I couldn't remember if Charlie's horse (not the one Alice and Hatter rode) was ever given a name and I had no interest in trying to find such an arbitrary detail. So I made up my own name.

Chapter VIII: The Lost Kingdom

"Um, Hatter," Alice whispered apprehensively. "Just checking, but are you seeing an old guy up there dressed in plate armor yelling at us?"

He did not know whether he was relieved to hear that question or not. "Yep." He sincerely hoped the girl was not merely sharing the same auditory and visual hallucination. If they expected to survive being hunted by both ends of the spectrum of Wonderland's power plays, it was helpful if at least one of them retained some sanity.

The Sir Lancelot impersonator continued his verbal assault. "You dastardly..." He fumbled for an appropriate insult, and when it appeared he could not find a satisfactory one, he stomped his foot in a comical display of geriatric petulance.

"Could you, like, shut up for a second?" Alice asked the elderly man dismissively. She was already on her feet, wending her way through the sticks towards where Hatter lay.

Alice appraised him with a mixture of concern and relief. "Are you sure you're okay?" she queried worriedly. He noted how her eyes assessed him head to toe; her practiced scrutiny checking for any sign of injury. Even though her inspection was wholly practical in nature, it made the blood quicken in his veins all the same. Hatter had never once blushed that he could remember. It was possible he may have blushed once or twice as a lad, he conceded. But now he could feel an uncharacteristic heat rise to his cheeks. In the dim light filtering into the hole, he hoped Alice would not see the sudden spread of redness upon his cheeks.

"Yeah," Hatter assured her. He accepted her outstretched hand nonetheless and she pulled him to his feet with a gentle, yet quick, motion. His vertebrae popped and creaked as he straightened. Other than feeling a little bruised and winded, he judged himself no worse for the wear. He knew he ought to count himself fortunate, for there were usually far worse consequences after crossing paths with a jabberwock. The pit which had ensnared them had definitely been designed with the proportions of such a creature in mind. Its depth was greater than his and Alice's heights combined. There were no vines or roots curling out of the sides for which to grab on. He laid his hand on the cool side, finding that the earth was compacted very tightly. It would be difficult to even carve out their own handholds.

"Maybe that coot has a rope we could borrow," Hatter commented.

The armored old man had disappeared from view, but he could still hear him fretting off somewhere in the distance. Hatter cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted, "Oi! Come back here!"

"We don't need a rope," Alice remarked thoughtfully. He looked at her and saw that she was staring at the top of the hole. She then turned to him and lowered herself down on one knee, threading her fingers together in front of her and holding her palms upward. "I can launch you up to the edge or even above it and then I'll just jump out after you." She outlaid the plan with an ironic flippancy that made Hatter want to laugh.

She inched her cupped hands forward, impatiently urging him to place his foot there. His first instinct was to ask the girl if she had gone mad. But he had seen her lift Dodo in the air and then slam him against a desk with such force it had almost broken. Hatter was not nearly as heavy as Dodo (which gave him a sneaking suspicion as to where most of the food rations he smuggled in to the Great Library ended up). Still, his tenuous grasp upon common sense forced him to stare skeptically at her hands and the height he would have to be thrown in order to reach the edge.

Alice noticed his reservations. "Trust me," she implored.

He sighed, resigned. After all, if he expected to have her trust, he would have to reciprocate it with trust of his own. He gripped both her shoulders and, with a mumbled apology, placed his dirty shoe in her palms. Even beneath the rough velvet of the jacket he had loaned her, he could feel the delicate outline of her petite shoulders. She's so small and slender...where in the world does she hide the muscle mass for all that strength? He wondered.

"You ready?" she asked.

Hatter took a few deep breaths and then looked at Alice, nodding his head. "Here goes nothing," he quipped.

She rolled her eyes, but Hatter could see the faint attempts of her lips to curl up into a smile. The muscles in her shoulders tensed and without even so much as a countdown, her palms shot upwards, propelling him into the air. He barely had time to gasp in awe before he landed awkwardly upon his feet. Teetering alarmingly, he waved his arms to try to regain a sense of balance before he fell flat on his face. When he attained equilibrium, he glanced behind him back at the pit and noticed he had landed just a few feet from it.

