Animal, Person...Or Dragon

Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people

Cheshire cat: Oh, you can't help that, we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.

Alice: How do you know I'm mad?

Cheshire cat: You must be, or you wouldn't have come here.

Chapter 8

Down the Rabbit Hole

*Thump*. The duo landed with force in a bunch of flora; live flora. To be precise, rude talkative flowers consisting of a tiger-lily, a rose, daisies, a violet, and two larkspurs. Lucy heard numerous cries for help coming from under her and Natsu. They were complaining loudly with shrill voices.

"What a fat lively one!" A tiger-lily cried, talking about Lucy.

"Another one! We thought that man would be the last one!" The rose exclaimed.

"Look at this stupid looking pink one. The nerve, he crushed my fertile stems!" The violet snapped, poking Natsu with her leaves.

"Poor me! I just had a nice shower. Now my petals are frazzled!" The daisy moaned, tears forming in her eyes.

"I am truly sorry." Lucy said, crawling out from the small garden, dragging her ecstatic friend with her.

"You should be, you insolent girl!" One of the larkspurs yelled, bring rude.

"I agree." The other one said.

Natsu had started bending down, trying to pick one of the magical flowers. "Natsu, don't pick them!" Lucy told Natsu off for the umpteenth time.

"Listen to the foolish girl. How dare you try and pluck us. Don't you have any brain cells?" The violet said again. The other flowers had also started to scream at him, throwing dirt at him.

Lucy took Natsu's hand. "Come on, I think this is a good time to leave."

"We can't. We lost Happy again."

Lucy rubbed her temples. Why were they always losing the damn cat? She then watched Natsu start climbing a small tree. She was about to object, but then saw the blue cat clinging to the tree with dear life, digging his claws into the bark. It seemed he didn't have his wings anymore, but had changed colour. His soft fur was now pink with purple stripes or purple with pink stripes. It was different for each individual. No mischievous smile formed on Happy's face, but he sure looked like the famous disappearing fictional cat. No wonder the flowers were talking , they had landed in Wonderland. The place where madness was trendy.

Natsu had actually never read Alice and Wonderland. Walking around in the bizarre land, was nothing that he had ever seen before. The word wonder was defined in Wonderland. Natsu had no inkling that he was in that particular place. Right now, his only thought was getting his cat out of the tree. Prying Happy's claws out of the tree, he was shocked to see him change colour in front of his very eyes. It was time to ask Lucy a question.

"Lucy, where are we exactly?"

"You've never read the book?" Lucy asked, surprised. Lewis Carol's novel was quite famous. Even if a person had never read it, they usually knew a few of the characters. "We are in Lewis Carol's book, Alice in Wonderland and through the looking glass."

"Alice in...what?" He asked.

"Wonderland." Lucy replied, then said it in syllables for him because of his blank expression. "Won-der-land. A mind-blowing amazing place, that ranks itself next to Neverland in the imaginary world scale." She told him.

Natsu formed an 'o' with his lips, finally understanding the words coming out from the blonde's mouth. His hand trailed along the smooth surface of the pocket watch he still kept clenched into his hand. There were no gold chains attached to it, so he decided to put it under his black top hat. Wait...top hat? Like Happy, they also changed...clothes that is, not colour.

Natsu was now in a funny looking tailored suit with a red bow-tie. Pins, threads, scissors and thimbles were inside his front pockets. He liked what he was wearing better than the Scarecrow costume, but he still didn't like wearing a monkey suit. He felt enclosed inside his own clothing, he liked to be able to move more freely. His hat, however, was something he enjoyed wearing. He found himself cool with it on.

"Oh, you're the Mad Hatter." Lucy revealed, touching the brim of his hat.

Natsu didn't hear her properly, and only heard the word mad. "I'm not mad!" He replied, offended.

"No, in the book there is a character called the Mad Hatter. You are dressed as him, so I called you by his name." Lucy said with a tranquil voice, understanding his perplexity.

"What about Happy?"

"He's the Cheshire Cat. The cat how can disappear and can be quite confusing...actually almost everyone we will meet will pick at your brain, just to point out." Natsu found his friend's explaining quite useful. He was in an unknown land. Any information was of use.

"And you? Who are you supposed to be? A princess?"

"No princesses in this story. This isn't exactly a Fairy Tale. I'm actually Alice, the girl who falls through a rabbit hole and finds herself in Wonderland. In the end of the book she wakes up under a tree, not knowing if her adventure really happened or if it was all a dream."

