Down they fell, first the Jabberwocky and then the man. The man who fell, and who's flesh peeled back away until what remained was a little green cricket.
"We've arrived." The booming voice required some adjustment, as did his vision for the larger world around him. The insect body still had some familiarity about it, after all he had been a cricket for many years prior. A flutter of his wings, a hope upwards, and he was able to see she had changed too. Her attire was no longer grey business worthy pencil skirt and blouse, but brown boots and corset over a trailing coattail. Feathers were at her neck, hr hair long white and matted in an uneven cut. Her makeup was different, too. Dark accents around her eyes which helped her look even more predatory than ever. He hesitated for only a moment before settling down on her shoulder on the feathers. She made no move to stop him or protest.
What he saw for scenery was not at all what he expected. He read about mushrooms as big as houses, forests stretched out far, meadows filled with talking flowers. Instead they had landed in what appeared to be a stretching swamp land, large marble statues carved into chess pieces scattered about in various states of disrepair. The water ways were a rotting purple, black and blue moss clinging to stone and withered black trees like bruises. Among it all, a checkerboard pathway which was cracked, sinking into the bog every so often. The smell was over ripe plums, left on a counter to attract flies.
"This is...not at all what I expected."
"And what did you expect?" She began to walk the path before them, no hesitation or trace of emotion for him to read.
"I suppose...forests and mushrooms?"
"Do you not see the trees?" She motioned to the nearest twisting black branches.
"Oh." The croaks of frogs sounded from the marsh around them, making him inch even closer to her neck in concern.
"So we're in a swamp then?"
"We are in poison. Hold your breath." He didn't have much time to ask why, quickly doing so. He blinked, and they were in a completely different place.
They were on the same path. This time in a proper field, facing a large mushroom with a door in it. He hadn't seen how they had gotten there. When he turned in a circle he could see no swamp anywhere. He could here no buzz of frogs. The sky overhead was clear. When she opened the door, he turned back around to see a flight of stairs going downwards. They descended, down down down. The light never completely disappeared, though it was much darker than above. And yet, when they reached the bottom of the stairs, it was out into a wooded clearing of sorts. With it's own appearance of night sky above, though when he looked more closely he could still make out the edges of the walls to mark the above ceiling. There were several tables. Chairs. Stalls. A bar. And many denizens gathered, looking rough and growing silent at their approach.
He was about to ask why they were staring, when he remembered her reputation. How had he forgotten? Perched so close to her like this, for once he didn't feel the chill he had come to associate with her. But they did. She strode forward in her usual confident manner, and no one around them dared to breath, let alone speak.
"Here you all are. The cut throats and deadly assassins, the theives and criminals of Underland." She spoke the words with a purr, playing with a lock of hair on a bearded man as she passed.
"And who declared you so? Who decided you were criminals?" She made her way to the front of the room and turned back to face them."
"Imogen, what are we-"
"I wasn't asking you, my cricket. I was asking them. Well. Who decided you criminals? No one? Does the Jabberwocky have your tongue?"
His heart sank into his stomach with the way she was behaving. Backsliding perhaps. Was this necessary? True if they were as dangerous as she claimed it made sense to establish yourself the bigger dog in the room, so to speak, but that didn't mean he liked it. At last a deep rumbling voice, slurring words, answered behind them.
"That would be the queen."
"Which queen? We have had so many."
"And you, of all of us, would know. Jabberwocky."
A puff of smoke, and a large blue caterpillar in glasses and a fez hat came waddling out from behind a draped curtain. He was bigger than even the people in the room, people who had taken this opportunity to begin to scatter and flee. The Jabberwocky paid them no mind.
"Absolum. Are you still the king of underland?"
"I wouldn't say I am king of anything."
"As wise as ever. Have you met my cricket? Archie, say hello to Absolum."
"I'm not your cricket, you know." But he hopped off her shoulder to hover in the air.
"How do you do?"
"How do you do?" Absolum repeated the words, and Jabberwocky paces the room in the playful way a tiger paces its cage in a zoo.
"I hear you still have a hold on all the remaining mushrooms. The one I need to make my friend here larger."
"So it's a business trip then?"
"Why else would I be here?"
"According to legend, it could be to kill us all."
"Then why are you still breathing?"
"...fair point." He flew back to speak to her properly,
"Imogen, isn't this something I am supposed to do?"
"And you shall, as soon as we get you proper size."
"Now what are the two of you up to? No one has spotted you in some time, Jabberwocky." She looked past him to Absolum, moving around the hovering cricket and to the overgrown caterpillar who tried to scoot away.
"You, are a true Wonderlander. You deserve to be here. So, be a friend, and allow me to take just enough mushroom to grow him to size." The caterpillar was visibly sweating, nervous, afraid, but he somehow spoke with a calm.
"Interesting that you should ask instead of take. Interesting choices of words. Words have power, after all." He considered what was before him. He shuffled away. He shuffled back with a cutting of mushroom, and handed it to her.
"As a friend." The word was a poison on his tongue. It sounded wrong. The way things do often sounded wrong when she said him. He was beginning to think that perhaps that was just the way Wonderlanders are?
He had little time to consider before she turned back to him.
"We have a ways to travel still, this will come in handy when we get there. If you will?" She held out a hand for him to land upon.
"Well, it was nice to meet you Absolum." The caterpillar gave a bow,
"Where are the two of you off to?" The Jabberwocky only smiled and told him once more to hold his breath.
And like that they were gone again, his head was spinning, he nearly fell from her hand as he reeled, and they were yet again somewhere new.
"Now, comes your work. This is as far as I can take you. The rest is up to you." When he had recovered enough he spoke,
"What am I doing? Can you promise me no one will get hurt?"
"I can promise you will not hurt anyone, but your own safety is at risk with your task." Not entirely reassuring, but honest enough. She set the tiny cut of mushroom into a bit of cloth she ripped from her tailcoat, wrapped it up and handed it to him.
"You are the right size for what comes, and when the moment is right you will need to eat this. Do not drop it."
"What am I doing?"
"See this wall?" He glanced up to see a ridge as high up as either of them could see, and as far to each side.
"It has a crack in it here. Jut big enough for you to go through. Inside will be a temple, filled with many items. And a test. If you pass the test, you will be able to take one item with you. One. You are looking for a blue flower, suspended in a vial of clear liquid. You will need the mushroom to grow big enough to carry it."
"If I don't pass the test?"
"Then you will be as your puppets. A shelf decoration." He shivered at the very idea.
"You can always refuse, of course."
"No. I can do it." She nodded and set him down on the ledge. With the mushroom scrap tightly wrapped and held, he began to squeeze through the crack in the wall, into a light beyond.