He let out a laugh of incredulous relief and walked up to the edge of the pit. "It worked!" he shouted to Alice, who was standing at the bottom of the pit.

She smiled at his enthusiasm. "Told you," she replied smarmily.

"How on earth did you get out of there?" The old fellow had returned from wherever it was he had disappeared to. In his hands was a thickly coiled rope, which made Hatter snort with sardonic humor. Alice had been right. They really had not needed a rope.

The man did not appear to appreciate Hatter's mysterious amusement. His brow crinkled suspiciously and his light blue eyes surveyed the younger man with resentful contempt. "And what, pray tell, is so amusing?" The man's volume and eyebrows rose upon the words he decided to randomly emphasize.

"Uh...nothing," Hatter replied, eyeing the man's sheathed sword warily. How long has this bloke been living in delusion in the bloody Tulgey Wood? How the hell has he survived for so long on his own? Maybe nothing wants a taste of crazy old man.

While Hatter was being distastefully stared down by the elderly man in battered plate armor, Alice emerged from the pit. Her small white hands appeared at the edge and, with an alarming groan which sounded suspiciously like it harbored pain, she hoisted herself out of the pit and onto the surface. She remained on her knees, one hand clasped to her left side, sucking in deep gulps of air.

Concerned, Hatter came over to kneel by her side, ignoring the old man's decision to resume his rampage of bewildering, nonsensical insults now that Alice had appeared. He thought she had seemed unharmed down in the pit, but now he was starting to see she may not have escaped the fall unscathed. "Alice, are you all right? Are you hurt?" he asked, not completely able to quell the panic in his voice.

She drew in a lungful of air, smoothing the strained expression upon her face. "I...em...kind of hit one of the sticks on my way down." She paused for another breath and then said sheepishly, "Maybe we should have gone with the rope."

"What?" Hatter sputtered. "Why didn't you say something?" This was not good. They were leagues away from any kind of decent medical care center, and he had no formal training or education in the treatment of injuries beyond the basics. If it had been him who had been wounded, the basics he knew would have been sufficient; but, not for Alice.

The girl shook her head, shooting him a brave smile. "It's okay. I just need a minute. It really is just a scratch...well, a little deeper than that, but I'll live. Trust me, I've had worse," she assured him calmly. In spite of the situation, she let out a small laugh. "Wow, it is so much easier to ignore wounds and pain when you're in the midst of a fight."

Hatter did not even want to contemplate the implications behind that statement at this particular moment. His hands itched to swing her up into his arms and trek all the way back to the boat and back to the city, jabberwocks, Suits, and belligerent Resistance leaders be damned. She must have noticed his distress, for she laid a hand on his forearm and squeezed it. "I'll be fine, Hatter," she reiterated firmly. "Like I said, I've had way worse injuries than this and still kept on my feet."

The old man decided to insert himself, uninvited, into the conversation. His pompous tone from earlier changed to one of actual concern as he asked, "Are you wounded, my lady? I am frightfully sorry if my Gravity-Assisted Snare has led you to undue harm. Please, allow me to assist you."

Alice rose gingerly to her feet with Hatter (who could not help himself) holding onto her arm as both a protective measure and a reassurance that she really was well. She surveyed the armored old man and said, "Thanks for the concern, but I'll be fine." A short pause followed before she asked in perplexity,"Um...who are you?"

The old man drew himself up to his full height, puffing out his chest and squaring his shoulders as if he had been given an order by a superior. "Why I am a knight! The White Knight to be precise," he answered with grandeur, sweeping a bow. Hatter could have sworn the creaking he heard as the old codger bent at the waist was from his bones and not the rusty armor.

The so-called White Knight then added with superfluous ostentation, "Sir Charles Eustace Fotheringhay Le Malvoy the Third!" Then another bow while adding in a more subdued (but still grandiose) tone, "At your service."

"You're a White Knight?" Hatter repeated skeptically. The man's armor certainly did lend some credence to that assertion, but it could have easily been bought or stolen. He imagined that, although the fabled knights of old were dead and gone, their armor would be considered a grand antique. But he was well known for being able to sniff out a lie. He did not smell any deception here. That meant either one of two things (and the young man was almost positive which one would be the case). Either the old man really was the sole remnant of a people who had been exterminated over 150 years ago, or, through the work of delusion, he merely believed himself to be one.

