Alice the 19th

Holy Monty Batman!

I was just to the mall today... and guess what I found in the manga section at the bookstore there?

AN MANGA SERIES CALLED ALICE THE 19TH!!!

Isn't that so like, freaky? I must had been really psychic or something, or else the Manga artist ripped off the title... that, or just some really, really weird condense.....

Thankfully, it was not a Alice in wonderland manga thing, or else I would had been even more freaked out.
It had a short-haired, cute-looking young girl on the cover of it... and it's answerably about a little girl who just discovered a family secret, that she was in fact a wizard or something similar. And then stuff starts happening. Bad stuff. So she has to use her magical powers which she just only recentlarnearned about, and have very little control over... to do well and help her family and friends. It ends doing worse than good things...
I would had read on to find out what else happened, expect the bookstore clerks was eyeing me....

and I did not want to be seen as only loitering and wasting my day there, even though that was exactly what I was doing since I had no money, and therefore was only window shopping, so to speak. *giant sweat drop*

Anyway, enough rambling. You came here to read a story, not my pointless talking. So go ahead and enjoy the latest chapter of

ALICE THE 19TH ( not the manga series! ^^;; )
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"O, why did you have to leave behind that carriage with the frivolous-looking bike that pulled it? That would had been better than walking.." Adonis groaned, as he stopped to sit on the ground and rub his feet.

The hatter sighed. "I would had, expect I forgot about that. Besides, it would had irrated me more than walking. It made my leather pants ride up into my bum crack in a very painful fashion. At the time, I would had stopped and complained expect I was too worried about Dormouse. So that is the other why I just left it at the healer's house."

Adonis blinked. "Ah, I see. Probably why they stopped making those sorts of bikes way in the 1930's or something like that... You should try the newer models, they are much better and more comfortable.."

"Mm mm. I suppose... just need money to buy myself a new one, then. But that is not the issue here. Come on, we are already halfway back to the healer's house... even if our feet are killing us, we could make it before it's even teatime.." The hatter replied, as he stared into the distance.

The golden roads seemed to stretch on forever, and there was white fences that seemed to define the roads even more. But in the far distance, he could actually see a blue speck which he could tell was the healer's big blue house.

Adonis then let out a really loud groan. "Fine...But in return you have to tell me something interesting to distract me from my aching feet!"

The Hatter raised his eyebrows as Adonis got back to his feet. "Like what?"

"I do not know. Something about yourself. I would like to know how you came to be the hatter, what your childhood was like. That sort of thing." Adonis answered, as he walked up behind Hatter.

They both started walking again, as Hatter smiled and started to talk.

"Very well. The whole Hatter business is a very long story. So I suppose I would have to start with my childhood to have it make more sense. You see, my father was a hattemselmself. He sold hats and sometimes even made custom ones to suit certain residents of wonderland... me, I only worked part time in the back of the store to get extra cash. The rest of time, I was always off adventuring... I even tried exploring the land of chess which is our neighboring Kingdom which can be only gained access though a mirror-like portal here in wonderland. That is why they sometimes call it Mirror land, you know. Ha, what a fiasco that was. Ended up getting very lost.
If you should go there, be very careful. You could be on a road and then suddenly end in the lake or something. Very easy to get more lost that way. And the residents. Very much like the people of wonderland. You gonna be very careful around here.. some of them can be very demented... bordering on dangerous. Then there are the people who are amusing, just plain weird. But not dangerous. But there was one thing that set them apart from the residents here such as me though."

"What made them so different?" Adonis asked, now very much curious about this "land of chess ." Considering he had thought that the land of chess and wonderland might had been the one and same, considering there was some bits of land around them that had a chess pattern here.... or maybe that was a somewhat strange road that hinted at where the portal was?

"The way they kept on changing their appearances every time they moved off a square into another one. That was what they called a large sum of land that was cut off by magical borders. Squares... such a simple way to describe them. And the strangest part that I found about chess land, the fact that each land patch with the borders were all the same size exactly. And connected to one another even though each land patch were very different from one another. Example, one square would be completely all forest, and the next one would be like a beach..."

"Really...That sounds like a strange and curious land..." Adonis said, awed by the vivid images that he was picturing in his head as the hatter described it to him.

"Hah, we should go there, together one day. Maybe we could live there as residents. considering this land is now dying with the n'sn's bleak Dominion over us all... and I certainly cannot go back to my house, for fear that the March Hare might want to do something very dangerous to me.." The hatter said, looking somewhat distressed.

"Really, Wonderland is dying? Axel, that's awful! " Adonis gasped, now looking equally distressed.

