Author's Note: Enjoy!

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

Chapter Eight- Of Cats and Rabbits

Iris- Meeting Nightmare in the dream world

"Who are you?" I ask the pirate guy hovering above me.

"I am not a pirate guy. My name is Nightmare and I can read minds," he pouts.

"Okay then. Why are you in my dream?"

"I'm a incubus, I'm hiding from Grey, who's been trying to get me to go to the hospital for ages now," he coughs violently into his handkerchief.

"I don't like the hospital either but some things just have to be done. You don't want to get too sick, so you and I are going to the Doctor's," I grab his hand before remembering we are in the Dream World.

"Dang it, I forgot we aren't in the real world."

"Yep, you can't do anything here," he grins thinking that he's escaped me.

"Oh yeah, well this is my dream isn't it?" I imagine us in a hospital and that's was appears around us.

"You're the first person to ever do that. Crud, a doctor's coming for me. Bye," he bids farewell to escape capture and my Dream World melts.

Peter knocks on my door waking me up to bring me to the Castle of Hearts. I sling my bow and quiver over my back.

"You don't need that. I'll protect you," Peter tells me upon seeing it.

"I can protect myself, thank you very much." Dollop head.

I tell Julius that I'm heading out accidently startling him awake. Peter and I leave pretty quickly after that.

About halfway there Boris drops out of the tree in front of us. Peter takes out a gun and points it at Boris.

"What are you doing here cat?"

"Peter put that away," he grudgingly abides and it shrinks into his pocket watch.

"I wanted to know if Alice wanted to hang out and go tree running."

"Sorry Boris, I'm off to see the Queen."

"I'll walk with you then. I'm not really allowed to go there but getting chased by the guards is always fun." I notice one of Peter's ears twitching.

"As long as you don't get hurt," I tell Boris.

Peter looks at his pocket watch gun and sees that we're running late. He grabs my hand and we start fast walking. Boris grabs my other hand and soon we're racing to the castle. Once we get there we're all out of breath.

"That was fun," I tell them. They nod in agreement.

"How are you breathing normally?" Boris asks in between breaths.

"Practice. With all the tree running I do my lungs are quite strong." Peter starts breathing normally again and reminds me that the Queen and Martella are waiting.

"Thanks for walking with us Boris. We'll go tree running more tomorrow," I promise.

"Okay, see you later then. And you better be nice to her rabbit," Boris tells him.

"She'll be fine. Come on Iris." Peter says wanting to get rid of him.

I follow him into the grand castle, and he leads me to the Queens room. We don't say anything but every so often he'll glance back to make sure I'm okay. He really isn't a bad guy and truth to be told I didn't mind the kiss. I just wish I'd known it was coming and that I knew him better.

The Queen and Martella are sitting in the middle of a gigantic bedroom eating cake and drinking tea. There's another place set out for me.

"Vivaldi, this is Iris," Peter introduces me.

"Iris, it's nice to meet you. Please have a seat. Peter you may go now."

"Bye my Queen. See you later Iris," he bows out.

"Bye Peter!" I call back. He turns and smiles then walks away.

"So Iris, Martella tells us that it would be hard to get you in a dress. Oh and call us Vivaldi, by the way." Vivaldi pours me a cup of black tea, which is my favorite, sugar makes it too sweet. The royal 'we' catches me off guard but then I sit down and take off my bow and quiver.

"If you really want me to I will," I say reluctantly.

"That's great! We found something that we though you might like?" Vivaldi hands me a red and black dress. I set down my cup and go to the closet to put on the dress.

It's very pretty and the material is sturdy. It's sleeveless, but not strapless, so I have great arm movement and under the skirt of the dress there are pants so I can run around. It's amazing, a dress I would actually wear.

I come out of the closet and am showered with complements. Vivaldi says she'll get me some more of these after I tell her how much I like it.

"Would you like to have a sleep over here? Martella said that she's coming," Vivaldi asks me.

"I would love to come. It'll be my first sleep over," I accept.

"Great! We'll also have a tea before it with everyone. I have a surprise announcement to make. We guess you should be getting back to the clock tower. See you tomorrow," Vivaldi shows us out. We tell her goodbye and hurry to Julius before it gets dark.

"Wait, Iris!" I hear Peter call out.

"Peter?" I turn around and he's running towards me with my bow and quiver.

"Thank you, I completely forgot about it.," I take it from him and put it on my back.

"Your welcome. I have to go back to my job, I've got tons of work to do."

"Oh okay. Well I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Bye Iris, Martella." He leaves us and heads back to the castle.

"That was nice of him," I remark.

"I think he likes you," Martella concludes. This turns me a deep shade of red.

"He was probably just being nice," I reason. Martella isn't buying it though.

"He usually isn't nice like that." Boris drops out of the tree scaring us half to death.

"Dear goodness Boris, you almost gave us a heart attack," I tell him.

"Um Iris, who is this? And why'd he jump out of a tree?" Martella asks sufficiently confused.

"Martella this is Boris, Boris this is Martella," I introduce them to each other.

"Nice to meet you," Boris smiles.

"You too."

"As I was saying, Peter usually isn't like that. The only other person who he was nice to was Alice," Boris informed me.

"Alice?" I ask, I heard Ace and Julius talk about her.

"The foreigner before you. Nightmare said that she is living in your world with Blood. Peter loved her the most out of all of us," I felt a small pain of jealousy.

"Nightmare sent him because he was going crazy for a long time after Alice left. He said that he needed to cut off those feelings for Alice and I think he finally did. Nightmare put him 5 years into the future so he would see how happy she was with Blood."

"So does he still love her?" I had to know. I didn't want to start liking someone who already had feelings for someone else.

"No I don't think so. I think after he saw her, he became more mature. Usually he'd attempt to tackle Alice or follow her around everywhere. With you he's trying to keep his emotions from controlling him too much," Boris explained. I feel guilty about being relieved that he doesn't love her anymore.

We don't say much after that and Boris walks us to the tower.