Title: Nami in Wonderland
Characters: All the Straw-hats.
Warnings/Spoilers: None. Well, gratuitous over-use of Carroll's canon.
A/N: There was fan art, by someone, a while ago, who drew the straw-hats as characters from Alice in Wonderland. That's one of my favourite stories, and I was inspired. Except Nami doesn't have the patience to be Alice.
Suddenly, a boy rushes past her.
"Oh dear, oh dear…" she catches, as he races away. She begins chase and it's not long before she's abreast of him, keeping pace easily. His ears twitch rapidly, rabbit fur ticking his ridiculously long nose.
He sneezes. "Oh dear," he repeats. He pulls out a pocket watch, though his hand is shaking too much for him to read it. Nami's eyes gleam at the hallmark on the back and what she swears are diamonds marking the numbers.
"Are you running to get to something?" she asks, hoping to distract him.
"What? What! No, no, running away from… oh, my paws and whiskers!"
"Paws and whiskers?"
He slows down, and stops, looking nervously behind him, and she follows his movement, but doesn't see anything.
"She'll have my head," he whispers, apparently to nothing.
"What is going on?"
"Gotta go!" And suddenly he's off, faster than before, and he's lost in the forest with no hope of her following.
Nami smirks and idly swings the pocket watch by its chain. "Well, that's that! Where am I?"
She spots smoke curling out of the bushes a little way away and sneaks quietly towards it.
There is a… thing. On a mushroom. Smoking.
"You know, that's really bad for you."
The thing blinks at her. She sees it's blond and somehow blue as well.
"That's not what you're supposed to say."
She stamps her foot. "Don't tell me what to do!"
"Recite a poem."
"What? No! I… oh. Okay."
She clears her throat, and folds her hands in front of her apron.
"How doth the little busy thief so amass her profit,
And claim debt upon debt to get so much extra off it.
How quickly she ups the interest,
How easily she earns,
And welcomes the loan and bequest from those whose cash she burns."
"Oh, how wonderfully true and correct, my delightful rose!"
"Huh? Don't be ridiculous, the rhymes were terrible. It was wrong from beginning to end!"
"That's my line."
"Look, what's going on?"
"One side," he says through smoke rings, "will make you taller. The other side will make you shorter."
"One side of what? The other side of what? And are you saying I'm the wrong height?"
"Of the mushroom. Of course not, my gorgeo-". He disappears in burst of haze.
Coughing, Nami glares at the mushroom. "It's perfectly round! Oh, this is ridiculous. I'm out of here."
"Yohohohoho!"
The sound startles her, and she cautiously approaches its source. There are two – no, three – very strange people seated around a long table, having tea.
"You should've seen it! I hit him, then he hit me, then I hit him again!" The boy gestures in accompaniment to his tale.
The tall man laughs loudly again, spluttering into his tea.
There's a snore from the table, where a moose is asleep, one hoof in a teapot.
"I'm a reindeer!" And he goes back to sleep.
The boy grins at her. "You want some bread and butter to go with that watch?"
"Yohohoho! Only the best butter will work!"
"I'll tell Sanji."
"He won't believe you. He says you see everything you eat."
"Don't you mean, he eats everything he sees?" the reindeer says through a yawn.
"Same thing."
"No, it's not. That's like saying, I breathe when I sleep is the same as I sleep when I breathe."
"With Zoro, it is the same thing."
"You wanna hear a riddle?"
Nami's eye twitches slightly. "Look, I don't have the time-"
"Of course you don't, we beat time!" The boy repeats his punching motions from before.
"How," the tall man says, "is a raven like a writing desk?"
"They both have inky quills." She says, promptly.
"Wron- Oh. You might have something, there, Alice."
"Who's Alice?" comes the sleepy question.
"I want a new cup!"
"Stop!" Nami commands. "You, Hatter," she says pointing at the tall man, "who's in charge here?"
"I'm not the Hatter."
"I am!" says the boy, brandishing his strawhat proudly.
Nami's eyes narrow dangerously.
"The queen!" "She's playing croquet!" "That way!" comes a series of hurried replies.
"Right!" And Nami marches off determinedly.
On the way, she ducks to avoid a low branch, and comes face to face with a green cat. A grinning, green cat.
"Hey, you. Which way to the queen's croquet lawn?"
The cat just shifts slightly on the branch, its grin widening slightly.
"You don't have to be so." She stops abruptly by some weird compulsion. "If you grin anymore, your ears will fall in," she says, through clenched teeth.
"I," he begins, with an absurd amount of pride, "have absolutely no money."
Nami opens her mouth, changes her mind, then says, "The queen?"
"North," says the cat, beginning to fade away.
"Which way's North?"
The cat's tail curls lazily around to point upwards, before it disappears completely.
She scowls, and heads left by the sun. Eventually, the floating grin behind her goes away.
When she reaches the croquet lawn, all is chaos. The long-nosed man from before is scurrying from hoop to hoop, scribbling on a sheet, presumably keeping some kind of score. Various marines dressed in black and red are milling about aimlessly with boot marks on their faces and chests, and she can smell the smoke from the blond caterpillar.
Somewhere off to the side, a den-den mushi is blasted through three hoops in succession by a tone dial, and takes out a marine.
"Dammit, Two, hang in there!"
"Tell my mum I loved her, Five!"
"Headshot! Ten points!" the long-nose yells, writing it down. The Straw-Hatter, who was the source of this piece of chaos, cheers.
"Usopp!" comes the imperial command from behind her. Nami spins around as the queen sails past her.
"No mechanical aids. It's in the rules."
"Of course not, Your Majesty!" The boy scrubs out what he just wrote down.
"That goes for you too, Franky."
The King of Hearts pouts, and his blue hair droops. "Totally Not Super."
"Where's the duchess?" Nami asks.
"Who?"
"What?"
"Join the game, my dear. And the next time your cat leers at me, I'll have his head."
Nami looks down in confusion.
"Swordsmen don't leer."
"You're a cat."
The cat releases his claws with a snicker-snack. "Swords-cat."
Nami rolls her eyes. "Whatever."
"No, Luffy! Not like that!"
"Why not? It's more fun this way."
"It's more dangerous!"
"Yohoho! That missed me by the skin of my teeth! Even though I have no tee-wait…"
"Strong Arm Right!"
"Off with his head."
"Isn't that a bit harsh, dear?"
A smoky voice joins in, "You should have a trial."
"Good idea. Off with his head."
"What? What about the verdict?"
"Sentence first, verdict after."
"How fair and just, my butterfly!"
"You can't cut off my head, it's welded on."
"You're all nuts!" Nami bursts out, unable to hold back any longer.
The cat grins at her. "We're all mad, here."
Nami wakes up with a gasp, ponders on the truthfulness of the subconscious, and swears never to eat cheese after nine ever again.