You could stay…

Alice flopped onto her back, catching herself before she rolled clean off the small cot and onto her cabin's hard wooden floor. From her first night on her first journey to Hong Kong, she'd found the gentle rocking of the ship soothing and peaceful – perfect for sleep – until tonight.

She let out a long, overly-loud sigh into the darkness and rolled to her side. Her life had changed, no doubt of that. Her relationship with Lord Ascot had evolved from amused interest in her as an apprentice on his part to a full partnership in just under a year. Alice's imaginative visions paired with a seemingly innate business sensibility had caused a business explosion and subsequently taken her all over the world. China had just been the start of it; Alice had been to all corners of the earth, seen things that rivaled fantastical illustrations from her picture books as a child, her own vast imagination, even…

…even the Underland.

She had seen great palaces of gold that towered as high as the White Queen's palace and exotic tribal dances where the dancers' limbs seemed to spin around independent of their own bodies. She had seen trees that towered so high over her she felt as if she had drunk the potion again, and insects of such colors that Absolem would have looked positively drab in their company.

And then there was the tea.

She had drunk tea on every continent and in seemingly every flavor and color– earthy tasting green teas, spicy amber teas, light flowery white teas and sweet red teas. She had drunk teas as medicine, as ritual, and simply as a beverage. She had drunk tea out of china so delicate it was almost see-through and out of crudely carved wooden cups. She had drunk it with milk, with sugar, with honey, with jam, mint, butter, whisky, salt and all by itself.

HE would have been positively giddy.

You won't remember me…

Every cup of tea, every hat, every pair of green eyes, every windmill, some days it seemed everything, everything reminded her of him. She sighed again and turned onto her back once more. One set of wonders to replace another, perhaps, but in the last four years of travel, of adventure in this world that she had never thought possible, she had yet to find his equal. And now…

And now.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, tossing off the bedclothes, exasperated. She climbed out of the tiny bed, slipped into a long warm coat and a pair of shoes, opened the door of her small cabin and made her way up to the deck.

Only a few hands were on watch at this hour of the night. Aside from the sound of the sea and wind and low murmuring of the scant crew, it was a peaceful night – clear, too. The stars and moon shone brightly, illuminating the ship and sky. Alice stared up at them, leaning against the rail. She stayed there, lost in her thoughts and memories until dawn.

Shortly before noon, Alice stepped off the gangplank. For the first time in over three years, her feet were again on English soil.

Hatter sat in his customary spot at his table, slumped down, a smallish teacup dangling precariously by it's handle off his left forefinger. Tea he thought. Tea, treacle, time…

He'd gone through every letter of the alphabet seven hundred and fifty-two times since she left. "Things to do," she'd said.

Things. There's another.

Every letter, that is, but A. But there was only one A word that really mattered, that really deserved a good investigation, a good think.

Think.

Further down the table, the March Hare juggled a lemon scone, a teaspoon, three lumps of sugar and two mismatched saucers while Mallymkun stood on the lid of a teapot and applauded.

"Bravo Thackery! Bravo! With all of this practice you'll soon be able to juggle blueberry scones instead of lemon!"

The hare let the items fall, leapt up on the table and took a grand bow. "The blueberries do throw off the balance of color. Very important for juggling, color is. Blueberries always make things difficult."

"You will get there, I'm sure," Mallymkun patted his foot with reassurance.

The March Hare stole a glance at the tall man at the head of the table, ears drooping at the obvious lack of interest. Mallymkun trotted across the table to Hatter, pulled out her sword and stabbed his knee.

"Ow! Yeh wee boggin bampot!" he jolted up, sending the teacup to it's shattered death upon the ground. His eyes flashed orange for a moment, then back to their customary vivid green.

"Oh, Mallymkun, I do apologize," he said, softly, rubbing the spot on his knee her rapier had pierced him absentmindedly. "I'm fine. I let my thoughts get away from me, and I was chasing them."

"Were they caught?"

"Alas, they got away. Again." He sighed deeply, then abruptly flung two broken teacups at the March Hare, followed by a small layer cake. "Come, Master Earwicket! Let us have us a show! A proper entertainment for a proper party on this lovely day in May!"

The Hare caught the teacups, readying himself to catch the cake and resume his juggling, but the cake stopped mid-flight. Fluffy pink frosting disappeared from the cake's top while it floated a few feet above the table. A blue gray whirl of smoke appeared, followed by a long pink tongue lapping at the sides of the cake.

"Chessur! So glad of you to grace us with your smoky self!" the Hatter grinned, now pulled free of his muddled her thoughts.

A head appeared around the teeth, and a body beneath the head. The blue-gray cat hovered there, still licking the candy-colored frosting off the cake with his long tongue. He paused to nod and grin a greeting to the mad creatures and the hatter.

"A riddle for the day, my friend?" the cat purred, licking the remainder of the pink confection from the edges of his mouth.

"Is it a broken wasp wing?" shouted the March Hare, yanking on his ears and hopping from foot to foot among the remainders of the table settings. "A purple-striped sock? A buttered slice of bread that has lost its way?"

Mallymkun laughed hysterically. "He hasn't asked it yet, you twit!"

"Oh but it's a slice of bread! I do know it is!" cried out the March Hare gleefully hopping back to his seat.

"Well Chessur? Is it?" asked the Hatter, leaning forward, now interested. The solutions presented were compelling to be sure, but when it came to Chessur's riddles, Hatter preferred to hear the answers from the cat as often the answer made sense.

Well, as much sense as they could in his mad mind.

Besides, even in his thoughts of darkest dark, of the most missing of missings of her, he must admit, he always enjoyed a riddle.

The cat rolled onto his back and looked upsideways at the Hatter, ignoring his boisterous companions.

"What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?" he said in a lazy sing-song voice.

The mad party-goers grew silent, lost in thought.

"Probably not bread…" the March Hare said, a bit forlorn.

Chessur disappeared only to reappear body-less inches from Hatter's face.

"Give up?"

Hatter nodded, gravely. Though he knew so very many riddles, he never could seem to hold onto their answers.

"Why, a river, of course. Any river, I suppose, but in this case, that one." The cat drifted over to the edge of the forest where the bend of a river disappeared into the trees. At the forest's edge, his head turned and looked back at the three tea-takers. "Well?" Chessur asked, "are you coming?"

The mad companions stood on the crest of a hill, just on the opposite edge of the forest. They overlooked a rolling landscape, dotted with trees and rocks and small brooks, all rather ordinary for the Underland, really. Except, of course, for the land, the grass, the pattern that was emerging. Hatter's bright green eyes widened. Yes, the pattern was expanding, seemingly onward and outward, slowly yes, but perceptible in it's growth, in the darkening and lightening of the squares, the spaces, dark, light, dark, light, a never ending on-stretching checkered pattern…

Just like a chessboard.

Hatter's mad mind raced, his heart beat faster. I know this…I saw this in the Oraculum…

"So it has started then…"

"So it has," purred Chessur.

"TEA AND GAMES! GAMES AND TEA!" the March Hare cried out maniacally, then looked around, a bit abashed, and tugged hard on his ears.

She's coming back.