Lonely in a Crowd

While the trio walked down the path, the news the little flying rocking horse had told everyone it knew spread through the kingdom. It pervaded through the meadows, through the fields. It reached the talking flowers and with them it reached everyone in the kingdom, alas the kingdom was vast.

The Hatter lead the way for the women beside him, they all felt a kind of uneasiness in the atmosphere. No matter how long they walked, it never seemed to be time for the sunrise. Was Alice mistaken after all? No, her friends couldn't even remember that it had been morning when they left, yet this kind of eternal night was just as wrong. This time she wasn't the only one feeling it, the Hatter had started to fiddle with the hemline of his suit in an agitated way, while Mallymkun grabbed her broomstick that hard her fingernails left marks in the soft wood.

Alice tried to find out what was wrong aside from the eternal night. She watched their environment closely, trying not to miss anything. But there was nothing to miss. Sometimes one doesn't see the wood for the trees: There was nothing!

For all the way they had walked, they hadn't seen a single inhabitant of Underland, not counting the few animals that really couldn't speak the human language.

This insight frightened the young Ms. Kingsleigh, what could have happened? Was there a war or were those people and creatures captured again by some evil force? What if the Red Queen had come back?

In the moment she wanted to speak to the Hatter, he took the word – alarmed by her scared expression: "It can't be," he said. "I know that the Bloody Queen had been still in exile when I… left to go somewhere. To my knowledge she is well guarded for both sides."

"Both sides?"

"Well, I suppose there have been some assassination attempts." He himself had been tempted to act in one, through his loyalty to the White Queen, who had dearly whished her sister to live, had prevented that.

"Stayne?"

"Fled in the opposite direction," Mallymkun explained. "He tried to strangle the Bloody Big Head but didn't' succeed, sadly. When they had to separate them, he took the opportunity to flee but we hadn't heard of him for years."

"So it could be him," concluded Alice. Her friends looked at each other not convinced.

"I… don't feel it is him," the Hatter murmured. "I think it's something… more dangerous."

Alice didn't know what to make of that. She didn't like how it sounded, something more dangerous… what could it be? Yet she trusted these 'feelings' of Hatter and Mallymkun, they were right till now, after all. Also, it wasn't to forget that although she had been to Wonderland a few times, she didn't knew everything about it and God knows what she had forgotten already.

At some point they had to rest and the Hatter promised to find something to eat. Alice and Mallymkun stayed behind with the suitcase, sat around a fire the dormouse had made so swiftly, supposedly she could even have done it in her sleep. Alice had pulled her legs near and wrapped her arms around them, thinking over the events of the past two days. Mallymkun watched her, her expressions changed hardly noticeable between grumpy, sad, worried and a bit sulking. Alice broke the silence by asking a question she was now unbelievably interested in:

"What happened in Underland while I was away?"

Mallymkun looked up "I'm not sure what I can tell you," she said, "How could we expect to stay with us? You were the champion; you slew the Jabberwocky and did your deed. Nothing held you back and so you vanished. I suppose most of us were still happy, for the bright days lay ahead of us. The White Queen was benevolent as ever and tried to easy the suffering the Bloody Bighead had brought over Underland. It was a long task, through, which probably isn't solved yet. She has still a lot work to do. Everyone tried to restore the forests and fields so that there would be enough food and enough places to hide for everyone. Every inhabitant of wonderland helped everyone and things became better fast. However," her gaze fell on the direction Tarrant had vanished in, "Not for everyone. –Some- people felt left out or not fitting in, for they felt they had no purpose anymore, through that may be wrong.

-Some- people needed to be strongly occupied to even function but for –some- people that still wasn't enough."

Through Alice understood whom she was talking about, she didn't get what the dormouse meant, but assumed from her posture that she wouldn't tell her more. She was a bit annoyed about this but on the other side she could feel that the already suffering Mallymkun didn't like to think about the suffering of her friend.

A short while later the Hatter came back with some greens in his arms, Alice had never seen something like this, the long plants looked like a mixture of corn and reed. "What is this?" she asked.

"It's Velogra," he explained with a shy smile as he sat down.

Mallymkuns eyes beamed with joy, she set to jump up, crawl over the Hatters sleeve to his shoulder to get a better look, but in the last possible moment she realized that wasn't possible right now and stood put, her smile disappearing for a short moment, then it came back in a more timid manner.

"You can roast it over the fire," she explained, "it tastes great!"

The Hatter had found a lot of it growing a few yards away, obviously it wasn't harvested in quite a while and he supposed that this was contrary to a good sign.

So they sat together and roasted the Velogra, Alice decided that it tasted like sweet bread; very crispy sweet bread. Somehow it appeared like the Hatter and Mallymkun had sat together like that quite often, that accustomed they looked.

With the passing evening, or what she assumed was evening, she took notice of the Hatter looking over to her for several times in an awkward manner, never saying anything and looking away – mostly at his feet or hands – when he noticed that she noticed. She didn't know what to make of that, either.

In the following two days they concentrated on walking, not talking. Alice had always wanted to be left for herself and not steadily annoyed with parties and pointless conversations, however now she missed them somehow and was disturbed by the silence. Mallymkun and the Hatter seemed to understand each other without words, just with looks. She questioned herself if she would ever reach that level of understanding.

