-sneak peek, yippee!
So, I've been working on a sort of epic Yuffentine fanfiction since before July, when I was just diving into the shallows of the sea of Yuffie-Vincent love. XD The whole basis of said story was, 'what if Vincent was in Kingdom Hearts?'
[The story, by the way, is called Redemption, for lack of a better title. :D]
And as I can't imagine any Yuffentine in Kingdom Hearts WITHOUT the events of FFVII taking place, I set forth to make an epic of my own. Each chapter is around ten to twenty pages long on Microsoft Word, excluding the prologue/first chapter, which is around thirty; I plan to make the epilogue/last chapter roughly the same length.
Anyhow - I'm only on the fifth chapter, and estimate the whole thing to run around twenty to thirty, depending on what I want to write. I am not formally posting it yet, and will not do so until I am well into the story, but I wanted to just post a little sneak preview on Vincent and Yuffie's adventures in Wonderland, one of the first worlds they journey to on their search for the rest of the AVALANCHE gang.
And no, this has not yet been betaed by my awesome beta T. Costa, who is T Costa on fanfiction.net :D I have to actually finish the chapter first >.<
Oh, yes, and that most delightful poem is from the original Alice In Wonderland, by Lewis Carrell. Which I have no doubt spelled incorrectly, and beg for his pardon, wherever his soul may be, bless it. :P
An Excerpt, Following Yuffie and Vincent's Most Delightful Adventures in Wonderland
“We’re LOST.”
Vincent and I had somehow, unexplainably, stumbled into a forest, and the first thing that came to mind was that it was not a normal forest. Ohhh no.
Not only was everything very strange, just like the rest of this world (which, by this world's standards, wasn't very strange at all, but I rest my case), it had to be a regular sized forest. (We had just partaken of the drink that said 'Drink me!' quite cheerfully on the labeling.) Which meant if we met an ant, it would be like… like… fighting a miniaturized Sephiroth and with the Buster Sword and no materia. Which was craptastically scary and we-would-lose-in-two-seconds-like.
Vincent appeared to not have heard me. A bland wave of nostalgic déjà vu, of days long since passed hunting down a man trying to destroy the Planet, washed over me.
“L-O-S-T. As in ANY SENSE OF DIRECTION IS HEREBY NULL, VOID, NADA, ZIP-“
“Yuffie.” Vincent interrupted me in the Vincent-esque way, which is very polite but slightly I’mma-losing-patience-with-your-sexy-self-so-be-quiet.
Kinda.
“Maybe we could ask someone for directions,” I suggested dully, because we really didn’t know where the hell we were going. When we stumbled out, it like a forest of pine-green grass taller than the both of us - we finally managed to make it to lower grass, and then finally found the lone dirt path road we were currently tramping across, like lonely hitchhikers looking for someone to stop.
I tried to hitchhike once, because it was raining and I was cold and wet and shivering to my toes. The first car that passed did just that - it passed me. So did the second. But the third (third times the charm, I know I had thought in tired relief) passed, then stopped and it revved -
And swept past again, splashing water all over me.
I was yelling at them and cursing and I flipped them off, but the jerk was gone and I was just as far from the nearest town as I had been.
The remembrance of that incident made me shiver, like lukewarm water had once again been dumped over my head and trickling, trickling, trickling down my spine, like a pretending sick excuse for a baptism-
I hugged my arm, the one with my armlet and Leviathan, closer to me and looked around at that forest, that almost eerily green forest. Everything was too big, and it didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel right at all.
I was used to forests. I mean, I almost lived in a forest half my life, because trees were the only places that the monsters wouldn’t bug you if you climbed high enough, and I would rather kiss Sephiroth than sleep like a drunk hobo on some random bench.
(Actually, that isn’t the best example. Sephiroth is still one of the scariest things I have ever had the misfortune of meeting, but damn, now that I think about it, if he wasn’t a complete psycho he would have been kind of hawt.)
(And I can’t believe I just thought that. That must be, like, blasphemy of a higher being, so I’ll just stop now. Grossness.)
“Vincent, admit it. We are LOST.”
“We - are - not - lost,” Vinnie grounded out, eyes narrowed more than usual as he quickened his pace forward again.
“What is it with men and asking for directions?” I made it sound obnoxious, too, because that was just too classic not to throw at an already scowling Vincent. His scarlet eyes darted to me sharply and I grinned, because we had been through a lot together, and I already knew how to pull his strings like Pinocchio; sure enough, he just let out a deep sigh.
