Once again, I do not own HNKNA~ Still own chance.
This chapter isn't as long as the last one. Because I mainly just wanted to show scene's with young Boris and Gowland. Keep in mind that Gowland will probably be OOC, because of events in the last chapter and the fact that he's younger. Same with Boris, he'll slowly make his way up to this trouble making self.
Next chapter will be a time skip and the hatters will be coming in.
Thank you for everyone who reviewed the last chapter x3 didn't think I'd get any only a day or so after I put it up.
With all of that said, Enjoy~!
Chapter 2: Adjusting
"Come on kid, I'll take you to your new room."
It took about twenty minutes for Gowland to convince Boris that he was the new Cheshire cat. The kid was so damn stubborn. Gowland grabbed ahold of the kid's hand and dragged him up a flight of stairs in the corner of the office. "This floor is my room." Boris almost had to sheild his eyes because how bright the duke's room was. "Third floor is your room." They went up another flight of stairs.
Boris looked over the old cheshire's room, he liked it much better than the dukes. There were shades of teal and black all over the room. He could get used to this...Boris let go of Gowland's hand to explore the room. "I'll send soe workers into town later to get some new things for the room. Something tells me teal isn't your color."
"Nah. I like pink and purple." Boris jumped onto the bed.
"Listen Boris." The boy's cat ears perked up. "I don't want you to leave the park for a few days. If you need something have some workers go and get it for you."
"Why?"
"Because I say so. Like it or not, as the Cheshire cat, you're my cat. Just listen. Wait a week or so. I'll send some workers to your old house to pick up your things." Boris looked away from Gowland, not complaining or accepting. Gowland sighed, this was going to be more difficult that he thought. "Get some rest. It's been a long day for both of us."
"Alright..." Gowland went to walk down the stairs. "Night Uncle Mary." The duke stopped and looked back at the boy who curled himself up in the teal sheets.
"What did you just call me?"
"Uncle Mary?"
"Who told you my name?
"Mister Gowland did!" Boris smiled up at Gowland. The duke couldn't help but give a small laugh.
"Right...of course he did...Night Boris." He turned off the lights on his way out of the room.
Gowland walked back down into the office, ordering some workers to get some new things for Boris and to go and get his clothes from his old house. "Are you sure you're alright?" A female worker asked, placing a hand on her boss's shoulder.
"I'm fine...I think." The female worker gave him a smile before leaving to go to Boris's house. Gowland sighed, walking up to his room. Boris wasn't the only one who needed to rest.
Over the next week Boris had completely transformed Chance's room to a pink, purple and black paradise. Gowland learned that the boy had a simlar clothing style to Chance, which made the Duke smile. He did plan to take Boris into town today, so he could show the cat the rest of the territory. However he couldn't find the cat anywhere!
"He's just like Chance..." Gowland grumbled. The sound of cheers caught the man's attention as he suddenly looked up to see a huge crowd of people. "what in the world."
"Oh! Boss." A woker walked up to him. "that little Cheshire is amazing!"
"Boris?"
"He's doing all sorts of stunts - there he is!" The worker pointed to the top of a large statue that decorated the plaza of the park. Gowland's eyes widened as he saw Boris balancing on one foot at the top of the statue. He was laughing and smiling as bright as he could, and Gowland couldn't help but smile.
"Maybe they aren't anything alike.."
"Sir?"
"Nothing." Gowland shook his head. He pushed his way through the crowd as Boris jumped from one side of the statue to the other, this time laiding in a handstand. "Boris! Get down here!"
"Come and get me old man~" Teh duke huffed angerily, just staring up at Boris. After awhile, the cat got the hint. "Fine~ be down in a second." Boris pushed off with his hands, doing a sumersault int he air before landing on his feet at the base of the statue. The crowd cheered, and Boris made dramatic bows. "Thank you, Thank you~"
"Come on wonder boy, I want to show you the rest of the territory." Without warning, the kid jumped onto Gowland's shoulders. The crowd laughed as Gowland huffed. "What are you doing?"
"Riding on your shoulders."
"Why? You have feet, use em!"
"But this is more fun~" Gowland gave up trying to reason with the kid. It's not like he was heavy at all, Boris was a twig. So the duke sucked it up, grabbing ahold of the small cat's legs and started to walk off. Boris waved to his adoring public as they left the park.
