{Hope you don't get TOO confused!}

Flaws in Thyme

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Alice did exactly as she was advised; she waited until she was out in the open- out of the garden- to eat the cake. There didn't seem anything very odd with it, but after a few nibbles, she found herself growing. "Curioser and curioser." She muttered to herself, as her clothes grew tight but thankfully did not tear. Everything seemed the right size now, at least.

"I suppose I should be surprised at all of this, and the sunflower was right, there is so much curiosity here, but I'm not." She jumbled her thoughts together, after all, why not if she were to be the only one around to hear them? Which unfortunately proved not to be the case.

"You say that every time." The cat laughed. Because it was a cat, sitting in the tree that Alice faced. A purple cat with a peculiarly large grin. "Someday you ought to remember."

The cat was only serving to confuse the girl more, and it was answers she was after, not questions. "I've been here before?" She asked to the cat's great amusement.

"Oh, many times. Perhaps twice- perhaps once. Perhaps three and again. Underland has a non-consistent time frame. For example, the last time you were here you were nineteen and it was your third visit, and now you are, for the most part, seventeen and it is your second." He faded and reappeared besides Alice's shoulder. "Or I would think that by your standards, this is your fourth visit- but before your third- and you don't remember your others." He laughed cruelly and dissipated into smoke, leaving none but his grin behind.

"How confusing!" Alice muttered. "So how did I get here?"

"Ah," The cat nodded, now standing at the point in which the road turned left. "That, love, only Absolem knows. Follow."

"What?" But Alice didn't get a chance to ask before the cat was gone again, so she had no choice but to follow. When the cat finally slowed down, completely rematerializing, they were deep within the forest. A clearing was shortly up ahead, and blue smoke seemed to be seeping from it- oozing across the roots in the ground. The girl covered her nose and mouth and made a noise of disgust as the substance hit her, it was not at all wonderful.

"Must I go in there? It's revolting."

The cat's grin widened a bit, he was finding quite a bit of humor in the girl's antics. "If you want to know your past, then you will. You must nothing." He giggled, pushing Alice's shoulders slightly so she took a step forward.

"Wait!" She exclaimed putting her hand out to grasp a branch in order to stop. "I need your name before I go." She whirled on the cat, so that her face was inches from his. This startled him some, he wasn't expecting it.

"Certainly, silly Alice. I'm the Cheshire cat, they call me Chess." He smirked cynically – yet was that a hint of admiration in his eye? Very likely not.

Alice stepped into the clearing.

---

"H-Hello." Alice coughed through the blue smoke. "Is anyone here?" She called. "Absolem?" Stumbling blindly in the fog, her foot caught a stray rock and down she tumbled. Somersaulting across what turned out to be a small hill, the girl didn't stop until she hit a medium-sized mushroom. Upon the mushroom, a rather small caterpillar sat smoking from a pipe-type object.

"Yuck, how can you stand this stuff?!" She complained, scrunching up her nose.

"Not so graceful, are you, stupid girl." Absolem noted, ignoring the complaint.

It was then that Alice noticed how she had landed, with her feet propped up on a stump behind the mushroom, her head against a root, and her skirts around her waist revealing her knickers. "Oh!" She said pointedly, quickly gathering herself and sitting up proper. "Well, I…"

"No time." Absolem cut her off. "You are here about your memories, are you not?"

"Well…" Alice thought. "I'm here about how I got here, if that is what you mean."

"How dull." The caterpillar took another breath of his smoke, blowing a ring of it at Alice's face. "Is that all?"

"Yes." Alice gagged, "Couldn't you not do that?"

"Well, if that is all, take a look at the scroll." Absolem seemed to be disregarding the second statement.

She was about to ask about what scroll he might be talking about, when she spotted the very thing to the side of herself. Carefully she unrolled it and took a look. There, on the parchment, was her. It was unmistakably so, who could have the same hair as her if it were not? In one picture she was painting flowers, in another she was fighting a beast, in another she was having a tea party, and in yet another, she was lying on the ground. That was where she was that morning, she recognized.

"Can it elaborate?" She looked to the caterpillar. He did not answer, so she decided to try. "Scroll, this part where I am lying on the ground, how did I get there?"

The paper responded by showing Alice a much older form of herself climbing through a mirror on the other side. Now things made a little more sense. "Absolem," Alice went to thank her friend but when she looked for him, he was gone. Just like the cat, although his was no act of dissipation. Speaking of which, as the blue smoke cleared, the Cheshire cat popped in standing at the exit from the clearing.

"Where to now?" Alice asked him happily.

"I will take you to the hare and the hatter." He replied.

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{Enjoying yourselves, I presume?}