"That's what I said. But now the question remains, who are you?" Again, the volume and eyebrows rose with the random emphasizing. Hatter wondered if that was a quirk particular to this man or if all the White Knights had spoken like this.

"He's Hatter," Alice replied. "And I'm Alice."

The knight's eyes grew wider than Hatter's tea saucers upon that revelation. He leaned his face uncomfortably close to Alice's. "Alice? The Alice? The Alice of Legend?"

Hatter felt annoyance ripple through his companion. "No," she corrected in exasperation. "Just Alice."

The man's mouth drooped in dismay as he sounded out the words Just Alice, as if the word just were also part of her name.

Feeling the need to redirect the conversation to a more productive route, Hatter cut in. "I thought all you guys were wiped out years ago."

"Well, you thought wrong," Sir Charles retorted haughtily. He pounded his chest plate and thrust his nose up into the air. "As you can see, I'm as fit as a butcher's dog!"

Though that particular analogy made no sense whatsoever, if the man was indeed a White Knight, he must have more steel in his aging body than Hatter thought. After all, it was a considerable feat to survive annihilation of one's entire people and then live for well over a century afterwards. And, if one White Knight had survived, perhaps there were more out there in hiding like this fellow. The image of a small army of old men in decrepit armor with the white sheen of paint cracking and peeling filled Hatter's head.

Alice must have been thinking along the same lines as him because she inquired with a shrill note of hope in her voice, "Are there anymore like you?" If there were, being natural enemies of the Queen of Hearts could make them sympathizers, and possible allies, to their cause. It could mean wonders for the morale of the Resistance if it were discovered some of these ancient warriors were still around and kicking. It might just appease Dodo enough to call off whatever hits he may have ordered on Hatter. Of course, such a plan was only feasible if they could convince the White Knights to aid their cause. From the sound of it, Sir Charles here had been isolated from the world outside the Tulgey Wood for a very long time. He, and any others of his kind, might find their lives of solitude within the forest too comfortable to leave behind for the sake of fighting an old and powerful enemy.

"Certainly not," Sir Charles replied, chuckling good naturedly. "I'm a one-off. My old nan used to say that if I were the only eligible bachelor left in the world there wasn't a warthog or wallflower who'd polish my escutcheon." He spoke while wandering off to gather up his myriad assortment of tools, one of them most definitely being a shovel. The thought that this old, mad knight had dug that pit in order to trap a jabberwock was a hard pill to swallow. It seemed logical that he probably had help from another knight or two.

"No, I mean other knights," Alice clarified. "You know...your buddies...your comrades-in-arms?"

"What? Other knights?" the old man shot back incredulously. His incredulity at the idea caused Hatter's hope to sink like a stone in a lake. "Heavens no! Are you mad? We were all wiped out years ago."

"Oh," Alice said, visibly deflating. "So...you've been alone all this time?" She sounded both astounded and saddened by the thought.

"Yes," the old knight responded nonchalantly. "Well, except for my loyal steeds Archie and Guinevere."

Hatter never thought it was possible, but he felt a swell of pity for the man. "Wait, so you're saying you dug this pit on your own, then?" he commented with blatant skepticism in his voice.

He had not intended to offend the knight, but the old man seemed to take quite a great degree of offense nonetheless. Sir Charles turned and stomped over to them, his finger thrust before him accusingly. "You think I'm too old, boy? Well, let me tell you something, knug-face! Youth is vastly overrated!" He stopped just in front of them, as both Hatter and Alice were still standing right in front of the pit. "I may have put on a few years!" Hatter smothered his ironic snort at the word few. "But I'm crafty. Oh yes, indeed. I've a very inventive and calculating mind stacked high with countless ground-breaking, state-of-the-art ideas. I invent all sorts of things!" Sir Charles drew himself up with obvious pride. "The beehive mousetrap, for instance."

With a withering glare directed towards Hatter, he pointed to the pit while informing them bitterly, "This that you have so crassly referred to as a pit is, as I have already said, the Gravity-Assisted Snare, mark four. This was my third attempt, but, thanks to you, I shall now have to make a fourth attempt." He huffed in pointed aggravation.

