Battle of the Mages
Tai in Wonderland
"Tai, are you gonna be sleeping in that tree all day?" Sora wondered. Tai simply nodded, tilting her head down, then up without so much as opening an eye. Sora huffed, crossing his arms over his red-dressed chest. "Aren't we supposed to be training, anyway?"
"Possibly."
"Then why don't you get down here?"
"I don't suck."
"Tai!" he moaned so loudly, but not only was the younger child no longer listening, but she had finally fallen asleep as well. The brunette boy huffed again, turning away from the tree Tai slept in now, and went on mumbling to himself, saying, "Don't go complaining to me if you fall out of that stupid tree..."
How long are you going to remain asleep?
"Hm?"
Are you going to be asleep for long?
"Not terribly so."
Can you wake up now?
"Perhaps."
Offering what the voice had requested, Tai had awoken from her slumber in the tree. Her mouth opened and her tongue stuck out like a cat as she yawned so noisily. Looking around, she wondered how long it was since she fell asleep. The sky had already darkened after the setting sun, and the birds had gone to sleep. The white daisies were closing up for the night, but still barely open to catch that last glimpse of sunlight. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were nowhere in sight, likely off to find some sort of snack to keep their ravaging stomachs at bay. Tai was left in the tree, alone with her long, light-brown hair nearly reaching to the green grassy ground.
"Oh my fur and whiskers! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" screamed a quite oddly dressed white rabbit. Tai, still from the tree, tilted her head casually as she watched the thing run by on two large feet, sporting a golden watch which he had so close to him. "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!" Tilting her head more and more as the rabbit continued on and on, Tai found she couldn't turn her head any more the longer she stayed in the tree. Reaching out to the ground, she strategically fell, so that when she rolled, she landed on her hands and feet and ran after the tardy rabbit. "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"
Often stumbling over her long brunette hair, Tai followed the rabbit, having to run to catch up with it. The rabbit was unusually quick for a rabbit in a waistcoat and a giant golden watch. And still he ran, even jumping around to catch Tai in his sights. "No time to say, hello - Goodbye!" he screamed, rushing off again. Tai stopped her chase, tilting her head to the other side. Why her feet carried her so, she couldn't quite tell why. Why she didn't stop to think of why she followed the rabbit, she decided not to care. But as the rabbit was bounding away quicker than she, she stopped her heady tilt and carried on the chase.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I'm overdue! I'm really in a stew! No time to say goodbye - Hello! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" the rabbit kept on screaming, even as he dove into a hole beneath the trunk of a tree. Tai stumbled to a stop, nearly smacking into the tree herself, but not. Staring at the hole in which the rabbit so disappeared to, she thought nothing.
"I didn't even say anything," said she to the rabbit who was no longer there. But as her absent curiosity still worked its play, she dropped to her knees, excessive long hair dragging through the dirt in the ground - though she didn't really care - she squeezed her small body into the almost-smaller hole. So many roots dipped inside, knocking her unexpectedly on the head. She couldn't be expected to stay on her hands and knees for very long, and dropped instead to her elbows and knees. Her hair was still in the way, and often she stopped moving because either a knee caught her hair or her elbow did. And -oh, before she knew it, she was falling head over heels in a dark abyss of blackness.
This old man
He played three
He played knick-knack on my knee
With a knick-knack, paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home
On the way down, things that appeared right-side-up were upside-down and upside-down was right-side-up. Left was right and right was left...Tai confused herself looking one way while trying to look the other. The deeper she sank, the more confusing it got. Everything but her was floating, or everything was falling up while she stayed floating. The descent was slow, admittedly, but the end had to be near. The longer and longer it took to fall down this hole, the closer and closer the checkered-tiled floor came.
What color was the room when Tai touched the floor? She didn't know; it wasn't she who was looking around. She quite gave up the first few times turning her head one way only to look another. The room could have been any color. It could have been yellow, blue, green, debouche - whatever debouche was - it could have been cherry-granite-pumpernickel. Whatever color it was, it was a different in the hallway, and even different in the door. Of course, the door would have to be a different color in order for someone to tell that it actually was a door, but that didn't mean the walls had to be every different color imaginable.