The Hatter chuckled. "Oh, do not take it too literally. I only meant it in the term of people. Surely you notice there is not that many people you run into here..?"

Adonis thought for a moment. "Well, I've met you. Then there was the Hare, Dormouse, the healer and those odd pair back there. Mm. You do have a point there, I have not seen anybody else here. Why is that, Axel?"

Axel, aka the hatter, shook his head sadly. "Wonderland isn't usually this empty. There would be a time when those roadsld bld be busy with many people going on about their way, doing their things. Bird people, Rabbit people, Mice people, and the humans...and many other races you care to think of. In fact, it was actually a more active population than Chess land itself. Nowadays, Wonderland is scattered with very few residents, and Chess land is now the one with the most active population."

"What happened to those people?" Adonis wondered.

Axel sighed. "I suppose I did have a hand in it myself. Along with Time and the Queen herself. Mostly the Queen's fault now that I think of it."

"What happened?"

"Well... my argument with Time himself was the trigger of it all. Or perhaps the Queen was just looking for an excuse. However a very flimsy one since she was already screaming for heads to be separated from their bodies back then. I would had never guessed such a lowly salesman like me could had played such an important role on wonderland. Now looking back on it, I regret it deeply. Maybe it would still had happened, but I still regret it."

"How can one have an argument with time? That doesn't make sense. Time is the counting of moments as the day moves on forward, isn't it?"

"Ha, you've obviously never met Time himself then. Cranky old man, that one. The irony is that we used to be the best of friends. Okay, maybe that was a stretch since he is friends with everyone. But still, we used to be on such good terms. He did not even mind when I would causally ask him to move the day forward just a little bit, so that I could get though the duller things like having to manage that stupid store that my father left to me in his will. And get to the more fun things faster, like having my tea party that I used to love having so much back then."

"I see. But what does that have to do with less people being here?"

"Don't cut in! I was not done speaking.." Axel muttered.

Adonis smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. You were saying?"

"Time's a very important person, for the very obvious reason. So of course he plays a very important role in managing things here in Wonderland. In fact, so important that he could easily overrule some of the Queen's laws sometimes...espeically if he deemed them to be too brutal and unlawful for the residents' of wonderland own good.
Let's just say The Queen of Hearts was not too happy with that... In fact, when I wanted to be a singer instead of being some hatter salesman...the Queen asked me to come sing for her and time. Of course, seeing this as a very important chance to become known as a singer... I could not pass it up. At the time I did not know that it was a trap.
I was singing that old classic. You know how it goes. It goes something like this: 'twinkle, twinkle little bat, how I wonder you are. Flying so high, like a bright teacup in the sky...' And well.."

Adonis cut in: "I know that part! That was in the book Lewis Carroll wrote. She said that you were murdering the time, and to be off with your head, right?"

The hatter blinked, completely surprised. "Why, yes. That is right. How did you know. And what is this about a book? And who the hell is Lewis Carroll?"

"Eh, long story there. And let's just say he is a very ancient family member of mine. Although that was only his pen name. He really only married a woman from our family, and remained with his real name Mr. Dodgson. Ah, I will explain later. Anyway, continue the story?"

"Ugh, okay. I fled for my life then. And then afterwards I found out that Time had actually been poisoned with something that made him ill. But since he was an immortal and could not die. The Queen of Hearts had him imprisoned somewhere in the palace where only she knew he was, saying it was really for his own health. And then she puts out a reward for my head, saying since I was the one who argued with time and now had a Freud with him. That it was mostly likely me who poisoned him. Since I do have a lot of pills lying around with me.
I shall tell you this though. I certainly did not poison him. I would not sink that low, even if we did have a big argument before. I suspect that the Queen did it all, werewere just looking for somebody to pin it on. After all, She wanted to rule all wonderland completely, doing whatever she wanted to do without somebody more powerful than she ruining it for her. Would not that be the ultimate motive?"

"Boy, that was completely awful!" Adonis said, in a sympathetic way. He knew from the book that he had read, that the Queen was not exactly a pleasant person. But he never imagined that the Queen would actually do such a cruel and sneaky thing.

"I know. That was why ever since then I just stayed at home. Nobody expect for the occasional wanderer really comes to my house. It's safer that way... if there was still bounty hunters or somebody else who still remembered the reward for my head. I have all I need at home. So That is how I've been able to stay there for over 100 years. Although it does get extremely boring to a point where it drives me mad sometimes."

"If you actually stayed at home for that long, I can see why... I do not think I could actually stay in my home for that long, despite how much I want to sometimes.." Adonis said in an awed voice, not sure if he believed Axel or not. He could not just picture it at all.

