One frabjous day in Wonderland, the Cheshire Catgirl was stuck. Climbing this tree had seemed like a good idea when she'd started out, but it seemed to become taller and taller as she climbed higher and higher.

Or was she becoming smaller?

Pausing for breath, the Cheshire Catgirl decided that if she climbed right up to the top, to the highest leaf on the longest branch, she might find some friendly giant or other who would help her get down. Better to do that than jump and risk breaking her pretty little neck.

So the Cheshire Catgirl kept climbing, and as she reached the higher branches, the ground no longer visible now, a song reached her ears. It was an odd sort of song, the likes of which she'd never heard before. It went like this:

"I'm a lovely lesbian
Sitting in a tree
Would you like to come on up
And have a cup of tea?"

This made the Cheshire Catgirl extremely curious about who was singing this song. She looked up to the top of the tree, which was barely visible even with her Catgirl eyes. There, on the very highest branch, reclining against the trunk as if it were a deckchair and this were a sunny beach, was a girl.

The Cheshire Catgirl could tell that the figure was a girl because of the song she was singing. No boy would sing about being a lesbian, would he? Apart from that, it was hard to tell anything about the figure at all. The Cheshire Catgirl watched this figure for a long long time, too scared to climb up the rest of the tree and say hello.

Sometime during the night, the Cheshire Catgirl must have fallen asleep, because when she looked up, the figure had gone. She must have slept for a full day, because it would have taken a long time to climb back down the tree, and the light was of the same quality as when she'd last been awake.

-----xxXxx-----

It was several days later until she saw the figure again. The Cheshire Catgirl was prowling through a meadow - prowling for what, she could not have told you - when the strong smell of tea filled her Catgirl nose.

How long had it been since she'd had a fresh cup of tea? Tea is a Cheshire Catgirl's favourite drink, and they will do anything for even a small sip. Without a second thought, the Cheshire Catgirl ran towards the smell, until she came across a checkered rug, spread out across the grass.

On the rug was a small tray laden with a plate of biscuits, a small mug and a pot of tea. It never occurred to the Cheshire Catgirl to notice the strange green box propped up with a twig, nor did she think to take a look around before pouncing on her favourite hot beverage.

The tea was perfect - just the right temperature and consistency, made with the finest tea leaves. Making the strangest sounds of appreciation, the Cheshire Catgirl drank every last drop. Then, stretching out over the rug, she went straight to sleep. Tea makes Catgirls very tired, don't you know.

-----xxXxx-----

"Ha!" The Mad Hatter thought to herself. "The Cheshire Catgirl has fallen asleep. Now I just have to pull on this string and the twig will fall and so will the box, right on top of the Catgirl!"

She'd been watching the Cheshire Catgirl for quite some time, and found the noises she made when drinking tea to be quite attractive. Now the Mad Hatter wanted the Cheshire Catgirl all for herself. With a sharp tug and a loud giggle, the Catgirl was trapped inside the box.

"Myah!" The Cheshire Catgirl protested, her voice muffled by the box in which she was trapped. "It's gone all dark and I can't move my legs!"

"I will remove the box if you promise not to run." The Mad Hatter told her. "But if you break your promise, I shall tell the Queen of Hearts and he won't be pleased!"

The Cheshire Catgirl thought about this for quite some time. The Queen of Hearts wasn't entirely stable, and might decide without warning to chop off her head. He didn't like girls who were prettier than him, not one bit.

"All right. I promise not to run." She called out. "But I don't promise not to bite!"

She felt someone close by and tensed up as the box was removed and she saw sunlight. Blinking rapidly, she looked up and saw the figure she'd been admiring from a distance, the one from the top of the tree.

"Biting I do not mind at all." The figure said. "It's just the running that I cannot stand." And she offered a hand to help the Cheshire Catgirl up. "I am the Mad Hatter." She said by way of introduction.

"And I am the Cheshire Catgirl." Said the Cheshire Catgirl. "Would you like to play with me?"

-----xxXxx-----

Part 2:

In the rose-garden courtyard of a fairytale castle surrounded by the thickest, tricksiest, most fabulous maze in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts stood. His thick, blood red hair was styled into the shape of a heart every morning by his deck of minions, their faces painted black or red and one of the four suits tattooed onto their backs. When the Queen wanted to play crochet, his beautiful acrobatic minions would bend over backwards into the shape of an arch so that he could hit the ball through.

