"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
He let out a long, dramatic sigh. Flowers danced at his feet, a breeze tickled his nose, and the sky above swirled in an endless array of colors, but he could not have been more disinterested.
That was the point, he supposed. This world had been designed to haunt him, to torment him, to remind him of his grotesque, inhuman past, but most of all, it was designed to make him regret his immortality. He could not kill himself here, no matter how hard he tried (and boy, had he tried). He was meant to live out his immortality in the worst sense, isolated from everything with nothing but thoughts, regrets, and memories.
And boredom.
Damon had to hand it to them- the witches knew how to set up a good punishment.
However, in the time he had spent there (weeks? months? years?), he had learned a few tricks of his own. The dimension imprisoned only his mind- his body was elsewhere, probably still in the coffin in Mystic Falls that the witches had made for him. Because of this, his mind had been able to thrive in this world, broadening it mental capabilities and spreading its influence. After all, he was a supernatural being, and his powers stretched beyond that of a mortal mind. It was similar to how one controls a dream; all you had to do was imagine things a certain way and direct your focus to making that change. After some practice, Damon had become good at it, altering things about his environment to make it more habitable. He changed the sky to be more like the one found on Earth, mixing it with natural colors. There used to be dangerous creatures that stalked him in this world's forests, but he made them tamer. However, some things were out of his control, and he had to deal with them.
Like the stupid shackle around his forehead.
In order to trap him in this dimension, the witches had put an engraved, iron band around the crown of his head, and the magic immediately bound his mind and spirit to the godforsaken place. As long as the shackle was on him in real life, he was trapped in here, and also had to wear the band for the duration of his stay. It was a cumbersome, thick strip of metal, and it had itched something terrible when he had first been trapped.
He let out a derisive bark of a laugh as he laid in the grass. Thank god he didn't have to deal with that damn thing anymore. Sliding his hand upward, he allowed himself to feel pride in the fact he felt smooth fabric instead of cold iron.
One of the first things he changed about his reality was to make the shackle to something more comfortable and less conspicuous. Just because he was a prisoner didn't mean he had to be reminded of it by a constant throbbing around his temple. So instead, he made it so he was wearing a hat. The hat varied from day to day, depending on his mood. Sometimes it would be a fedora, if he was feeling theatrical, and other days it would be a baseball cap, if he was missing the days when he could play sports. It depended on what part of his other life that he missed that day, what emotion he felt like drowning himself in.
Today, he wore an old-fashioned top hat, black with a maroon ribbon near the base. He had one sort of like it way back when, before he could have ever fathomed that he would end up in a place like this. It had been quite fashionable back in the 1800s, especially the flared ones. His father had always thought they were too garish, and Damon supposed that was part of the reason why he always wore them.
The hat was a comforting gesture to himself, and it only took minimal mental energy to conjure. And it was certainly better than wearing metal around his head. However, there was one catch- he couldn't take the hat off. It was still representing his mental chain to this world. To take it off would mean he could lift the curse, which he couldn't. So he was just a man with a hat, lost in a world that existed only for his mind for all eternity.
He sighed again. He really didn't see how he deserved any of this.
Damon wanted to close his eyes, but your mind never exactly sleeps. If he wanted mental rest, he had to enter a sort of trance and allow himself to divert his attention from everything, at least for a time. It was a calming process. He was about to initiate it, his eyesight already getting blurry, when he faintly noticed the sky getting darker. Forcing himself back to attentiveness, he gazed up at the clouds. Sure enough, they were growing darker, a heavier shade of grey. The sky itself was gradually turning a blackened purple, and it was not his doing. Frowning, he finally sat up, still looking upward.
The last time the sky was this color was when…
No. No way. Are the witches back? Why would they come back?
Standing now, he also realized that the wind was picking up. It curled around his ankles and drifted around him, teasing him. That part wasn't particularly weird, at least not to Damon- every part of this dimension seemed alive, like it had a mind of its own. He often had to deal with the taciturn nature of the elements here and the passing breezes that sounded like whispers. This time, it seemed like they were beckoning to him, enticing him to move forward.
