They ran through the dungeons hand-in-hand. Alice had removed her boots, trying to stay as quiet as possible as they sprinted over damp stone and down crumbling stairs. Mally claimed to know where she was going, but as they moved deeper and deeper, Alice began to have doubts.
"Mally, are we almost there?" She asked after she judged nearly twenty minutes of running had passed.
Mally, perched atop Tarrant's shoulder, nodded and thrust her hatpin forward. "Ayuh, keep going. And shush up! Go' ta concentrate!"
Alice bristled over the dismissal but Tarrant squeezed her hand ever so gently and gave her a slight smile.
Then, quite suddenly, it disappeared.
Not just the smile, but his entire face, along with the rest of him. She clung to his hand, grateful for the fact she still held it firmly in hers and began to scream. Another hand- and she assumed it was Tarrant's, for it smelled and felt a great deal like his calloused and fragrant skin- slapped against the side of her face, then quickly began to rub along her jaw until his palm finally cupped her mouth, cutting off the screams.
"Shhhh, Alice. It's alright!" His breath was on her ear, and she shuddered with it as both his hands held her tighter, anchoring them to one another. "It's alright. It's one of the dungeon's traps to stop intruders and escapees. We'll be alright." He whispered breathily. "Just keep hold of me, and don't speak! Mally must be able to concentrate!"
Alice nodded against his hand, and together they crept through the hallway, while behind them, alerted by the screams, the guards quickly tried to discern from what direction in the great, echoing underground the fugitives were located.
Carefully following Mally's guidance as she hissed directives in their ears ("Left, now!" "Step up, ya grea' lug!" "No, no no! Back! You're going the wrong way!" "Duck, stupid girl!" and so forth) they felt their way along the slime-covered walls until, with another great Abruptness, their sight returned. Alice let out a soft "Oh!" while the Hatter sighed, and, smiling in a weak, relieved sort of way at one another.
"Gracious, what a terrible place-" Alice stopped when the Hatter frowned, and cupped his ear. Alice frowned and raised her voice just a bit. "I said-"
But Mally was tugging on the milliner's ear and shaking her head as she stared very determinedly ahead of them, pointing with her hatpin. Both the girl and the man understood at the same time, that this trap was meant to leave them deaf. Unable to give the Hatter directions verbally (for neither he nor Alice would hear them) Mally scrambled atop his head and began pulling strands of his hair in different directions, using them to steer the couple through the dark.
There was a loud, and painful, popping sound then. Both Alice and the Hatter released each other to clap their hands to their now ringing ears.
"Oi, we're through! There's the door!" Mally exclaimed.
"Ugh, what an awful place!" Alice moaned. "As if the cells themselves weren't dreadful enough!"
Tarrant nodded in fervent agreement, his expression dark as he leaned over, hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath. They could vaguely hear the sounds of the guards somewhere behind them, growing ever closer. "Agreed. You're sure this is the door, Mally?" He asked.
The dormouse nodded. "Yup."
Alice looked at the door before them. It was impressive, by door standards. Large slabs of dark wood and rock, heavy pig iron hinges, and more bolts, locks, and chains than Alice had ever seen on any door her whole life. She walked towards it with a dubious sort of expression as Tarrant turned to examine a blank stretch of wall. "How're we going to get throu-"
"No! ALICE!"
The sensation of having the floor literally ripped from beneath you is not a pleasant one. Before Alice could even suck up enough air to scream, she was falling through a vicious black vortex. She caught sight of a dark, empty stone room before Tarrant caught both her wrists and heaved her up and out of the swirling pit of black.
"Jay-sus, Jay-sus, Alice, are yeh alrocht laddie?" Tarrant's brogue was mangled by the fear in his voice as he bundled the girl away from the pit and into his arms until they both collapsed against the blank wall. It fell away the moment Tarrant's back fell against it, and together the pair went tumbling backwards over sharp stones and slippery moss, down a steep embankment. Alice yelped and cringed while Tarrant cursed and curled, trying to protect his dear champion from the harsh stones.
