Author's Note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: HnKnA- not mine. Martella, Iris, and plot- mine.

Chapter Seven- The Queen of Stuffed Animals

Martella- Going to the castle with Ace

"I think Elliot pointed us in the wrong direction," Ace says. The top of the castle is right above the tree line in front of us.

"No, it's right there. I think you're directionally challenged," I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Oh yeah, you're right. Alice said I was too," he smiles and we start walking again.

"Who was Alice? I heard Julius mention her when he talked about Peter bringing us here. And Nightmare mentioned her." I was burning with curiosity.

"She was a foreigner here, like you and Iris are. To leave, she had to interact with all the inhabitants; eventually we all fell in love with her in different ways. She fell in love with the Hatter, Blood, and left with him back to her world. Now we need a new Hatter. Wonderland will choose one soon," Ace brings me up to date.

"Okay, got it." We don't say anything else the rest of the way there.

When we get to the gates of the castle a person without a face tells us that the Queen is waiting for us. I ask Ace about the faceless card people and he explained that only role holders and foreigners have faces.

The rabbit man, Peter, stands by the Queen. She's very pretty and has long curly purple hair.

"So you're the new foreigner Peter has told us about," she speaks with the royal 'we'. I am going to have to get used to that.

"Yes, your majesty. I'm Martella," I attempt a curtsy but it looks very ungraceful.

"Oh, none of that majesty stuff. You can call us Vivaldi. And Ace did you bring the clocks back to Julius?" She turns to Ace.

"Yes, my Queen," Ace bows.

"Good, you are dismissed. Peter, you spoke of another girl?"

"Yes. Iris," he tells her.

"Could you find her and bring her to us? We want to meet her."

With that Peter runs off, quite joyfully too. He must actually like Iris, I thought he only pulled that thing with the potion because he wanted to mess with her.

"Now what is it that you are holding?"

"It's my viola. I was actually wondering if you have anyone who could fix it?"

"Sorry, that might be more in Gowland's area. I'm not too musically inclined so we don't really have anyone to fix them. Have you asked Julius yet?"

"No, has he played before, because everyone keeps telling me to ask him?"

"Maybe, I can't remember him not working on his clocks though. He's a great craftsman and might be able to fix it." That's probably what I'll have to do. I don't want to disturb him though.

"Yeah, I'll ask him."

"Come dear, we want to show you something. Please inform Peter when he gets here that we'll be with Martella in our room," she takes my hand and we go upstairs.

After quite a bit of walking through the castle we make it to Vivaldi's room, which is easily the size of my house. Surprisingly there are tons of stuffed animals.

"Aren't they adorable?! We just love cute things, speaking of which we want you to try on some dresses," she takes me to a slightly smaller room that appears to be her closet. She rummages through them and hands me a dark blue dress about the same color as Julius's hair.

I try it on and it fits perfectly, the best part is that it doesn't itch even with the gold lace.

"You can keep that if you want. We'll have one of our servants finds more of that size in other colors. Where will you be staying? You can always stay here if you want," Vivaldi offers.

"That's very kind of you, but I'm staying with Julius. He's going to try to fix my viola, some idiot broke it. I promise I'll come and visit a lot though. If you want we can have a sleep over tomorrow." I don't want to let her down hard and she's very nice. If I had a sister I imagine she'd be like Vivaldi.

"That's too bad, but a sleepover sounds like fun. Maybe Iris can join us if she wants to. What is she like?"

"I'm not sure really. We went to the same school but we both kept to ourselves. I know she likes tree running, a sport that she made up. Since flexible clothing is required for that it'll be hard to get her in a dress, but she might oblige."

"We see, well Peter should be here any minute. Until then, would you like some tea and cake?" Vivaldi asks. I hadn't really noticed how hungry I'd been.

"Yes, very much please." One of the faceless, the same one that greeted us runs off to the kitchen as we wait for Iris.