"Well, I can definitely say we're both very sorry to have fallen into your...Gravity-Assisted Snare," Alice said diplomatically, her hand still tenderly placed upon her wounded left side. "Trust me, if we could have avoided it, we would have."

Sir Charles stared at her for a moment, his nose twitching unfathomably before wandering away, muttering to himself.

"He's as mad as a box of frogs," Hatter declared quietly, watching the old man amble about as if he were in search of something.

"Wow, you two should go at it with the weird analogies," Alice quipped in amusement.

"How the hell have you survived?" Hatter bluntly asked the old knight.

The knight walked back over towards them, his eyes roving around the area. "Well, I am a knight. And an inventor, as I said." With a few chuckles, he added while nodding his head, "Though if I am honest, it's strictly on a part-time basis, yes."

His eyes grew wide and his arms rose. Dropping his voice to a stage-whisper, the man declared ominously, "I also dabble in the black arts, every now and again. Soothsaying, toenail readings, that sort of thing." He snatched up Alice's left hand while saying enthusiastically, "Here, let me show you. Just give me your palm."

Alice snatched her arm back, but it was a moment too late. The knight had seen the ring, its large gem winking in the late afternoon light through the gaps in the tree canopy. She clenched her fist in an attempt to hide the ring from view.

"What's that on your finger?" the knight asked, sounding perplexed and oddly hopeful.

"Nothing," Alice replied in a failed attempt to sound glib. But her voice was an octave too high to sound anything but suspicious.

Stricken with wonder, the man asserted breathlessly, "It's the sacred ring! The Stone of Wonderland! Our ring!" His pale blue eyes sparkled with wetness.

Hatter brought his hand up to place it firmly on the old knight's dented chest plate. With a gentle, but firm, push, he put himself between the knight and Alice. "Don't get too excited, Granddad. The ring stays on the lady's finger, got it?" He did not want to hurt an old man, but he would do whatever was necessary to protect Alice and the ring.

Sir Charles did not appear to even notice Hatter's intervention. He dropped to his knees, his face turned up to the sky with an expression of pure rapture upon his face as if he had just seen the light of heaven. "It is meant to be! This time, this place, this meeting in the woods! Fate has chosen me!"

"Okay, we need to get away from him before he gets us killed," Hatter decided, perturbed by this change of character. He pulled Alice away from the kneeling knight to speak with her privately a few yards away.

"Hang on, Hatter, he might be able to help us," Alice protested.

"Him?" Hatter responded cynically, glancing over at the knight who was still on his knees and now rocking back and forth. "Alice, he doesn't seem, well, right in the head, if you ask me. I think all he'd do is draw attention to us. And we really don't need that right now."

"But," she said, holding up her hand to cease his protests before continuing, "he has survived here in these woods on his own for, well, over a hundred years apparently. He's obviously doing something right. At the very least, he must have a very good hiding spot. We could ask him to let us stay there at least for a night so we can get some rest and try to figure out what we're going to do." She looked down at herself, cringing. "And I don't know about you, but I really want a bath."

A bath? Her priorities obviously differed from his own, but his all too male mind immediately leapt upon the image of Alice, dripping wet and naked. As beguiling as that blue dress had looked while clinging to her wet form earlier, he could only imagine how much more alluring she would appear without it. Oh bloody hell, this is not the time, he scolded himself.

"Hey," Alice called over to the knight. "Sir Charles, there are some people after us who kind of want to kill us and take the ring and do some very bad things with it." Hatter almost laughed at the simplistic way in which she worded their situation. The old knight gave no sign of hearing her, but she went on. "Do you know of somewhere we could hide or, well, lay low for a bit?"

"The stars are aligned in a cosmic ray of hope!" Sir Charles cried euphorically.

Hatter glanced at Alice with his eyebrow cocked. "You sure you want to put your faith in him?" he mumbled doubtfully.

Alice glanced over at the kneeling, fawning knight, a conflicted expression on her face. "Well, we don't exactly have a lot of allies. And, I know he may be 150 and well, a little crazy, but you try spending a century in these woods on your own and see how mentally intact you turn out?" Hatter had no answer for that. It was a good point.