The nearer they came to the White Queens castle, the more people and talking creatures they met. It seemed that everyone had gathered in the vicinity of the castle, not just for the beauty of it – the circumstances some seemed to be living in were not called the best. Alice was sure some of them could had made a better living farther outside, were they came from. Also, everyone seemed so suspicious and afraid. Most didn't know her in sight and of course nobody recognized the Mad Hatter or Mallymkun. A few knew what the champion looked like, recognized Alice and told others who she was. Some invited them over to eat something, invitations they gladly accepted. However when Alice tried to explain who she was and what she was doing her the Hatter gesticulated that she mustn't tell who –they- were, wasn't that strange? But maybe they were just ashamed of their situation, she couldn't take that amiss, this was Wonderland and they probably stood out as much as a Dodo with glasses and jacket would in London.

When they finally arrived at the castle it was crowded. Uncountable examples for typical Underland population ran, lay, slept and chattered everywhere, not only among the floor, the benches and at the margin of wells – also IN the wells, on walls, on the roofs.

They announced themselves to the white guard which looked like chess pieces. Only a short time later they were announced to the court:

Queen Mirana, beautiful as ever, sat on her throne and had a scroll read to her by some black and white clad minister. The court ladies had gathered behind and at the stairs beneath her, because the audience hall was also pretty full of people. Everyone chattered, it was very noisy, Alice felt as if her ears were pierced through and companions didn't seem to cope much better. The Hatter, with his ever lacking sense of discretion, covered his ears. When the nomenclator announced "The Hatter, the Dormouse and the Champion, Lady Alice!" the crowed immediately went a bit more quiet– yet not quiet enough.

The Queen stood up with a joyous expression, elegantly lifting her hands and making a tender step forward to beckon to them. "Hatter! I was looking for you all over, and now you come back and bring my champion with you, what a glorious idea!"

The nearer they came, the more the lovely, joyous expression of Queen Miranas face seemed to melt and then stick every yard they took, until they came to knee down before the stairs to her throne.

"Hatter?" the Queen exclaimed restrained and hissed not quite lovely: "Where have you been? What happened to you?"

The court ladies couldn't decide to either turn away with some distance like they ought to, or to stay were they were to hear more of this interesting development. This was the Hatter? He looked so different, and as the Hatter was rarely without his dormouse the girl must be… no, it couldn't be, absolutely impossible!

Meanwhile Alice witnessed an interesting development herself: The moment the White Queen had recognized the Hatter and spoken his name, his hair had become red again, through not all curly as usually, but more intractable. Also, Mallymkun definitely shrunk a bit.

The Hatter looked up ashamed "I… I honestly don't know, Your Majesty," he explained barely hearable over the noise.

The Queen hissed again, very quietly this time, to herself. She spread her arms for attention "Everyone leaves the room! I want to speak in privacy!"

The nomenclator took the word by stomping his pike forcefully on the marble ground: "The Queen wants privacy! Leave the audience hall this instant! Everyone who will not follow this order will be removed by force!"

A minor panic broke loose and all those people run for the doors to crowd other rooms even more, the court ladies and rakes departed a little more elegantly.

When everyone had left, the Queen took the steps down to the Hatter and laid her hands around his face "How could this even happen?" she asked, then turned to Mallymkun "I can't believe this!" she said astonished. The Queen almost shook her head "Wherever have you been? I had you searched for everywhere and you were gone a terribly long time. Nothing was left of you two and when the hat was found, I almost thought you were dead!"

He looked up with eyes like rays of sunshine "My hat was found?"

He disrupted Miranas alarm when he asked this, but of course, this was the Mad Hatter, for him the hat was more important than almost anything, he seemed to have some very important memories connected with it. "Yes," she said and her eyes shortly pointed to the left upper direction.

The Hatter and Alice moved their heads to see what could be there and only found a pedestal somewhere above the middle of the wall. Suddenly they saw the big, scorched hat move itself along the pedestal, a bit into their direction.

"Awwwwww…." they heard a long, yawning sound and the hat popped up into mid air, together with two eyes, "I had hoped you wouldn't come back, because then this … wonderful… big… hat would've been mine." A grin appeared, then followed the head and then the body of the grinning cat who must have been there the whole time. He lay on his back but then moved casually around to look at them "This dares to become far too political for my tastes, anyway, and I'm not a bad cat," he said, took the hat on one paw and looked at it regretting "Goodbye you beautiful hat, maybe next time", he sighed and threw the hat down into the audience hall.

The hat-flying-qualities were much better in Underland, that way the hat landed directly in front of the Hatter, who had observed the scene between Chessur and his head quite disapprovingly and almost jealous. He yanked the hat into his arms and almost hugged it, his expression a bit sulking. The Cheshire Cat had in the meanwhile vanished partly, then completely, seemingly walking away on the pedestal. However knowing that cat, Alice was sure he wouldn't stay far away.

Miranas gaze lay upon the Hatter again, who stroke over the hem of his head gently.

"We were in Otherland," he said, finally answering the Queens question.

Mirana gasped.

TBC

A/N: Sorry there was no update yesterday, I was very busy with Easter. As compensation this chapter is a little bit longer and I feel well inspired for the next one. I hope you all enjoy reading this, as usual:

Read and Review, just share some thoughts ^_^