Chapter Text
Stephanie woke up in a field—more accurately, on top of a field, in a tree. Some girl was going on and on about some king; her voice was off. Not in a way that made it so that Stephanie couldn't understand her, but she knew something was off. Something wasn't right. She looked down and saw a small cat, fast asleep in her lap, purring away.
"Stephanie-" A voice seemingly came from the sky, but it was then repeated. "Stephanie?" But this time it sounded different, like it came from below her. "Stephanie. Are you paying attention at this very moment?"
What an odd thing to say. Stephanie sat up on her branch and looked down curiously at a blonde girl reading from a book, "Kara?" She didn't know where that name came from, just that it was right. She has a dull red dress on with a blue bonnet that covers most of her hair and an odd 'S' emblem on her dress.
"The entire purpose of my tutoring is that you should attend with the utmost care. I try to engage with you where you stand." She closed her book. "I had hoped that holding our lessons in the open air might better keep your attention, but it appears you are even more distracted outdoors than within."
She took in her surroundings; she was wrong about being in a field. This was a park, children were running around and playing, and just in the distance, she could see a clock tower. The name was slipping through her fingers; maybe she was tired? She looked around, trying to commit everything to memory—to try to remember something, anything.
A pond was just a few feet away, and she could see her reflection, a bit hazy, in it. A black bow tucked all of her hair, minus the bangs, behind her ears. She was wearing a stuffy dress that looked vaguely purple with an apron over it. It looked like there was a smudge of dirt on it, so she went to rub it off, but felt that it was embroidered onto it. A purple bat symbol was at the top of her apron, but to the touch, it felt like it was covering another thing, an 'R' perhaps?
She finally looked down to see the tutor—Kara— looking up at her expectantly, tilting her head.
"Uh-" She was cut off.
"It is not the manner in which a proper lady commences a discourse." Stephanie was far too confused to reply. "Well?" Kara awaited her response.
"Well, I do not understand what you are asking of me. If I cannot start a conversation in the manner you wish, then I shall refrain from participating in discourse altogether." She huffed and crossed her arms, which awoke the cat lying on her.
"All that I am asking of you is that you give your attention to history. A lady like yourself should be properly educated, and that entails reading these books."
"That book has no pictures! How is one to even enjoy it!" She hung her feet over the end of the branch to get off, the cat—Dinah, the name finally came to her— following closely behind.
"You must grow up, Stephanie. You cannot keep living in these dreams, in these reveries. You are of age, and soon you will be off with a husband. No suitor will desire you if you keep it up with this utter nonsense of books with no words." Kara stayed in her same spot.
"Well, in my world, all the books have pictures, words won't even be present!" She hopped off the branch and started speaking to Dinah. "In my world, you can speak, and instead of saying 'meow,' you say 'yes, Steph.' What a world that would be!" She got a small meow back from Dinah. Stephanie picked up Dinah as she walked towards the pond.
"You are quite mad, Stephanie," Kara said as Stephanie walked away.
She ignored Kara's words as she sat against the pond, looking into it.
"In my world, cats and rabbits would live in fancy little houses, and you would have shoes and hats and dresses. There would be flowers that would sing and talk to me for hours and hours. I would never be lonely looking at the night sky. All the birds would be friendly and nice, and there would be so many different colors. It would be a world where everything here that didn't make sense made sense. The animals could talk and talk and sing to me. It would be perfect." She sighed as she lay against the daisies. "I wish that is how this world would be, that would be my wonderland. Wouldn't you agree, Dinah?"
She turned to her cat but noticed that she was more fixated on something else. A man running across the pond, but he looked a little strange, almost like a rabbit..? He wasn't very close, but she could hear him repeating, "I'm late. I'm late. For a very important date," over and over again.
He was dressed in a blue waistcoat and a hat with what looked like rabbit ears. His shirt and trousers followed the same blue and black theme, but his red bow-tie stood out. She noticed a bright red 'R' emblem on his waistcoat and ran her fingers over her own emblem. His hair swooped over his face in a much too perfect way, and she was in a trance for a moment.
"Excuse me!?" She yelled at the man. "Mr…." She paused for a moment. "Mr. Rabbit?"
He stopped dead in his tracks. "Mr. Rabbit? Are you speaking to me?" He turned to her as she ran towards him.
"Yes, sir. You look a bit like a rabbit."
"I am the Blue Robin, I am no rabbit."
"My apologies, Mr. Robin. Where are you off to?" He looked down at his pocket watch and started running off again.
"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I'm overdue!"
"Mr. Robin!" She started chasing after him. "Oh, Mr. Robin!" She ran all over the park following him and his mutterings until they stumbled upon a hole next to a tree.
