A/N Hello everyone! The next two chapters are literally littered with quotes from and allusions to 'Alice in Wonderland the movie 2010', 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass'. Press the review button and send in you're own favorite quote. If I can make it fit, I'll add it to the story. Thanks for reading, enjoy.
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When he wakes up he gazes in amazement at the city around him. Most of it is gray shades of steel and charcoal mixed with black. The one exception is the street he is on which is a bright cheery robin egg blue. He stands up and fingers his pocket for the second potion. Then he looks around, stands up and readjusts his hat. Fingering the vial he sets off along the street. Unfortunately it's a dead end. But when he turns on to another street of a particularly gloomy shade the blue street fades to the palest blue gray imaginable and the new street turns bright green. Curious, he touches a building and it turns cherry red then fades to a pale pink.
"The buildings look better with a bit of color in them." He comments to himself and so he continues searching for Alice touching as many new buildings and streets as possible. Suddenly he finds himself out in the country surrounded by gray grass, trees and sky. Behind him the city shrinks into the distance and disappears with a 'pop!' Hatter stands before a white mansion. He knocks trice and a man opens the door. Hatter startles slightly at the sight of another person.
"Excuse me. Do you know where Alice is?" he asks. The man strokes his hair.
"Well now you see Aleece iz no coming ere no more sir. She'll no see you sir again." He makes a move to close the door but Tarrant shoves his way inside. The man is nowhere to be found. He opens the first door and peeks in. Inside a gray Alice is holding a small child in her arms.
"Oh Charles, you are perfect. You are my perfect son."
Tarrant slams the door shut and spins around sinking to the floor. "Of all the slurvish, slinking, slorty, shiveresh things! Alice Married! My Alice." At this his eyes, which had been growing more and more orange, turn the deepest of blues. "Oh Alice! I love you and you are married. I love your muchness and your good Alice size and-"
A/N I won't tell you all of what he said as he said quite a bit having no one to stop him and wake him from his madness. But sometime later Tarrant looks up to find himself on a balcony. He scrambles to his feet and walks through the room between him and the hallway. At least that is how he meant for things to go. Instead he finds himself locked out on the balcony. He thriws his weigt against the door again and again. Finally it crashes open. He enter the room, blinking agenst the sudden darkness.
"Your late for tea Hatter. Naughty."
He stares. Embedded in the gloom is a familiar long tea table. Dust covers everything. Tarrant slowly paces forward bushing away cobwebs. Then he sees Thackery slumbering on the table. He rushes forward and shakes his friend.
Thackery! Thackery! Wake up lad!"
A thin whisper distracts him. "He won't you know."
Tarrant turns. Standing at the head of the table is the Mad Hatter. His eyes are the brightest green and the dullest gray swirled together. His clothing is perky is some places and droops as if it was any old aboveworld suit in other places. "
"Me?" Tarrant frowns. "But-?'
"Yer in Alice's mind now Tarrant. I'm her memory of you."
"But what's happening to you? Me? You?"
"She is forgetting us. She locked away her muchness so that Robert would not hurt her."
"Who's Robert?" He stares piercingly at himself.
"Her husband."
His eyes turn red. "That slurvish, frumious, uffish, apaful-"
"Snap out of it!" His-self shouts "Alice needs you!"
Tarrant shudders. "Alice. Do ye ken where she locked way her muchenss?"
He steps onto the table and walks down it to where the other he stands and plucks a vial from his pocket.
"There is some in here but she must drink it." He turns. Tarrant calls to himself. "Aren't you coming?"
"I cant leave this room lest I disappear. That is why I locked the doors, so that no one else could leave."
Tarrant nods and unlocks the second door. He steps through the doorway and into a garden. He hears the lock click behind him and as he turns around the door fades out of sight, leaving him in the midst of an English garden. Muttering to himself about hats he makes his way among a mixture of talking red roses and ordinary white roses. One rose is half red, half white. It has half a mouth and one wide eye that stares at Tarrant accusingly. Beneath it he finds a slumbering, seven year old, alice-child. In her hand is a paint brush and a red paint can sits nearby. Tarrant walks softly towards the girl. As he does so she fades away till all that's left is the paintbrush. He picks it up.
"Odd." He comments to himself.
The bristles are slim black feathers.
"Hatta?" A high shrill voice calls out. "Hatta, where are you?"
He turns and catches sight of a blue dress whipping around the corner of a hedge. He charges after it. He rounds the corner and sees another, older, Alice hurrying away.
"Alice!" He cries out. But she only picks up her skirts and bustles away even faster. He runs after her but as fast as he goes she always is one step faster. A rose chides him as he passes it. "Come on now! If you want to catch her you must run at least twice at fast as that!" But he is already doing all the running he can do. Finally sinks to the ground to rest his head against the cool marble there and watches her round a corner and out of sight.
"The Alice I knew couldn't run like that!" he murmurs breathlessly.
Rifling through his pockets he finds some tea and gulps that down. A bag of hay falls out and he eats that to.
"But there's nothing left of the sandwiches but crusts." he sighs mournfully looking into the bag once more.
"Come now Tarrant. What have you learned so far?" asks a burbling voice.
"Well, I can't go chasing one Alice after another-"
"Or you'll never get anywhere. Correct. So?"
"There is only one real, present Alice but many memory Alices. So if I find her doing something that never happened I'll know she is The Alice."
"Good."
He waits for the voice to show itself but it doesn't so he continues down the hallways until something pushes him from behind and sends him sprawling. Angrily he leaps up and around only to be confronted with a very large foot.
"Tis a very Alicey foot to be sure but a bit big. . . "
A door appears next to him. As the foot is growing again he opens the door and passes through. The label on the door reads
