Chapter 21: The Round Eyed Hatter
Tim was an average sized man, with dirty blonde hair that was graying around the edges. He wore a beige button up shirt and dark forest green pants with brown suspenders.
He had thick black glasses and the stubble of an unkempt beard. He looked up at the group with brown eyes and rubbed his nose with a handkerchief he produced from his pocket.
"I'm here," he coughed, and fazed out of existence for a brief second before becoming solid again.
Jay jumped back a step, baring his teeth at Tim, regardless of how strange the Hatter was acting at the moment. To his side, he saw Tilik back up one step as well, though he didn't automatically fall into a fighting stance like Jay did. "I was expecting him to look a little more...well...intimidating," the raven haired dragon growled.
His comment went ignored as Hatter gave Tim a glare. "Almost five thousand years, and now you try to kill me," he stated.
Tim wiped his nose again and strolled slowly around the poison pump. "I would have sooner, but you hatters," he spat the world like it was rot on his tongue, "killed me before I could this could be completed. Only another week and it would have been finished. But thanks to that lovely little dragoness, making a big old mess of the spirit world, I was able to come back and complete my...best creation yet."
Hatter walked around the pump, opposite of Tim, and they circled each other like that while they talked.
"Of course I can't just destroy it, can I? I see that detonator on the bottom. If I'm any kind of rough with this machine...it'll explode. Years of neglect have probably left the explosives unstable. Am I wrong?" He asked.
Tim shook his head, "You know you're not."
Jay watched the two, the whole situation pricking his temper and making him irritated. This Tim guy was not the least bit intimidating, other than the horrible aura around him, and they pissed the dragon off so much with how calmly they were just talking about this. Hatter was dying, this wasn't the time to be chatting. With a growl, he began to step forward, only for Tilik's outstretched hand to stop him.
The other dragon was watching both Tim and the Hatter very closely, as if he wasn't sure which one to be more wary of, but he was leaning towards Tim. Shaking his head, he let Jay know that right now the Jabberwocky's rash violence would not be of any help.
"Well what can you do, Hatter? All your swords no longer have a point; you can't kill me again," Tim said.
Hatter smiled.
It was a terrifying smile. His lips stretched thin, and it didn't even touch his strangely black pupiled eyes. It looked a little cruel, even.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a long silver knife. Inset in it's handle was a single sapphire. It fluttered strangely in the light.
Hatta stared at them with recognition. "Yeah, that'll do the trick," She whispered.
Quick as lightning, Hatter pounced on Tim and drove the dagger through his ghostly stomach.
Tim screamed in pain as he was suddenly impaled against the wall.
Hatter threw five more identical knives, cutting through Tim's neck, arms, and legs. The madman made gargling, choking noises.
It all happened so fast that even Jay had a hard time grasping what had just happened, and Tilik winced, merely letting it all happen. All of that would've killed a normal person after all, but Tim was a spirit, and so far it just looked like he was suffering...a lot. "...What now...?" the raven haired dragon murmured to Tilik, whose eyes were now centered on the off Hatter.
"...We should just watch for now...until we are needed..." Tilik murmured, his expression saying he wasn't so sure he even trusted the Hatter the way he currently was. Something just...wasn't right. "This is not our fight, after all."
Hatter turned to his sister. "Leave Laque and Aeriel to watch over him until the spiritual rip is fully closed." Hatta only nodded.
Hatter looked at everyone else. "I want everyone carrying these barrels of poison. The poison already in the pump will just have to run out, but I want this to work on a cure," he said.
Everyone was very still for a moment, not sure how to act.
He glared at them, "Move."
A great flurry of activity later and all the barrels were packed onto magic discs and held in arms, and Hatter mass transported everyone back to the hospital, leaving behind two of Hatta's now human swords to watch after the wounded Tim and his poison pump.
Doctors and Healers and Nurses rushed the barrels away and as soon as they were gone, Hatter very carefully sat down in a chair. "We're done here," he said to the group.
Jay didn't much like taking orders from Hatter, and he refused to be intimidated by the man, whose attitude was beginning to try his anger, but he had grabbed a barrel or three anyway, carrying an extra in his tail. "I don't like this," he growled lowly to Tilik, glaring a little at Hatter after they got back to the hospital.
"...Indeed, it is off putting. Perhaps we should ask , she seems to know this side of him," the older dragon proposed in a low voice, approaching the redheaded woman with Jay following on his tail.
As soon as the question was posed, Hatta pulled the dragons outside the hospital entrance and turned to them. She got straight to the point.
"My brother has a strange failsafe. It was developed during the Heart Wars. We all developed one, really, but he never recovered. When he's pushed to an extreme that threatens his life, and by proxy the life of his land, he sort of...switches. Not like Kaga. That's still my brother in there, but now he's not as...soft. He can be meaner and crueler in the name of efficiency. I don't really know how to explain it, really. Tilik, you probably get it, but Jay," she sighed, "have patience. Because he won't."
Tilik nodded, but Jay huffed, not happy with the situation before him. He was a confrontational sort of man and had a general dislike of being ordered around, which left him with a sour attitude. Tilik gave Jay's shoulder a squeeze as he saw Ratana exit the hospital followed by the Hatta, and the two dragons met her at the bottom of the steps.
