Smiling, Marm clicked her hooves together in cheery joy, "Ahbaa! You look stunning!"

Peering in, Black sniffed, "Can I have those garbage clothes now? I'd like to burn them."

Alice glanced up in surprise, "What?"

Black wiped her spectacles clean on a piece of her wool, "Those clothes are garbage pieces! Nothing! Now… your dress, on the other hand…" She appraised it with a smug eye.

Alice's dress was a plain one, but one that caught and held an eye with beautiful filigree and trimmings. A background of blue outlines a white checkered smock with pockets. Near the hem, light ocean-sapphire bows parade round the whole circle. The sleeves extended to her mid-upper arm.

Her sport socks and scruffy tennis shoes had been traded out for clean, knee-high, white leggings. These led down to polished, black-buckle shoes.

In her hair, Marm had tied a blue ribbon into a bow.

Sighing, Alice shrugged, "Sure… whatever…"

Black seized her clothing and scurried from the room, bleating.

Marm took Alice's hand delicately and led her after Black, smiling.

As they entered the tea room, Hubble and Cheshire stood in respect, along with the other cards. Hubble whistled, "Wow, Alice! You look… pretty."

"Well, thank you!"

Cheshire padded over and nuzzled her, his great head vibrating as he purred, "I agree. The dress befits you, Alice."

Smiling, Hubble bowed to the two sheep, "Thank you, madams. But we must leave now. How much will the dress cost?"

"Baa! No cost! It's a pleasure if it's Alice!" Marm was furious.

Hubble sighed, "Okay. Whatever you say." Taking Alice by the hand, he nodded, "Let us go."

It had been but an hour since Alice and her group left when Hatter, March, and their half-regiment trod into the clearing. March glanced at the ground, noting the various footprints, and, in particular, tracks of a heeled lady's shoe. Scenting the air, he turned his gaze to Hatter, "Anyone in the sheep house?"

Hatter regarded the house and blinked, his yellow eye shifting to a lime green. Shaking his head, he sighed, "Do you remember what color my eye's supposed to be?" He blinked again, eye changing deep sapphire, and blanched, "Woah, Sylvantes! Turn your imagination down a bit!"

Sylvantes, who had been fiddling around with his fife, jerked up to stare at Hatter, "How-how-how did you-"

Motioning at his one visible and grotesque eye, Hatter smirked, "This is a shadowlander eye. Very useful."

"S-s-shadowlander's ey-eye-" Sylvantes looked horrified.

"His brother's, I guess. He said, 'One of you two are going to get this, so which of you?'" Sighing, he blinked again, this time the eye turning to a colorless white, "I ended up getting it. Cursed Jabber tore my perfectly good eye out of its socket and gave me this one… So… now… I can see –what?- heat sources, imagination, when someone says a lie or is sick." Glancing down back at Sylvantes, he smirked, "But the way your imagination was sparking, you looked like a darn firecracker. If Jabberwocky had seen you like that, he'd of…" He shuddered.

Sylvantes's face fell, dismayed, "Oh… he eats imagination, right?"

"Got it right on the- Ahh!- Here it is!" Hatter's eye was now a deep crimson red. Peering at the house, he crossed his arms, "There's… two. No Alice shapes."

March growled, "But Alice did stop here. And, knowing those sheep, they'll have given her a new outfit and such. Wouldn't hurt to go in."

"Okay…" Turning to the guards, Hatter ordered, "Stay here!"

The cards nodded and watched grimly as the two assassins made their way to the front door. A six leaned and muttered to his neighbor, "I'll bet you ten pounds that they'll kill the two in there."

"No way! I'm not wasting ten pounds!"

Rapping at the door, March barked, "Open the door, at order of the Jabberwocky!"

There was a slight pause, than the door creaked open and a black sheep face peered out, "What do you want?"

Hatter gave a small bow before inquiring, "Have you seen a human girl named Alice? She's passed this way and-"

"No."

March snarled, sighting the clothes clenched in Black's hooves, "Don't lie to us when you're holding the girl's clothes! I'd recognize those anywhere!"

Trying to close the door, Black bleated in fear as the two shouldered their way in, "You have no right!"

March snatched the folded clothes, ears laid back, "We need no warrant if you just show us the cursed evidence. Wait…" He glanced at Hatter, "Do we even use warrants anymore?"

"No." Stomping down the hall, Hatter fumed in one of his sudden, inexplicable bad and violent moods, "I'm going to look for the white one."

Black tried running out through the door, but March shoved her back into a room to the right, growling, "You're not going anywhere till you tell us where Alice went and what she's wearing!"

"I'm not going to tell you." Black's voice was matter-of-factly and stubborn.

Hatter stalked into the room, furious and covered with glass, "Darn sheep escaped through a clock and closed it before I could get through." Suddenly stopping, he sniffed the air.

"Look, Black. I might be unwilling to hurt you, but I wouldn't test Hatter right now." March pleaded.

Black matched his gazed and muttered, "Just going to tell you that she has Marm's and I's bestest blue dress. Not another word."

Not paying attention, Hatter crept over to the small table on which a smoking pot steamed out vapor. He opened the top, peered inside, and froze.

"What is it, Ha-"

Yowling with rage, Hatter swiped the tea pot off the table, smashing it against the wall, "Tea! It's cursed tea!"

March stared at the brown liquid dripping from the wall, mouth suddenly watering. Tea? The illegal drink they so lusted for every night and day and-

He was roughly shoved out of the way as Hatter whirled on the Black Sheep. Stumbling back, March watched helplessly as Hatter's frustration and rage rushed to the surface.

Advancing on the suddenly trembling Black, Hatter snarled venomously, "You! You! Tea has a death verdict attached now, you cursed lamb!" He drew his daggers.

Black stepped back, but Hatter grabbed her, dropping his weapons to rip at her wool. Bleating in fear, Black struggled as she baaed, "You monster! Let me go!"

"Monster?" Hatter brought Black up, face to face, as a long string of saliva dripped down to the carpet. Forked tongue flicking out, he hissed, a tint of insanity deforming his voice, "You haven't seen anything yet, sheep!"

March turned away, his face blanching as he heard one last bleat from behind him and then Hatter's insane laugh.

He hated it when his partner went crazy.