"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" screamed the ever-tardy rabbit once more, yet one would think that the whole world had already heard once already, they didn't need to hear him again, unless he really was attempting to deafen the world of their hearing. If that was the case, he wasn't yelling loud enough. A little more volume please? Tai couldn't be deafened on the other side of the door. Take one door away, there were two. Take another, three. Take another, four, five, six. Six doors? Maybe it was seven. No, it was definitely five doors in all. Tai lost count after one, and after the final, smallest door had been opened, she crawled right through, tripping again over her long, light-brown hair. Stupid hair.
And still there was another door; another door the rabbit had flown through on account of being so dreadfully late to something that wasn't even mentioned yet. There should be a speed limit for little white, flying bunnies, but then that would probably stress the poor waistcoat-wearing rabbit more than it should. Tai dropped to her knees in front of this door as well, reaching out to grab the knob and turn, but quickly she pulled her hand back, not of fright, but of surprise; the golden doorknob yelped!
"Well, color me gold, it's a girl!" exclaimed the doorknob with some surprise. Tai blinked in response, crossing her arms as she had seen Sora done so many times.
"You are gold," she said seriously, as she always was. The doorknob shook its knobby nose in response, only because he was gold, and because he was using an expression incorrectly on purpose.
Isn't it weird that a doorknob talks?
"Not terribly so."
"What was that?"
"A talking doorknob isn't all that strange."
"Isn't it?"
"Not terribly so."
Buzz...
"Oh, what's this I see? A fly caught in a trap with no way to get out?" wondered a mysterious, clowny voice. Tai looked up and turned her head, her mind not yet clicking when she saw a purple and pink striped cat dancing on its own head. Not upside down, the cat was right side up. The head was dismembered from the body, and the body was dancing on the head. And did Tai think anything of it? No, not at all, because as curious as she could be, she was quite boring when something out of the ordinary was in play.
"Not terribly," said she to the beheaded cat.
"So you're not a fly caught in a trap."
"I said I wasn't."
"Well, then, what are you?"
"I have no idea."
"Do you want to think about it first?"
"Not really."
The cat was struck with silence. The girl was equally silent, but only because she was born the silent one. "Don't speak unless spoken to", that was her way. If the cat wouldn't speak, neither would she. The white rabbit often spoke, though, its screams could be heard in the distance beyond the doorknob, still screaming, "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"
"Why is it so silent?" asked the cat upon its own head.
"Because the silence makes it so," answered the girl not upon her own head. The cat was struck again so silent.
No longer were they in a room with different colored walls. On a table where the cat used to be sitting, on a branch the cat sat now. On a checker-tiled floor Tai no longer was, but instead on a dark green grassy path. Look around, she dared not, for fear of confusing herself once more by turning her head one way and looking the other way. Then again, perhaps if she wanted to look one way, she should simply turn her head the way she didn't want to look and then she would be looking in the way she wanted to look, but it just seems like too much information to process with one brain. She just stared at the cat.
"Well, then, what makes up 'up' and what makes down 'down'?" asked the cat, mostly in attempt to trump the tiny girl with the awfully long hair. Though it is quite bothersome, wondering how Tai got so tiny in the first place. One moment she was tall as she was, next moment she was no bigger than a standing flower petal. But even if she was so small, that just meant the tree was dreadfully tiny, too.
"Because up forgot up was down and down forgot down was up. So up fell down and down fell up so now up is down and down is up, which is a lie when you say up is up and down is down, when really up is 'down' and down is 'up'."
"Is that so?"
"I don't know."
"What do you want to know?"
"I don't want to know anything."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"Then why am I here?"
"That depends on you."
Enough was enough when the riddler himself was trumped. Without a word, the pink and purple striped cat disappeared slowly into the darkness of the night, leaving not a trace that he was there at all. When there was no trace that the cat was there at all, the darkness brightened, a concentrated light shining from behind the tiny tree. This light Tai walk towards, and stopped right at a wall where the light had been found. The light was shaped - strangely shaped - with a heart shaped engraving on it.
Presenting, the Queen of Hearts!
Tai reached out to touch the shape, wondering what it was and wondering why it was with the wall if only it shined with light. When she touched, her hand faded through, pulling the rest of Tai along with it and to the other side of the wall. In a courtyard, full of sunshine and light. Guards of Cards were standing right along the wall, and right along the wall of a giant labyrinth of green shrubs, all in one courtyard. If there was a Queen, she certainly saw none.
"What are you doing here?"
"Shoo, shoo, shoo before she sees!"
"Yes, you don't want her to see!"