"I believe everyone should just take the day off. Jay, please escort Ratana back to her tower, Chief Tilik, the Portal Master is in the throne room ready to send you home. Thank you for your help today," she sighed, pulling her hat off and running a hand through her loose curls, only furthering their disheveled look. She snapped her fingers and the trio of dragon's found themselves back in Heart Castle's throne room.
Tilik pulled Ratana into a hug. "I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart," he murmured into her colorful hair. The young dragoness nodded, quiet but hugging back tightly, almost desperate for her father to not leave. Eventually she let go, and the well dressed Portal Master wordlessly opened a portal to Northern Wonderland and Tilik stepped through.
Jay stood quietly behind Ratana, a hand on her shoulder, until the portal closed and he wordlessly guided her through the many hallways to her guest suite, where two elite guardsmen stood on either side of the door, the only testament that this room was actually a jail cell for the imprisoned girl.
One of the men opened the door for her, and she turned in the threshold and hugged Jay before the older dragon could react. She cleared her throat after a moment and, still holding onto the Jabberwocky, said, "Do you think Sir Hatter will be alright?"
Jay, more than a little uncomfortable at the surprise contact, reigned in his knee jerk reaction to push her away, and shrugged, placing an awkward hand on the younger dragon's shoulder. "I don't really know," was his short reply.
Ratana nodded, and quietly let go as she turned and entered her room, glancing over her shoulder at Jay as the door was shut behind her.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Back at the hospital, the Hatter found himself surrounded by several doctors and nurses, all of them he knew but who had never seen him in his current state. A few of them had no change in attitude as they checked all his vitals, or, at least, asked him what his vitals where, as the Hatter was acutely aware of everything his body was doing at all times. But a few of the doctors and nurses, some of whom he'd trained himself, were nervous. To their credit, they hid it well, as they'd been taught, but Hatter was a smart man and could read a person's postured just as easily as a person could notice the grass was green.
They stood a little further away from the rest, and kept glancing at his and then away again. He knew his pupils were now black, and round, and looked just like any other person's, and that was not their natural state. And he was being very curt with several people, seeming to lack his once endless patience. Needles to say it was throwing several of the people who'd known him for decades rather off kilter, and it was making them nervous.
It probably didn't help that he was Atmosphering; exuding his power into his surroundings in small quantities and so subtly that everyone in the room felt a little strange, and much more aware of his presence, and that he was feeling more negative emotions than positive. Some, who he knew lived in his land, were not as affected as those who lived in other territories, such as the two doctors jotting down all his vitals as he prattled them out with ease. All the other people in the room slowly found some excuse or another to leave.
When he came to the end of the long list of things his body was doing, the two doctors, both female, gave him smiled, prescribed bed rest, and suggested he go home. He didn't reply as they left, and he soundlessly teleported himself home, where he knew Hatta had decided to wait for him to return. He also felt the warm presence of the Cheshire, and, he really shouldn't have been as surprised as he was, the cool energy of the Caterpillar.
All three were downstairs in his kitchen, and he had teleported to his room. He had no intentions of walking down to greet any of them, and he didn't have to, as all of them had started up the stairs as soon as he'd appeared and were at his door in only moment.
He was pulling off his boots as they entered with only a quick courtesy knock.
Hatta was, naturally, the first to speak, "So, how long do you think this poison will be around?" she asked. "Couldn't say. A month, a year, ten years, I don't know. He poured it into a mountain, Hatta, it's going to take a while before it even reaches ground, before it hits bedrock and stops hurting life. He knew what he was doing and how to maximize the destruction of his mixture, and I'm not even sure what exactly it's supposed to do other than kill me slowly," Hatter replied, tossing his boots against the wall in the general direction of his other shoes.
He felt the bed dip under the weight of someone getting on it, and turned to see both Cata and Ches were now on it,
Ches was slowly making his way over to Hatter, and Cata was simply sitting on the edge. Ches sat next to Hatter, hesitating on whether he should take his lover's hand or not, and Cata coughed into his hand and cleared his throat. "You know your body better than many people could ever hope to, and we trust you to keep us informed," was his simple statement, and he got up, leaving the room and pulling Hatta out with him.
Ches stayed where he was, next to Hatter on the edge of the bed. His eye flicked rapidly between the wall and his lover, not sure which one he should look at, until he finally settled on Hatter. "So this is new," he said quietly. Hatter shrugged. "Not really. This has happened a few times before, mostly during the Heart War." "Ah."
They sat in silence for a long while before Hatter turned to Ches and pulled the other into his arms. "It'll get better, Cecil, but it might take a long time," he stated. Cecil nodded, relieved his lover was not entirely changed. It'd didn't escape the Hatter's notice.
"You don't have to be scared of me. I would never do anything to hurt you in any way, you do know that, right?" he murmured into Cecil's hair, black pupiled eyes closing briefly. Cecil nodded, "Yeah, I know, it's just so...different."
Hatter pulled them both down to the bed. "You know, if the offer is still on the table, I'd really love that day in now,"
Cecil smiled. "For you, Aaron, anything."
Aaron smiled, and pulled his most beloved in for a tender kiss. They would talk more about the situation later, but for now they were content just to hold and be held, to ignore the possibilities and "what ifs", and to just sleep all day.