The Cheshire Cat Smiled (WIP)

[Akrahun]

The Cheshire Cat Smiled

Chapter 1

The Cheshire Cat Smiled. It was the type of smile that you HAVE to capitalize, for to see it was to think Smile, not smile. Now this does not mean that it was friendly, for a friendly smile would in all likeliness be too generic to capitalize. Rather it was such an evil grin that one had to set it apart from a normal friendly upturning of the lips in some verbal way so that those who could not actually see it would not mistaken the teller’s meaning. But regardless of all of that, the base fact is the most important one. The Cheshire Cat Smiled, and anyone who saw him do so knew without knowing that they would be lucky to escape his gaze with just some bad memories or even with their life intact at all.

The unlucky character that this grotesque grin was resting on was no exception to this rule, and she trembled where she stood, afraid to stay, afraid to go. She wore a blue dress with a white apron, and her hair was done up in a way quite respectable for her time, but she would have seemed out of place to anyone who saw her, for her time had been long past.

“So,” the cat said, “we meet again, Alice. It is always a wonder to me how many beings from all different backgrounds, and in some cases even worlds come to my Wonderland in their dreams, and yet for some reason they all seem to take the name Alice while they are here, no matter what their original name was. I wonder, are you sure that you really ARE Alice, or could that just be the name of a dream self of yours who, though her counterpart woke long ago, never managed to leave my realm?”

The girl said nothing, and her silence was so complete that if one had been there they would have begun to believe the Cat’s strange theory, for it was a silence that seemed devoid even of the steady in and out of breath. She seemed afraid, and one would have wondered what could have worked such awful fears on this being, whether dream or girl, which had paralyzed her so and yet left no visible marks upon her personage.

“Well, it matters not now,” the cat continued. “You have been my unwitting companion and playmate for many years, and I have grown tired of your company. Therefore, little nameless one, rejoice! For your torment at my hands is almost over. You see, yet another Alice has entered my realm, and this one is a much more interesting plaything then you ever were. He does not believe my lies about Wonderland like you originally did, and although he is trapped in my machinations, even from the start he looked for a way out both consciously and subconsciously. So here’s what it comes down to: I’ve decided to send you after him. You will try to turn him aside, lead him further into my traps, and in general make sure that he does not escape me. If you are successful, who knows? I might consider letting you free,” at this moment the girl’s head darted up sharply, but the cat merely laughed. “Of course, that’s not a promise, but you’ll take what you can, won’t you? As for if you lose? Well, I’ll just let you dream about that.” He faded away, body first, head second; with his dreadful Smile remaining long after the rest of him was gone. Hours passed and the girl known as Alice did not move, but then she suddenly shivered and turned to leave in a much less extraordinary way.



That's all for now folks. I'll put up additional chapters as I finish them. What do you think so far?

[H-Chan]

Dude. I adore that first paragraph.

Want moooore!

[Big Mama D]

Brav-O, Darling. It's about time we got some more written fanwork.

[Akrahun]

Interlude 1

Consider the workings of a dream. As anyone who has truly dreamed knows, if a world was to be created out of solidified dreams woven together and strengthened, it would not be anything like the world we know. Distance would be modifiable instantly at the digression of the dreamers/residents, physics would be optional at best, and (most importantly) it would be a HORRIFYING place, for the dreams with true power are much more often nightmares than pleasant dreams. You might possibly find an occasional true friendly face in such a realm, but for the most part it would be prudent to be more wary of a friendly face than of an evil looking one, for the friendliest faces would probably be of those villains who had perfected the art of hiding their cruel and evil intents.

Ironically, what all of these facts come down to is that those who are probably best equipped to deal with dreams are cynics who see bad in good, rather than good in bad. Such people would not be taken in by sights around them, and would easily see through cleverly hidden traps that dreamers would take at face value. They would be practical enough to realize the advantages found in their dream given powers, but prudent enough to realize that such power does not come without a price. In this they would avoid the most potent trap of any dream world: the addictive nature of its challenges and joys which could eat up a dreamer and make them waste away their days in its thrall while their mortal shell wasted away back in their native plane of existence.

