Mable: Here's chapter seven, finally! I had trouble getting this one finished… I don't own 9, Enjoy!
The Sanest in the Asylum
Chapter Seven: In the White Kingdom
Other than the last scare of the Duchess, Six felt quite pleased that he was now more able to blend in. He rushed out into the shop front, not just because of the terror of the Duchess, and approached Nine who was still wandering around in the front of the shop, looking confused at something. "Nine!" The Artist chirped, "Look!" The March Hare looked over and his face immediately became confused, "Six... Why are you wearing a dress?" The striped one blinked, "A dress? No, that's the apron." He lifted said apron to show the striped bottoms.
The Hare now smiled, "Looks great, Six! The guards aren't going to be able to recognize you at all. Or, well, it'll help hide your stripes." The Artist wanted to show Five and headed towards the door only to notice that Nine was staring at the far side of the shop. "Nine?" He asked quizzically and the other male looked away, "I thought I saw some sort of Cat." He rubbed the back of his neck before gesturing back, "Do we need to pay?" unfortunately, he had not noticed the Duchess creep behind him, and jumped when she suddenly spoke.
"Oh, you like it too! Then I'll make you one as well Mr. Hare! His is free of charge." She gestured to Six before looking to Nine, a weird stare on her face, "Yours won't be." Nine just stared back and she headed out of the way, "Wouldn't you look majestic in… Burgundy? Yes! But where is the burgundy?... It's not here?" Six scuttled out the door and Nine followed, "I guess I'll be back later!" He dismissed before shutting the door, already hearing the female getting riled once again, and both Stitchpunks exhaled in relief. "She's a bit of a wild one." Nine whispered with an amused smile, "But we're all mad around here."
Six noted that this was the same thing the Cheshire Cat had said and wondered if Nine had talked to him without saying anything. He let it drop when he saw Five still sitting on the side of the road, finishing a sun hat that was white in color with a purple ribbon wrapped around it. Six wondered how he finished it so soon and approached, "How did you make that hat so quickly? Out here?" Five looked back, noticed the new clothing, and spoke, "Well… It's a Hatter's job to keep making hats so I learned long ago that you didn't need a workbench to work. Just needed to do something… Maybe I'll sell it for more supplies."
He suggested before starting to push all of his tools back into his bag, "You look really nice, Six. I didn't expect it to be finished yet." The Artist smiled as he looked down, "Maybe the Seamstress is like you; she knows how to work fast." The striped one did notice Nine clearly mouth the words, "It's not a dress." To the Healer who gave a brief nod. "Child never got back?" Nine asked and Five shook his head, "Not yet." This was a signal to Six that he still had a little longer to explore and his optics wandered down towards the fountain.
"I'm just going down there." He pointed out before heading down the street, his companions calling behind him. Nine with a, "Alright! We'll be there in a while!" And Five with, "Be careful! There could be Guards in the streets!" Six headed off on his own down the road towards the open plaza. It was steadily filling with more Stitchpunks, some wearing odd headdresses that made them look like chess pieces, and he felt curious of the world. He hadn't gotten a time to merely walk and look around without having to fear for his life or knowing that he had to go somewhere next.
He wandered about until his mismatched optics landed on a sign nearby that clearly stated; Mrs. Sheep's Curiosity Shop. Ironic, since he had just noted that he was feeling curious, and he felt drawn to approach. The window of Mrs. Sheep's shop was filled with trinkets and figures that looked like the playthings that human children would use, that were now left behind after the war. He opened the door of the shop and entered inside. Beside the window was the front counter and behind said counter was an older woman with squinted optics.
It was hard to see much of her body as she was wearing a very thick clothing made of some sort of wool. The clothing was so thick that she was barely able to move, or at least looked like she couldn't, and was focused on knitting something. Six looked curiously at the knitting being addressed before the Stitchpunk, he assumed it was the Sheep, spoke, "Something you need?" She had an older voice and it sounded quite annoyed. As though she hadn't wanted to be bothered. "I wanted to see… What you were selling."