Anyone who played croquet with the Queen and won would quickly lose their head. Losing was one of the four things that the Queen of Hearts hated. He also hated it when his orders were disobeyed and when something wasn’t perfect, but the thing he hated the most, the thing that made his blood boil and his face turn as red as his cloak, was people who were prettier than him.

There were only two rules in his kingdom: all ways are the Queen’s way and no one is prettier than the Queen.

So why was it that two of his perfect china-doll minions, their elegant makeup smudged with tears as they trembled before him, why was it that they claimed to have seen a boy, a young boy no older than sixteen, in his kingdom, daring to be prettier and better dressed and more fabulous than him?

“Off with their heads!” he cried, brandishing his staff with the heart on the end and turning away in disgust. He hated to lose two of his minions like that, especially two of the most faithful and devoted, but there was no way that he could allow anyone to gaze upon this boy and live. Once the whelp was caught, he would have to go about finding everyone who had been in contact with.

“Fetch me my White Rabbit!” he ordered, stomping towards his castle with four minions scurrying at his heels to keep up. For perfect symmetry, the Queen always had a diamond, a spade, a club and of course a heart at his side at all times. They were chosen for their docility and their beauty – they must be pleasing to look at but not quite as beautiful as the Queen himself.

When the Queen arrived at his throne room, the White Rabbit was already there, kneeling in the centre of the room with her toes curled inwards, her hands on her knees and her head turned respectfully downwards, just as he liked her. She was the one and only exception to his rule. Five years ago, when she had reached the age of Examination, she had been found to be prettier than the Queen and sentenced to death. However, somehow she had broken free of her guards as she was being escorted to the chopping block and had run straight towards the Queen where he sat on his High Throne, watching the ceremony with a solemn face.

Kneeling before him, she had pled for her life and for a brief moment, his heart had softened, for the White Rabbit was very beautiful indeed. Unwilling to set her free into the world where anybody could gaze upon her, he had agreed to keep her as a slave for as long as she was faithful to him and did his bidding. This had turned out to be one of his best decisions, because the White Rabbit had turned out to be the perfect example of a domestic slave – obedient, submissive and meek, following his every order without complaint and with the greatest efficiency. At night, she would sing him to sleep.

“My sinfully beautiful White Rabbit,” he crooned, threading a hand through her soft golden locks and caressing her silky, virgin white ears. “I have a task for you, my pet, something I think you will enjoy very much.”

The White Rabbit remained silent, waiting for permission to speak. So perfect, so obedient; he had trained her well.

“You have not been outside these walls for so long,” the Queen reminded her. “I know that you gaze out of your window at night, longing to walk under the moon again. Do you deny it?”

“No, my most beautiful and kind hearted Queen.”

“Of course, you would never lie to me. Such faithful obedience deserves reward, my dear. Can you be trusted to carry out my task beyond my reach, in the wild forest of Wonderland?”

“Yes, my most noble and honourable Queen.”

“I can tell you are eager to begin your task,” the Queen noted with amusement. “Do you remember the dangers which the forest hold? A pretty young thing like you could get into a lot of trouble there.”

“Of course, my Queen. But I will do anything to serve you; the forest does not scare me.”

“Such innocence.” The Queen sighed and sat down on his throne, the four minions taking their places at his feet. “Very well, my dear. Here is your task: you must find the boy who does not belong and bring him to me. When you see him, you will surely know him, for he is reported to be more beautiful than myself.”

“Surely not, my Queen,” the White Rabbit hastily assured him. Such a pity that she too would have to die once she had gazed upon the forbidden beauty. The Queen would miss her immensely, but then again, they found many attractive new boys and girls every year. He could take his pick of those sentenced to death for their beauty.

“Do not patronise me, my dear; you know yourself that it is possible.” The Queen frowned and delighted in the way that his slave trembled slightly in fear. She need not worry; there would be no beating tonight. “But it is not permitted. Do you understand what you have been asked to do?”

“Yes, my most fabulous and stylish Queen.”

“Very good. You may leave now. Go to the kitchens and ask for your supper. When you have eaten, you must leave immediately and I do not expect you back until you have succeeded in your task.”