The problem is that a cynic can utterly destroy a dream world by their presence, for their disbelief poisons the otherwise pure and terrible world they are in. Now, I do not deny that such destruction could very well be advantageous to most intelligent life, but to the inhabitants of the world in danger the coming of a cynic is equal to what the sudden arrival of four otherworldly horsemen galloping over our pitiful little glob would signal to us. Therefore, any beings with an even slight amount of sanity in a dream realm will put aside their differences in order to try and team up for the conversion or destruction of a cynic, and the salvation of their realm.

Here is what all of this comes down to: the girl named Alice had been a dreamer, and she was quite easily caught in the dream realm known as Wonderland by its hidden master the Cheshire Cat. Her more modern successor on the other hand had been through events which had stripped away his dreams and left a serious boy who could not take lovely or terrible things at face value even if he WANTED to. The majority of the inhabitants of Wonderland knew this the second that he first entered their realm, and almost all of them from Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum with their sword and umbrella to the prince with his Vorpal Blade to the Jabberwocky with his bright teeth and the Queen with her playing card legions were ready to set aside differences and destroy the intruder the moment that they sensed him. There was just one who felt differently, but unfortunately he held the deciding vote. Yes, upon the arrival of the new Alice the true level of insanity possessed by the Cheshire Cat was unveiled, for rather than fighting for the expulsion, conversion, or destruction of the intruder he was intrigued by this young cynic, and through his unseen influence caused the other denizens of his realm to forget about the threat just so that he could see what exactly his new unwitting playmate would do in this realm so utterly alien to him. Therefore, his order to Alice the former had been twofold: 1. She was to make sure he did not escape the realm of Wonderland and spoil the Cat’s fun, and 2. To make sure that none of the other solid dreams harmed the lad TOO badly, once again spoiling the Cat’s fun by causing the new little pawn to lose the ability to fight the dream. Whether Alice the former knew this second part is debatable, but it was because of her necessary partial role as a protector that the Cat had chosen her, for he knew that she would help out her new charge as much as possible while still obeying his orders in hope that this young lad might find the door out that she was sure she had overlooked, and might perhaps take her with him.

However, that is enough of such talk, for while we were attempting to unravel the Cat’s layered schemes the variable nature of distances in Wonderland was presenting itself, and we now find ourselves near a giant body of water that, against all logic, has written in calligraphy on its surface the words “Sea of Tears.” Further inspection then shows a small lad with fair skin and black, unruly hair running, from what we can only imagine.



I am not referring to this section as a chapter, for it really does not advance the plot in any noticable way, but rather gives insight into my view of wonderland, and lays groundwork for future chapters. In the future, plot sections will be called chapters, and any further sections like this (there may actually not be any more, but assuming there are) will be interludes.

[Kaori-chan]

Very nice. ^^

[H-Chan]

Sweet. XD In a very twisted, sardonic, but still undeniably cheeky way. ^^

[Akrahun]

Chapter 2

Alice had been running a long time, and to say that he was a bit out of breath would be like calling the Holocaust an “unfortunate set of misunderstandings.” Stopping for breath was however out of the question as far as he was concerned, for the last several times that he had done so he had wound up in increasingly more terrible situations. This in fact was the reason he was running, not to get away from anything in particular, but to keep himself from finding anything that he would have to end up running away from. Such logic may seem rather questionable, but it was characteristic of his unique brand of cynicism. On top of that, he seemed to be one of the only creatures in the realm who could run properly, for several times when various things had tried to follow him they had discovered that the faster they ran, the more firmly they stayed in one place. This had been as much of a surprise to Alice as to them, but he had decided not to question his luck, and had since he first realized his advantage made running his primary policy.

It was because of all of these factors that it was an even bigger shock than it already would have been when an unnoticed figure darted in front of him with such speed that he did not have time to turn away before he ran straight into it. As he lay lying on the ground out of breath he reflected that maybe running away was NOT the best policy at the current time, and decided to try playing dead out. The unseen invader however seemed dead set not to leave, and since Alice certainly was not going to admit that he had been simply PLAYING dead unless he absolutely had to he eventually fell asleep while waiting for the strong alien seeming presence to move off.

