1. The Wonderland

Inspired by: The Song, Mr. Alice.

Disclaimer: Nope.

Pairing: KaitoxMiku, extremely vague, unnamed KiyoteruxMeiko.

"So you were lost…" he mused as he poured the strange tea into the cracked china teacups. "Wonderland is not a place where the lost are fortunate enough to survive. You were lucky. Or unlucky, if you look at it right!" he cackled at the end of that sentence.

Miku gripped the edge of her skirt. He was an odd man, this strange blue-haired man with the crumpled suit and old, stained hat. At times, his voice would be the pleasant, caring voice that attracted her, but at other instants, he would become strangely erratic, on the borderline of insanity as his voice dipped low and swung high.

That part of his unique personality attracted her just as much to him as the other side of him.

"Tea, dear?" he offered her a pink teacup and a golden saucer. Mismatched, like his clothes. The table's other guests sat, playing cards with each other.

"Thank you," she murmured, accepting the hot drink. The first drink of this tea was sweet like honey, but in her mouth it would morph into slight bitterness like herbs, and then to the tart sourness of berries, before moving onto some other flavour before she swallowed it.

"You're welcome," he beamed, and the others muttered in something she didn't catch. "Oh, hush, children!"

The 'mouse', a black haired boy with the low-hanging ears of that animal, rolled his sleepy golden eyes. "Shut up, Hatter."

"Please do," agreed the silver haired, dual eyed rabbit. "No one likes your voice, anyways."

"I do," she blurted out. Three pairs of curious eyes sat on her, and she blushed crimson. "Well, I do…" she muttered, and gulped her tea.

The card players went back to their game, but the last pair of sapphire eyes stayed on her as their owner, too, drank his tea.

The Hatter finally looked away, breaking eye contact, and she breathed out the air she didn't know she'd been holding. Those eyes kept her on edge, filling her body with what felt like electric awareness. Flight or fight, only she didn't know what to do, and whom to.

"This place," he said, toying with a handkerchief. "It's all a game, and one person is in control of all the pieces, except you."

"The Red Queen?" Miku guessed, pulling the name of the monarch from something the Cheshire Cat, with her pink hair and playful tricks, had told her in one of her riddles.

"No," The Hatter told her, pouring another cup of tea. "She's a game piece, just like the rest of us, mourning her dead King when she's not busy being the executor of this place. That person is Alice, dear Miku."

"I don't understand," Miku interrupted. "You… you and all the others... they called me Alice, and now you're telling me that I'm in control."

"Another Alice, maybe, but not you," the rabbit muttered, laying his hand down in front of the mouse.

"You're our Alice," the Hatter told her, leaning forward to close a lot of the distances between their faces. Closer up, she saw just how his eyes shone with mad brilliance. "The Alice at the palace is a brat."

He then leaned back into his chair and chuckled. "'The Alice at the palace'!" he laughed. "That rhymed!"

Miku lifted the chipped china cup to her lips and drank some more tea, waiting for him to recover.

"No one has a name here, Miku," he told her, using her real name. "We have roles to play, to act out and pretend to be. We have masks, but we don't have faces. It's nothing but a farce, a play we put on, and we hate it."

"I had a name," the mouse admitted, taking a bite of cake. "But now… now it's under lock. I can't quite remember it."

"No one can," the Hatter sang softly. "No one except our Wonderland Alice."

Miku fidgeted. "So what do I do?"

"Kill the other Alice," the rabbit offered.

"Stab the sadistic, crazy bitch," suggested the mouse.

The Hatter waved a hand. "Gentlemen, be… gentle," he ordered. "No, Miku, all we ask is that you free us."

She tried to meet those sky-like eyes, the orbs of blue that made her feel like she was trying to take in the entire ocean and the sky all at once. "How do I do that?"

"You could try what we said," the mouse shrugged.

The Hatter, ignoring his companion, leaned in once more. "Do what you think," he whispered.

It sent shivers down her spine.

And later, when she did end up killing the other Alice, the one who she could only call 'Alice' because she didn't know her name, there was only the madman who stayed with her after the grand party to tell her, crooning in her ear that it was alright, that it was okay, even if it wasn't.

And she felt a lot better.