"Why ever did you leave Wonderland Alice?"

The king switched his long legs once again. He yawned twice, then rested his elbow back upon his ornate golden rest. His childish face was drawn into a frown, boredom traced his thin lips. His graceful hand flicked through the ruffles of his cuff and he beckoned to the guard.

"Bring in the accused"

The large brass doors were pulled open by the guards standing by them, and the offender was pushed through the doors by the guard standing behind her. She stumbled into the grand room. The king's head shifted to the side as he examined the young girl. He studied the ladies face, she had to be about sixteen, his age he figured. She was blindingly beautiful, with death pale skin. He took note of her blue eyes, her sculpted nose, the rouge on her lips and the blush on her cheeks, all complemented on her teardrop face. He took note of her long sleeved dress, with it royal blue bodice and its tight sleeves the ended in layered cuffs. Her hem of sky blue swam over layer upon layer of neatly woven fabric. Round her neck she wore a gold heart locket on a pink ribbon, and round her wrists she wore a pair of hand cuffs. The king's hand returned to its place, curled under his chin, his elbow resting on the side of his throne. He was once again bored. She seemed to him to be the daughter of a wealthy man. Not royalty of course, but certainly of money. No doubt she was very learned. Rich young ladies were always doing ridiculous things as a turn from their families. She was not at all special. There was no doubt she she would requite her crime, beg for his holy reprieve, she might even cry, before he would set her off with a warning and send her on her way. He was annoyed already.

"Name." He bellowed.

"Excuse me?" She asked quietly.

"Your name."

"Oh. My name is Alice."

"And Alice what is your crime?"

It was minor no doubt. Another runaway, maybe she went out on a limb and had spoken of her father's name in public shame.

"Well, well sir."

"Out with it then."

"Yes sir." She nodded her dainty head and curtsied as well as possible in a pair of handcuffs. "Well, the queen and I were playing a game a croquet."

"The queen you say? Which queen may that be then?"

"Well sir, it was the Queen of Hearts."

His hazed eyes suddenly went bright. His hand was lowered from its usual spot and layed flat on the armrest. "Did you say the Queen of Hearts?"

"Yes sir, I did."

"And you in the middle of a game of croquet, please continue."

"Well, we were down to the last round, and the two of us were tied. We had one left, and she was first."

"And?"

"Well, she took her shot, and she missed the hoop, and then...and then I was up, and it was my shot."

"Yes...and?"

"And sir, when I took my shot I did not miss."

"And so?"

"And so sir, and so I won the game."

His long fingers cradled his mouth in a look of pure horror at this last statement.

"Young lady," He whispered in a dark tone, "do you realize what you have done?"

"I am not sure sir. You see, I am not from here..."

"Apparently not!"

"Yes, and I was not aware of the consequence, and I am still unaware." She added, more towards the floor then to the king himself.

"You do not win against the Queen of Hearts! She always has her way you see, if she were to have her way with you, why, it would be off with your head!"

"I think I recall her saying that."

He stared at the girl in disbelief. She said she was not from here, and she was not kidding. Had she no idea what she might have caused? Was she not afraid of death?

"Do you know what penalty I must out upon you now?"

"Not truly sir, no. But I am aware I won't live through it."

"And does that not tear you to pieces!?"

"To be honest sir, no. You see, I once dreamed of getting home, but I have been here two years now, and I don't believe that is possible. I just don't think there is a way, and so, I don't care anymore what happens to me."

The king was not a sentimental man, though unlike the Queen of Hearts he was not completely cruel all the time. There was the rare occasion when he had been known to grant the accused their freedom, though never had he been faced with such a case. He had never dealt with such a devil as to dare win against the Queen. But he felt for the girl somehow, despite her monstrous crime.

"Where do you come from dear?"

"To be honest, I don't even remember. I believe it might have been London, or was it France? I am quite certain that it was not Ireland, I would have an accent. But then, maybe I do. Do you believe I have an accent?"

"Your voicing does seem strange."

"Does it sound Irish to you?"

"I would not know how to place such an accent, Irish or otherwise. I have never heard of the places you speak."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't have. Will you kill me now, or shall I endure the wait?"

His mind skimmed over her question and moved on to his own. He pondered where the strange girl with her golden brown locks had come from, and he hated to waste such a strong lady so easily. If he were to kill her, he would know all the interesting aspects of her past before sealing her future.

"How, may your memory sit with me, did you end up here in the first place?"

"From my home?"

"Yes, precisely."

"I...might have tripped, no, I believe I fell. Yes, that is it, I fell."

"You fell?"

"Yes sir."

"From where exactly did you fall from?"

"I think it was a looking glass, oh but it was so long ago."