"Anyway, he's definitely a survivor. You have to respect that," Alice pointed out.

"And I'm not deaf!" The old knight rejoined the conversation, apparently having heard and noted everything Alice had said to him. He rose to his feet and turned to the two of them. "Justalice, I, Sir Charles Eustace Fotheringhay Le Malvoy the Third, White Knight and Guardian of the Curtsey," he paused to actually perform a curtsey, "would be honored to escort you, your goods, and your..." his eyes fell disdainfully upon Hatter "vassal to my kingdom."

Alice snorted in amusement at Sir Charles's categorization of Hatter as her servant. Hatter, for his part, did not find it quite so humorous. "Did he just call me your vassal?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him, smirking devilishly. "Well, apparently I'm your oyster."

"Touché," Hatter conceded wearily. He should have known she might have taken some offense to that.

Sir Charles gathered the rest of his gear and then beckoned to the two of them. "Right this way, my lady..."and he fluttered about for a manner by which to properly address Hatter. He finally appeared to settle on "you."

As they followed him, Alice bragged in a sing-song voice, "He likes me more than you, ha ha ha ha."

Hatter would almost have been annoyed with her had she not looked so wondrously lovely in her good spirits. Her blithe mood caught him slightly off guard, especially considering she had been nearly gobbled up by a jabberwock and then wounded when they fell into that knight's pit. It was certainly an improvement upon the mood she had been in when he had first met her.

Sir Charles led them to a small cluster of trees in a clearing where two horses were tethered to a low hanging branch. One was a gray stallion and the other was a smaller, chestnut mare. Both were equipped with brown leather saddles. The mare also had a peculiar contraption attached to the back of her saddle. It was an elaborately woven net which formed the shape of a square. The net was adorned with tasseled ends and flowed down to trail upon the ground a few feet behind the horse.

Both horses regarded the return of their master by flicking their ears and lifting their heads up from the grass they were contentedly grazing upon. Sir Charles patted their noses affectionately. "Allow me to introduce Archibald and Guinevere," the knight announced with a wave of his hand and another bow. "My lady, Guinevere shall carry you and your vassal to my sacred kingdom where you will be safe from your pursuers. And, please, if you will, call me Charlie. Sir Charles was my father." He chuckled a bit, slapping his chest plate at the joke he apparently was the only one to get.

Hatter and Alice slowly approached the mare, who was eyeing the two strangers with cautious interest. Hatter tentatively reached out a hand to let the animal get a whiff of his scent before he awkwardly patted her nose. Alice stared at the creature with the same wariness she had demonstrated.

"Don't suppose you know how to ride a horse, do you?" she inquired.

"Well, it has been a few years since I've had cause to get on one, but, yeah, I know how," he told her. "Let me guess, you don't know how to ride a horse."

"In theory, yes, but I live in a fricken city. The last horse I even attempted to ride threw me over a fence and almost broke my back," she grumbled while eyeing the horse resentfully as if this one were the one which had thrown her. "I was never one of those girls who wanted a pony."

"I can assure you, my lady, Guinevere is a gentle soul. She will bear you safely," Charlie said while packing his tools into a leather satchel attached to the saddle of Archibald. He tightened the leather thong and then, with a dexterity that belied his age, hopped upon the horse.

"Come on," Hatter said, untying the halter which tethered Guinevere to the branch. "Just sit behind me and hold on. I can hold the reins and lead her." He grasped the brown pommel and swung himself up onto the saddle and then extended his hand to help Alice up. She emitted a resigned sigh and got on the horse with minimal difficulty. At first, she just sat there trying to balance herself with her hands splayed out and palms flat on the animal's rump behind her. Hatter did not see such a position boding well for her comfort, or in the event that they had to kick up the pace or make a jump. She did not appear to want to hold onto him. He did not know whether to be insulted or bemused by her obstinacy.

"I'm not going to bite," Hatter told Alice in a dry tone.

She snorted and shook her head before scooting forward to lightly but securely wrap her hands around his lean torso. It took a few more minutes to steal Charlie's attention from whatever was so enthralling him on the back of his gauntlet. Once they got the senior knight to realize they were ready to go, the old man cleared his throat and cantered over in front of them.

