Okay another installment of Twins and the Hatter!

Things are heating up!

I do not own.

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"Red Knights!"

They hear the bellowing howl of the bloodhound. The Hatter quickly puts Alice and Lucas into his coat pocket and begins to run with quick haste. The Hatter dodges trees and leaps over stumps. He sees the edge of the woods ahead. But there's a flash of red through the trees.

He turns, and hides huffing loudly as they pause behind a tree to evade the sight of the knights before sprinting off again. He turns the other way to escape, but are stopped by a wide lake blocking their escape. Or just his.

Eyeing them warily, the Hatter plucks them from his pocket and places them on the brim of his hat which he removed from his head.
"Go south to Grampas Bluffs. The White Queen's castle is just beyond. Hold on tightly." Hatter said in a hushed, hurried tone.

"Wait what about you?" Lucas said as he looked at the Hatter with worry.

Hatter only answered with silence with a brief look of sadness before flinging his arms wide, sending the Hat and the twins sailing over the lake at an incredible high speed, the force of the sheer wind whipping against their faces. They hear the snare of the bloodhound.

"DOWN WITH THE BLOODY RED QUEEN!" The hatter shouts loudly with a manic smile and opened arms, surrendering, hiding his despair, being the last words the twins hear as they cling to the brim of the hat as it flies over the lake, bringing the attention to him rather his sailing hat over the lake.

The hat finally landed roughly on soft grass, the twins flying off the hat, Alice fall close towards the hat, but Lucas taking the brunt of the impact as he tumbled further away before skidding to a painful stop.

Lucas groaned loudly, sitting up before wincing as he stood, his sleeve slightly torn and the jagged claw marks burning more than ever.

Lucas and Alice looked back at where they had flown from, sadness, guilt, and anger flared up in Lucas as he stared ahead, seeing the Hatter being shackled with his head down as he was captured.

"It's our fault. Hatter got caught by those red card people because he was saving us. Why? Why would he do that?" Lucas limped slightly towards Alice in the hat.

"Lucas, calm down, you're hurt."

"Well I'm just more hurt than I was before. It's not like things are turning out any better than before." Lucas said, an unusual bitterness in his voice.

"Stop. Just stop it, Lucas, when will you realize it's just a dream. We will go home, and everything will be fine, and everything will be normal again." Alice said, trying to talk sense into her brother, who only seemed more irritated.

"Normal? When has anything been normal in our whole mediocre dejected lives Alice? Of course, like this can possibly be a dream and our lives back in London were nothing more than lecturer studies, foreign language classes, and our mother trying to arrange our marriage to anyone who would come two feet near us. Like you'll actually marry Hamish, like I don't see the way you cringe every time he partakes in folly courting with you." Lucas said, but then was instantly remorseful.

"I didn't mean…bloody hell, I didn't mean the things I said. I am just fed up with the current situation myself and my own frustrations."

"It's understandable Lucas, if I hadn't followed that rabbit, we'd still be in London. And the Hatter…poor Hatter."

Lucas remembered that sorrowful face. The way his pale-white face frowned, his eyes seeming to conjure every emotion he felt so clearly inside straight for everyone to see. The way his magenta rose-colored lip were tight in a sad frown.

Then it clicked, it was the same face, same emotion…same person from that scroll. It was the Hatter. But why was he so downtrodden and sad?. Surely it wasn't today, as there was no cliff in the background and looked nothing like the background in the scroll. What would make the Hatter so sad?

Lucas was silent, musing, that is until a loud roar sounded in the air, far away, yet hitting the twins in their core. It was still something that could eat them as a night-time snack.

They both look to the forest behind them. Lucas continues to look with Hatter in her thoughts, as Alice looks the other way to the rolling hills in front. It beginning to get dark out, and strange nocturnal noises start to sound in the distance.

"Those noises don't sound pleasant. We should hide out until daylight." Lucas says, only slightly nervous, the Hatter's image still in the front of his mind. Alice stays silent for a moment before turning to him.

"Is sleeping under his hat, okay?" She asks.

"Safest place I can spot for now." They both make their way off the hat, Lucas lifts it up and they both slip inside for the night.

The next morning, Alice awakens to the sound of loud sniffing outside the hat. She rubs her eyes and sit up, Lucas is sleeping soundly next to her. Suddenly the hat flips over, exposing them; Alice closes her eyes, thinking it's all over and they've been caught. A big moist nose sniffs her closely, she opens her eyes and realizes it's the bloodhound.

"You turncoat! You were supposed to lead them away! The Hatter trusted you!" Alice pressures him.