"He must be late for a party!" She spoke to Dinah, "I bet this party is very serious if he's running this fast for it…" She stared at the opening longingly. "I mustn't follow…" She said as she went to crawl in. "I haven't been invited to this party…" She stuck her head in and started going in. It was a little small for her, but she fought her way through the opening. "Going to a party uninvited is awfully rude…" The tunnel was opening up, and Dinah was close behind. "Maybe I'm being too curious… and curiosity always leads to trou-" She put her hand out to continue moving as she spoke to Dinah, but found no ground to support herself on.
She found herself falling,
and falling,
and falling,
down,
down,
down, the rabbit hole…
"Goodbye, Dinah!" She waved off as her dress started acting as a parachute. Her fall was slow and steady, but her apron kept flying back up to her face. "Well, after this, I should think nothing of falling off a building." She giggled to herself.
The light from the surface was gone now, and she couldn't make out anything more than vague shapes. There seemed to be a desk lamp on a table floating a little below her. Once she got close enough to it, she turned it on, lighting up the never-ending hole.
"Curiouser and curiouser," She muttered to herself, looking at the furniture floating around her as she descended. There was light coming from below her that kept going through different colors, changing her perception of what was around her. Neon purple, green, and red lights faded in and out. A mirror passed her by, and her reflection was flipped. In her shock, she stumbled into a rocking chair. Instead of her floating with the furniture as she thought, the chair started falling with her. Perhaps gravity worked differently here?
As she rocked herself in the chair, a large grandfather clock was going up and ringing over and over. The clock itself was a dark orange, almost brown, and all over it was a creepy smile. She tried to read the time, but it was all weird symbols.
Where the 12 should be, there was the purple bat symbol she has on her apron. Followed by a bird of some sort, maybe a canary? Then a green circle with a line on top and below it. Then a bird-like symbol in blue. The emblem on Kara's dress was next to that one, followed by a lightning symbol. Directly across from her symbol was a similar bat symbol, but this time in black and much wider. The R from Mr. Robin was next to that, followed by an arrowhead next to a very odd green face. The last two symbols were a golden W and her exact bat symbol, but instead with a yellow outline and a black filling. There wasn't a minute or hour hand on the clock, just a big green question mark.
The symbols were familiar, but the clock itself was unsettling, and she fell out of the rocking chair because of it.
"Oh goodness, what if I fell right through the center of the earth and came out the other side, where they walk upside down!" She worried as it seemed the rabbit hole would never end, and she began to fall upside down. Her fall was cut short by her feet getting caught on a rod.
The Blue Robin was running through the halls, which were curved and changed in height every few steps.
"Oh, Mr. Robin!" She yelled as she got her feet on the floor again and chased after him. "Wait! Please," She ran for what felt like forever in the winding purple halls until she found a door.
There were new doors she had to get through, first a red one, then an orange one, then a yellow one, then a green one, then a blue one, then a purple one. The doors got smaller and smaller, and once she got to the purple door, she was crawling through. Just how was the Blue Robin getting through these doors?
The last door led her to a big, empty room that had a very small door on the other end; it was a similar size to the rabbit hole she entered through. As she went to turn the final knob, the door replied to her.
"Ow-"
"Oh, dear! My apologies." She quickly jerked back.
"It's quite alright, dear, but you did give me quite a turn." The door laughed it off.
"Well-" She was cut off by the door.
"See what I did there? Door, Turn?" The door seemed to have an odd sense of humor.
"Yes, sir." Stephanie tried to stay as polite as possible and awkwardly laughed to play along.
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for a blue robin, so… If you don't mind…" She got closer and closer to the door, and he opened his mouth to show the Blue Robin on the other side running along just like before. "I simply must get through!" She reached back for the knob, but the door moved away.
"You're simply much too big! Simply impassible."
"You mean impossible?" She questioned.
"No impassible. Nothing's impossible here in Wonderland. Why don't you try to look for something in this room to help? Perhaps the bottle on the table?" Bottle..? Table..?
When she entered this room, neither of those things was in here; it was a completely empty room. She looked around the room once more to make sure she didn't simply forget that there was a table in the room, but as she finished sweeping, a table with a bottle atop floated down from the ceiling.
"I encourage you to read the instructions carefully." The door was provided.
She looked at the bottle, expecting more instructions on it, but only found 'Drink Me.' written in pink cursive. After looking at the bottom for a moment, she took a deep breath and took a sip.
"Hm… tastes like… cherry tart, custard, pineapple." The bottle in her hand kept getting bigger and bigger in her hand until she looked up and saw the table above her. "Roast turke- Goodness!" She fell over as the bottle rolled around her. She shrunk! "What did I do?"