"Just follow me, my lady and my lady's servant," Charlie announced in his trademark grandiose tone better reserved for royalty rather than a teashop owner and an oyster.

I swear, he's calling me that just to annoy me now. You can keep running with the daft old codger routine all you like, Charlie, but I think you're sharper than you look. The tremors radiating from the girl behind him into his own frame indicated that Alice was trying to hide her sudden fit of giggles. "Well, I'm happy to see you're so amused by my humiliation," he retorted in a tone that came out sounding a little more aggrieved than he intended. Her compassionate response was to laugh harder.

"You sure did pick a strange time to discover your sense of humor," Hatter remarked, turning slightly to see her face.

She smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "Occupational habit, I suppose."

He frowned in confusion. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Her smile dissipated slowly and her brow furrowed. "I told you, it's a long story. So can it wait until I have some kind of a bath and some food?"

Hatter had no choice but to acquiesce to that, but his curiosity and his unease about Alice's uncanny abilities and her cryptic remarks had grown tenfold.

Charlie set a slow, casual pace as he sat upon his horse loudly singing an absurd song to himself. At first, Hatter was worried both the pace and the noise would conspire to attract Mad March and the posse of Suits to their location. However, upon feeling Alice tapping his shoulder to draw his attention to the ground behind the horse, he saw that even the resurrected assassin-tracker would find it difficult to follow them. The strange net which had been tied to the back of the saddle on Guinevere and trailed to the ground was apparently not just a peculiar adornment. As they moved, the tasseled net slid on the ground behind them and, in its wake, their tracks were magically filled in. In addition to that, little green shoots of grass would pop up, effectively concealing their path from view. The net was making it look like no one, not even forest creatures, had ever trod upon the ground.

"Well, that's nifty," Alice commented appreciatively.

"Yeah, it even works over mud," Hatter noted. "Maybe old Charlie does have a trick or two up his escutcheon." He and Alice both snorted at the last word.

She was sitting very close to him now; so close, in fact, that he could feel her tiny wisps of breath tickle the hairs on the nape of his neck. Every time she did that (which was quite often since she needed to breathe), his heartbeat sped up. He had never been that physically close to another person for such an extended period in a very long time. The physical contact was incredibly distracting, far more so than it should have been considering all she was doing was clasping her hands around his torso to keep herself stable upon the horse. He tried to keep his focus upon Charlie up ahead, but his treacherous mind seemed only want to pay attention to the outline of his companion's lithe body pressing up against his back. She seemed to meld against him perfectly.

Remember, she's here trying to save her boyfriend. Her boyfriend. Don't you go making things all uncomfortable and awkward, he silently chastised himself.

Fortunately, Guinevere seemed to know what to do even if her temporary master was currently engaged in an internal debate with his libido. She plodded along after Charlie and Archibald without any trouble. They eventually emerged from the woody path into a hilly green meadow. The field was sparsely populated with conifers, but several yards ahead Hatter could see a thick line of trees capping what he suspected was just another portion of the Tulgey Wood.

As they traversed the field, they passed an enormous white mushroom. Its stalk towered into the sky, forcing the cap of the huge fungus to breach the cloud line. He awaited Alice's reaction, guessing such things were not found in her world.

Apparently, she was more bemused by its presence than amazed. "A giant mushroom," she remarked in a deadpan tone. "Huh, well, that explains a lot about this world. That could get you hallucinating for years, I'll bet."

Hatter cocked an eyebrow. "People from your world use mushrooms to hallucinate?" he asked skeptically. He had never heard of such a thing.

Alice rolled her shoulders behind him, ostensibly in a shrug or to merely stretch out cramped muscles. "Well, we mostly use mushrooms for eating. But, yeah, some people do indulge in what we call 'shrooms' just to get high."

"Have you?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"No," she said, chuckling sardonically. "I can't really afford to get high."

They passed through the border of trees and the air immediately grew cooler and denser. Up ahead, Hatter noticed the trail seemed to disappear behind a veil of moss, leaves, and vines strung up between the trees. Charlie guided Archibald over to the mossy veil and drew it back while beckoning Hatter and Alice to come closer.