"A looking glass? Alice, how does one fall from a looking glass?'

"Well, I sort of fell through the looking glass."

"Alice trough the looking glass, that has a ring don't you think?"

"If you say so you majesty."

He pondered this position for a minute before he called upon his guards. He snapped his long fingers and whispered in the guard's ear. He disappeared, and returned moments later with a large looking glass, shined without a scratch, with a delicate frame of woven glass. Alice's face was one of confusion as the glass was placed in front of her.

"Oh no your majesty please! I don't know if I can step through again sir! It was just once! Please don't think of me a liar, I just don't know if I could do it again!"

The king looked at Alice in confusion, Why was she so worked up over this?

"Alice! I am not asking you to disappear through the glass, I am asking you to try."

"To try?"

"Yes, why does that make to so afraid?

"Trying does not scare me. I am afraid no one believes me. I am worried, if someone makes me prove that I came trough the glass, and I cannot, then they would think me a liar, and I will have none of that." She sniffed

The king, try as he might, could not figure out this girl Alice, who favored her name over her life.

"I have seen many a thing, I am a great king after all."

He gave Alice a skeptical look which she could not decipher. But he was obviously waiting for a response.

"Of, of course you are your majesty."

"Yes," He agreed nodding, "and I have seen many a thing more amazing than a girl who can break through a mirror, now, if you would proceed."

"You mean, I should try to go back through?"
"Yes, what else would I have you do?"

"I don't know sir."

He watched in interest as Alice slowly moved toward the looking glass. She stopped inches away.

"I hate to ask sir, but may the handcuffs be removed before I continue? For if I do make it home, I would hate to return in handcuffs."

"Of course. You there! Remove the chains from Alice's wrists."

The largest of the guards fumbled with his large ring of keys, until his fingers looped around a small silver key, which he stuck into the joint of the cuffs. He turned the key with a jolt, and the cuffs clattered to the floor. Alice massaged her wrists, and though the thought of running briefly crossed her mind, she stood in her spot with her head down until the king spoke once more.

"Alice, please proceed."

Alice turned her head toward the king, nodded, then proceeded. She took a last step toward the glass. She sighed, then she slowly reached her small hand nearer the glass. Reflected in it was her nervous face, and her reluctant hand, drowning in the royal blue fabric the draped to her waist. The king's pointed face was of a different position. He held interest in the event, and was anxious, though his calm expression never moved, and his hand was replaced to its rightful spot under his chin, resting upon the end of his throne. He watched as Alice's long nails grazed the surface of the mirror, and when her fingertips touched the smooth pane all she felt was cold glass, even when her hand was flat upon the surface, and all of her weight was pressed against the looking glass, Alice remained where she stood, and the mirror remained solid. King king tilted his head in boredom and disappointment. Alice sighed, and then removed her hand from the glass, disappointment strewn across her face as well, though she had not expected in the least for it to work.

"Nothing sire." She said

But the king had little interest in Alice's failure. His mind was set on the possibilities of what could cause her success.

"Alice."

"Yes sir?"

"When you fell through this mirror, was there an incantation you said, or a phrase you may have used?"
"I can't recall saying anything at all sir."

"Hmmm."

He returned to his thinking. Alice waited silently for him to speak again.

"Did you think anything in particular, specifically, I mean?"

"No sir, I can't remember thinking anything really at all."

He was more perplexed now then before, his forehead creased ever so slightly at the addition of this new information.

"What was your mindset?" He asked after a bit

"Excuse me?"

"Your mindset dear. Your state at the time. Were you sad, happy, lonely..."

"I was...angry I think. Yes, that was it! Oh sir, I remember! I was very angry at my tutor, and wanted...I wanted to get away, I didn't care where. Oh how foolish I was sir! I was also very angry with my mother, and father was gone, and I was very upset. I had dreamed of somewhere better than where I was, but, I suppose it couldn't have been so bad, it couldn't have been as bad as it is here."

The king was offended by the girls last statement

"What just do you mean to say by that young lady?"

"I mean you are all backwards here! The cats here are always asking riddles, and people are always disappearing, the roads are never the same, and the queen will have your head for losing a game of croquet! I don't understand how you all function! What makes you tick?"

The king in a burst of anger was suddenly out of his chair. His face was slowly turning lovely shades of red, and the corners of his thin lips were pulled down into a frown.

"What place have you to speak of our lives and customs!? What do you know of our complex workings? It is no place of your to speak so ill of what you are not fully aware!" The king took a sharp breath in, put his hand over his eyes and rubbed his temples for a second before regaining his composure and sat back in his throne. "Please calm yourself Alice before I have your head myself."

Alice was taken aback for all of a second, but just as quickly she was set aflame, and she stomped her foot and yelled.