He asked hesitantly and she grumbled to herself before speaking, "All you see is what I have. The knick-knacks, the table setters, and et cetera." She brushed him off with a waving hand that he noticed looked different than a normal Stitchpunk's. Her fingers were much shorter and there were only two of them instead of three. Six didn't mind being dismissed and looked away from her to scan the items on the shelves against the window. One that caught his mismatched optics was a small porceline doll. It seemed so strange that a doll fashioned after a human would be here.
He had seen them in the Emptiness, naturally, but not here. Not when humans seemed more taboo. There weren't any large houses left behind from any humans so he doubted they were ever here. "Can you row?" Mrs. Sheep asked as she eyed the male. He blinked in confusion, "Row?" She couldn't mean like a boat and she didn't. She made a stitch, showing him bluntly how to do it. "Row. Do you know how? If you can take over I can go get the better goods." He wanted to see the better items since these out here were already so good.
"I'll try." He promised and she handed the knitting set over to him. He tried to balance the knitting needles in his sharp hands while emulating the old Sheep's stitching. It failed to produce even a single stitch. She, however, went into the back of the shop and opened a drawer that she then pulled completely out. The back was glass and she lugged it to the counter before setting it down. Then she began to gently lift little objects out of the drawer and placed them on the counter. They were small objects that were oval shaped and colored in bright designs and colors.
Six looked to them, only half acknowledging when the Sheep pulled the knitting out of his hands and began to work again. He stared at the items before Mrs. Sheep spoke, "They're eggs. Very valuable eggs. Worth more than you are." He didn't know if this was an insult or her merely stating a fact. His optics looked at the tiny objects before looking towards a blue one at the end of the line. He poked at it before it suddenly moved.
He was taken aback when the spiral designs on its body actually peeled off, pressed against the counter, and lifted itself upwards. Like little arms and legs, it used the new appendages to run down the counter before hopping off onto a lower shelf. Six could only stare at the scene before he recognized something, he could hear Nine's voice calling from nearby, and decided to dismiss himself. "Umm... My friend is calling me." He pointed out and the female didn't respond, merely working, "Thank you for showing me the eggs."
He added as he noticed that the other eggs were beginning to mimic the first and were scurrying off of the counter. He edged out of the shop and looked out to see the others nearby. Child was now with this again and he eagerly approached them with a smile, "I'm here." He brought their attention to his arrival and Child glanced over before doing a double take. Six knew what he was looking at and pitifully spoke, "It's an apron." Then pulled his apron upwards to show the bottoms underneath.
Child didn't answer, but seemed to understand, and Nine spoke, "We're going to get an audience with the White Court. They agreed to see us." Six was thrilled, though he noticed a skeptical look on Five's face, "What did you tell them to convince them to see us?" Child seemed to suddenly get lost in his mind for a second and stared out into nothing. The March Hare especially looked disturbed as Child looked back to him, "Nothing you should be concerned with." Nine chuckled a little, "You're acting like you killed them or something… You didn't-."
Child glared, "Of course I didn't. I merely recited the tale of the Jabberwocky and they immediately crumbled to their 'hero'." There was silence and Nine asked, "You just proclaimed yourself hero and they believed it?" Six now spoke in, "Will they be able to help us?" Nine's response was understandable, "Not at this rate they're not." Shortly afterwards the group of four headed towards the castle. Like the walls outside, it was blank of any color, and only the guards and visitors brought color to the world again.
As for guards, there were not enough to make Six feel safe, especially since they were all thin and lanky. They almost resembled chess pieces, but were too thin and tall to look as similar as the cards had to real cards. After heading down a long hall they appeared at a pair of tall doors being blocked by two guards who actually were keeping people out; in the rest of the castle it seemed that anyone could just walk in. Child immediately caught their attention and one of them nodded before entering the doors.
Both he and the other guard with him wore masks that looked like animals that Six had known to be called 'horses', which made since as they also appeared on a chess piece. The doors were then opened a few seconds later. "His highness and her majesty will see you now." Six tried to keep with Child who was hurrying ahead while his Hatter companion noticed that the March Hare fell back. "Nine?" He asked and the latter was clearly nervous. This was strange, Five was the nervous one, but Nine managed to push it away and slowly followed along.