Hours later the smell of food woke up an Alice who had been so busy running away that he hadn’t even realized how hungry he was. At first he pretended not to be awake, but eventually the smell overwhelmed even his normally skeptical nature, and he cautiously opened his eyes and looked around. There were no faces around, either beautiful or grotesque, and he seemed decently intact. Therefore, he slowly got up, and gave his surroundings a better scanning. As far as he could tell, he was just as alone as he had been while in motion, but certain changes in the environment signaled that someone had either come and then left or was hiding in the nearby area waiting for his guard to lower so that they could come in and do terrible things to him (a much more likely option in his opinion). First off, a pair of smart black slacks, a pressed black button up shirt, black leather loafers so highly polished that you could practically use them as mirrors, and appropriate undergarments all in his size were lying clean on large flat rock in the area. Then there was a fire with a tureen of what appeared to be some type of stew bubbling on it, and finally there was an old fashioned bar of soap and another of shampoo sitting upon what appeared to be a map to safe water for bathing.

Now, as has already been mentioned, Alice was a hardcore cynic even in his youth, and although he had no special powers to speak of his nature was screaming at him upon seeing all of this with an amount of clarity that would give Spiderman a headache and have him jumping at shadows for years to come. However, Alice was also a little boy, and right now he was tired, hungry, and wanting new clothes. So after taking certain precautions (beginning with carefully searching through the entire area and using the longest stick he could find to touch every single thing before picking it up with his hands) he decided to take up this new unknown party upon their offers, and figure out what the catch was later. An hour later he had eaten, washed, and dressed, and he was starting to become a bit paranoid about the fact that so far NOTHING noticeably bad had happened to him. It was at this point that he came to grasp with the fact that common sense was telling him to leave before this status quo was changed, and left the area with renewed speed.

We however will not immediately follow him, but instead train our eyes upon the branches of a completely ordinary looking tree where an interesting exchange is about to happen. You see, Alice’s predecessor is watching from that tree, and she is about to be visited by a smile. AH! here it is now, so let us listen to their exchange.

“If I didn’t know you better, I would almost be impressed.” The smile says as the face it is attached to slowly fades into view. “You single handedly got the boy to eat our food and dress in our clothes, and you did this without even showing yourself. Now he like Persephone will be forced to return to this land, even if he SHOULD find his way out, and the clothes shall slowly smother his sensibilities under layers of dreams, for dreams they are.”

Alice turned from the now fully formed Cheshire Cat, her eyes full of tears. One looking at her would have probably wondered whether she could speak at all, for her eyes burned with a fire that seemed to desire to lash out at her captor with strong and hurtful phrases, but her mouth itself remained perfectly silent. This caused the Cat to laugh, and he continued his monologue. “Of course, I’m not sure that you even knew of the power of our food and dress, but it matters not. You are serving me with your attempts at kindness much better than the Queen or any of her fools could through attempted cunning. Therefore I tell you well done, Alice. Keep following the boy, and keep on being “kind” to him.” Here he began to fade away, but as he left he said one final thing. “Oh, and remember Alice, if you should decide to give up the trail so that you can’t accidentally harm him further you will have to answer to me for your failure. So make sure that you put your very best effort into your assignment.” The last few words were spoken without even a mouth present, almost as if to say “just because you don’t even see my smile does not mean I am not by you.” Alice however seemed oblivious to this, for her visage changed not one bit. She stayed in her tree for several more hours, and did not once again resume the chase until after the sunset had bled its red blood all over the clear dome of the sky.



Before anyone says anything about the whole "bar of shampoo," it actually DID used to come in a bar, not a liquid. So there.

[chuwawa]

I have but a few words for you, dear sir.

Marvelous is one.

Fantastic is quite another.

But over all, Exemplary comes to mind.

Oh, and all of these before the word "work," so you get the idea.

^_^ I approve much, I do indeed.

[shiverdragon]

cool, good work. I love the tone of the narrator so far

[H-Chan]

You need to write more. ^_^