"Welcome," the old knight announced, his grandiose tone this time demanding quiet and respect. "Welcome to the Kingdom of the Knights."

Hatter was thunderstruck with awe by the scene before him. Nestled in a rocky valley were the majestic remnants of the fabled kingdom of old which he had only heard about through garbled stories and legends. There was an enormous canyon separating the kingdom into two parts with two crumbling stone bridges connecting the pieces. Gigantic chest pieces towered over what remained of the myriad homes and structures of the ancient kingdom. Time had done its work in eroding the structures and allowing nature to creep in and claim dominion over this once beautiful and great city that had once had dominion over all of Wonderland.

"Wow," Alice breathed as she peered at the view over his shoulder. "I feel like I'm in Rivendell."

Hatter did not bother to ask where that was, supposing it must have been some ancient city back in her world. He gulped down the strange mass which had materialized in the middle of his throat. A wondrous, inexplicable feeling was sweeping through him.

I had no idea this was still here, he thought. Surely the Queen of Hearts would have utterly destroyed all this. That was what he had been told about the ancient Kingdom of the Knights since he had been a child. Hatter had always believed there not to be a speck left of them save for what remained in books; books the queen was also attempting to wipe out of existence. It was widely thought only the memory of these people remained, and, if the queen had her way, even that would soon be gone. But the evidence was there before his eyes. A White Knight had led them here. A member of a people who were all supposed to be dead and gone had led them to a city which was likewise supposed to be completely obliterated. The knowledge that even the formidable Queen of Hearts was fallible, that she apparently had not been completely successful in destroying this place and its people, made his chest swell with hope. It was hope for the Resistance, which, up till now, he had never fully believed stood a chance against her.

Just think of what this will mean to them, he wondered. But, they'll never know, 'cause I'm not going back. I can't go back. Doubt about his plans to return with Alice in order to escape retribution overcame him. If he left with Alice as he had intended before he saw this ruined city, the Resistance would never know of its existence. On a more positive note, that also meant the queen would never know of its existence. If she ever found out, she might be inclined to finish what she started over a century and a half ago. He clenched the reins tightly as he began to doubt that the choice which served his self-preserving tendencies was the right one.

What is this little oyster doing to me?

If Alice noticed Hatter's troubled mood, she gave no indication of it as they were led to a small, wooden shelter with hay, oats, and a water trough. This, no doubt, was where the horses were kept. They dismounted, both of them vocally grateful to be standing on the ground with their own two legs. He set to work helping Charlie unsaddle the horses, rub them down, and check their hooves. It may have been a very long time since he had ridden a horse, but the rules of traveling on horseback were still ingrained in his mind. The care of the horses always preceded the care of one's self. The horses gratefully dipped their mouths into the sparkling, cool water in the trough while Charlie waved Hatter and Alice over to follow him further into the city. As they walked, Charlie supplied the two of them with the history of the place.

"Before the war with the Queen of Hearts," he said solemnly, "this was once the greatest city in the realm. The Red King and his elected council ruled Wonderland with the wisdom of the ages."

"And the Queen of Hearts destroyed it all?" Alice spoke up, her voice brimming with wonder and sorrow. She was craning her neck, studying the huge structures which had long since been invaded by plant life.

Charlie nodded grimly. "We lived in harmony for 1,000 years. But when the queen came to power, she just wanted to feel the good, not the bad."

Just a few yards away following a rather precarious pathway down some giant tree roots was a large clearing amidst the towering trees and chess piece statues. Charlie gestured toward it while saying, "Believe it or not, this area used to be the throne room."

There was definitely no longer a room to speak of, Hatter noticed. It looked like a permanent camping enclosure. There was a fire pit, a woven hammock, a clothesline strung up between two trees, a wooden bench, and another small, somewhat dilapidated wooden barn with a wooden gate in front of it. Upon further inspection, he also saw that there was a white bathtub stationed near the closest approximation he could come to for a gateway to the encampment.

"Sadly, all that remains now is the throne," Charlie pointed out. Hatter and Alice followed his gesture to see that not only was there a large marble throne coated with a layer of decorative greenery, but there was a skeleton sitting in it. It could be none other than the Red King, decked out in suit armor, rusted chain mail, and a tarnished golden crown with his bony digits still clutching the bejeweled hilt of a sword.