The throne room opened up to them with large windows that were tinted a dim green and let the colored light filter in like souls. On the far side of the throne room were not two, but three thrones, and each one was occupied. Two were tall and regal while the third was slightly smaller. In the smallest was a female with pale pink fabric wearing a very puffy and lacey dress of darker pink colors. Her face looked friendly, much different from the other two Stitchpunks in the tall thrones.
Both were wearing stark while; the male was in a fur covered white robe and a short crown that's top looked like the top of a king chess piece, he was right beside the pink clad female. The female was in a simple, white skirt that trailed along the ground and wore a headdress that, as before, resembled the chess piece of a queen. Six noticed her immediately, sitting tall and confident, but mostly because he noticed that Nine was staring at her. He looked almost nervous around her and Child even seemed to get a quick red glint on his optics as though he was annoyed.
"Welcome to our Kingdom." The King greeted to the group, "We haven't had any visitors, let alone the slayer of the mighty Jabberwock, in our halls." The Queen then suddenly remarked, "That is, of course, if the Jabberwock is slayed. We have still seen activity on the island." The King spoke, "It has not attacked us so it must be dead." The pink girl beside him nodded in agreement, but the Queen didn't seem to agree. The King turned on the group, "What have you called upon us for?" Nobody answered.
Six looked to Five, too nervous, to Nine, staring at the floor, to Child, looking annoyed, and he realized he was the only one left who was able to speak. "We need help." He meekly replied, "The King of Hearts has kidnapped the White Rabbit because… We don't know, but the White Rabbit said that he 'lost his head' and now he's after us." He pleaded and the Queen immediately perked, "The Red King is what?" She was clearly disturbed by the thought while the King seemed a bit unfazed, "I know of the White Rabbit; he clearly works as the Red King's subject. I am sure it can be no more than that."
The Queen looked to him as though he was insane and now Five spoke. Unfortunately, his immediate ramble was so rushed and confused that nobody had any idea what he was saying. Every occupant in the room stared as the Hatter went on for a good few minutes without saying anything other than gibberish. At one point Six looked to Nine who gave a bashful smile and replied with, "He… Well… He does this sometimes." That's when Five suddenly managed to secure himself and spoke.
"No, Sir, you don't understand." He paused briefly before regaining his voice, "The White Rabbit, Two, is my mentor. He does work with the King of Hearts but… But in his last moments he feared the King! He knew something was wrong and maybe the King has lost his head. There has to be something because he's following us, he's sending his guards after us, after Six, for a reason." The King then asked, "Which of you is Six?" Six raised his hand and the King was sympathetic, "I am sorry that you have dealt with so much, Miss."
The striped one gawked before crying out, "It's an apron!" Lifting it and showing the bottoms underneath. The King looked a little flustered while both Child and Nine looked amused. "Oh, well... Erm." He cleared his throat, "I apologize. However, you must understand our position with the King of Hearts. We have no ill will towards him."
The Queen retorted, "Ill will? Brother, you must be kidding. This is the same doll who refuses to note us as a Kingdom. If I remember right, he sent peace treaties to the Diamond Kingdom and the Spade Kingdom, but avoided us because he didn't believe we were an actual Kingdom. He's arrogant, he's overblown-." The King interrupted her, "Yes, he can be troubling, but there is no need for us to get involved." The girl in pink spoke, "He might want to start a war with us." She sounded fearful and the King leaned over, "No, sweetheart, he won't. We don't take sides."
The Queen seemed infuriated, "We don't take sides? The King of Hearts is sending his guards through our kingdom and we don't take sides?" The King turned back to her, "We don't. This kingdom was built without war, without fighting, and without meddling into the work of other Kingdoms. What is a Kingdom built on strife?" The Queen retorted, "And what is a book without pictures and conversations? This is why we have no allies and now we could be under the threat of war!"
