A/N: Plot moving along nicely now, isn't it?
"You called it Wonderland, then."
A mad tea party. A blue caterpillar. A raving lunatic queen.
Scenes from her dreams.
But could they be real?
She screamed because she knew they were, knew it in the depth of her soul that these nightmares that had been haunting her were real. Not even a memory this time.
Real.
She kept screaming, terrified, knowing that she had to do something to save her friends, wondering where the Hatter had disappeared to, and overwhelmed by the flood of memories. She tried to stand up, and stumbled, falling off the bed. Her vision swirled; she couldn't stand straight.
"Tarrant," she choked from the floor.
A beautiful queen clothed all in white. A devoted and loyal bloodhound. A journey miles long on the back of a fantastic creature…a Bandersnatch?
The Jabberwocky. The feel of the weight of the Vorpal sword in her hand. The heavy armor, weighing her down as surely as the burden of Champion.
Upelkuchen. Pishalver. Growing and shrinking and growing and shrinking and shrinking even more. Flying on the top of a magnificent hat.
She tried to crawl across the room, but wasn't even sure where she was trying to go. She had to find the Hatter, had to follow him…
But why couldn't she see her hands in front of her? Why couldn't she feel the ground beneath her? Was she fainting? She had never fainted in her life, and was quite proud of that fact, and the last thing she needed when she was trying to find and help her friends was a fainting spell.
But suddenly she was gone. Not fainting anymore, but falling. Falling through the air, falling out of the sky. Was she going through the rabbit hole? But that was impossible, she was nowhere near Ascot's estate, and besides, she was falling through an open area, not a tunnel filled with pianos and mattresses.
The clouds grew further and further away, and she immediately became aware of the danger. She twisted and turned in the air to see the ground – a chessboard? – come closer and closer. She was falling onto the very battlefield she had left from six years ago. What would be the least painful position to fall in? Alice wondered whether she would break her spine if she landed on her back. After all, she was falling very fast straight out of the sky, and the ground was so close now; she couldn't land on her feet if she tried, and she'd break her legs that way anyway, and –
She hit the ground, and the world went black.
When she blearily opened her eyes hours later, the sun had set, and it took her a minute to realize she had woken.
"You certainly slept long enough, you stupid girl! Now get up; you have things to be doing."
"Absolem?" she croaked out, voice hoarse from screaming. She quickly regretted speaking. Her head was throbbing. Her entire body ached, but her head in particular felt like it was about to split in two.
"How it could possibly take you six years to remember I can't possibly fathom. But Mirana was right; sending the Hatter did help. Now get up. We have to go."
Alice moaned, closing her eyes and bringing her hands up to cradle her head. "I can't," she protested.
"Don't be stupid. You must. You have to go to Marmoreal and retrieve the armor and the Vorpal sword, and then slay the Jabberwocky," Absolem said, rolling his eyes. "Really, you think you would have a handle on this by now."
"I already slayed the Jabberwocky!" she shrieked angrily, but muffled, face buried in the ground, quite unwilling to get up.
"Yes, well, Mirana failed to slay her sister, and with her powers of Dominion Over Living Things, the Red Queen brought the monster back to life."
"What?" Alice asked, forcing herself to sit up slowly.
"Idiot girl. You heard me. The Jabberwocky must be slain again."
"Where's Tarrant?" Alice asked, ignoring the unpleasant task that lay before her.
"Oh, he was captured several hours ago."
"What?" Alice shrieked, standing up instantly, pain in her head momentarily forgotten.
"Lovely, she's awake," the seductive voice of the evaporating cat said, suddenly appearing before her.
"How was he captured?" Alice cried.
Chess frowned. "You told her about Tarrant?" he asked Absolem.
"Where is he?" Alice insisted.
"After he remembered, he was taken to the same place he was in Underland when he drank the Jabberwocky blood, the same way you were taken here. He had drank it at Marmoreal, being that the White Queen had stored several vials. Unfortunately, the Red Queen's guards were waiting for him there. He was marched to Salazen Grum, but I haven't been able to locate him inside the castle. They know I've been communicating with the prisoners in the dungeons, and are keeping him somewhere separate," Chess sighed.
"Then we must go rescue him," Alice decided, and began to head in the direction of Crims.
"First you must retrieve the sword and the armor from Marmoreal," Absolem said, looking disgusted at her idiocy. "You cannot slay the Jabberwocky without it, and you cannot rescue anyone without slaying it."
She looked incredibly frustrated. "So Tarrant is captured by the Red Queen, who magically returned from exile and magically revived the Jabberwocky and magically captured Mirana, and I have to waste two days by walking to an abandoned castle to pick up tools?"
"We'll explain everything on the way," Chess assured her. Alice sighed a long-suffering sigh, but turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction, towards Marmoreal.
The sound of Chess's voice kept her from being frightened during the seemingly endless nighttime walk across half of Underland. Absolem had gone off to report to Mirana, while Chess patiently explained everything that had happened since she left, and how it had gotten so particularly bad this time around. While she was worried sick over Tarrant, he also told her that Iracebeth had the rest of her friends for weeks now, and while Mally had gone missing for awhile, no one was dead yet. Two days probably wouldn't make too much of a difference.