She turned to the door, who was laughing at her confusion, "You almost went out like a candle!"
Running up to the door, she realized that she was the perfect size to fit through the door. "Look! I'm just the right size," She went to turn the doorknob, but was stopped again.
"Oh, it's no use!" The door giggled, "I forgot to mention that I'm locked."
"You're locked? Oh, no," She sighed into her hands.
"Well, it should be fine if you have the key." The door said as if it was obvious.
"What key?" She spun around to look at the room again.
"Don't tell me you left it on the table." She looked back to the table to see a key floating from the sky onto the table.
"Oh dear," She said to herself as she attempted to climb up the table. "How will I ever get up there? Whatever will I do?" She sat down in defeat.
"Try the box, naturally." As the door spoke, a box appeared at her feet with cookies inside, saying 'Eat Me'.
"Eat me..? Well, alright." She grabbed a purple cookie and took a bite. "Goodness knows what this one will do." She felt herself getting bigger and bigger and bigger until her head hit the ceiling. "Whoa!"
The door tried to speak, but was muffled by her shoe in his face.
"What was that?" She quickly moved after realizing.
"I said that, 'A little of that went a long way,'" He laughed at his own joke, but Stephanie was not in the mood for his careless jokes.
“Well, I don’t think that’s funny at all!” She curled into herself and started crying, “No-now I’ll never get out, and I’ll never get home or get to find Mr. Robin!” The tears just kept coming, but with her added size, her tears were equivalent to the size of a glass of water.
“Crying won’t do you any go-” The door tried to console her as the room started to fill up with her tears.
“I know bu-but,” The tears wouldn’t stop coming, and now the door was almost completely submerged under water.
“The bottle! The bottle!” The only thing that she could make out from the door, she saw it floating near the door and quickly picked it up to drink from.
She was small once again and fell perfectly into the bottle. She sighed against the glass wall and sat down because what else was she to do in this situation? The waves from her tears were almost calming, and from within the bottle she couldn’t be touched. She rested her head in her hand.
“Oh dear, I do wish I didn’t cry so much.” She felt that she was going backwards, and before she realized where she was headed, she was already through the door. Stephanie looked around at her new surroundings and saw that she was in the ocean.
“Oh my!” She was floating aimlessly in what seemed to be a never-ending ocean.
As she took everything in, she heard a voice singing in the distance.
“Oh, a sailor’s life is a life for me, and I love to sail on the bounding sea, and I never ever ever do a thing about the weather because the weather never ever ever does a thing for me.” Said a strange, bird-looking man with a pipe in hand, he has the strangest haircut that looks as if someone had thrown a bowl on his head. He was floating atop a white-haired woman who resembled a toucan. Behind him was a blonde woman angrily pushing him against the waves.
“Oh, sir!” Stephanie yelled as loudly as she could. “Oh, Mr. Dodo!” Her bottle was now right next to them.
“Mr. Dodo?” The strange bird-man questioned.
“Are you not a dodo?”
“Well, that’s not my name.”
“What is your name then?”
“Guy.”
“Guy?”
“Yes, Guy.”
“You’re a Dodo-man named Guy?”
“Yes. What’s the confusion?”
“You have a stupid name.” The bird-woman pushing him along spoke.
“And you are?” Stephanie asked.
“Dinah.”
“My cat shares your name!” She got excited thinking about Dinah.
“You own a cat?” Dinah looked at her with an odd look.
“It’s quite normal to have one...” She said, feeling uncomfortable from the glare she was getting from all three of them.
“But to own? Have you ever heard of someone owning a cat before, Guy?”
“No.”
“Have you, Bea?” Dinah asked the other woman.
“No, I have not.”
“Very strange…”
“What is the confusion here? I have a cat, my cat’s name is Dinah, and your name is Dinah! Why are you all looking at me like I’ve insulted the Queen!” Stephanie huffed.
“You insulted the Queen?!” The white-haired woman asked.
“It’s an expression.” She was starting to get quite annoyed with the people here.
“Insulting the Queen is no joke!” Guy replied.
Stephanie sighed in her bottle, “Can you help me?”
“Help you how?”
“I’m following a robin.”
“Well, we know of no robin, goodbye then.” Guy waved her off, and Dinah pushed him forward before Stephanie could say a word.
She watched as groups of strange-looking people swam by her. Why did everyone here look vaguely like an animal? Each time anyone or anything got near her, she attempted to get help.
“Pardon me!”
“Excuse me, Miss!”
“Would you mind helping me?”
“Yoo-hoo”
“Over here!”
