Thanks for the kind review, Ithilelda! And thanks also to everyone else for reading; this is certainly the first time anyone's ever added one of my stories to their alerts!
Thought I should note: I'm going to be using as little of the New Movie Vocabulary as possible, mostly because you can't actually glean most of it from a casual viewing and as such I don't actually know most of it. If I happen to make use of it anyway, I'll make sure my meaning is very clear. I'm using a guide posted by the user nineteennintytwo as my reference; you can easily find it in her discussion forum here.
Alice plummeted down through absolute darkness. She couldn't see a thing; all she could do was shield her head with her hands and hope for the best. She hit something hard, sending a bolt of pain through her shoulder and a shower of papers fluttering down around her. She could hear the sound of ticking clocks - probably big, ancient grandfather clocks, or else pocketwatches that had been lost by their owners long ago - but nothing else. At least this time she'd retained the presence of mind not to scream.
Finally, she hit the marble floor, hard. Alice stood slowly, absently feeling at her shoulder with one hand. Whatever it was she'd hit, it was going to bruise. Her body was aching already, and the scars on her upper arm, now healed into three puckered white lines, were beginning to complain loudly. Had it been this rough last time? Well, at least her surroundings were familiar. The room with the doors had not changed since she'd seen it. Everything was exactly the same, including the key on the table and, as she picked up the key, the little vial. She picked it up with a wry smirk: DRINK ME, indeed. That had worked out so wonderfully the last two times she'd tried it. Would it have killed them - whoever they were - to include a warning? DRINK ME WHILE HOLDING KEY?
Well, there was no need for all that silliness this time. Stuffing the key in a pocket, she held the vial up and studied the liquid consideringly. Even being prepared, something in her shrank at the thought of drinking it. She'd never much liked being tiny. Still, she tossed back the contents of the vial, and a moment later she was wading out of her dress, tying her underthings about her in the best semblance of actual clothing she could manage. After everything she'd experienced, she would still never quite get used to changing sizes like this.
Speaking of that...where was that cake? Alice glanced about her feet hopefully. She didn't want to go on being small any longer than she absolutely had to, and besides, it seemed like having a little extra Upelkuchen on hand always came in handy. But the handy pastry didn't seem to be appearing this time. Alice chewed her lip in frustration and glanced around the room. She'd never quite been clear on how the things in this place worked. Everything she'd needed had always seemed to magically appear. Perhaps if she just thought about wanting to grow bigger?
Almost immediately upon thinking this, a dainty piece of cake appeared at her feet. She stared down at it in mild surprise before picking it up; she hadn't expected it to actually be that easy. But none of that was really important, she reminded herself. She'd got what she wanted, and now she was ready to go.
Standing in front of the tiny door to Underland, she took a deep breath. This was it, then. Would there be anyone there to greet her? Were they expecting her at all? ...She kept using the word "they," but if she was honest with herself, she would be satisfied just to walk out there and meet the bright green eyes of the Hatter. For him to be waiting there would be enough. Throughout it all, he had been her closest ally and her dearest friend, and she still remembered the look on his face when she had turned down his offer to stay. It had come back to her often, even while in China, and though she'd never felt regret, she couldn't help but admit to a bit of lingering guilt. She wanted to let him know that at least she had kept her promise: she had not forgotten him. And if he wasn't waiting on the other side of the door for her, then she would just have to go and find him, if she had to turn Underland upside down. Resolved, Alice turned the doorknob and stepped boldly out into the garden.
The first thing she noticed was the cold. It wasn't the gentle, innocent chill of a spring morning, like the one she had just left behind. It was the dull, dead cold of winter, and it hit her like a sledgehammer, causing her arms and neck to turn to gooseflesh. The second thing she noticed was the fog, thick and white and clinging. She could barely see more than a few metres in any direction, which instantly made her uneasy. Perhaps if she lived in London, near the river, she wouldn't have found anything strange about it; as it was, she continued peering out into the gloom, trying to judge her surroundings. Nothing made a sound, and her breathing seemed abnormally loud in the stillness. One thing was certain: there was no one else here. Alice had to stop and swallow a vague sense of disappointment. They just hadn't been expecting her, that was all.
She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to ward off the cold, and closed her eyes briefly, remembering. This was where McTwisp, Mallymkun, and the others met her last time, and they had taken her to Absalom's mushroom, which was...that way. Perhaps he'd already flown ahead and was waiting for her there. It seemed about as likely as anything, and besides, she knew that from there she would be able to find her way to the Hatter's home. If nothing else, she'd always had an excellent sense of direction.
There didn't appear to be any flowers about. In fact, there didn't seem to be anything about at all, not so much as a single dragonfly. Dry, brown stalks of grass crunched beneath her feet, and for the first time she thought to wonder what exactly happened to those talking flowers when it grew cold. At least the crunching broke the silence...though thinking about the flowers had just made it even more unnerving. After a minute or so, she reached the small clearing where the large - and sadly abandoned - mushroom sat. With all the thick fog swirling about, Alice could almost imagine that Absalom was sitting there, breathing his noxious smoke rings into her face. She sighed to herself; she had hoped to meet him here. She hadn't properly spoken to him since before he was a butterfly. Where could he possibly have gone?
