Author's Note: Sorry for the random lengths of these. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: HnKnA- not mine. Martella, Iris, and plot- mine.
Chapter Five- Time to Explore
Martella- in the Clock Tower with Iris
After following the stairs from the top of the tower for a while with only on torch, we finally came to a candle lit hallway with dark blue carpets and light golden wallpaper.
We followed the voices of two guys arguing over something we couldn't make out. We tried to keep as silent as possible till Iris tripped on a bit of carpet, accidentally dropping my already battered instrument.
"Sorry, this is not my day. First, I fall out of a tree, get my first kiss stolen and now this," she exclaims, so much for being silent.
I'm about to help her up when the voices stop and one of them comes out holding a sword to her neck. The other comes towards me with a gun.
The one with the sword has sandy brown hair and blood red eyes, the same color as the blood on his clothes. He looks like a figure from a nightmare with the long cape and the blood stains.
The one holding the gun at me has deep blue eyes and long blue-almost-black hair that's tied up in a loose ponytail. He's wearing a navy blue coat and a gold dress shirt covered in clocks.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the swordsman asks.
"We were brought here by a man with rabbit ears, Peter, and we were walking down from the roof we landed on," Iris answers irritably. I pray she doesn't say something that will get us both killed.
"Well you aren't faceless or new role holders so you must be foreigners," he says lowering his sword. The blue haired man sighs and lowers his gun. I jump a little as it abruptly turns into a wrench.
"That idiot rabbit, so soon after Alice. What was he thinking bringing two people this time..." he begins to mumble to himself.
"I'm Ace!" the knight greets over happy and helps Iris up. She curtly gives her name, but she looks like she wants to hit something.
"And you?" Ace turns to me, with an oddly bright smile.
"Martella."
"And I'm Julius. I must return to my work now. If you need a place to stay there are some empty rooms further down," he turns and walks back into the room.
"Well at least you came here first. Alice went all the way to the Hatter's Mansion last time," Ace said.
We both have no clue who or what he's talking about so he says we'll find out later. We introduce ourselves and we find out that Ace is the knight of hearts and works for Queen Vivaldi. We walk towards the end of the hall and stop by the empty rooms. We bid Ace goodnight and take our own rooms.
I look out the window in my room and surprisingly it's still quite light outside. It felt like we spent a lot less time on the stairs than I thought. I lay my instrument on my bed, the case unopened. I refuse to look at it and start drawing instead.
I draw Peter and Julius. Ace I don't draw, truthfully he creeps me out a little, and the bloodstains are just a bit questionable.
After I finish drawing I'm too emotionally exhausted to do anything else so I set my instrument down on a chair in my room and sink into the bed's soft covers and fall asleep.
Iris- in the Clock Tower
I guess since its still light outside I'll go try to blow off some steam from all of today's events. It's just so surreal it's hard to comprehend, but I am getting the adventure of a lifetime.
I look around my new room for weapons of any sort just in case I run into more people with swords. I should be fine as long as no one sees me in the trees, but it's good to have back up.
The only thing I find is a long bow and a couple of arrows. Not much good for short-range weapons but it's better than nothing and I can run with it.
I check on Martella and she's sound asleep, so I continue down the stairs till I come to the main door. At the sight of my first tree I slam the door shut behind me and sprint up its branches. I feel much better already and I begin to fly through the branches.
When I looked down from the top of the tower I noticed a random amusement park. I have no clue how it relates to Wonderland so I decide to see what it's for and I really love roller coasters.
Suddenly on the ground beneath me a little figure darts by followed by a slightly larger pink and black one. I quickly chase after them out of pure curiosity.
The first figure I saw is a guy with brown mouse ears in a green outfit being chased by a pink haired guy with a fuzzy boa and a black punk outfit on. It seems like the mouse person is running for their life.
I run further ahead and drop down from a tree onto the ground in front of them. They both stop and he looks on their faces were priceless, but I control myself from laughing. I take out the bow and arrow.
"What are you doing?" I demand to know.
"Help me!" the mouse person hides behind me.
"Why are you chasing him?" I ask the punk guy.
"Because he's a mouse and I'm a cat it's what I do, see?" he holds out his tail for me to see.
"Just leave him alone okay?" I ask nicely.
"Wait are you a new foreigner?" he sniffs the air exactly like a cat.
"Yes I guess so. Peter brought Martella and I here and we ended up in the clock tower," I tell him.
"So there are two of you? Well nice to meet you, I'm Boris Airay, the Cheshire cat. Now what were you doing in that tree?" he asks with a grin.
"I'm Iris, I was tree running," I smirk. He raises an eyebrow; "It's a sport I made up where you only use the branches of the trees to move. I'll show you how to do it if you quit being mean to the mouse," I offer.
"Fine, I'll stop for now," he replies, I nod in approval and turn to the mouse.
"Thank you Miss Iris! Come by the Amusement Parks sometime and I'll show you around," he gives me a hug then runs off waving goodbye.
"Okay now how do you do this?" Boris asks, and I turn back to him. I show for him to follow me and climb into a tree. He follows me and I take off towards the park. I look back to find him flying across the trees with as much ease as I do, must be the cat part of him.
I look down for a quick second and find another two blurs cross my path from the ground. They seem to be heading to the park to. I run faster ahead and I hear Boris tell me to slow down, but I still keep going and jump down in front of two boys that look exactly the same. The look on the faces as I do this never gets old, and this time I can't help it but I start cracking up. Boris lands beside me and asks what's going. Then he starts laughing along when he sees their faces too.
Finally after I stop, I get a good look at the two boys. They're probably my age but they sound like they're 13 or so. They both have on navy blue guard uniforms and the same gray-blue hair; the only difference is their red and blue eyes and hats of the same sort.
"Boris, who is this pretty lady?" the red one asks the cat. I blush, no one's ever called me pretty before.
"And why are you laughing at us?" the one in blue asks.
"This is Iris, she's one of the new foreigners Peter brought. Your faces were hilarious when we jumped down. Iris, I would like you to meet Tweedle Dee," he motions to the blue twin, "And Tweedle Dum," he motions to the red twin.
"Nice to meet you," I reply.
They tackle me to the ground.
"Can you be our new Onee-san? Our other one left us," they both ask, well it can't hurt anything and they seem so cute, and so I agree.
"Come on let's get to the Park, if that's where you want to go?" Boris inquires, slightly blushing.
"Yep that's where I was headed," and we continue on foot to the Park.
When we get there a red haired man with glasses happily greets us. He's also wearing a bright yellow outfit and carrying a misshapen string instrument.
"Hi, I'm Gowland! You must be one of the new foreigners, let me play you a welcome song," he offers.
"No! Please don't old man!" Boris pleads and covers his ears. The twins do the same, it can't be that bad.
I was wrong, but I managed to survive the horror of what he calls a song.
"That was very unusual," I yell not wanting to hurt his feelings. I can't really hear anything anymore.
"Thank you!"
"The other foreigner who came with me also plays violin, but hers broke, but I'm sure she'd love to come by and listen to you," I tell him mentally apologizing to Martella. Satisfied he leaves us to the rides.
"Why didn't you warn me about this?" I question Boris.
"I didn't think we would run into him, sorry," he gives a shy grin.
"Come on Onee-san!" the twins pull me towards the teacups and we all get in.
I finally regain my hearing after dozens of roller coasters and Boris takes me back to the Clock Tower. The twins' head towards what I found out is a mansion where they work for the Hatter.
I thank Boris and head up to my room. A few moments later night falls and I hope Boris is already back at the park. Tired from all the fun I just had, I jump into my bed without even taking off my shoes and fall to sleep.