The White Rabbit left, walking backwards and curtseying until the tall, gold adorned doors swung shut behind her and the Queen was left as alone as he could be with his four minions clamouring to be the one permitted to massage his feet.

-----xxXxx-----

Part 3:

The scent in the air that caught the Rabbit’s delicate white nose was a musty one, full of the kind of dead, decaying things that she was used to being sheltered from in the Queen’s capacious, echoey castle. It was true that her mistress was a cruel and harsh one, but it was equally true that the White Rabbit was young and innocent, and she wondered whether the sunlight she could almost taste (dancing just out of reach in the tallest branches of the Tumtum trees) was a worthwhile trade for the safety of her confinement. Dark, shapeless, lurky things squelched out of sight, watching her with far too many eyes for any sensible creature’s liking.

The dangers of the forest were not the only thing on the Rabbit’s mind. Innocent she may be, but years of harshness suffered at the hands of the Queen of Hearts had beaten the naivety out of her slender form. As she scurried and hurried past trees and shrubs and bushes and trees and other hiding places of Things That Were Out To Get Her, the White Rabbit was all too aware of what awaited her upon her return to the Castle of Hearts.

Rule Number One: No-one is prettier than the Queen and lives to tell the tale. This most precious and sacred law already hung over the White Rabbit’s head – now she was heading into a trap that would mean the chopping block for both her and the boy she searched for.

It never crossed the White Rabbit’s mind not to return to the Castle. She had lived in fear of the Queen far too long to disobey even this most lethal order.

-----xxXxx-----

From the frightened, flittery mind of an Innocent to the scrambled, frenxulent mind of a Lunatic. Of all the many-many pairs of eyes, two of the most wildest and darkest could be traced back to a sketchy, peculiar character hanging upside down from the gnarly-twisty branch of one of the leafyish kind of trees that make Very Good Hiding Places.

The March Hare watched. And the March Hare liked what she saw. And when the pretty-sleek figure of the White Rabbit had passed on beyond her seeing, the March Hare laughed.

Creatures and monsters and other Things scattered, skitty-scat throughout the forest, scumpering and scurrying to get away from the eerie, twistorted melody of the March Hare’s delight.

Outside of the Tulgey Wood, all ways were the Queen’s way but inside the darkness thrived madness that the Queen’s boring, disciplined ways could not control. The March Hare had seen a shiny treasure, and she would catch it and keep it as her own, and no one in Wonderland would stop her.

-----xxXxx-----

A teenager is a jumbled sort of animal. If you keep one in a cage, it will dream of freedom, but if you set it free it will crawl back inside and demand food and money and shiny things. When presented with rules to follow, it can be relied upon to gravitate towards the sort of behaviour that is frowned upon by the sort of people who follow these rules.

Alice was a teenager, so you should already know everything of importance about him. He was prickly and thorny when approached and far too rebolent for his own good, which is why he came to be somewhere that he shouldn’t have gotten into in the first place.

Alice wore pretty clothes and yellow hair. Alice was a boy with a girl’s name and a permanent scowl and an over-fondness for shoes.

Alice was sitting on top of a mushroom that had been much smaller just a moment ago.

Alice was starting to become fed up with this messy, unruly place. Despite his teenagerish instincts, he knew that things were supposed to behave a certain way, and the Things in this place most certainly did not. Doorknobs were not supposed to swear at you when you grabbed their noses. Mushrooms were not supposed to shrink you without warning when you stopped to fill your hungry stomach.

Caterpillars were most certainly not supposed to smoke pipes and sing a mournful sort of song. Alice glared at the creature and pointedly ignored it. This was a dream and he would soon wake up, and until then he was staying right here, where no one else could Happen to him.

-----xxXxx-----

And so, thought the Mad Hatter as she sat atop the tallest, oldest tree, stroking the glustrous fur of her feline companion.

And so. And so the many components, the characters, the mechanisms in the machinery of the Tale… and so they finally began to come together like the first grains of dirt in a devastating storm.

“Are you having fun?” she asked the sleepy creature by her side. Yawning, the Cheshire Catgirl purred in affirmation and snuggled closer, turning her head in invitation.

“Good.” The Mad Hatter smiled a ferilous smile. “I think that tomorrow, I shall teach you to sing.”