Her attempts fell on deaf ears. Before she knew it, a wave came from behind her and turned her and the bottle upside down. She tumbled through the waves, fighting against the current, trying to keep her head above water. As she struggled to swim, more and more people passed her, going to some unknown location. The current got stronger and took her with it to a rock near the shore.
Atop the rock was the guy she met earlier, Guy. As the tide went back, it revealed all the odd-looking people that had passed her earlier going around the rock in a circle. He was waving his arm around like he was directing an orchestra and was singing another song.
“Forward, backward, inward, outward
Come and join the chase!
Nothing could be drier
Than a jolly caucus-race!”
“Excuse me!” Stephanie waved her arms around, trying to get his attention as she started to run around the circle with the rest of them. “What is it that we are doing?” She asked the boy in front of her. He had dark hair and sunglasses on; she questioned why anyone would have sunglasses on in the ocean when it was dark outside. On his black jacket, there was the same symbol that Kara had on her dress.
“Running to stay dry, of course.” He replied as if it were a stupid question to ask.
“Stay dry from-” Before she could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by the tide coming back and flooding the whole area, leaving only the rock untouched by the waves.
“Backward, forward, outward, inward
Bottom to the top,
Never a beginning,
There can never be a stop!”
“Doesn’t this feel a little redundant to you?” She shook her head, trying to get the water off her.
“Not at all!” He ran faster.
She sighed and continued going in this circle for what seemed like an eternity until she heard very faintly.
“I’m late!”
“Oh, Mr. Robin!” She waved over to him and got no response. “I must be leaving now.” She spoke to the boy in front of her as she ran off to follow him.
“Mr. Robin!” She saw him running to the shoreline that had a forest right next to it; the beach was deserted, which confused her. By the time she made it out of the water, she was completely out of breath, and her shoes were soaked. “Darn it!” She huffed, sitting down on a nearby log to get the water out of her shoes.
“What are you doing here?” A voice said from behind her; the voice wasn’t accusatory. It was familiar, almost homelike.
“Dear God!” Stephanie jumped in shock; she thought she was alone here.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Stephanie looked up and saw a girl slightly taller than her looking down at her. She had short black hair and was wearing a uniform that looked like a knight with a huge yellow bat symbol across her chest. At her hip was a sword that spooked Stephanie further.
“Oh-um. It’s-it’s okay.” Her voice was quiet as she looked away.
The girl must have seen her reaction to the sword because she quickly covered it with her cape and sat down on the other side of the log with her.
“I only have it as a precaution. The Queen can be a little… paranoid.”
“The Queen? What is she like?” She asked, excited.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” She tilted her head in Stephanie’s direction.
Embarrassed by the question, she went back to ringing out her socks and the ends of her dress.
“So what if I am? Is that a crime?” She huffed, looking down.
“No,” The knight giggled, “I have just never met anyone who is not from here.”
“Well, congratulations. You have now.”
“What are you doing here?” She questioned.
“I was following a robin. I saw him and got curious, and now I am here.” She decided that her socks were dry enough, and at some point, she would have to get back to the chase.
“A Robin?”
“That is what he told me; he was a Blue Robin, or the Blue Robin. I do not know which it is.” Now she was focused on drying her hair off. She leaned over, making sure she didn’t get more water on her dress or shoes.
“I believe I could help you find him,” Stephanie paused, like ringing her hair out, “That is, if you wish. I could be your escort.”
“Are you being honest right now?” She turned to face the girl.
“Of course, Knight’s Honor.” She held up her hand as if she were pledging her allegiance to her.
“I do not even know your name, and you are swearing on a Knight’s code for me.” Stephanie looked away, flushed. Why was this girl so willing to help her?
“Cassandra”
“Huh?”
“My name. Now you know it. Will you accept?”
“Goodness-”
“What is your name, Miss?”
“Stephanie.”
“Miss Stephanie?” Stephanie cringed at the title.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Your name?”
“Use Steph.”
“Alright then, Miss Steph.”
“I-” She was completely flustered by the proposition and by how willing this girl was to help her; it was almost suspicious. “Why are you helping me?”
“It is my duty to protect the Queen’s kingdom, which includes the people of the kingdom.”
“But I’m not a part of this kingdom; I only just arrived mere moments ago.” She argued.
“You are here now, which means you are now a part of the kingdom.” The girl—Cassandra— smiled at her.
“Well, alright then. I suppose I will let you help me.” She fluffed out her dress, which was now completely dry, as was the rest of her. ‘What a strange place this is,’ she thought to herself as she let the knight help her up and start leading the way off to wherever the Blue Robin was heading off to.