Lucy found herself sporting another blue dress, simpler than the last one. Over it was a white apron, covering the front and not the back. A black head band kept her hair back from her face. She also had black buckled school shoes and long white stockings. She looked more like Alice than Dorothy. Her hair colour matched.

When Natsu placed his father's watch under his hat for safe keeping, the boy hadn't noticed that it had fallen out, sitting peacefully on the floor next to him.

"Natsu, your watch, it fell out." Lucy pointed out, pointing at the ground.

"Oh! You're a life saver Luce." Natsu bent down, retrieving what belonged to him. Suddenly, a white rabbit with a waist coat picked it up before he could, fleeing the scene in a trail of dust exclaiming.

"I'm late, I'm late! For a very important date!" The White Rabbit sang, hopping along, glancing at the watch every few seconds.

"HEY COME HERE YOU FURRY BALL OF FUR!" Natsu shouted, sprinting after the herbivore.

"Wait for me! It's never a good idea to run after the White Rabbit! Always gets you into trouble!" Lucy yelled, running after her friend who was already too far away to hear her. She stopped for a moment to pick up Happy who couldn't run fast enough. She could still see a pink tuff of hair in the distance, and followed it.

Lucy caught up with him at last, seeing him standing in an intersection, scratching his head, implying that he had lost the rabbit. He looked mortified and crushed. Loosing something that belonged to his father took a toll on him. Lucy walked up to him, gently putting Happy into his hands for him to stroke. He began to feel better, but still had a sad face. Lucy did her best, trying to console him.

"Don't worry, I might know where the White Rabbit is going."

The boy's face changed from grim to joyful. "Where? Where? We need to go as quickly as possible!" He yelled hurriedly, pulling on Lucy's sleeve.

"To the Red Queen's castle. I'm positive." Her long finger pointed at a large red brick castle, surrounded by a humungous green hedged labyrinth.

"You're so intelligent Lucy. Come on let's go!" He said, grabbing her hand.

"Wait! I just ran a long time catching up to you! I don't have any stamina left!" She complained, whining.

"No problem, I'll carry you." He insinuated, picking the blonde up bridal style, without her concession.

"Hey! I can walk myself!" She clung onto his collar as he ran, wind dancing with her hair.

"You're too slow, just hang on!" He shouted, running towards the Queen's castle, with Happy clutching onto Lucy's back.

"Don't drop me, or you will be sorry." She taunted him.

"Not in my life." He replied, amused.

Lucy was finally able to step on firm ground, when they arrived at the castle entrance; which was the beginning of the twisting maze.

"How are we going to find our way through this maze?" Lucy asked, getting frustrated. "I don't want to get lost."

"Don't worry. Remember I am a huntsman. I can follow the rabbit's tracks easily." He sniffed proudly, stepping inside the great labyrinth.

After an hour of Natsu following the small paw prints of the rabbit, they arrived at one of many rose gardens the Queen of Hearts had in her possession.

"This just like the story. The Queen must be playing croquet, and look! The roses are painted red." She exclaimed happily.

"Why would anyone do that?" Natsu asked confused.

"As I told you before, Wonderland is a mad, mad land. Sometimes this place never makes sense." She told him.

"Alright! Let's find my pocket watch!"

"Yes, let's. I don't want to be in the evil Queen's castle for too long. More chance of getting my head shopped off." She shuddered, thinking about decapitation.

"I will never let your head leave your body Luce, that's a promise." Natsu responded childishly.

"Oh, how kind." She replied sarcastically. "Come on, let's go." She said, walking further into the garden, listening for the cries and complements coming from the Queen's group of followers.

"Oh my! How marvellous you are your majesty."

"What a nice shot!"

"Always winning, how delightful!"

"You are a thing of beauty." She heard the complements going on and on, never halting. As they came closer, the voices became even more annoying. Everyone was trying to be the favorite of the queen for they didn't want their heads chopped off.

"Off with her head!" A shrill voice echoed angrily. Lucy felt sorry for the person being executed, but she could do nothing about it. Then there would be two executions rather than one.

She watched from a bush, the woman being dragged away from the premises by two guards.

"Guards! Look, there are two fellows hiding in the bushes!" Catch them and bring them to me!" The Queen of Hearts cried like a spoiled child.

"Uh-oh." Natsu and Lucy spoke at the same time.

What to do?