"No I will not calm myself! I have waited so long and nothing! I have cried an entire river of tears and have not come one step closer! And have tried to many times, and I am tired of not speaking my mind! If you kill me then you shall hear from me first! What right do you have to kill one who wishes only to speak their mind? What do all of you expect? You unjust kings and queens, I can't understand why all of this is so unfair!"

With these she balled her slender hands into tiny fists, and threw them into a fit, and where they should very well have hit the looking glass in front of her, Alice's hands went through the sliver pane as if it were no more than a cloud. But she, in her rage, was paying no attention. The king however, sat in awe at Alice's feat.

"And for another thing..."

"Alice!"

She payed no mind to the king, for she would not finish till she had told her story.

"...what do you mean but holding such trials for such ridiculous charges?"

"Alice!!"

"The people have no say. Could they tell you in earnest if they are innocent, or will you simply disbelieve and 'have their heads'?"

"Alice!!!!!"

"Pray what sir!"

"Alice, your hand, it just went through the looking glass!"

"Did it?" Alice asked in pure amazement. Then she lifted her hand once more to the glass, and once more she felt only the solid mirror beneath her. Her disappointment and anger was hereby increased.

"Oh, nothing can ever go right here!" She lamented, and attempted to lean her back against the mirror, but instead tripped upon the frame and fell back into the silvery abyss. She yelled for help as the guards watched her fall out of sight.

"Alice!" Cried the king, but she had already fallen through, and though for the second time today he had gotten up from his chair, he had done no good to keep the girl from falling. The king and ran down from his throne to the mirror, and put his hand up against the glass, an though he pushed and prodded he could not back his way through as she had. He fell to his knees beside the mirror and was mute in desperation.

"Your majesty the king of spades." She a smooth voice from behind the king, but when the king turned round to see what had spoken he looked to see nothing was there.

"Over here." Said the voice, and the king turned back round to see a thin cat with purple velvet fur and a top hat in front of him. Standing on two legs as any human would have.

"And just who are you?" Inquired the king

The cat bowed before his king in a proper sort. The hat between his ears was removed and he bent delicately at the waist. His feet were one in front of the other, and he was back up as soon as he had bent down, his hat returned to its place.

"I am the Cheshire Cat." He answered politely

"And what business have you here?" Asked the king

The cat gave his king a child-like look

"I wish only to use this portal you have opened here to follow the young Alice."

"What have you to do with Alice?"

"Very little as of yet sir, but I hate to leave to young lady alone, she is so young you see. And I have from prior experience learned the lady to be quite awful with directions"

"Even if you story is true, there is no way to enter, only Alice can get trough the glass."

"Is that so?" Asked the cat.

"Yes, I am afraid it is."

"Well then you have no problem with my trying do you?"

"No," Answered the king, "I suppose I have no objections."

The cat bowed once more.

"Thank you your majesty."

The cat put his purple paw carefully into the mirror, and swept through as Alice had before him.

"It seems to be working just fine your majesty." Replied the cat. "I hope you won't mind me using this then." He said as he climbed up into the frame. He sat upon the ledge for a moment before turning to the king and waving a paw and jumping into the gray below him.

"Wait!" Cried the king, as re reached for the looking glass, but he found he could no better put his hand through it than he could a brick wall, and sinking once more into solitude, found himself once again alone.

Alice had not been paying much attention on the way down, and the trip went too quickly for her eyes to really see anything anyway. She landed softly on a patch of overgrown grass, but she was in too much of a daze for her legs to support any weight, and she sunk down into the grass with her knees by her side and her feet out behind her. Her hands rested on top of each other on the ground between her thighs. And there she sat in silence for her bewilderment.

The Cheshire Cat however was too enthralled in all of the new things around him to possibly miss anything around him. He watched in awe as clocks circled round his head, he immersed himself in their separate chimes. He sat in the rocking chair as it went flying beneath him, and had himself a cup of tea as it past him on the way down. He was lost in colors he had never seen before, and named them things like plastercine and ranchler. He had a large grin across his face when he landed to the right of Alice, slightly behind her, and stood with one hand on his hip.

"What a bland place this is, do you know of it?"

Alice spoke to the voice without realizing it wasn't hers. She made no connections to the creature speaking amidst her confusion, and replied without turning.

"I believe this is my home."

"Really?" The Cheshire Cat took a better look around. He gazed upon the gazebo in the middle of the blooming dogwoods, grazed past the yellowing grass to the barns and stables out back, his eyes made their way over to the vast woods, and finally he turned to see the large white house behind him. And though it was covered in ivy and seemed long since abandoned, he could not help but remark upon its beauty.

"It is a rather nice estate isn't it?"

"I suppose."