The hatter pulled off his hat, and ran a hand though his blond hair for a moment, cooling his head off from the warmth of the hat. Once he rubbed his forehead and ran though his hair to get rid of all the sweat, he puts it back on again. He had been sweating due to all the walking both of them were doing, after all.
His mismatched eyes looked down at the young redhead, and he continued with the story.

"Anyway, The Queen of Hearts' plan worked. There was nobody else that was more powerful that could veto and cancel the new st lat laws that she puts out... From what I heard from passerby, It was getting very harder to follow all her laws without breaking most of them. Example, You could not ever wear white on Sundays, Saturdays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And she meant NO white at all... not even for undergarments. Whwas was difficult, especially since the standards color for certain undergarments are usually white. And every law that was broken, no matter now silly and small, often brought on the only punishment that the Queen of Hearts had in mind: A beheading."

"That's horrid of her! And that is so awful too... So most of the population here are now dead thanks to her?"

"Well, they are not exactly dead, they are just without heads now.." The Hatter answered.

"What? That doesn't even make sense...how can somebody be alive and without heads?" Adonis asked, his face clearly showing his puzzlement over that one.

"The same way a person can be without a brain. Lacking in intelligence. The head is where you store all your information and your own mind, isn't it? The heart is what keeps a person alive, right? So even if that person was without a head... the person's body would still live on thanks to that heart that keeps on beating.."

Adonis raised his eyebrows at that. He wanted to correct him in saying that was not even physically possible for the body to still live on without a head attracted to the body, but he did not have the heart to tell him. After all, Axel Bailey seemed to hold out some hope that most of the population was still alive. And the frightening thing was that he found the hatter's logic once again making sense in a very strange way. Also the very fact that a part of him actually somewhat believed that... it seemed that some of the Hatter's craziness and strange logic was now starting to rub off on him.

The hatter then looked up to the road ahead of them, and then he grinned widely. "Well, it seemed that story actually worked in making our walk seems shorter. There is the Healer house!"

Adonis averted his eyes away from the Hatter and also saw that the House was just right ahead of them. With that in sight, he grinned widely too. "Yeah.. and I forgot about my aching feet in all that storytelling... now I do not have to think about my feet until I am insidetingting!"

With that, the grinning pair hurriedly went inside.
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Just as the Hatter and Adonis were handing the bramble weed that they had to the healer and recounting the strange event at the Duchess's house far away...

There was a very young looking boy all alone in a big cold room in the Heart Castle, crying his eyes out. He cried now and then like this.
After all, this was all he could do, for he had been trapped in this same room for well over 200 years.... In fact, he despaired that he would never once return to his original form. And once again wander around wonderland like he used to.

Then all a suddenly he stopped crying. For he had a vision of The Hatter, the one also known as Axel, cheering as he heard on how the Dormouse would recover rather fast now. And he also saw in his mind's eye of a redhead that had a strange power that was very similar to Alice's....

Then he blinked, and this time he did not see the lovers, but a surly-looking, brown-haired girl that awfully looked a lot likes the Alice he knew, and was even in a way the Alice he always knew. Even if she was not the same person... such a confusing person, that one. She appeared to be travelling with the Cheshire Cat, which was very unusual.... for even if Alice was friends with the terror of wonderland, he usually liked to go his own way, no matter what.

The boy grinned, for the first time in a long while. It seemed that there was now a small glimmer of hope still.... Those four could, and very possibly defeat the Queen of Hearts and let him free into the world once again. Then all wonderland could be restored to its former glory...

After all, it was not right, that Time would be locked up like this. Time was not meant to be stuffed into a dusty corner and forgotten as if he never existed. Without him, wonderland would not on ion it's own correctly.

The little boy walked up to the barred windows, blinking his wide green eyes. He seemed to be almost but a mere toddler, yet his eyes seemed old. Like he really had the mind of a very ancient old man inside a body that was way too young for him.
The boy then grinned hugely.

It felt so very nice to have something to smile about like this.... But it would feel even nicer when he would be free again. Provided that Alice, The Cheshire Cat, Adonis and.... yes, even that annoying hatter that he once argued with a while ago would come to save him.
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End of chapter ten!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It certainly does explain some things. Even though I meant this to be a filler chapter. ^^
And if you are wondering why Time here looks like an adorable four year old, it's because he is sick and imprisoned. It's not really his original form.
It's cute to picture him this way, isn't it though? ^_^ So helpless and kawaii....
I intended for the Queen to make actually an appearance here, but then it got too long. I suppose she shall appear in the next chapter, when Alice finally comes to the Heart Castle...