The rest of the day Boris rode on Gowland's shoulder's as they walked through the 'diamond town', as Gowland called it. Though Boris didn't know why the duke was showing him this. He lived in this town for pete's sake. He knew most every knock and cranny. However, he liked ridding on the man's shoulders, and resting his pink head on the other's red. After a few hours he gave a yawn, Gowland wasn't doing much better - his shoulders were hurting from the cat being on his shoulders all day.
"Alright, let's get you home." Gowland said, holding back his own yawn. "I'll have the workers cook us up something."
"Hey, Uncle Mary?" Gowland had long gotten used to the kid calling him that.
"What is it Boris?"
"When can I leave the territory?" Gowland stopped right outside of the gate for the park. He took Boris off of his shoulders and put the kid down infront of him.
"Why would you ask that?"
"Well, you told me not to. But I'm curious! I haven't been outside of this territory since, like, ever!" Gowland sighed, shaking his head. "But why not!"
"It's a dangerous world out there."
"I know! But the workers taught me how to shoot, I can take care of myself!" Gowland pinched the bridge of his nose. God this kid...
"How about this, you can come with me to go see the clockmaker tomorrow. He's a friend of mine." Boris's ears perked up.
"Really?"
"Yes, really." The cat cheered, before running into the park to share the news with all of the workers. Gowland sighed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
"Watch after the park for me." Gowland told one of his high ranking workers. The man nodded, before looking down at Boris, who was shaking with excitment.
"Try not to drive the boss crazy now, little lord."
"Can't promise that!" The kid laughed, grabbing ahold of Gowland's sleeve. "Come on, Come on!"
"Whoa!" Gowland almost tripped as the cat pulled him forward, who knew there was that much strength in that little body? "Easy kid, you almost made me drop the wine bottle." which he had gripped in his other hand.
"Why you bringing that smelly stuff anyways?" Boris made a face as he looked at the wine bottle, still gripping the duke's sleeve.
"It's an adult thing." Boris whined, saying that wasn't a good answer, but let it go as he realized they had walked out of the border of the territory he called home. Gowland felt Boris's grip tighten on hsi sleeve and the cat walked alittle closer to him.
"I thought you said you weren't scared?"
"I-I'm not!" He huffed, but didn't let go of the duke's sleeve. Gowland smiled down at the boy, and he couldn't help but chuckle at the brave act he was putting on.
"Whatever you say kid."
It took longer than Gowland thought to get to the clock tower. The Cheshire cat blew of how scared he was and wanted to run off and see everything every other second. It was really starting to bug Gowland, however that subsided when they got to the base of the clocktower, and Boris quickly clinged to him again. Gowland rolled his eyes, "Straighten yourself out Boris, don't want the clockmaker thinking you just rolled out of bed right?" Boris shook his head, letting go of Gowland to straighten out his clothes - he had rolled around in the bushes a few seconds before. The kid wore one of Chance's old jackets, even though it was about three sizes to big and the sleeves went passed his hands. He wore a purple tanktop underneath that, with black shorts that had multiple chains hanging off of them. He then wore one purple shoe and one pink shoe. Why excatly, Gowland thought he would never know. "Come on." This time he grabbed ahold of boris's hand before they headed in the clocktower.
Boris started to complain about halfway up, he didn't like having to walk all the way up to this clockmaker's office. "Just shush, one more level and we're there." Gowland said, coming up the last of the stairs. They walked down the long hallway, before finally coming to a double door room. Gowland let go of Boris's hand to push one of the doors open. "Hey, Julius! Brought some wine for us!"
"And your new cat." Boris walked into the room behind the duke, looking at the man behind the desk. He looked alittle younger than Gowland, he had short blue hair and wore black and gold. Boris hid behind Gowland when the man started to stare at him.
"Uncle Mary, he's creepy, let's leave." Gowland laughed nervously as Julius looked annoyed
"Sorry about him Julius. It's his first time out of the park."
"That's fine." He sighed, putting the clock he was working on down. "And I guess since I'm going to be done early, I can take a break for a drink."
"Not like I was giving you a choice!"
