Poking their heads out the window of the train, Alice and Reggie saw that it was not running on a track, rather on it's own like a carriage would. "I hope this is safe" the boy admitted.
"I'm sure it will be if the conductor is employed by royalty" Alice assured.
Putting their heads back inside, the children glanced around at the empty cabin, which surprisingly looked just like a normal train cabin back home. "Wow" Reggie couldn't help but say to himself taking a seat. "So this is what it looks like."
"It's just a normal train cabin Reggie" pointed out Alice, balancing herself whilst standing as the train moved. "I travel in these all the time."
"I know, it's just that I've never been in a cabin this fancy before. Especially an empty one. It's always so crowded. That time, when your family went on that holiday to Weymouth," he remembered as Alice managed to sit herself down next to him. "That entire journey was extremely cramped. I was glad when I was finally able to get out."
"Hm" Alice furrowed. "I always thought it was like this for all of the train." She sat back, as she began to reminisce too. "But yes, I do remember that holiday to Weymouth, and how you came along with the rest of the servants." She sighed "It was such a shame that we couldn't play together once we were there. If not our families, all the other people in Weymouth would've seen us together."
"I would've loved to have explored Bowleaze cove with you, and the harbour" he regretted.
"Perhaps next time we're out in public without our families I should wear a disguise" Alice joked with a little laugh, though with a tone which almost made sound like it was a question too.
There was a brief silence between the two, and it wasn't until Alice's curiosity got the best of her, getting up from her seat and heading to the door of the next cabin, to which Reggie then questioned "Woah where are you going now?"
"This leads into the next passenger cabin right? And since no one else boarded when we got on, then surely there shouldn't be any- oh!" as Alice pushed the door open, she was greeted with the sight of several small little men all dressed in unusual white clothing and little hats.
Some of them turned to each other. "Who's this one? She doesn't look like a pawn."
Reggie stood up and walked over behind his friend. "Don't tell me there's actually other….passengers?"
"And he looks less of a pawn than she does" added another.
"No wait, these must be the special pawns just chosen by the Queen" a pawn leaned over his seat informing the others.
"How could they know that? The Queen only put us on the train a minute after she made us pawns" Reggie whispered.
"Why in that case" one of the pawns stood up and walked towards them. "Welcome to the game! I must say it's an unusual choice to pick two people like you as pawns, but, I won't question her majesty's decisions." He shook Alice's hand. "I assume you know the rules of chess" he walked back down the aisle of the cabin.
"Well yes we do-"
"Of course you would! Very stupid otherwise to come to a kingdom of chess games if you don't know how to play. So, just do your best out there, and be good support for the more important pieces" he advised putting his hand on the doorknob at the cabin's other end. "Anyways, you'd best be getting back to your seats now."
"But our seats are back there, the cabin where we just came from" Alice stepped back to the other door and turned it to open.
"Wait child I wouldn't go that way!" the pawn tried to warn her as she opened the door and almost fell out, as the cabin the children had just come from had disappeared completely.
"Alice!" Reggie grabbed a hold of her just in time and pulled her back.
The girl took a few breaths to recover. "What? Where did-?" she said inbetween panting.
"Your cabin's back that way!" informed the pawn.
"But that's impossible, we came from this way" replied Reggie very confused.
"That doesn't mean you're cabin hasn't changed. C'mon, come this way" the pawn lead the two humans back down the aisle and pushed them through the other door. As it shut behind them Alice and Reggie glanced back at the new cabin, looking exactly like the one they were first in.
"But how-?" Alice ran to the other door at the other end of this cabin, stepping through it.
"Alice would you just slow down?" her bewildered friend chased after her, only for him to step through into an empty cabin. "Alice? Alice where are you?"
Inside another cabin somewhere, the blonde girl was wondering the exact same thing. "Reggie?" she pushed the door she had just come through back open, and again, it had no one in there. "Reggie where on earth did you go?"
Both children began a sequence of running through and into different cabins, each of which ending up back where they started. Alice at one point entered through a door and into the front of the train itself where the driver was, and was quickly ordered to go back to the cabins.
Reggie had no better luck himself. First he walked into a cabin where three ampormorthic animals were sat. A Fox wearing a hat, a Badger sipping some tea, and an Alligator reading a newspaper. He politely and very quickly apologised and headed through the door at the other end, only for the working class boy to fall face first directly into the coal trailer.
