Heartful || Heartless Sequel/Fanfiction ||

Ch.16 || Red Flowers in a Meadow

"Pretty things, pretty things," Hatta sang. The day was already miserable with cold and he already started to sing. If he didn't stop even the birds might explode from the pitch.

"How much longer?" Alice budged with annoyance. She could hardly move her toes in the ugly boots he had given her not to mention the over sized sleeves of the jacket made her look a bit beefy. Her body was sweating under the weight but her nose still managed to burn red.

"Oh just a bit more, Alice. Don't be a bother," he plucked another flower from the ground, adding it to the collection inside his top hat. She wished it were impossible for the little things to pop out of the ground alive, but this was Wonderland after all.

Alice pursed her blue lips as a tired sigh escaped her. How he had managed to get her out of that house was still a question to her. Haigha would sleep so heavily not even a thunderstorm could wake the rabbit and Hatta was too much of an early cat he would not allow her to stay alone unguarded. To think the weather here was worse than England gave her the desire to be back home with her sister on the riverbank, burning in the warm glow of the sun. The curiosity aroused in her frown and boredom as she rested a back against an icy tree.

Hatta tugged at another stem and each time he did she swore she could hear the tiniest of screams coming from his palm. Yet he still smiled. Hatta always liked to smile, didn't he?

Hatta seemed to have finished unsatisfied, the field had grown too many weeds to kill anything else for the beauty of a flower crown. Straight back into woods they went, sweat dripping from Alice's coat. The air was cooler inside the trees when hardly any shade could manage to dance in and heat up the place like a baker's stove. Hatta caught Alice before she took another tripping step and he gestured her to keep quiet as if that wasn't hard enough in the bundle of purple.

"-the cat said he saw them east of her Cap'n. We'll only be wasting time without the stallions," a voice suggested. Alice had heard it closer than she had thought.

"Are you questioning my orders?" Someone else called.

Alice swallowed trying to move a step back but Hatta shook his head. She could hear his breathing even if the wind was whistling harder than before. Hatta's face went stern, his eyes narrowed, the wrinkles on his forehead deepened, and his hand on her shoulder seemed to tighten as the voices came nearer.

"No Cap'n but he said-"

"You do as I say!" The anger in his voice echoed sending birds off the trees. "And if you don't like it, take it to the Queen." That silenced them.

Hatta jerked Alice back. They were walking backwards now, one wrong step and the voices would catch them there. As if knowing what not to do, Hatta's foot crunched a branch beneath it. Their breathes caught so suddenly that the color fell out of Alice's face. Her eyes widened at his hopeless smile.

"Who's there?" a card called, the redness blinked between some trees.

The thumping on the ground was getting quicker.

"Run Alice," Hatta said but he was already ahead of her.

She felt her legs move on their own but the coat was so long she ended up tripping only a few steps ahead. "Hatta!" she yelled so loud her throat ached.

"There he is! Get him!" Alice turned to see a man with a scar across his face point a long finger at her. She had no time to think, the cards were already on their way.

Alice tried pulling the coat up but her arms only grew heavy. She blinked back and forth between the fabric and the guards with hot tears in her eyes. This was it. There was no riverbank, no sister, no men with funny hats and no cats that talked instead of purring. Maybe it was all a dream. A long, long dream. Maybe when she woke up she would be in bed, drowsiness in the corners of her eyes.