Gowland and Julius sat down at the small table a few feet away from the clock makers desk. Instead of sitting down with them, Boris walked around the room, being his curious self. "I guess one of the clocks I've recently fixed as Chance's, wasn't it?" Julius asked in a hush tone, so that the new cheshire wouldn't hear. Gowland nodded before taking a sip of the wine.
"Two of the ones you fixed were also Boris's parents."
Shock went by Julius's eyes for a moment before they went dull again. "So, his name is Boris?"
"Boris Airay!" The cat said from the other side of the room, his cat ears twitching. "If you guys are trying to be sneaky, you're failing."
"Nothing gets passed you, does it kid?"
"Nope~" Boris grinned, skipping around the room. Julius sighed, taking a sip of the wine. He didn't understand why he was drinking while he was supposed to be working.
"So, I've also heard that you're no longer neutral."
"That's the truth, sorry to bail on you like that~" Gowland chuckled before finishing off his glass of wine, going to pour himself another one. However Julius took the bottle from him.
"You have to walk a kid home." Gowland frowned, but knew the blue haired man was right.
CRASH.
The two adults turned their heads at the noise. Clocks and tools were scattered at the Cheshire's feet. Boris's ears were perked up and his tail had puffed out in surprise. "Heheheh..."
Julius stood up, about to scold Boris for almost breaking the clocks he had just fixed, but the cat had already started to run away from him. "H-Hey!"
"Boris!" Gowland called to late, Boris ran out of the room, and there was a crash from the hallway a second later.
"That cat of yours better not destory my tower Gowland." Julius growled,picking up all of the clocks again. Gowland gave a nervous laugh. "Go find him please, last thing I need is him knocking over everything."
The duke sighed, walking out of the room. He saw a vase knocked over in the hall next to the stairs that headed up to the rooftop. He followed the path of destruction until he was up on the roof. He looked around, finally seeing a mop of pink and black standing on the edge of the roof. "Get down Boris, you serious don't want to die after only being the Cheshire cat for a week, do you?" Boris turned to him before getting back onto the roof, walking over to Gowland.
"I can see the park from here!" Boris pulled Gowland close to the edge, and sure enough the cat was right. You could see every other territory from the top of the clock tower. "What's that over there?"
"That's the castle of hearts."
"And there?"
"That's the Hatter's mansion." Gowland frowned at the memory of being over there.
"Can we go to those places next?" Boris jumped up and down with excitement, his eyes sparkling with curiousity.
Gowland couldn't help but laugh. "Maybe."
Gowland brought the cat down to Julius's office and made him apologize before they headed back to the park. Once again, Boris tried to go off every second he could. Gowland basically sent him up to his room when they got back to the park. "Everything alright sir?" One of his workers asked.
"Just a long day..Hey, did you get that thing done I asked you to do?"
"Yes sir! I'll go fetch it for you." The worker ran off as Gowland sighed and went into the office. He headed up to his room, waiting for the worker to return. "Uncle Mary..." Gowland looked up to see Boris coming down the stairs. He was wearing one of Chance's old shirts, which basically looked like a dress on him.
"What is it Boris?"
"You're not mad at me, are you?" Gowland smiled, patting the area next to him on his bed, and Boris ran over and hopped onto the bed.
"Not really."
"what's that supposed to mean?" Boris whined.
"Sir! I have it for you!" Two heads turned towards the door as a worker stood there. Gowland stood up from his bed, grabbing the box from the worker. He said a quick thanks before going back over to Boris.
"Hey, I got something for you."
"A present?" Boris's eyes lit up, and Gowland laughed.
"Yeah, a present." Gowland handed the large box to Boris, who took the lid off as quickly as he could. Boris reached his small hands in, pulling out a purple and pink striped boa.
"Hey, wasn't this..."
"Yeah. It was Chance's." Gowland smiled sadly, sitting next to Boris. "He told me to give it to the next Cheshire. You said you liked pink and purple, so I had the workers dye it." Gowland watched the Cat for a moment, he just seemed to stare at the boa. After a few moments he hugged it tightly.
"Why did Mister Gowland carry it around anyways...?" Boris mumbled, still hugging the boa.
Gowland shrugged. "He said something about a cat not being a cat without his fur."