“There is no… problem,” he seemed to stress the word, much to my amusement, “With asking for directions. However, there are no creatures, people, or any inhabitants of this world that could help us, unless you see someone that is invisible to me; if so, I would gladly appreciate any help this person could offer,” he stated dryly.
“Touché,” I acknowledged with a laugh. I was, and still am, a master of self deception, to the point where all I have to do is pretend - and eventually, I’ll start to believe it. Just a little, but I’ll believe it, and right then-
I didn’t want to be afraid.
“We are still on the pathway,” and he looked ahead, face forward and profile strong in the patches of lighting of the sun between the forestry above, “And we’ll get somewhere, eventually.” I nodded in agreement, absently letting the patches of yellow rays catch on my Conformer and blind me.
I wanted to be me again.
While I told myself I wasn’t afraid and believed it, I still didn’t like it at all; it didn’t frighten me as much as made me want to just go back to the rabbit’s little house and take another nap, to wake up and find the whole thing was just a bad dream.
How nice that would have been, but that’s just wishful thinking, and I know - I know, from watching Vincent, and Cloud, and even old man Godo when he looked at my mother’s favorite teacup, her old comb, her unused weapons with spider webs of rust spiraling across the once smooth metal - that thinking like that is dangerous. So dangerous, because it never stops, once it starts. It just builds up, up and up and up, until there’s too much and then you’re drowning.
The easiest road to self-torture; and for some odd reason, that reminded me that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
That little thought made little mice run up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck raise delicately to tickle the rest of my hair; so I didn’t think on it too hard, and instead turned to my companion.
“That rabbit couldn’t have gone through the door,” I remarked as the grass around us allowed a few mushrooms of many different sizes, all larger than the both of us, to steadfastly rest. “So it has to be somewhere around here.”
“It doesn’t really matter where the rabbit went,” Vincent replied suddenly, “Because it could have run through the grass. We just need to keep following the path, because it will lead somewhere eventually. Hopefully to another who can point us in the right direction towards a store of some kind; we need to restock, soon.”
“And check to see if they made it here,” I added in and he nodded, scarlet eyes flickering over to me and back as we continued along the path.
‘They’ was already a pronoun that meant something else entirely.
And it was too hard to say ‘our friends,’ anymore.
Vincent said to follow the path, and so we did - and followed, and followed, and followed. The road was a long one, seemingly endless, and I was ready to plop my little behind down and demand we take a break when we came upon a fork in the road -
No, I’m serious. Literally and metaphorically, because even though the road split in two directions, there was a freakin’ giant fork in the ground between them.
“Which way?” I finally asked as we slowed to a stop, deciding not to comment on the oddity of said utensil as large as myself and opting to ignore it instead. Vincent didn’t say anything for a moment, but right before he opened his mouth, a sing-song voice interrupted us, or not so much interrupted us as began nearby and we stopped to listen.
___“Fury said
_____ to a
___ ____ mouse,
___________That he
_______met in the
______house,
____"Let us
_______both go to
____________law: I will
______________prosecute
______________YOU.
_____________ I'll take no
___________denial; We
_________ must have a
________trial: For
_______really this
______morning I've
______nothing
_______to do."
_________Said the
___________mouse to the
____________cur, "Such
_____________a trial,
______________dear Sir,
______________ __With
_____________ _no jury
_____________or judge,
___________would be
__________wasting
__________our
___________breath."
____________"I'll be
_____________judge, I'll
____________be jury,"
__________Said
__________cunning
____________old Fury:
_____________"I'll
_______________try the
_________________whole
____________________cause,
__________________and
______________condemn
_____________ you
_____________to
______________death.”
“…What?” I managed, and it came out as a sort of whisper. The words were strange and the end oddly chilling, though not completely. No, it made me think much more of a child’s song, a morbid child’s song that wasn’t quite sung.
And then, right on top of the fork - this world freaked the CRAP out of me - a smile appeared.
It was a very wide and very white smile, and didn’t look particularly menacing or particularly inviting in the air, floating above the fork.
I opened my mouth to scream, but then mutely shut it, because seriously, after all that we had seen in this world? Why get surprised now? By expecting the unexpected, there really was nothing that frightening here.
We waited for a short few seconds, and then eyes blinked open above it, wide yellow eyes, and then came a purple head of a cat around both eyes and mouth, followed by its silly plump purple and pink-striped body. The cat was balancing on what would have been its left front paw, but was actually tiny purple fingers, only one finger resting calmly on the fork.
The head, by the way, was up in the air, held up by the bushy purple tail; the tail sprung it up and bounced it for a few moments, the slightly disconcerting grin in place, until dropping it to its rightful spot.