"The king still sits upon his throne," Hatter whispered, partly awed and partly perturbed by the grisly royal corpse on permanent sentry duty.

"Well, I hope he has somewhere other than that bathtub to bathe because I am not putting on a show," Alice deadpanned.

Hatter guffawed and slapped her on the back. Suddenly, he remembered she was injured and he felt extremely angry with himself for having forgotten.

"Alice, let me see your wound. Are you still bleeding? We need to get that cleaned and bandaged," he said anxiously.

Upon hearing the subject, Charlie jumped to attention. "Oh yes, please, my lady, allow me to fetch you some supplies so you may treat and bind your wound. I have a very good unguent I developed myself. Takes the sting away and encourages healing, I assure you." Without even waiting for a response, the old knight clambered off down the pathway and into the encampment.

"Wow," Alice noted. "A girl gets excellent service around here." She turned her gaze on Hatter and frowned at his pointed glare.

"Let me see it, Alice," he asserted. He even stooped so low as to slap his hands to his hips, but at least he did not submit to tapping his foot.

"Yes, doctor," she replied petulantly while rolling her eyes.

While taking off the velvet jacket, she warned him, "It's going to look worse than it actually is. I may as well go ahead and tell you I can take a lot more damage than most people. I also heal a lot faster."

She would have had to put that to the test to know that...He stopped his thoughts there. The faintest of pictures was beginning to be drawn for him and he did not like what he was seeing.

Well, her wound definitely looked worse than he had hoped, but not nearly as bad as he had first feared. Her lovely blue dress had a long, jagged, horizontal rip in the side, but what skin was exposed was covered with partially dried blood. The blue fabric was stained brownish-red with the darkest of the stains closest to the tear. She allowed him to pull the sides of the tear in her dress apart so he could get a better look at the wound. It was a deep laceration about the same width of his wrist to the tip of his middle finger. It was no longer oozing blood, which was some cause for relief. The gash looked like it had even knit together almost all the way.

Hatter had no formal medical training whatsoever. What he knew about wound care was entirely self-taught through receiving his own wounds and injuries over the years. The inspection of her wound had been entirely for his peace of mind. He needed to assure himself that she truly was all right. All the same, he tried to put on an air of casual knowledge when he looked up at her. "Well, I suppose just clean it with some water and wrap it real tight. Just try to be careful and make sure it doesn't...ehm...fester," he said, his voice oddly tremulous.

Her eyes glinted as if to silently tell him she knew what he was doing, but did not mind at all. "Thanks," she said quietly.

Hatter's heart started to thump giddily once more as her blue gaze fell upon him, those crystalline irises piercing through him. For once, he could not get a firm grasp on what she was feeling. His own latent emotions were running amok. He felt a sudden terror grip him, a terror that was at once wonderful and dreadful. The whole world could have stopped existing around him and he would not have cared so long as he could have this moment, this moment of just standing still here with Alice, gazing into her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes and those smooth, cherry lips.

What's happening? Why am I feeling like this? What am I feeling?

"I...ah...am going to find Charlie...and...um...see about that bath," Alice stuttered. She, too, appeared to be grappling with her own internal chaos. Pulling the velvet coat on, she rushed past Hatter into the encampment.

He was left staring after her in bewilderment wondering what had just happened.

It's official. I can't seem to write anything without making some sort of reference to The Lord of the Rings. That's the third one by my count haha. It's like searching for pineapples in Psych episodes. I'm surprised I haven't fit a Harry Potter reference in there, actually. Oh, I'm sure one will turn up eventually.

Anyhow, I must forewarn that there will be a gap between updating coming up here. From June 25th till July 15th, I will be gone to spend time with my beloved boyfriend at the beach. I will post most likely one more chapter before I leave (maybe two if you keep your fingers crossed). All chapters that are posted have been written well in advance, actually. I just don't allow myself to post a chapter until I finish one further down the line. I keep a running status of the story at my profile, so you may refer there to see how it's going.

That's all except for, as always, I'd love to hear any and all thoughts from my readers!