Their descent was finally stopped as they crashed through the prickly underbrush and into the hollow created by the roots of two ancient, gnarled trees. With a grunt and a painful crack, Tarrant slammed back-first into the back wall of the hollow.
Alice winced as her injuries all throbbed and ached, and peered up at Tarrant as his face mirrored her own. "Are you alright?" She murmured.
Tarrant nodded and let out a breathy sigh. "Or I will be. Are you?"
"Same."
The sound of a tiny body crashing through the brush had them releasing one another to roll away and catch their breath. "Both you still alive?" Mally asked, and if Alice wasn't mistaken, there was fear and grief in her tinny voice, as though the mouse hardly believed the two would survive.
The Hatter was the first to push himself onto shaky hands and knees and crawl out to meet Mallymkun. "We're okay. Just bunged up."
"Well, be bunged up la'er!" Mally told him, making a running leap so she could latch onto and shimmy up his shirtsleeve. "Cuz them cards n' chess pieces are roigh' behind us!"
/
To say that Mirana was having a very poor day would be putting it lightly. She'd sent away her quiet and respectable court members, had waved off her humble and contrite advisors, and had locked herself in her rooms to lay prettily upon her lake-sized bed without removing her lovely dress and weep pathetically into her soft, downy pillows.
Her pale face turned splotchy red, her soft, wavy, white tresses became tangled and gray, and her dark, vibrant eyes became dull. She wanted nothing more than to simply lay here and weep her live away, to wallow in her guilt and self-loathing forevermore, but knew it was not to be so. That was not how Queens acted, after all. So she would take fifteen minutes to break, another fifteen to pull herself together, then she would resume her duties as the only remaining Queen of Underland. She would meet with her Champion and they would, she predicted, break apart together, mourn their beloved Hatter, and then resume their official duties.
No, not exactly, because The Alice would be leaving again, back to Aboveland where there were no smiling cats or blue caterpillars.
"What a mess, your highness." The smug, airy voice for once was unwelcome. In fact, the darkness White Mirana always tried to suppress suddenly bubbled up uncontrollably and lashed out at the floating feline.
"Get out!" The double timbre in her voice was terrifying. Or would be to most anyone but the cat. He seemed to flick away the deep, vicious echoing in his queens voice with a twitch of his tail and another wild grin.
"Temper, temper, Mirana. I only came to console you as I'd assumed you'd be in a contrariwise state of mind. I see I was right."
Mirana huffed and began to smooth out her dress and hair. "Bravo." She snapped in her usual voice, though her tone rather scathing at the moment. "Shoo."
Chess grinned. "You shouldn't be so unkind to your messengers."
"Well get on with it!" She snapped, jumping to her feet with none of her airy, light-footed grace. Her movements were jerky, as though she strained to hold herself back from something. "Then leave, I'm very busy at the moment."
Chess just grinned. It wasn't his usual wide, toothy smile. It was tight-lipped, holding in a throaty chuckle as he drifted back into the shadows. "On second thought, I do believe I've forgotten what I'd come to say." He enjoyed the way she rounded on him, livid, and took a step forward. He began to evaporate, until only his eyes remained.
Mirana made a sound and hastily cleared her throat. "Wait!" She held up an imperial hand and closed her eyes, the better to gather her inner self and put her back into sorts. Marginally relaxed, she opened her eyes again, her expression apologetic. "I'm sorry, my friend. Not for the first time I'm wishing I weren't the queen." When he reappeared fully, every one of his knife-like teeth shining in the light, she smiled weakly. "What is the message?"
Chess sat up, his tail flitting to and fro behind his back. A pair of glass appeared on Mirana's nose, causing the queen to jump.
"What's here, what's there, what's then and now isn't that well hidden, your Whiteness." Now Chess did evaporate, leaving only the faint echo of his voice. "You ought to see beyond the end of your nose now. Now you ought to be able to see clearly."