“…I wish I hadn’t seen that,” I finally muttered. Vincent just blinked.
“…Who are you?” His gravelly-smooth voice found my ears, and the cat’s smile widened a little.
“I am the Cheshire Cat,” the Cheshire Cat responded, “And I happened upon hearing your predicament, and would like to ask if you know that you are lost,” and he jumped up and landed back on the fork by his tail without even breaking a sweat, “-Or not.”
“…Yes, I think we’re lost!” I said loudly after figuring out the question posed. The Cat only smiled more.
“Yes, but that wasn’t the question at all, was it? Just because you think so, doesn’t mean you know so. For example,” and his tail swished back and forth, almost hypnotically, “Do you know that the sky is blue, or do you think that the sky is blue?”
If bait was planted, I fell for it.
“The sky is always blue,” I responded automatically, slightly irritated, but the cunning cat only wagged a little purple finger at me with that ridiculous grin still painted on.
“But you don’t know that. If you were a dog, why, the sky wouldn’t be blue at all! It would maybe be yellow, or green,” the cat countered, the only break in that everlasting smile a moment to yawn loudly and widely before returning to the same facial position.
“But dogs are colorblind,” I stated with a frown. The cat’s grin seemed to mock me, in a way, which did nothing to improve my mood; he did a quick twirl or two on the fork, balancing on his toes.
“You think so, but you don’t know so, for tell me, dear girl, have you ever been a dog?”
I shook my head, trying to tell him that that was beside the point, but he only giggled strangely and said, “Then you don’t know so at all, and only smart people know that they don’t understand anything. That’s what makes them smart.”
“But that makes no sense,” I protested, and gratefully let Vincent cut in for me, for he had been watching the exchange silently up until then.
“That doesn’t really pertain to our problem,” he said carefully, “Because we would just like to know which way to go to find someone who can help us.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t pertain at all,” the cat agreed, sitting back on its tail in a very thoughtful position, “But as to your actual problem, that’s a little different. It really depends on what you want help with, because at one end of the road is a hatter and at the other is a march hare; it doesn’t really matter which one you pick, because they’re both quite mad anyhow.”
“We would like to go somewhere without anyone who’s mad,” I said, but the Cheshire Cat still smiled almost wickedly, but in a playful way; I wondered if this was how the fat cat got his kicks, by annoying and confusing innocent passers-by. It would have made sense to me, but the whole place was so freaking backwards and twisted I really didn’t know if that made me right or up, so I didn’t think on it too hard.
“You can’t do that, because you must be mad to have come here, which makes you in the company of another mad person, and as I am quite mad myself, that could all make us perfectly normal,” the Cheshire Cat declared quite jovially.
That grin hadn’t faltered, and was becoming perfectly disturbing, as well as perfectly annoying and perfectly making me want to throw him into a trash bin and stomp off, all quite perfectly, which only furthered the fact that I was probably perfectly mad, just like that fat cat said.
“Oh, gawd,” I muttered, but Vincent continued calmly, because nothing really ever sunk his battleship in war, y’know? Like, plenty of things sunk his cruise ship, Titanic goes down with a bang and all, but his battleship was unbreakable and unbeatable. Impossible to sink.
“We would just like to know if we’re going in the right direction,” He said slowly. The cat stretched a little.
“Well, I can’t imagine anyone going on the wrong direction, can you? If you aren’t on the right direction to anywhere, you must be on the right direction to somewhere, so wherever you’re going, I would say that it’s the right direction, even if that isn’t where you wanted to go,” came the witty reply.
I started biting my thumb nail - a real nasty habit, one that I had since childhood. If I had something in my mouth, anything, then I was much less inclined to say something stupid or annoying, or annoyed, or angry. And boy, was that cat pissing me off. Because not only did everything he said be confusing, it all made perfect sense.
What a freak of a world to land on, huh?
“Listen, we just want to find our friends-“ That taboo phrase that wasn’t quite taboo but still hurt, still hurt a lot, “And have you seen any people around that don’t look like they’re from around here?” I mustered, trying not to make it sound like a plea.
The cat looked thoughtful for a moment, but the grin was still in place. “Well, I have seen you two,” and just like that the smile widened like the whole thing was solved.
“We would like to find a shop of some sort,” Vincent finally said. The cat was helping us with nothing pertaining to our friends, and time was valuable and was being wasted, and I realized blankly how stupid it was, for me to fall right in and play the little cat’s game.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? You should really learn how to not beat around the bush,” and the cat, I knew, knew perfectly well it was being a perfect hypocrite - that word, again, that horrible and awfully annoying word (NO, not hypocrite, stupid) - and then said, “But not a real bush, that’s only a metaphorical way to say what you wanted to say in the first place. Everyone takes everything so literally here,” and the Cheshire Cat gave a little silly giggle again.
