Chessur always had to ruin everything.

Tarrant stared with mixed horror and chagrin at the pile of blue Underthings that were pooled on the ground. He thought he could hear them scolding him, but that couldn't be right. Alice things were dreadfully quiet. Tarrant had always suspected they were a little afraid of her muchness.

"Distressed?" Chessur asked with a purr, sliding behind Tarrant's head. The Hatter flexed his fingers uncertainly, ignoring the jibe. Mallymkun was not sure her friend had even heard it.

"'Atter, maybe ya should finish yer Spring cleanin'," she tried, gesturing at the mess still sitting on the nearest table. Tarrant blinked once, glanced at the board, looked back at the ground, shuddered once, then smiled awkwardly.

"Yes, yes that's it. Finish the cleaning. Can't be rude to Time, you know. Such a bother to be on bad terms with him."

"Shall I take care of this… trinket?" Chessur asked, evaporating to the fabric, retrieving it, and waving it in Tarrant's face once before shifting to the other end of the clearing. Tarrant made a grab for it with a hiss, but was not quick enough.

"Chess," Mally groaned, burying her head in her hands. It was no good teasing Tarrant about The Alice. That was dangerous. But that slurvish cat, always stirring up trouble for his own amusement...

"It's Alice's," Tarrant said, in a tone dangerously close to anger. "Not mine and not yours."

"But it's a lovely example of work from above. I can think of any number of people in the White Court that would give their best hat for it," he smirked significantly at that. "Especially since it belonged to the Champion."

Tarrant had jumped on top of the table before the cat had finished speaking and ran towards the floating feline. Chessur let the Hatter get within hands reach before evaporating behind him, sending Tarrant spinning in circles with a chuckling disappearing act.

"Ye treacherous cat! Ye slurking urpal-"

"Hatter!" came the scandalized voice of the Queen from behind him. He stopped, sheepish at being caught using such language in front of Mirana. Chessur continued to grin, hovering above him, dropping the slip down in Tarrant's face and causing the Hatter to stutter and trip backwards. Chessur moved next to the queen, folding the garment carefully and offering it to her graciously. She accepted in gracefully.

"It belonged to The Alice. Tarrant wanted to make it into something to remind him of the Champion until she returned."

"Oh?" Mirana answered, glancing at the garment and up at the Hatter, an uncomfortably Knowing look on her face. Tarrant found himself suddenly renewing a much unwanted relationship with both Shame and Embarrassment.

"I hadn't examined it thoroughly," he muttered. "Didn't have time you see, and couldn't just waste an Alice thing, though should have realized sooner, saw her in it didn't I, though I wasn't trying to see her in just it and didn't think on it much at the time what with the slaying to be done and knaves making me use the teapot, but what was Alice doing running around in Under-" He gulped, cutting off his own breathless tirade. "Underland," he finished weakly. The March Hare cackled.

"It's understandable," Mirana soothed, turning to give Chessur an admonishing look. The cat simply continued grinning and dissipated, bored now that the fun was over. "But I'm afraid you can't use this, Hatter. I would be remiss to permit it."

"Fully aware of that, Your Majesty," Tarrant assured her. "Not so mad as to think-"

"Anythin'?" Mally suggested scornfully. Tarrant gave her a reproachful look.

"I do think, Mally. I've dozens of Thoughts, you know. I even have some Plans. And those, you know, require Forethoughts."

Mally harrumphed in disbelief but said nothing else. A thought occurred to her. "If tha's the Alice's Underthin', wots she wearin'?"

The Hatter's eyes grew wide and he looked anxiously at the queen, turning interesting colors. Mirana made an impatient gesture in the air, brushing the concern away.

"Why, she's wearing what she wore when she left, of course. We did dress her properly while she was here, you know."

"That could be something of a problem," the Hatter noted. "Seeing as she hasn't any need for slaying armor Above, and they might be expecting her in- in- in whatever she was wearing when she arrived here firstly."

"Hatter," Mirana chided gently, "do you really believe I would send my Champion anywhere unprepared? The armor is meant to protect her, under any circumstances. If she requires of it a different shape Above to protect her, the armor will know."