So when they arrived at the castle just as the sun was rising, Alice felt slightly better than when she had just left the battlefield.
"Now where exactly is the sword and the armor?" she asked as they walked through the gates.
Chess visibly blanched.
"Don't tell me you don't know?" Alice cried, looking up at the huge building before her.
"Mirana told Tarrant to hide it," he explained. "I didn't think to ask…"
Alice sighed. "We better start looking, then. You start from the top, and I'll start from the bottom."
They spent hours scouring the castle. Every room was thoroughly searched; torn apart, in fact. Even the halls and storage rooms were ravaged in the mad hunt for the sword and armor. While Alice was hunting through the kitchen, she made sure to pocket a good amount of both pishalver and upelkuchen. After all, one never knows when some might come in handy. But still, they didn't find anything.
Finally, when the sun was setting and they had searched every room and Alice was ready to collapse, Chess suggested she sleep for a bit.
"I'll try to find him over in Salzen Grum again. Don't get your hopes up, but maybe they've moved him and he can tell us where it is."
She hated to waste anymore time when her friends were so desperately in need of help, but her head had really never stopped throbbing, and at this point she had technically been awake for more than twenty-four hours. So she snuck into the Hatter's old work room, and made a bed out of old fabrics. Then, despite her horrible headache, she was so exhausted that she quickly drifted off into sleep.
"Alice!" Tarrant cried.
"Tarrant!" she replied, running up to him. "What have they done to you?"
"Don't worry about me," he said, dismissing his numerous injuries. "Did you find Chess and Absolem? Oh, please tell me that you're not dreaming and you're really here."
"No, I'm not dreaming – I mean, I am, but I'm not. I'm in Underland, Hatter. You fulfilled your mission. I'm in Marmoreal now."
"You must come quickly. They're going to execute Mirana any day now."
"No!" she cried, horrified at the very idea.
"Now that they have me, they think they've captured the last of the Resistance. Alice, you must slay the Jabberwocky as soon as you can," Tarrant begged her from his chains.
"Why is it always me?" she sighed, the burden of responsibility weighing her down. Tarrant managed a small grin.
"You are Underland's Champion," he explained. "Just as Mirana will always be the rightful Queen, and I will always be the Hatter, you always be the Champion. It's your destiny, my dear."
"I wish you were here," she confided, kissing him lightly on the cheek.
"I do, too. I'm of no use trapped here. I'd much rather be with you, leading the Resistance."
"There's not much of a Resistance to lead," she confided in him sadly.
"Don't give up," he whispered, squeezing her hand gently. "I believe in you."
She looked at him lovingly, but felt unable to express the surge of…something… she felt rising in her chest at the sight of him.
"Hatter," she tried to explain, but couldn't.
"Why are you sleeping in Marmoreal?" he asked, suddenly realizing how behind schedule she was. "Shouldn't you be halfway here by now?"
She frowned, forgetting for a moment her mission. Then she remembered. "Oh! Where did you put the sword and the armor? We've been looking all day! And Chess can't find you; Tarrant, are you okay? Are you dreaming? Where are you?"
"They're in my work room," Tarrant said, frowning. "I'm in Salazen Grum, and no I'm not dreaming. But Chess didn't know where the sword was?"
"No, he said he didn't think to ask you."
He swore in Outlandish, but Alice could tell he was angrier at himself than at the grinning cat. "It's underneath the floor under a hidden panel. Are you too tired? Can you wake up now? We're running out of time."
"I think I can wake up now," she frowned, wondering how to wake oneself up. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard on being awake, and slowly heard Tarrant's voice fading.
"I will see you soon. I believe in you. Underland believes in you, Alice. Don't lose hope."
She woke without crying, and with remembrance, for the first time in years.
Her head still ached, but she was conscious enough to feel along the floor for the loose board. She fingers felt the edge of one right underneath her makeshift bed, and she pried it loose to find a hoard of gleaming metal underneath. If she had the energy, she would have shouted for joy. Instead she saved her strength to haul the load out from underneath the floor. Once it was all up, she replaced the floorboard and changed into the armor, sheathing the sword at her waist. Dressed and prepared for a battle that was likely two days away, she sighed heavily, desperate for more sleep, but unwilling to jeopardize the lives of her friends. So she left the castle and began the long walk towards to Crims in the middle of the night, frightened out of her mind, but comforted by the reassurances of her meeting with the Hatter in her dreams.
Chess showed up after a few hours, chastising her for not resting more and for leaving without him. She shrugged uncharacteristically. "Sorry, Chessur. But we've got a kingdom to save, and it doesn't look like we have much time in which to do it. I always seem to be running a little late, don't I?"
"The Oraculum doesn't foretell the slaying of the Jabberwocky until the day after tomorrow," Ches protested.
"But we have to get there first, don't we?" Alice asked, and she never once slowed her pace.