She protested, but the King was adamant, "We will not be involved. We thank you for killing out Beast, but I cannot risk the lives of my bride and I." The girl in pink smiled a little while the Queen looked positively outraged. Six was absolutely taken aback by the scene and yet not surprised in the slightest. It seemed that many people in Wonderland were either bluntly unhelpful or didn't care. Child spoke, "You certainly seem grateful. Let us hope the Jabberwock never returns or he may be insulted enough to return your generosity." He turned away, "We'll find another way."
Then started out of the throne room. Six didn't wait with Five and Nine, he already knew that there was no choice in protesting. He sluggishly exited the room and followed after the Jabberwock. Once out in the foyer Six's attention turned to his key which he pitifully squeezed in his grasp, "What do we do now?" He asked his companion who merely responded with, "We wait for the others." That was simple enough, but didn't seem to help him feel any better. He went to the wall and sat down against it, pulling his knees tightly against his chest, while Child began to pace across the floor.
It wasn't too long before the Hatter and the March Hare returned as well. They both looked grim and so it was obvious that nothing had changed. "How did it go?" Child asked, "Do I even need to ask?" Five adjusted his hat and explained, "The White King was adamant that he didn't want to go against the King of Hearts and the Queen stormed out. After that we just left…" This only made Six feel worse, but he put on a fake smile, "It's okay." Nine also smiled a bit, "Yeah, we'll just need to find something else to do."
They seemed to head out of the White Castle almost immediately afterwards to avoid any other confrontation. The activity in the fountain plaza had calmed down and the group briefly stopped there. Five dropped onto the edge of the fountain and began to go back into his map. "I guess that means that the Diamond Kingdom and Spade Kingdom are both not going to help… We could try the Club Kingdom, but that's too far away, much farther past the Beyond Lands." Six blinked and spoke, "But we were in the Beyond Lands."
Five shook his head, "No, we weren't far enough to be in the real Beyond Lands. We didn't even see a single sawdust eater." Six didn't like the sound of the thrown in title and felt uneasy, but merely sat down on the edge of the fountain beside Five and peered into the water. The bottom was covered in little coins that sparkled in the sun that was slowly easing towards setting. Nine also got on the fountain, but was standing on the edge and balancing himself to walk along it. "The Club Kingdom would leave us walking through the Beyond Lands for days."
This didn't seem to appease anyone. "Alright…" Five began before clearing his throat, "Well, maybe we could try… We could try to head back home. Maybe the Guards won't suspect us being at our own home?" He suggested, but Nine seemed hesitant about this as well, "I don't know… I don't want them interested in the house or they might bother Dormy, and the last thing I want is them to be breaking down the door while she's in labor." Child suddenly spoke, "How was she when you left? Was she already beginning to nest?"
The Hare nodded, "She was, but I couldn't tell." Six looked from the water and looked towards Child, "You know her too?" Child dismissed the question, "Let us say that she was a gift." Five drew attention back to himself again, "We're starting to… To run out of options." Then, suddenly, it hit Six like a wall of bricks. There was an option that remained; he could take them back to his world. They could block the tunnel and be safe back home. Yet, at the same time, he knew they couldn't run away from this, but he was starting to become scared and usually the answer to that was going to the others.
To his family; the ones he had been with since birth. He managed to suppress his opinion and keep it under wraps until they really were out of options. After all, Five already had a new suggestion, though it wasn't much of an improvement. "We should probably stay in the White Kingdom for the rest of the day and leave tomorrow in the morning. Maybe the guards will be hesitant to come after us if we're surrounded by…" He stopped for a bit before instead stating, "Maybe we'll be less noticeable in a crowd?" Six decided to nod in agreement and Five gave a little smile.
"So there we go! We'll get a good night's sleep and figure out what to do in the morning." This seemed good enough, even though it was only afternoon, and Six sort of lagged behind as Five went through the task of finding a hotel. He also watched as Five managed to bargain enough to trade his hat for a room for the four of them. Upon entering the room, the four realized that they were a bed short, and after fifteen minutes of trying to figure out how to decide who would be stuck on the floor, Six decided to ask if he could share with another, not saying why but really hoping it would keep the nightmares at bay.