Apart from hurting all over, the boy was more frustrated with both the fact he was nowhere nearer to Alice, and that he was now covered all over in coal. 'Oh well' he figured. 'Not much different from chimney sweeping.'
He leapt back into the door somehow, and came out at the train's other end, the caboose, where he accidently bumped into someone. "Sorry I-, Alice there you are!"
Standing on the end of the caboose as well, was the girl he'd been searching for, and whom jumped back a bit herself. "Oh! Reggie? Where have you been?" she asked concerned and relieved at the same time. "And, what is that all over your face?"
"I, might have fell into the coal trailer behind the steam engine" he admitted in quite an honest tone, wiping some of the soot from his eyes.
"Never" smiled his friend putting her fingers to her hands stifling a giggle.
Then all of a sudden, the two of them heard the train's whistle blow and a voice from the front call out: "Hold on tight! We're approaching the hurdle!"
"Hurdl-aaall!" the train violently leapt straight over a hedge in the exact same way a horse would, causing the both of them to fall straight off the caboose and land into a field of wet grass, which surprisingly, and miraculously, broke their fall.
Rolling through the wet dew, it took the boy and girl a couple of seconds to get their heads to stop spinning. "Oh my-, I don't I've ever had a train journey quite as exciting as that" said Reggie standing himself up and walking over to Alice and offering his hand. "But in future, crowded cabins don't seem like a bad alternative."
He helped her up and the two brushed themselves off. "What kind of a train jumps? Let alone go without a track" wondered Alice brushing the grass off her. "Oh well, look on the bright side Reggie, the dew seems to have washed all that coal off" she pointed and the boy looked over himself, and then to the ground, seeing coal stains on the grass blades.
"Hm, well, we seem to have arrived at our destination. Look the train has, er, landed, over there by those trees." They turned and saw all the little pawns stepping off and heading into different parts of the field. Some went left, and some went right.
"Where on earth are they going? I thought-, unless," the curious blonde hurried over to the hedge that the train had just leapt over and called over to her friend "Could you give me a boost Reggie please?"
Elevating herself on both of his hands, Alice glanced over the green brambles and looked out to the series of fields all around her. "What can you see?" wondered her friend down below.
"My word, it really is a chessboard! The entire land is cut into squares with a hedge on each side of it!" she observed all the land's patterns.
"And we should be in the fourth row about now shouldn't we?" Reggie remembered, as pawns usually began on the second square, and they had moved two.
"Indeed. And judging by the other pawns, this looks as so this square is ours." Alice jumped down and started to think about what their first, well second, move for the game would be, putting a finger to her chin and her eyes looking upward. "Now let's see, where to go?"
"I wouldn't think too much Alice, as pawns we can only move one square at a time. For now I think it's best we just move to the other end of this, 'square'" suggested Reggie looking out and beyond the trees in front of them.
"Well alright, but I doubt we're going to accomplish much that way" Alice shrugged her shoulders and started to walk forward into the field.
"Or at all, pawns don't really serve that much of a purpose" Reggie commented back walking alongside her.
"Never set yourself a limit Reggie, you'll find that you'll achieve far more than ever once put in the right circumstance. Remember when Napoleon returned to the French army and unexpectedly took back power?"
"True, though he had already won them several victories before." Both children entered the woods and climbed and jumped over logs and fallen trees.
"Yes, but if it was never for the revolution then he never would've had the chance in the first place." They passed several animals. Ones that had wheels for legs and hooks for hands,which they used for climbing the trees and pouncing onto prey.
"Oh look! A clearing!" Alice suddenly pointed and ran forward towards what seemed to be an opening in the forest. "Hopefully we should be able to find our way to the end of square from out here and- umph!" Not looking where she was going, Alice knocked herself straight into a solid surface which felt like brick and fell onto the grass floor.
"What on earth-?" she rubbed her face, checking for any cuts or damage, before glancing upwards to see a painted brick wall wobbling from the impact, with an unusual figure sat atop it trying to balance himself.
"Woah, woah, will you please watch where you are going child! It will not do to have myself fall."
Alice got herself up as Reggie just then stepped out of the bushes and trees into the clearing, with him too looking up at the strange man on the structure. It wasn't really a man, but more of an egg sort of creature, wearing clothing on his bottom half, and had arms and legs, as well as a face too on his top half.
"Reggie" Alice whispered. "This couldn't be-"
"Honestly, the children where I come from have far better manners than this. You two could've knocked me right off!" the egg shaped man scorned.
