A/N: Sorry this one's taken so long to put out, I have no excuses. Oh and welcome to my new reader, the anonymous Jamie Birdsong!
Chapter 3 - Encounters of the third kind
There are many-a tale
Found under the hill
And if they're not fled
There they are still
There was a large, slightly cross-eyed hare - she was sure it was a hare, because rabbits, to the best of her knowledge, did not know such colourful curses as the creature was now muttering (Mouse realised it must have been he she kicked) as he rubbed his clearly sore…ehem.
Sitting by the hare was a rather strange looking person, Mouse didn't know whether or not it was meant to be male or female, sporting a large, bright mauve top hat, with a ticket marked 6/10 shoved in the brim.
From her rather restricted knowledge of wonderland, having only ever read the books as a little kid, she realized that these could only be the March hare and the mad hatter.
There was a large dormouse asleep on the grass next to them.
Still watching her intently where two other creatures, but who didn't belong in wonderland, but in the chess borders, and also to a children's nursery-rhyme.
The lion and the unicorn fought for the crown
The lion fought the unicorn all round town
Some gave 'em white bread, some gave 'em brown
Some gave 'em plum cake and drummed 'em outta town.
"You know, kitten," Said the lion in a slow, rich voice, "it is not at all polite to stare."
Mouse shook her head, clearing it. "Sorry. I just always wondered where they drummed you to. And now I know. Which is good." She added, feeling incredibly stupid all of a sudden.
The unicorn curled its lip in distaste. "Oh no my dear, that's not it at all. They could never force us to move anywhere. We came here of our own free will."
"But why, though?" She asked, confused.
Hare spoke up, his long ears flat against his skull and tawny eyes blazing, "Because the queen is insane, you moron! She killed the caterpillar, and was gonna kill us! And she…she…"
He stopped, overwrought, and Hatter continued, quietly and sadly. "She stole our suits."
Mouse gave him a blank look, then realisation dawned. Suits of playing cards. As the hierarchies of the looking glass world ran on chess, Wonderland's ran on cards. And now the queen of hearts, who had always been teetering on the edge of the abyss, as far as her mind was concerned, had taken all the cards.
Now from what Mouse knew of wonderland, it was pretty twisted normally, but this was just wrong.
"Tell which suit belongs to who." She said, getting up and sitting next to hatter and hare, and putting an arm round each. The hatter smelled metallic and inky, like quicksilver and wool dyes. The Hare smelled sweet and dusty, like hayfields in the summer.
"And then I'll try to help."
696
By the time they had finished, it was nearing dusk. Mouse was a little surprised at this, until the Lion told her that it was around noon that she had come into wonderland, whereas it had only been early morning in her world.
But anyway.
The queen, as was previously made obvious, owned the suit of hearts, due to her vain and volatile nature.
The owner of the suit of spades was the Cheshire Cat.
"He's the only one" Hare had told her, "with enough natural power to be able to handle a suit on his own without going completely homicidal on us."
Mouse had agreed, recalling the creature that CC had become in the maze.
Hatter and Hare, and technically the dormouse too, owned the clubs, the third most powerful suit.
The caterpillar used to own the suit of diamonds, but due to his precognitive abilities, he had been unable and unwilling to stop the queen when she had come and taken his cards and killed him. So now, also due to the dimensional shifts that had happened when the Queen had risen to insanity, the diamonds now belonged to the Lion and the unicorn.
So now Mouse just sat and watched the blue and gold and scarlet aurora-like display that was sunset in Wonderland, and tried to come up with a plan to help them.
She hoped the Cheshire Cat was alright – Most of her plans included him.
But of course, just as she thought this, he stumbled around the corner, and collapsed.
A/N: You've heard the jingle, you should know what to do,
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