Nine volunteered for such and that was straightened out. Six stayed in a fog for most of the time and was more lost in his thoughts than anything else. Multiple worries filled his head, bullying him and irritating him, and eventually the others noticed this as well. "Six, you've been quiet." Child suggested as Six looked upwards from his view of the table. The other three had led him to a restaurant, a type of store that sold meals, and the Artist had gone along with it without really paying much attention.
The restaurant was warmly lit by a series of lamps and there were many other tables like theirs that were filled with various other Stitchpunks. Their table was in the back, somewhat hidden, and Six was thankful that at least they wouldn't be spotted as easily. His mismatched optics looked to the others and all of them were watching him concerned. "I'm alright." He explained before looking down at the plate of food before him. Some sort of mix of fried vegetables and meat that, like the scones at the tea party, seemed to fade away after each bite was chewed.
"I'm going to go look around." He started to stand from his chair while the other three watched. "Want us to come with you?" Five offered to Six's dismissal, "I'll be right back." He reassured before pushing his chair back in and wandering towards the front of the restaurant. There was a large window in the front of the restaurant that he crossed to and stared out of into the setting sun outside. He was only there for a total of ten seconds before one of the Stitchpunks working at the shop, dressed in a dark green suit, approached his side and spoke. "Are you a Mister Sir?" He asked.
The Artist was so impressed that someone didn't accuse him of being in a dress that he wasn't too confused at how someone had his name. He nodded and the waiter pointed towards the front, "There's someone asking for you. I-…" He trailed off, "Oh… They left. Well, perhaps they'll be back." He didn't seem bothered, but Six was immediately unnerved, and he quickly returned to his table. Trying not to stand out too much he steadily headed towards the table, then whispered to the others in a soft, panicked voice. "Somebody was asking for me."
"What?" The Hatter asked in alarm as his optic widened dramatically, "But- But how?! Someone knows we're here?! How can they know we're here?!" He asked frantically and the March Hare tried to calm him down. "It's okay, it was probably someone from the hotel." The Hatter quieted down, but began to address his tea with shaking hands, putting a few tablespoons' worth of honey into his cup of tea in an attempt to calm his nerves. Now the Jabberwock turned to Six, "Who was it exactly?"
"I don't know." Six shrugged pitifully, "He left. I never saw." This was even worse and Nine put his hands upwards, "We'll be fine-." At that second he unfortunately knocked over his own cup that began to spill dark brown liquid across the cream colored tablecloth. The clinking noise of the glass immediately managed to catch the attention of some of the nearby tables. Child immediately grabbed a napkin and began to try and clean the mess, "Thank you, Nine. Just in case we were not being stared at enough already after Five's meltdown."
Speaking of which, Nine looked over to Five to see the male still shoveling honey into his cup and spoke, "I always heard that a little tea went well with honey." He playfully quoted and Five only then realized what he was doing and laughed a bit. A clearly nervous and stressed laugh instead of an amused one. Then he stood, "I have to go pay my debts to society before we're caught." Then went towards the front to barter for their meal while the rest of them finished.
The group then immediately rushed back to the hotel. "Don't panic." Nine insisted to Five who was already starting to do such, "Don't panic? Nine, they've found us!" He protested and Nine insisted, "We don't know that yet." Child spoke, "He is right. That may have been a messenger from the White King telling us to leave his Kingdom before we offend the bloody Red King." The March Hare turned on him, "You're not helping." Six, meanwhile, stayed quiet as he sat down on the bed that he had chosen as his own.
He had this bad feeling that something was coming after him, edging up the stairs, coming towards their room. When said figure was actually at their room, Six could feel nothing but overwhelming dread as he heard the braying on the door. At first the others went still and then Five suggested, "Let's not answer it." However, the knocking continued to repeat and eventually Child spoke, "I'll answer it." Slipping the Vorpal Sword behind his back he strode forward and cast open the door to reveal who was waiting on the other side.
They were all taken aback.
Mable: The next chapter will be posted soon! I hope everyone enjoyed!
