up empty, of course; so, making sure no one was looking, she mumbled, "When in Rome," closed her eyes, and started spinning…

So...questions or comments? Quarks or collard greens? Anything? What about a dinosaur? Anybody got a dinosaur for me? ...please? Anyway, please review, and thanks for reading. Oh, and if you liked this, feel free to skip over to my profile page and check out my non-oneshot Alice fanfic, "Through A Looking Glass, Darkly". Skipping not actually required. Yay for shameless self-promotion!