"Oh. That is good," he replied in obvious relief. "That is very good. Very good, yes."

"Now, I think Mallymkun mentioned that you were cleaning? I shall return to the palace and put this away in case the Champion should want it again on her return."

The assembly bowed slightly as she twirled gracefully and exited the clearing, stifling a chuckle as she heard the Hatter sigh behind her.

~…~

The tables had been reset, the surviving china placed as neatly as one could expect when Thackery had been in charge of the settings. Tarrant reclined in his usual chair, stirring a cup of tea idly with his finger, humming a mindless tune that had a dreadfully funereal feeling to it. Thackery and Mally had both left him to his sullens, having put up with them for several days already. They hoped and prayed The Alice would return soon. Their friend was not the same without the Champion.

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" he murmured, tasting the stirring finger and pouring the tea into his lap. He raised the empty cup to his lips, frowned as he realized its barren state, and began hunting for a teapot that was not full of lukewarm tea.

He found none.

"Why is an Alice always a thing to wait for?" he sighed. The brooding continued for a while longer before a shout called his attention.

"I thought of it, so I'll hand it to 'im."

"You didn't have a thought of it. It was all my idea."

"No. I heard the queen say sommat 'bout first arriving Alice."

"And I remembered the pishsalver and Alice and thought to bring it."

"Not so!"

"Yes it was!"

"No it wasn't!"

"Tweedles!" Hatter interrupted the brothers as they stumbled into the tea party clearing, tugging something between them that was very much an Alice sort of blue. Tarrant squinted at it to try and make it out, but could not from his place at the table. "What brings you here, my friends?"

"I was just sayin'," began Tweedledee, "as how I had remembered-"

"It wasn't you, no way, no how," complained Tweedledum. "I remembered and-"

"No you didn't!"

"Did so!"

"Not so! I remembered, and went to get it, because the Hatter might want it."

"No. I knew it when the queen said it, and I went to get it for Hatter myself."

Hatter, guessing the object they had in their hands was for him, began to be worried for the fabric being pulled between the two boys and interrupted the argument.

"It's quite a lovely… thing you have there. Did you say you brought it for me?"

The Tweedles nodded, and after a dangerous adventure where both of them headed down opposite sides of the table, stretching the blue cloth and ruffles between them, they stopped on either side of Tarrant and presented to him the slightly wrinkled mass.

"For you," Tweedledee began.

"On account of you not having Small Alice's dress thing," Tweedledum added.

"It being, strictly speaking-"

"Not proper-"

"In the queen's opinion-"

"But her wishing that you could have a thing, in spite of the circumstances."

"Contrariwise, her wishing in spite of the circumstances, that you could have a thing."

"Of the Alice."

"Even though she weren't the right Alice."

"Leastwise, not then anyway. Not hardly."

"Said Absolem."

"No. I just said it."

"It were Absolem as said it first!"

"An' I said it just now!"

A miniature fight broke out between the two, but since Tarrant now had what was clearly a dress safe in his own hands, he simply pushed his chair back to help his toes avoid being trampled and let the boys have at it. Tarrant was too absorbed in his own affairs to care what they did to each other, or the tea table.

He had an Alice Thing.

An Alice dress, to be exact. He held it up by its sleeves and examined it excitedly. A whole Alice dress, in need of patching. And he could patch it. He would not even alter too terribly much. It was an Absolutely Alice dress.

Or at least, it should have been. Tarrant frowned as he realized the fabric seemed to be frightened, which Alice things never really were. It was then he realized it was a Hardly Alice dress that was accustomed to an Alice with not quite enough muchness. He would have to fix that. A Hardly Alice dress left alone in a dark rabbit hole in Underland learned to speak for itself, but the only things it seemed it could say were scared, uncertain things. Alice was not scared of Underland. If this were to ever be a proper Alice dress again, for the Alice when she returned, Tarrant would have to take very good care of it and give it some much needed muchness.

"Right," he said, businesslike. "To work."

He left the Tweedles fighting at the tea table and hurried to his workshop. He needed to get started right away if this dress was going to be ready in time for Alice's return.

I hope you have enjoyed this foray into the Underlands.