"We shall reconvene once I return!" The King of Hearts announced, vanity and all, "I have some important matters to discuss," He grumbled, giving the Counsellor a cold glare who in return rolled his eyes, "and most importantly! I need a new coat of paint."

'About time too. I can't stand playing this silly game.' Gordon truly regretted agreeing to play along, every time he tried to talk to Percy Rabbit about finding his way back to Sodor, Gordon would be pulled back into the game to have his turn. But now that the game has been put on hold, Gordon could guarantee that he'll have a better chance with talking to Percy Rabbit.

"Percy! Mind if I could talk with you?"

"Given that everytime you tried to talk with me the game was interrupted, I don't mind."

"You wouldn't happen to know of, let's say, a way to the Isle of Sodor? I've been trying to find my way home for who knows how long now."

The little engine was silent, presumedly thinking of an answer.

"There's surely a way to Sodor. I mean, if you got from Sodor to Wonderland, there must be a way for the vice-versa. Listen, I'll try to find this 'way' as soon as I can, but I must hurry away!"

Percy Rabbit raced after the King of Hearts. Left to his own thoughts, Gordon wondered where the Bicker Owl might be.

Perhaps the creature had returned to the forest where he had gotten himself lost. Maybe the creature was somewhere in the castle grounds. The only few engines who knew the Bicker-Owl well were the Counsellor of Hearts and Victor...

"Hello Gordon! Haven't seen you for a while my friend!"

"Victor?! How are you here? I thought you were locked up or something."

"I was pardoned!"

Victor smiled as the two puffed alongside each other, although Gordon had not noticed nor where they were going.

Eventually, Gordon took note of what was going on. "Say… where are we heading to?"

"Not a clue but I do know we're going somewhere."

Victor's answer clarified absolutely nothing. Since Gordon did have an answer, he decided not to investigate the topic further… Until the conversation died. He asked to keep it alive, despite the misadventure's progress so far, Gordon did want to have a chat with someone who was at least close to sane.

"Why are we heading towards somewhere that we don't even know?"

"Why not?"

"There should be a reason behind everything we do, if there isn't a reason, it's pointless in doing it."

"Sometimes the reason is not as satisfying as we want them to be, but it's a reason nonetheless. Therefore, everything has a reason if you look deep enough," Victor explained.

"There's even reasons behind reasons motivated by reasons and so on. But you shouldn't be spending time going into those deeper reasons, because you might forget the very reason why you're doing it or your search for those reasons would end up fruitless."

Despite the many 'reasons' - Gordon counted nine in Victor's answer so far - the blue engine had understood. To put it simply, it was like when someone constantly asks 'why' and is not only annoying but constantly forces you to try and come up with new reasons.

"Talking about reasons… what was the reason you were sentenced?"

"You see, I supply the King with his royal paint. I may have accidentally sent him one can with the wrong colour."

Speaking of the King, he was heading towards Victor and Gordon with the Counsellor, and it was quite obvious he was not pleased to see Victor.

"Gordon," King James said flatly but with a clearly irritated expression on his face, "What is he doing here?"

Gordon was a little confused. "He was pardoned, was he not?"

The Counsellor had fright in his widened eyes, mouthing to Gordon as if he was trying to warn him not to say anything, but it was already too late.

"Pardoned?! Since when was he pardoned?!" The King squawked, fury turning his face red.

Realisation had hit Gordon too little too late, regret and guilt flooded his boiler.

"Now your majesty!" The Counsellor stalled, "Has Gordon visited the old coffee-pot yet?"

The King of Heart's face went from furious to curious in a blink. "Oh right, he hasn't! I'll tell you, Gordon, he's great fun to have a laugh at!"

'Laughing at a coffee pot? Sounds as much fun as mocking a turtle, unless said turtle is Edward or the other older engines.' Gordon mentally remarked.

"The Gryphon will take you," The Counsellor said with haste, "Oh look, here he comes now. Good thing I told him to come exactly one week ago."

Right on cue, a grand creature had landed, causing a heavy breeze hitting the engines as he did. It was the very first time Gordon had ever seen this mythical creature, since he discarded any myth as 'nonsense'. The indignity, having said nonsense talking to you in the flesh… Talking through a beak and with feathers to boot!. He bore a small, worn out crown; reminding him of the old Rocket who resided in Ulfstead.

"Gryphon," The King of Hearts addressed the creature with a tone of superiority, "Go take Gordon to see the old Coffee-pot."