But to where?
The wind pushed at his back, seemingly pointing him in the direction of the denser part of the forest. He usually stayed away from it because the creatures lurked there, but he noticed that a circle of clouds was forming just above the treetops. Something was happening over there. And things just didn't happen here unless he had some sort of control over them, because this world was where his mind was allowed free range. If something else was occurring, that meant his wasn't the only mind that was holding influence.
It meant he wasn't alone.
Curious, he began making his way to the forest.
Such a long way to fall, she thought, in a daze.
Gazing up at the abyss she had tumbled through just moments before, Bonnie wondered exactly how deep this hole was. It had felt like she had been in darkness for hours before seeing the ground spring up to greet her- literally. Slender yet strong blades of grass rose up to catch her, cushioning the impact so she lighted upon the soil as opposed to smashing into it, which was a nice relief from the panic that enveloped her while she fell. There is nothing like entering a free-fall and your stomach somersaulting and your heart throbbing in your throat and empty screams being ripped from your lungs.
Thank god it was just a dream.
She brushed some dirt off her dress, which she just now noticed. It certainly wasn't a dress she recognized. It was covered in light blue floral lace, soft to the touch, and underlying that was silken fabric of the same hue. It cut off just at the knee, the lace extending just a bit beyond the thicker material underneath. She was even wearing a black belt to tighten the dress at the waist, and her matching pair of coal-colored flats made the entire outfit seem like well-planned date night attire rather than a dream's conjuring.
It had to be a dream, right?
Because Bonnie was always having incredibly lucid dreams, but she was also aware in them as well, most of the time. She wondered if it was because of her strong ties to magic that allowed her to see through illusions and her own mind's trickery, but it also probably had to do with practical purposes. Vivid dreams sometimes turned into premonitions or bouts of sleepwalking, but she had managed to get that under control in recent months by focusing on whether or not something was a dream in the first place.
It was difficult at first, but became easier with practice. As long as you focus on something in the dream that is impossible in real life, it eventually leads you to deduce that you're dreaming. After that, Bonnie allowed herself to enjoy the dream environment, playing around in it, experimenting, and exerting some control over it. The last part was the best. Flying in dreams was absolutely exhilarating.
Once the plant life had helped her survive her fall, she knew she must be dreaming. Otherwise she would have died, from a fall that she didn't even remember beginning in the first place. She was relatively calm now, feeling at piece in an environment she could control and bend to her whim.
Except…this felt different.
For one thing, something was growling at her.
It wasn't that, even with her ability to sort of control her dreams, she didn't have nightmares. She did. But usually the villains and monsters were recognizable, in a way. She knew they were from her own subconscious, that they were a part of herself. But this thing that was growling at her from behind the midnight-black bush…it didn't feel familiar. At all.
Slowly backing away, Bonnie tried to concentrate on the bush and the growling so she could morph those aspects of the dream into something else. Except it wasn't working. She began to doubt herself, and wondered if she was out of practice.
She channeled her mental energies on the space in front of her, on the glowing yellow eyes that were narrow slits just above the bush. She formed clear mental images of what she wanted the growling, yellow-eyed thing to transform into.
Nothing was happening.
Still stepping back, she began to feel her pulse pound under her skin.
Something's wrong. I can't control this dream.
This had never happened before. This had to be dream. It had to be. Nothing made sense- how her fall began, the helpful grass, the odd-colored sky and the obviously unnatural beast that was lurking nearby. It was definitely a dream, but then why couldn't she control it? More importantly, why could she hear her heartbeat ringing so loudly in her ears? Wasn't that something that only happened in real life?
Before she could ask a million questions more to nothing, the creature leapt.
She caught sight of a vaguely feline outline before she whipped around and sprinted in the opposite direction.
Into a forest that certainly didn't seem all that less threatening than the creature behind her. Trees seemed to scratch the air above her head, inhuman noises shrieked all around her, and the once-kind plant life now was covered in thorns and raked at her ankles as she sped by. Roots were winding around her feet, trying to trip her, and all she could do was try to keep moving.