"Chessur!" Mirana tugged uselessly against the glasses, but they were glued to her face. She scrunched her eyes closed and struggled to remove them to no avail. Desperate, she turned towards her door, feeling blindly for the handle. "Guards! Guards!"
/
Alice could no longer feel her legs. They'd begun to tingle first, then had gone completely numb. She'd lost her shoes in the tumble from the dungeon's mouth, and her bare feet would have been freezing, if she had been able to feel them at all. Her pale skin was scratched and covered in a heavy sheen of perspiration, her hair was tangled and caked with mud, full of twigs and leaves and even a few rocks. Her dress was torn, and the left shoulder was hanging off almost to the elbow.
Tarrant wasn't faring much better. Despite his exhaustion, his bone-chilling fear, he pressed on. He held Alice's limp hand firmly in his own, occasionally taking hold of her arm with both hands, or wrapping an arm around her shoulders or waist, half-carrying her through the woods.
He could feel the Madness gnawing at the frayed, fatigued edges of his mind, and fought to keep it as bay as his vision and hearing fluctuated, mixing the current scene with similar images. His sprint through the Tugley woods, Joola's reins in hand as he led them away, far away from his burning home and dying brethren. The mad dash through those same woods, in the opposite direction, with Too Small Alice tucked safely into his pocket as the Red Queen's henchmen clanked after them.
He shuddered and jerked as colors and sounds and memories blurred and crashed together, slapped at his left ear and very nearly went careening sideways into a tree. Alice tugged on his arm, dragging him to a stop. "Hatter-"
"Atta-!" Mally pinched his ear, but he shook his head at both. "I'm fine, keep going." He gasped.
/
"I'm sorry, Lady, they just- won't- come- off!" The doctor tugged again, as though the four-hundred-thirty-second try would finally dislodge the obnoxious spectacles.
Mirana let out a distressed sound. "I want that cat found and-!" her tongue twisted into a knot and stuck itself firmly to the roof of her mouth. She grunted, mumbled, and tugged even harder at the glasses, becoming more aggressive as both struggles proved fruitless, and her frustration turned to ice-cold fury.
Damn Tarrant and Damn Alice and Damn Underland and Damn Absolem and Damn her Vows and Damn that no-good, riddle-spitting, shukm-juggling CAT!
With tears threatening to spill from her eyes, Mirana forced herself to take a shuddering breath, and then another, and again, one more, just for luck. It actually worked to calm her, and with her mind no longer set on spitting forth the threats and curses tumbling back and forth in her head, her Vows relinquished their hold on her tongue.
Relieved, the doctor, who had cowered away from his queen, fearing a tantrum, moved back to the table. "Did the Cheshire Cat say anything when he cursed you?"
Mirana sniffed. "Only his usual amount of Nonsense and Madness."
The doctor cupped his chin thoughtfully. "He usually knows what he's talking about, though, even if no one else does."
Mirana couldn't help but agree, so she kept her mouth shut so tightly that her thick, dark lips became a thin, dark line.
Bayard, his baggy, forlorn face being of some odd comfort to Mirana, scratched behind one oversized ear. "We should talk to Absolem, see if he or the Orraculum knows anything about this mess."
Mirana pouted. The truth of the matter was that she had no idea where Absolem was. No one had heard from him since-
It all clicked into place with a single gasp from Mirana. She slapped one hand to her heart and the other to her mouth, and had both doctor and dog looking on her with concern.
" 'Now you ought to be able to see clearly.' That's what Chess said." Her voice was breathy, slow and somewhat disbelieving. "He wanted me to look at the Orraculum." She slid off the bed and, gathering up her skirts as she went, rushed to fling the door open and grab the nearest guard. "Tell all your men to form hunting troupes. Turn over each and every stone, mushroom, and sleeping tortoise until one of you finds Absolem or the Orraculum!" Another guard came running towards her. Before she could deliver her orders again, he gestured vaguely towards the dungeons.
"The Champion of Underland has fled with the Mad Hatter!"
/
Sort of short but I figured that was a good place to end it.
Coming up on the big finale! And it's about god-damn time, right?