Lucas wakes up with a mumble to the tone of her voice, only to gasp to the sight of the was a big dog.

"They have my wife and pups." The bloodhound informs.

"Oh…" Lucas said hearing the conversation. They have his family.

"What's your name?" She asks in curiosity.

"Bayard."

"Sit!" Alice orders. He turns his head and looks down at her curiously.

"Alice, I don't think it works like that in this world." Lucas says as he wipes his eyes, and rids his disheveled but beautiful hair of twigs and dirt.

"Sit!" She orders again. He sits, amused if nothing else, but something occurs to him.

"By any chance, would the both of you be "The Twins" by any chance?" Bayard asks.

"Yes, but we're not that pair of twins." Alice rejects the thought.

"The Hatter would not have given himself up for just any twins."

"Where did they take him?" Lucas asked with concern.

"To the Red Queen's castle at Salazen Grum." Alice looks at his worn hat, remembering the pain in his eyes.

"We're going to rescue him." Lucas stands up and pats himself down.

"That is not foretold." Bayard informs, referring to the prophecies.

"I don't care. He wouldn't be there if it weren't for us." Alice bluntly states.

"The Frabjous Day is almost upon us. You must prepare to meet the Jabberwocky."

"I have had quite enough! Since the moment I fell down that rabbit hole, I've been told what I must do and who I must be. I've been an oversized impossibly tall being, I've been shrunk to six inches, scratched and stuffed into a basket naked. I've been accused of being Lucas and of not being Lucas, when I find it impossible to be not-Lucas since my name is Lucas. But this is just annoying, with all these so call prophecies! I'll decide how it goes from here." Lucas rambled out of frustration, and just plain tired of what's happened so far.

"If you diverge from the path..." Bayard started.

"We'll make the path!" Alice says as she puts a hand on Lucas' shoulder, agreeing fully, looking at Bayard.

'They're very commanding', Bayard thinks as he lies down in front of them, signaling them to climb on.

"Take us to Salazen Grum, Bayard. And don't forget the hat." She orders. Lucas gets on first,sits between the shoulder blades of Bayard and holds on to his collar, and he helps Alice up unto the bloodhound as Alice hold on to Lucas to prevent from falling off. The Bloodhound picks up the Hat in his teeth and begins to run.

Bayard weaves through viscous red mud with his head held up high to keep the hat's band out of the muck. He races across the red desert towards Salazen Grum and the dark castle that sits on the tempestuous shore.

The walls are high and ominous , surrounded by a menacing red stained moat covered by fog. They approach the moat and they see large lumpish objects which appear to be the severed heads of the executed. Alice looks for a way across, while Lucas looks away in disgust, his stomach flipping at the sight, cupping his nose from the putrid decaying smell. Alice realizes there's only one way of getting across, Lucas also realizes this, but is not happy with it.

"Lost my muchness have I?" Alice says to herself, although sounding more like reassurance and a proclamation, she takes a deep breath for courage as she begins to jump onto one of the floating heads, then crosses the moat by jumping from head to head. She reaches to the safety of the other side, feeling her stomach twist and turn from what she had to do, or more what she had to jump on.

"I'm not so sure about this…" Lucas muttered to himself. He didn't want to cross the moat, but he would never leave his sister.

Lucas looks over in shock, but gulps back down his nausea as he attempts to do the same. Lucas gasps in shock an fear as he slipped leaping from one forehead to a chin, digging his nails into the still soft flesh to prevent from falling into the blood tainted water.

Lucas hauls himself up despite him hyperventilating as he stares into a blank eye as he ran from that head to another, the force making it bob in the water. He keeps his eyes closed with every jump from then on, the pure horror and nightmarish setting not sitting well with him, but fortunately makes it across.

He pants and feels like whatever's in his stomach wants to come out. He clenches onto his stomach, being able to keep the foul bile threatening to rise from the pits of his stomach from said attempt as Alice puts a hand on his back in attempt to comfort him.

He gives Alice a nod that he's fine after a moment, and they both look up at the impossibly high wall, then spot a small cracked opening near the ground, just wide enough for a six inch human. Alice squeezes through first, and in a moment her head reappears.

"Bayard! The hat!" Bayard picks the hat up in his teeth, turns in circles like a discus thrower and releases it.

The hat sails high across the moat and over the wall. Bayard nods in farewell shortly after, giving the twins his high hopes that they succeed in their rescue as they venture into dangerous territory. The courtyard of the Red Queen. They both hope they keep their heads.

Ooh! Danger ahead... get it? A head? Because of the Red Queen? Nevermind...

"WHERE ARE MY TARTS! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"

...I guess you know whose coming next.

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