The old but noble Gryphon bowed his head. "As you wish, King of Hearts." Gordon could hear a low mutter that didn't reach the ignorant royal engine, along the lines of "please address me as Stephen the Gryphon" so Gordon heeded his words out of sympathy.

Gordon, being the skeptical engine that he was during his stay in Wonderland, raised an eyebrow of how such a frail creature - assuming he was frail by age - was going to carry a big engine like him.

This was before the express engine noticed that Stephen had a basket alongside him, big enough for Gordon. He just hoped it was strong and sturdy enough as well. He already had one misadventure with flight, thank you very much.

His boiler had butterflies fluttering amok inside it, but the Counsellor had already hurried him into the basket. Maybe that was karma, for causing another mess the Edward-doppelganger had to clean up.

With a quick ruffle of his molting feathers, Stephen's claws hooked into the basket. His wings began to flap as he started to lift himself and Gordon up from the ground.

"Huh, maybe it won't be as bad as last time." Gordon commented at the steady pace, only to take back his words as soon as Stephen suddenly flew off in one direction with a sudden increase of speed.

The journey was as wild as any rollercoaster - despite the time period - on Earth. Gordon wasn't sure if Stephen was showing off, or he was in a bad mood, or even maybe both.

By the end of the whole flight, Gordon was quite dizzy and his boiler felt as if it was inside out. He would've made a glad and relieved expression as he puffed out of the dreaded basket and onto still land if he didn't feel so sickly.

Once Gordon had recovered from the excruciating air sickness - he insisted that any engine should stay on ground and forcing one to fly would be made inhumane if he had any political power - he noticed a tall being of rusted metal and chipped paint, the flora of this island growing around it to substitute for the Coffee pot's company.

Gordon racked his thoughts to figure out to who this could be, took him longer than usual because of the bizarre trip here, said Gordon the still-recovering-from-that-horrid-torturous-flight engine. He soon concluded that it was Glynn as soon as the immobile giant spoke with the elder engine's voice.

"Hello, Stephen."

Glynn gave his friend a tired smile.

"Who's this little fellow?"

Gordon hated when he was called too old or too young by others, at least in a way that wasn't in his favour.

"Grumpy one, isn't he?"

"Quite so. I don't think he's got the hang of flying yet, old friend."

"My name is Gordon," the steam engine answered rather tiredly., "I just don't like flying in general, or at least from what I experienced so far."

This made Stephen and Glynn chuckle at the little engine. You'd think Gordon would be used to this treatment by now.

"Now, now, I'm guessing the King sent you here," Glynn continued , "To have a quick laugh at me."

The steam engine wasn't sure if he gave a sympathetic look out of sympathy, or exhaustion to keep up his pride that had been abused and battered terribly at this point.

"I'm too tired to laugh at anything… I'd rather just rest, listen to something that's not so hard to the hearing and ego as I do." Gordon requested, much to the other's delight.

"Oh I hope you don't mind me rambling on about a thing or two," Glynn did continue to ramble on despite that the other two did not object or say anything at all, "Back in the good old days, when I was well kept and not mocked, when Stephen was in a… grander state," Glynn pauses seeing Stephen settle down, ruffling his feathers upon hearing his name, "and back when James was certainly not an heir, everything was very in order… well, at least compared to now."

"In order?" Gordon unknowingly interrupts, "What do you mean, in order?"

"If you let me finish," Glynn continues, "By order, I mean everything always played by the original rules, when the two sets were kept separate. That's the kind of order I meant."

"Two sets? There's four of them, aren't there? Hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades." Gordon interrupts Glynn again.

"Those are the four suits of the cards, Gordon," Stephen corrects Gordon, "Glynn meant the chess pieces and the cards."

Gordon was no stranger to the game of chess as he was to cards, but he had less knowledge about it, given that engines can't really play chess, or perhaps it was his refusal to try playing it in favor of sleeping or pulling the express. Edward's driver would play for Edward and occasionally Duck or Boco would play too through their drivers.

"So what do Chess pieces have anything to do with this?"

Gordon knew if he hadn't interrupted, he would've gotten his answer quite quicker even by a few seconds. Oh, if only he had learned not to interrupt, for the impatient engine had done this thrice, he wouldn't be holding up the progress of Glynn's explanation so much…

Author's Note:

Hey everyone, really sorry this took a few months, schedule was thrown overboard again.

Thanks to Bloopydoo for editing again as always, I forget how to English a lot.