"I'm terribly sorry sir, but why is your wall painted like the grass? I wouldn't be able to tell it was there from a distance" Alice questioned.
"It's camouflage Alice" informed Reggie standing next to her. "The soldiers do this to either surprise attack or hide from their enemies."
"Your friend is correct girl, being born a fragile egg requires one to take extra precautions. I think I am going to like the way this boy thinks."
"Though why are you sat on top of it if you are this fragile?" asked said boy completely contradicting the egg shaped man.
With a frown the egg replied "It is none of your business why I sit atop here. I'm not asking you two any personal questions now am I? What are you doing in these woods anyhow?"
"Well you see sir, the reason we're in these neck of the woods is because-" Reggie was swiftly interrupted when the egg man cut him off.
"Neck? Neck! Are you trying to make fun of me child?" he demanded.
"No no, Mr Dumpty sir, we are both very sure you have a neck underneath that, belt of yours" Alice tried to explain, but this did not work.
"Belt? This is not a belt child, this is a Cravat. Do either of you have an ounce of a brain?"
"Of course we do!" replied Alice defensively. "In fact the reason why we are in these woods, before you so rudely interrupted us, is because the white king and queen themselves appointed us as pawns for their chess game." The girl folded her arms in some sort of victory stance.
"The white king and queen-, well why didn't you two say so. Their horses and men put me back together again whenever I fall."
"I thought the nursery rhyme said that they couldn't?" the boy remembered.
"They've recently increased their medical technology, though not by much." Humpty did a sort of bow to them whilst still sat on the wall and keeping his balance. "In that case children, I will supply you with any information that you wish to know, unless you want to go straight ahead on your way?"
"Supply? I think you mean offer us some information" Alice corrected.
"No my girl, supply. Knowledge is a useful thing to use in the future. Knowing your enemy can be half as deadly to them as a musket or as a sword can be."
Reggie was just about to ask him where, and what, this land exactly was. Quite unusual to find an entire land/country themed completely for chess right at their doorstep, which can only be accessed through a looking glass or a rabbit hole. But before he could say anything at all, his friend spoke up and blurted out the question "Well I was wondering what a Jabberwocky was."
At this, Humpty Dumpty became paler than he already was. And his offering smile transformed completely into a terrified frown. He shook his hands dismissively. "I- I have no inclination of what that is child! I do not pay attention to the likes of beasts and such!"
"Then, how do you know the Jabberwocky is a beast?" Reggie raised an eyebrow.
"It's just that the king and queen didn't exactly explain it to us other than the fact that it was a creature of some sorts, with frightening claws and-"
"That poem is none of my concern or business or association!" Humpty interrupted Alice.
"So you do know the poem?" Reggie inquired.
"I never mentioned a poem!"
"Yes you di-"
"Hurry along now children! Or would you like me to inform your opponent's pawns of your location?" the giant egg threatened, wobbling due to his obvious terror he was trying to keep down.
Knowing that not be very convenient this early in the game, both Alice and Reggie decided it was best not to press the matter any further, and leave this egg to, sit here. "Maybe we should be on our way now Alice, I think we've taken enough of Mr Dumpty's time."
"Yes you do that children. Oh but one more thing," he leaned and whispered. "If you see the king or queen anytime soon, ask them if their horses and men could use an alternative to nails."
"We'll keep that in mind" Reggie called back as he lead Alice away out of the clearing and into the trees on the other side. "No wonder he's so grumpy" he whispered.
"Pompous little defensive thing, but I have to say, he too seemed very frightened at the mere mention of that poem. The Jabberwocky, or whatever. All I know now is that I certainly don't ever want to meet that horrible creature in person if the mere mention of it strikes fear into people's hearts" Alice confessed stepping over oddly shaped branches alongside her friend.
"Much like the beasts of the Serengeti, but one thing does trouble me Alice."
"What's that?"
"We're pawns right? So if another piece decides to 'take us', what happens exactly?"
Wow I haven't updated in a long time, I'm really sorry about that, so many directions this story can go in, deciding which character they'll meet first, what moves in the giant chess game they'll make etc. I really did enjoy writing the train scene though, and the humpty dumpty part was pretty fun. Again, sorry for the long wait.
And thanks to Redhood001, glad to hear you like it. And to James Birdsong as well.
Alice in Wonderland belongs to Lewis Carroll, this version Disney.