Hi guys! Did you like the end of the last chapter? So, I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but I've made it a goal to release a chapter every Tuesday and Thursday. However, I didn't think that you would get the full effect of the cliffhanger if you got the next chapter so soon, so I decided to release a mini story.

I've been getting a lot of requests for things to be put in the story, and one of the most popular is how Merida dealt with the new technology of Wonderland. This account takes place in chapter one sometime before Merida goes outside to hunt. Hope you enjoy!

Mini Story: Merida Meets Technology

Merida looked at her wall and scrunched her eyebrows. She was standing in her front room, staring at one of the switches that dotted the walls.

She had been standing like this since she walked in, trying to figure out what it was for. Did it open some kind of trap door? She looked around herself. If that were the case, the amount of them in this room alone was terrifying.

She flipped one and gasped. Above her, there was fire. She quickly flipped the switch off, and the fire died.

What in the world was the point of this? She certainly wasn't going to burn her house down on purpose.

Slowly, Merida reached for the switch. She flipped it, and the fire was there again. She flipped it off. She stood under where it was and looked up. Fire that could be turned on and off?

There was a small circle of glass, and behind it was some kind of circular ball. She walked back to the switch and flipped it on. Again she walked underneath the glass. She looked up, but looked down when it hurt her eyes.

Merida rubbed her eyes. How in the world was this possible? She turned the switch off again. If the fire was unsafe, she probably wouldn't have been allowed to move into the house, right? Looking around, it was evident that these things were supposed to be her source of light. There were no torches on the walls for the night time.

It was obvious that this place had superior technology compared to her old home, but how did they get it? She briefly considered that Wonderland was somehow in the future, but she dismissed the idea. If that were the case, she would have been told that already.

She walked into the kitchen, or what she thought was the kitchen. There were different containers of different sizes against her walls. She stood where she was for a moment, but her curiosity triumphed.

She walked to the closest container, which had two long doors. She opened the one on the left, and when she did, a burst of cold air came out of it.

She quickly closed it, putting her back against the door. She took deep breaths.

She tried to remind herself that she would not be put in an unsafe environment. She turned around and opened the door.

Again, there was a burst of cold air. The inside had various shelves and a large container. Merida braced herself, took a deep breath, and reached inside of the container. She pulled her hand out, and in her palm was a square of ice. How did they get ice? It was the middle of the summer!

When she opened the other door, cold air came out, but not as cold as the first door. This one also had shelves, but it had drawers, too. There was no container, though. She closed the door.

Merida looked at the container, trying to figure out its use. She listed the facts in her head: She was in the kitchen, the container was somehow able to make cold air, and it may or may not make ice. During the winter, her family used to store meat in the snow to keep it longer. Somehow, the people living here must this machine to store food year round.

Satisfied with her conclusions on the food box, Merida walked over to a container roughly a third of the height of it. This one had circles on the top and a translucent door on the bottom. There were different dials and switches against the back of it. Well, only one way to find out what those did.

Merida turned one of them, and fire came out of the top of the container. She quickly turned it off. She laughed to herself. It was evident that this was a stove that made its own fire. She turned the other dials, and similar things happened.

One of the dials was bigger than the others, and when Merida twisted it, numbers appeared on a small rectangle that was next to it. She had never seen anything like this in her life. She twisted this around for a while, watching the numbers appear.

When she left it on one of the numbers for a certain time, a noise came out of the container and a light turned on behind the bottom door. Merida opened it, and heat came out. She closed the door, and then opened it, and then closed it again.

Again, Merida laughed: A fireless oven. She would have to crawl in there to see if she could figure out how it was possible once it was a safe temperature.

The next container had a door that opened like the oven, but it wasn't translucent. She didn't know if the top had the same dials because this container was under the counter, but she figured that it didn't, because there wouldn't be much point in that.

Merida opened it and two drawers popped out. Both drawers had holes in them; What were they supposed to hold? The bottom one had a basket, but like the drawers, it had holes in it.

Merida stared at it for a while, but couldn't come up with its purpose. Because the other two containers had to do with storing food and cooking food, her best guess that this had something to do with cleaning or disposal. She'd have to get Tiana to come back over and explain what it did.

Merida turned to the square counter in the middle of the room. On the side of it closest to Merida was a container that was sunk into the top of the counter. There was a strange looking metal thing against one side that had a handle. Merida lifted the handle, and water came out of it.

She ran around the counter, trying to see where the water was coming from, but to no luck. She went back to the water and stared at it. It was a miniature well.

Suddenly, she got an idea. She turned the handle to one side and stuck her hand under the water. Slowly, its temperature rose. She turned the handle to the other side, and the temperature fell. She spent about fifteen minutes playing with the water container.

Well, if the last container wasn't for washing things, she could always use this one to do the job.

Merida went through the drawers and cabinets, looking to see what they held. The things she found she was familiar with: Knives, spoons, forks, napkins, ect.

One of the cabinets she opened had what looked like gauntlets in it, but she wasn't sure. There were different shapes and sizes of them, and they were all made of glass. The gauntlets back home were made of wood, but she had never thought that a different material would work better. Maybe it was easier to make glass here, so more things were made of it.

After she was content with the kitchen, Merida walked down a small hallway. There was a door on each side, and at the end, a small bench against a window. She decided to go through the door on the right first.

She walked into a small room. Inside was a counter with another small well, some kind of strange chair, a rack with small blankets on it, and a smaller room made entirely of glass.

Merida looked at the water container smugly because she already knew what it did. However, she felt that she still had to play with the handle. Like the one in the kitchen, this one could also change its temperature.

Next to the water container was a small dish holding a familiar object: Soap.

Merida pulled her eyebrows together. Surely she wasn't expected to bathe in this thing; She knew that she wouldn't be able to fit in it.

She walked over to the chair. Instead of there being a cushion, there was a lid. She lifted it. Inside was more water. Was this a chamber pot?

On the side of the chair's back was a handle, which Merida pulled. Suddenly, the water disappeared with a menacing noise. Merida jumped back, but after a few seconds, the water refilled its self. She smiled. A chamber pot that emptied its self…

She turned her attention to the glass room, opening the door and stepping in and looking around herself. On the floor was a circle with small holes in it, and on one of the walls was a giant version of the well handle from the water container. She turned it and water rained down on her head.

Merida looked up, coughed, spit out water, and then laughed. This must be for bathing. She would have a lot of fun with this.

She stepped out of the glass room, soaking wet. She grabbed a small blanket from the rack and dried herself off, then mopped up the water she had gotten on the floor. She guessed that that was the purpose of those, anyway, because they were too small to sleep with.

After Merida was satisfied with what she found in the small room, she walked across the hall into the other room.

This room was much bigger, and she recognized almost all of its contents. This must be her bedroom.

The room had a bed, a vanity, a stool, and small wall with two doors on it. She looked at the doors, and then slid one to the side. Inside was a bar with clothing hanging from it on triangles. Merida laughed: This was a strange way to store clothing, but then again, this was a strange place.

She sat on her bed and sighed. Last night, she had fallen asleep in her family home. This morning, she had woken up in a hospital. She felt a lump in her throat. She missed her family. She had to be strong, though, because she knew that she was here for a reason. When the time came for her family to join her, they would, and she would be overjoyed. For now, however, she would make the most of the situation that she was in.