The Cheshire Cat took the moment of awkward silence to look around once more with further examination.

"But it doesn't look very well kept, does it?"

"No, I would say not."

The Cheshire Cat did not have the patience for this.

"Why are you so lost Alice?"

"Well," Alice began, "I would have to guess it is because I am in shock." She said coming to reason. "And that because I have not been home in so long long, I am finding it hard to believe that I am actually here. And more than that I am realizing that my family can't possibly have waited for me so long, for the land is unplowed and the fields unkempt. And if not here then I wonder where my family has gotten to, and I wonder what day it is."

"That is a lot to be wondering about."

"Yes, I would say it is."

The Cheshire Cat switched hands and sighed pensively. He mulled over Alice's words and tried to think as she. But it wasn't working well for him because he had neither family nor home, and found it difficult to understand why either could be so important as to make a person worry so much. And though he tried to see from Alice's point of view, the idea of getting worked up over and empty house just was not clicking, and when he was finally fed up with he anguish, he asked Alice...

"Well what does any of that mean to you anyway?"

"What?" Questioned a stunned Alice.

And for the first time she turned to see her companion. She had meant to give him a piece of her mind, but when she turned instead she found herself scrambling in shock. Crawling backwards away from the figure in front of her. She followed him up from his purple shoes to his loose fitting darker slacks. He wore a long sleeved dark purple shirt with white folded cuffs, and a light purple vest striped with lines of light burgundy. He wore purple mittens which were bright and matched his shoes. Round his neck he wore a yellow kerchief. She studied his face. Is wide mouth and its devilish smile. His look was boyish, and his eyes were sharp and golden. His hair was messy and brilliantly red, and poking out from this she saw a pair of cat ears. Dark purple like his shirt, and inside they were pink. She saw a purple and pink striped tail flick from side to side behind him. His skin was pale, and he stood with on hand on his hip, putting all his weight on his left foot. He tilted his head at her. He was no more than sixteen.

"Who are you?" She questioned.

"Me?" He asked, pointing to himself and looking around quickly.

"Yes! Of course you!"

"Why you know very well who I am." He conceded, looking confused. "We have met before."

"No, I don't know that I have ever seen you before."

"Of course you have! I am the Cheshire Cat."

She gaped in awe. She heard it then. That sly smooth voice, that always sounded as if he were asking a riddle. But besides the ears and the tail, he was human, not a cat at all. His expression became slowly more confused.

"Why do you look at me so?" He asked

"Because you are not at cat at all!"

"What are you saying, of course I am a..."

He looked down to see the mittens where his paws should have been. He removed one, and stared and his pale long fingers. He waved them around with cat-like grace, and sat cross-legged in awe is the grass near Alice. He tore off his shoes and stuck his feet out in front of him. He wiggled his toes and stretched out his legs. He turned back to Alice.

"I appear to be a human."

"That is what I said."

"But how did this happen?"

Alice shrugged, "Maybe because I my world there are no talking cats, and so you either had to be human or cat. Maybe you just seemed more human."

"No talking cats!" Exclaimed the Cheshire Cat "What kind of world do you live in?"

"The normal kind." Alice assented, and then stood up and began walking towards the white house.

"Where are you going?" Cried the Cheshire Cat.

"To my house, to have a look around." Said Alice, and the Cheshire Cat stood up to follow behind her.

"You know," Alice began on the way up to the house. "I will need something to call you."

"You may call me Cheshire Cat." Reasoned the Cheshire Cat

"Yes, but you see I cannot, because you are no longer a cat, so it would sound so strange to me. You need a proper name now that you are human."

"Fine, then can't you just call me Cheshire?"

"Maybe in Wonderland that would fit, but we are back in the real world now, and so you need a real name."

"And Cheshire is not a real name?"

"Well, I suppose it could be a last name."

"That was my last name."

"No, not your previous name, your last name. You still need a first name. Like my first name is Alice."

"And what is your last name?"

"I believe it was Pleasance."

"Really?"

"Yes, and now we need a first name for you."

"And just how do we think of this name?"

"I don't really know. I have never done it before, but I suppose it would have to be one that fit who you are, so it would have to be a name that meant clever, cunning, mischievous, and maybe even 'has a tendency to disappear'"

"Oh really?" He questioned, bring both hands to his hips. "And just what sort of name do you think that would be."

"I can't say yet."

"What about....Maestro?"

"What? No, it has to be normal."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"What about Aedan?"

"Aedan? And what does that mean exactly?"

"Little fire I think, or something like that."

"Little fire," pondered the Cat/Human, "I think I may like that."

"Fine, then from now you are Aedan Cheshire, and I shall call you nothing else."

"Fine by me Alice."

"Fine by me too Aedan."