The jungle-cat-gone-wrong behind her was gaining, she could tell. Its footfalls were much too heavy and much too close. She had little time before it would be in a position to pounce again. What could she do? If this was in real life, she could just perform a spell…
That's my only chance.
She had never been able to do magic in dreams before; you're not supposed to. Magic is conscious work, and if you used it while sleeping, something in the waking world would happen too, perhaps something destructive. But she had no choice. This may be a dream, but it was the realest one she had ever experienced, and she had the instinctive feeling that if she got hurt here, it would result in more than just rousing her awake.
Invigorated by her strategy, she quickened her pace, wanting to have more distance in order to perform her spell. Several long, swift strides later, she jumped over a rose bush and darted to the side, in front of a broad, bluish tree-trunk. As she pivoted to face the beast, she reached within her core and pulled out a strand of power, spreading it up to her outstretched arm and straight to her fingertips. Arcing her hand through the air, she called upon the nature of the elements to help still her attacker. She had only used this spell sparingly, and on much smaller objects.
But this has to work.
She had closed her eyes in order to concentrate, and also in order to not be terrified into shock by the sight of a bloodthirsty animal lunging for her throat. With the spell casted, the air itself seemed to hold its breath along with her.
Silence.
That's a good thing, right?
Opening one eye, she almost had a heart attack from the sight before her- claw inches from her face, a behemoth of some sort of mutant panther was frozen mid-mauling. Breathing was startlingly difficult as she struggled to let the adrenalin leave her veins as she moved out of the creature's line of attack. She didn't know how long the freezing spell would last, and she didn't want to be around when it wore off.
"I see you've met the welcome party."
Her heart, just about spent from the surprises thusfar, had no idea what to do upon hearing that voice. It sank, it lifted, then it really had no idea how to behave and just pulsed erratically in her chest.
She turned, almost slowly, because she knew exactly who was speaking.
Their eyes met. Sharp green into murky blue.
"Damon," she said, taking him in. It had been a year since she had seen him in real life, so she allowed herself to examine his image.
He looked the same. Still with those broad shoulders, still with that defiant jawline, still with that ghost of a smirk permanently etched onto his face. He was dressed kind of funny- he was wearing an old-looking top hat, rim slightly curved, that matched his black, slim-fit suit jacket that he wore over a collared white shirt. He looked like he had just come out a theater production from the 19th century.
It was the hat that threw her off, really. It looked so out of place in an environment like this. But then something connected in her head, and she looked down at herself again. In a blue dress. Dirt still on the edges because of her fall earlier. Her very long fall, into a world that didn't make sense.
She glanced back up to Damon, a brow quirked. She spread her arms, gesturing to her dress and then to his hat.
"Seems a bit storybook, doesn't it?" she said, half amused.
For the first time in a year, she heard Damon chuckle. It was a low, throaty sound, and in this land of strange sensations, she didn't mind its familiar ring.
"You have no idea, witchy," he said, sauntering over to her. He seemed happy to see her, in his own Damon way. His eyes were alight, and his body held that confidence that shone whenever he felt comfortable. He stopped in front of her, close enough so that she could see faint scars on his face.
Bonnie sighed.
"This isn't a dream, is it?" she said, already accepting it. Just yet another supernatural thing to deal with in her surreal life.
"Nope," he replied. "This rabbit hole isn't all talking flowers and smoking caterpillars, Bon."
"Yeah, I figured that," she said, then added with a scoff, "but it certainly has the perfect Mad Hatter."
Damon grinned toothily, his smile just as self-indulgent and sinister as it had been. He gave a mock bow, like he was introducing himself to her all over again.
"And since you last saw me, I've only gotten madder."
Author's Note: Of course, the muses choose to give me yet another Bonnie/Damon series to work on. It's just that I disagree with the routes that the show has taken recently, and I wanted to do something completely different, and my imagination wouldn't leave me alone unless I wrote it out. I know it seems confusing, but all questions involving the plot will be answered in due time. To give you a time frame, this takes place a year after Bonnie's mother was turned into a vampire. Elena is NOT a vampire in this story, just to inform you. I hope you guys like it, and I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!