So guys bit of a dramatic chapter for ya here! Introducing a few major characters from TMI and I'd love to hear your thoughts!
-H
The table was laid out with a certain flair of chaos. Teapots of varying colours and sizes were scattered between shattered cake-stands and crumbs. The table cloth was patchwork and frayed, and the mismatched armchairs surrounding it were worn but comfortable enough looking to Isabelle who had been stumbling through the jungle for what felt like an eternity. Only three of the seats were occupied, in one sat a Dormouse who was wearing a tunic and sipping from a chipped china teacup. In another was as strange a creature as Izzy had ever seen, and in the third, at the head of the table, was an Angel, or was it just a boy? He looked like he'd been destined for heaven and taken a wrong turn into Wonderland; he was all gold and dressed in the most bizarre clothes that included a very colourful hat.
When she stepped into the clearing he dropped his teacup into its saucer with a clatter and slowly stood up. "Curious," he said and his golden gaze moved from Isabelle to Church and back again, "I don't remember inviting visitors."
Church flashed his creepy human grin and rolled over mid-air, "Good day Hatter."
Holy fuck I'm actually at the Mad Hatter's tea party, Isabelle thought as the boy smiled tightly and gestured at the messy table, "Have some wine."
She glanced along the teapots, "There isn't any wine."
"Your hair wants cutting," he shot back.
Isabelle felt herself getting impatient, "Don't start on my hair, especially when yours is sticking out from under that hat! And why offer wine when there isn't any wine?"
"Why show up to a tea party with no invitation?"
Isabelle pointed at Church, "Ask him."
But the infuriating cat simply vanished and the Hatter chuckled, "And it gets curiouser."
"It's getting old," she muttered.
The Hatter moved away from the table and walked towards her. When they were almost nose to nose he bent his head a little, for she was almost the same height, with an inquisitive look in his beautiful eyes and asked, "Why are you here?"
"Church- or the cat, whoever he is- brought me here. I'm looking for my brother."
"A lost brother, how careless."
"He said you might be able to help me."
"A quest!" he exclaimed, turning to face the table where the Dormouse had fallen asleep. "A quest with this girl with a lost brother!"
"It hardly seems worth bothering," said the odd creature.
The Hatter looked outraged, "How dare you Dodo, Dodo how dare you!"
Isabelle interrupted, "Look I already lost one brother, I can't lose two."
"Careless, how careless, and yet you obviously care more than less because you're here and not elsewhere where you brothers aren't."
"Brother," she corrected him, "My younger brother. He fell through to Wonderland and we- hey look I didn't lose him on purpose!" she snapped when she saw he was shaking his head in dismay. "Can you help me or not?"
The Hatter looked thoughtful a moment before asking, "And whom shall I be helping?"
"My name is Isabelle Lightwood and my brother's name is-"
"Isabelle- the Isabelle?" Dodo exclaimed before jumping up from the table and disappearing into the trees causing Dormouse to jolt awake.
Confused, Izzy looked at the Mad Hatter whose eyes were suddenly gleaming like a lions. "Curiouser and curiouser… you were so much muchier before, you've lost your muchness."
"Muchness?" she repeated, wary and exhausted of riddles and strangeness. "I've never been here before! You don't know me!"
"Well no, you've lost your muchness…"
"Why do you keep using that word?"
He leaned in close and she noticed that he had a chipped tooth. She hated to admit that there was something agonisingly familiar about him, he whispered, "Why is a Raven like a writing desk?"
"You really are mad," she whispered back and the Angel smirked making him seem suddenly teenage like.
"Mad enough to help you, we're all mad here."
The cold, black eyes that were so horrifyingly familiar stared back at her with a curious glint. Behind her the White Rabbit gasped, "Mad March!" before diving headlong into the rosebushes. The boy made no move to follow him, his gaze was locked on Clary's, his head tilted to the side slightly as if he were trying to place her in his memories.
"And who do we have here?"
His voice was the same too, but it also held a note of something playful, something dangerous. Clary swallowed hard and tasted her own blood in her mouth, she had bitten her lip in fright. The boy before her was almost the spitting image of the one person she had desperately been trying to forget ever existed for the past four months; her brother, Jonathan Morgenstern. There wasn't much about Clary's past or childhood that she was fond of, with her mother running away from her abusive father when she was three, leaving behind her son Jonathan who would grow up in the monster's own image. She had been forced by the custody agreement to spend each and every summer with them in the country manor, exposed to her father's merciless discipline and her brother's cruel and violent turns… until he had died in the house blaze four months ago that ended her torturous visits. Her father now lay in a coma, perhaps never to wake, and somehow she had been the only survivor, forced to live with herself knowing she had ended the life of her only sibling who was now standing before her in the middle of a fairytale nightmare.
The only difference between Jonathan Morgenstern and this Mad March was his hair, no longer fair like the sun but midnight black and straggly. His smile was the same though, the grin that spelled out pain and suffering, "Do you not have a voice, girl?"
"I'm Clarissa," she whispered in a half-choked voice.
"And how did you come to end up in my Mistress' gardens?" He leaned closer as if he could pick out the lie from her eyes.
"I- I followed a rabbit," she answered honestly, "But I'm not from here, I'm from another world."
Mad March began to walk around her in a slow circle of appraisal. "Not from here… I can see that. You have something- different, about you. The Queen will be very interested in what lies inside that pretty head of yours…" Clary swallowed hard thinking of the moat of heads she'd had to cross. "But how did you get inside the Castle?" His scrutiny was making her tremble in fear, especially as she was clutching the remnants of the fabric of her tunic to her while his gaze lingered in places she'd rather he couldn't see. "A mystery indeed, one which I don't think we'll bother the Queen with until I'm certain." He stepped much closer and Clary flinched as he put a long, cool finger under her chin, forcing her to look up at him, "My dear Clarissa you and I are going to have such fun, but first-" In a moment of apparent chivalry he took off his black cloak and draped it around her shoulders leaving him in a crimson tunic that made his hair look even blacker. Then he offered her his arm and there was no hint of a choice whether she could refuse, "Come."