"She'll say -"
"OFF WITH HIS HEAD!" screamed a woman's voice from inside the labyrinth. Tai stood deathly still, ignoring the cards that spoke to her, and ignoring the words that were screamed so loudly that the cards shook and fell over. Grabbing at her ankles, shakingly so, the cards begged her not to go into the labyrinth, not to face the Queen, for it would be off with all there heads if she made the mistake of doing so.
But did she listen? Not even a little.
Her first step taken in the labyrinth was shaking the card guards off. The second step she took was actually entering the labyrinth. However, if it really were a labyrinth, the hedges would have made a maze, in which they did not. The third step she took was entering the courtyard, where a poor card guard was being dragged away by his fellow cards, and a pompous fat lady sitting quite proudly on a too-tiny thrown.
"Anyone else here to oppose the law?" asked the Queen. The courtyard was silent. Obviously no one was going to defy her. "And you there, who are you?" she asked, pointing her heart-tipped stick at Tai's thin frame. Tai stood her ground, dully, but standing still as she always would, and unafraid - not that she knew what to be afraid of. Everything was strange anyhow.
Tai.
"I am -"
"Yes, who are you?" asked someone from the audience - or the court, either one.
Tai.
"I am -"
"Please state your name," demanded another random kook.
Tai?
"I am -"
"I am asking for your name," resumed the Queen.
Tai?
"I am -"
"Are you refusing to tell me who you are?"
Tai!
"I am -"
"OFF WITH HER HEAD!"
Tai!
The card guards were at her in an instant, all of them refusing to stand still with the moody Queen present. Tai stood her ground, refusing to move when so many were after her. She was cocky, and she knew what she was doing. As they surrounded her, she did the only thing she absolutely knew how to do: Kick Butt.
Cards were not like people of flesh and blood. They were flat, and made of paper, or some kind of papery substance. They couldn't be hit with a stick and be expected to make a satisfying hit or sound. The only thing that could harm them would be any sharp object and some leverage. If Tai had giant scissors, she would use them. If Tai had wanted to use giant scissors, she would use them. If Tai had anything to use, she would use them.
There was another thing that could stop paper in its tracks.
Tai knew something they didn't know!
Focusing deep within herself, Tai reached for that long burning flame deep within her soul. The cards came, yes. She kept them at bay by dancing between and around them; ducking, twirling, rolling, flipping...like an absent shadow that no one really noticed. Once she found her fire burning deep within her soul, her eyes opened wide. Colors of orange-yellow danced and clashed amongst the icy-blue her eyes normally were. Tracing a design in the air, her hands made few signs, and she let loose a blazing fire snake that burned and cut through the cards like they were nothing more than spider webs.
The Queen was less than satisfied, and yet she could do nothing without her army of cards, and even less with everyone else so afraid of the thin little demon with the glaring orange-yellow eyes. They felt a fear for their very souls, and when given the chance, left without so much as a peep.
Tai, wake up!
"What?"
Wake up, it's time to go!
"I'm asleep?"
Get your tiny butt out of that tree and let's go!
"Oww, hot!" Tai screamed, jumping two feet higher than the branch. She patted out a fire that had started at her hind quarters, glaring at the duck responsible for the now-black burn on her only pair of jeans. Donald glared back challengingly, putting up his feathery fists. Tai didn't have to put up her own fists to scare a tiny little duck. He was already a coward as it was. A deepening of a glare more fierce than his own, and the duck easily backed down, lowering his gaunts and whispering calming words to an angry Water Mage.
"I-I'm sorry, please forgive me," he quacked. Behind him, Sora and Goofy didn't do much to hide their laughter.
"Tai, it's time to go, are you ready?" Sora asked, holding out his hand to the girl still in the tree. She blinked at him, waiting seconds before her final response, and lowered her head slowly in a gentle nod.
"I'm ready," she answered him. Hopping from the tree, she took her spot beside him, and waited for him to take the lead before dutifully following after him. Now behind them, the duck named Donald grumbled angry words, not loud enough for any to hear, but loud enough for him to release his fumes.
"You shouldn't pick on girls," Goofy said to the short-tempered duck.
"Aww, what do you know, you big palooka?" Donald spat at him. Goofy said nothing as he watched Donald waddle away on his yellow-webbed feet. Looking around, he thought he saw a rabbit in a waistcoat with a watch, but shrugged it off as his imagination and followed the duck who followed the kids to what they knew to be their gummi ship.
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late for a very important date! No time to say hello - Goodbye! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!