Fic: Worlds of Chaos (Wonderland) Chap. 9

[bookishwench]

Loki was, as a general rule, not sentimental, or at least so he told himself. Still, there was something about Wonderland that always made him smile. Perhaps that smile would have sent most wise mortals running far away, but it was still a smile. After all, he thought as he gazed fondly down the path to the eternal tea party, it was one of his very first creations.

Very few of his acquaintances (for he didn’t believe he truly had friends) had worked out that simple bit of information, and yet when he chose to disappear into a pocket universe, often as not it was this one. If he was being truthful, he hadn’t actually created the place, merely polished it, refining it into a world he thoroughly enjoyed. It had taken only a handful of changes, this bit and that, and it was as topsy-turvy as he could have wished, and more so.

Choosing to put the Queen of Hearts into a fine fit over jam tarts stolen by the Knave was, of course, the start of it all. How very interesting it was that no one ever questioned where the Knave had come from, why they didn’t remember him at all before the disappearance of her beloved pastries. An even better question would have been why so much fuss was made over tarts to begin with. They had become the most important things in this world for no other reason than he had decided they should be. It was mad, of course, but that was the rule here, and when he had set the Queen’s heart on them and then took them away, knave that he was, he sat back to enjoy the slow collapse of the kingdom into complete anarchy.

Tarts. Gold. Power. What was the difference? At least tarts were edible.

He hadn’t quite expected the disease of nonsense to be so catching, but it spread: the Duchess and her Cook, the pig baby, flamingos as croquet mallets, a rabbit with a waistcoat and watch, chattering flowers, a drug-addicted caterpillar spouting philosophy, a homicidal maniac of a Queen with a penchant for decapitation via ax, and there, in its own little nook, his nod to the endless banquets of Asgard, the tea party without end.

It was his favorite place to lurk unseen, watching the Hatter, Hare, and Dormouse forever at tea, never a clean cup, only a feast to celebrate a day that was never anyone’s birthday, a party for an absence, a toast to the abyss covered over with beautiful dirty china, spotted fine linens, and cakes that had lost all savor over the centuries. Still, they kept at it. He admired their tenacity as he invisibly lifted a cup of tea from the table and took a sip for politeness’s sake.

Now, though, he stayed at the bend in the road where one could go one way or the other, or so it seemed, as both led to madness, and he waited, unseen, until the girl appeared. He had already seen her at the Duchess’s home, trying to put things aright and, of course, failing. But now, here she came along again, and he smiled as she looked into the tree and spied him.

“Cheshire Puss, would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here?” she asked, encouraged by his widening grin.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to go,” he said, licking a paw lazily.

“I don’t care where,” she said.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” he said, smiling still wider.

“So long as I get somewhere,” the girl said, and he saw she was beginning to be unnerved with dear Puss-Puss.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” he said, fixing her with the gaze of a tiger that has a wounded gazelle in its grasp, “if you only walk long enough.”

They quibbled back and forth until at last she decided to visit the March Hare. He took great delight in disappearing slowly, leaving only his grin behind like a thin sliver of moon shining ominously in the dark. Her footsteps died away along the path, and Wonderland quivered in silence, waiting for the next nonsense, the next fit, the next stanza. Remaining invisible, Loki spoke.

“Twas brillig, and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsey were the borogoves, and the mome-raths outgrabe.”

He breathed deeply once, twice, three times, then flashing into being once more, he exhaled fire, flapped his bat-like wings, and flew into the crazed sky of the world he had molded, the light of its moon skittering across his darkly opalescent scales.

Yes, Wonderland was always a good bit of fun.


*Bits of dialogue taken from the works of Lewis Carrol.