Without Absalom, there was no more reason to remain small, and Alice quickly consumed half of her cake, glad to be restored to her proper size again. Maybe she didn't always need to be too small or too tall. The fog was not, as she had thought, worse closer to the ground. It still drifted and swirled, impenetrably thick. But she remembered the way to the forest from here, and through it, she could find the windmill, and the tea party, and the Hatter. And if nothing else, there was no Bandersnatch. That, at least, was a welcome change.
Before long, she managed to find a well-worn path, doubtless the one she'd taken previously. Being on a road made her feel somewhat better. Perhaps she would meet some other travelers along the way, possibly even someone she knew! Though...everything was so quiet. It was hard to imagine that anything else had ever been here at all. And yet...Alice stopped in her tracks, peering forward with wide eyes. Through the mist, a large dark shape loomed before her, silently menacing.
Alice's thoughts immediately flew back to the Bandersnatch, and her fight with the Jabberwocky. Underland wasn't just a child's fantasy, as she had once thought; it was dangerous. Dangerous, and she didn't even have so much as a hatpin to defend herself! She could run, but where would she go, when she could barely see her hand in front of her face? Alright, then, she would fight. Alice remembered some martial artists she'd seen in China, perhaps if she imitated them...
In the midst of her frightened planning, a calmer voice broke through her thoughts: Look, it isn't even moving.
Alice blinked, and looked again. It was true; whatever was in the road ahead hadn't moved an inch since she'd first seen it. Silly, to get worked up over nothing like that, she thought to herself in irritation. Relaxing slightly, she stepped forward to see what had caused her such alarm.
The first thing she saw was red of dozens of apples, popping out brilliantly against the gloomy surroundings. They lay scattered on the dirt, tumbled out of the small wooden cart which now lay on its side in a ditch. Alice saw no sign of a driver, but as she rounded the cart, she found the horse, with his one big brown eye staring blankly up at the sky. "Good Lord," Alice murmured, dropping to her knees by his side. She reached out to brush his chestnut fur in a moment of hope, but he was cold to the touch, and she drew back in horror.
It wasn't as though she'd never seen a dead animal before. But this was Underland, which could only mean one thing. This wasn't just a horse; this was a person, just as much as Mallymkun or Bayard or any of the others. Yet here he lay, dead on the road. Right now, she didn't think anyone was coming for him, either. Alice blankly swatted a fly away from the horse's face, trying to understand how this had happened. It looked as though he'd been here for at least a couple days, too - had no one been on this road in all that time? The silence around her seemed to grow to deafening proportions, and just for a second, she felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
But she didn't cry. Instead, she swallowed and sat up a little straighter, and then leaned forward and closed the horse's eyes. That was all she could do for him now. But she'd be at the tea party soon enough. Alice had really hoped for a more joyful reunion, but she knew that the Hatter would be delighted to see her, even if he had to come out here and help her bury a body. That thought spurred her to stand up, brush the dust off her skirts, and keep walking through the swirling mists, though she could still feel the presence of the dead at her back. She would see her friends soon, and that was what mattered.
It wasn't long before she could pick the shapes of black tree trunks out of the fog. The forest seemed even grimmer than normal. The only sound to be heard was the crunching of leaves beneath her feet, and always the fog was swirling around her feet, catching at the hem of her skirt. Trousers would have been much more practical, she thought, though deep down she knew that she was only using the issue to distract herself from the fact that she was beginning to feel as if there were eyes upon her. Something in the air had shifted subtly upon entering the woods. Without lowering her eyes, Alice leaned down and picked up a large, thick branch from the forest floor. It wasn't much, but it was heavy, and it was better than nothing.
She quickly moved on, brushing low-hanging branches away from her face. Dead leaves crunched under her feet with every step, seeming almost abnormally loud, but there wasn't much she could do about that, and she'd rather move quickly than quietly at the moment. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and though she knew logically that there was no real reason to feel like a million unfriendly eyes were following her, she continued to march through the brush, her eyes darting watchfully from side to side. What she wouldn't have given to have her Vorpal blade with her now!
Suddenly, something snapped in the underbrush, directly behind her. Alice whipped around instantly, holding her makeshift club out in front of her. "Hello?" she asked loudly, cursing the faint tremor in her voice.
Nothing.
"Chessur? Is that you?" she ventured, though truthfully she didn't really think that the cat was present. The forest around her remained silent and still. There was probably nothing there; she'd been imagining things. Alice took a few steps backward, her eyes still fixed warily on the undergrowth - and least, until something caught her foot and sent her tumbling backwards with a startled gasp. She quickly began to push herself back up, casting a quick glance down to see what had tripped her up, and froze.
It was the body of the Hatter.
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