“I don’t know of any shops, but I suppose if you really wanted to find one you could ask the Queen.”
“The Queen?”
“Yes, the Queen, her most royal majesty, who is due to play croquet with the Duchess soon, but not too soon, so she’s actually probably not going to be playing croquet at all for some time.”
I was beating my head against the trunk of a mushroom by now. Vincent sighed - in pity?! It better not have been exasperation, because he didn’t know what the hell was going on, either - and hooked his claw through the belt loop on my shorts, pulling me back without looking away from the cat, though I had to disentangle the brass hand myself. (But I didn’t really think anything of it, because if there is one thing that vampire isn’t, it’s a pervert. Probably.)
“Where can we find the Queen?” Vincent inquired, taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of his nose for a total of five seconds.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” The cat’s smile widened even more, “I’m horrible with directions. Toodle-loo.”
And just like that, he started to fade, until only the smile was left - and I blinked, and that was gone, too.
A few moments passed, and then I screamed from pure frustration, and Vincent just shook his head in exasperation and started down the path towards the March Hare, only stopping to gently cover my mouth and pull me along.
[The story, by the way, is called Redemption, for lack of a better title. :D]
And as I can't imagine any Yuffentine in Kingdom Hearts WITHOUT the events of FFVII taking place, I set forth to make an epic of my own. Each chapter is around ten to twenty pages long on Microsoft Word, excluding the prologue/first chapter, which is around thirty; I plan to make the epilogue/last chapter roughly the same length.
Anyhow - I'm only on the fifth chapter, and estimate the whole thing to run around twenty to thirty, depending on what I want to write. I am not formally posting it yet, and will not do so until I am well into the story, but I wanted to just post a little sneak preview on Vincent and Yuffie's adventures in Wonderland, one of the first worlds they journey to on their search for the rest of the AVALANCHE gang.
And no, this has not yet been betaed by my awesome beta T. Costa, who is T Costa on fanfiction.net :D I have to actually finish the chapter first >.<
Oh, yes, and that most delightful poem is from the original Alice In Wonderland, by Lewis Carrell. Which I have no doubt spelled incorrectly, and beg for his pardon, wherever his soul may be, bless it. :P
An Excerpt, Following Yuffie and Vincent's Most Delightful Adventures in Wonderland
“We’re LOST.”
Vincent and I had somehow, unexplainably, stumbled into a forest, and the first thing that came to mind was that it was not a normal forest. Ohhh no.
Not only was everything very strange, just like the rest of this world (which, by this world's standards, wasn't very strange at all, but I rest my case), it had to be a regular sized forest. (We had just partaken of the drink that said 'Drink me!' quite cheerfully on the labeling.) Which meant if we met an ant, it would be like… like… fighting a miniaturized Sephiroth and with the Buster Sword and no materia. Which was craptastically scary and we-would-lose-in-two-seconds-like.
Vincent appeared to not have heard me. A bland wave of nostalgic déjà vu, of days long since passed hunting down a man trying to destroy the Planet, washed over me.
“L-O-S-T. As in ANY SENSE OF DIRECTION IS HEREBY NULL, VOID, NADA, ZIP-“
“Yuffie.” Vincent interrupted me in the Vincent-esque way, which is very polite but slightly I’mma-losing-patience-with-your-sexy-self-so-be-quiet.
Kinda.
“Maybe we could ask someone for directions,” I suggested dully, because we really didn’t know where the hell we were going. When we stumbled out, it like a forest of pine-green grass taller than the both of us - we finally managed to make it to lower grass, and then finally found the lone dirt path road we were currently tramping across, like lonely hitchhikers looking for someone to stop.
I tried to hitchhike once, because it was raining and I was cold and wet and shivering to my toes. The first car that passed did just that - it passed me. So did the second. But the third (third times the charm, I know I had thought in tired relief) passed, then stopped and it revved -
And swept past again, splashing water all over me.
I was yelling at them and cursing and I flipped them off, but the jerk was gone and I was just as far from the nearest town as I had been.
The remembrance of that incident made me shiver, like lukewarm water had once again been dumped over my head and trickling, trickling, trickling down my spine, like a pretending sick excuse for a baptism-
I hugged my arm, the one with my armlet and Leviathan, closer to me and looked around at that forest, that almost eerily green forest. Everything was too big, and it didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel right at all.
I was used to forests. I mean, I almost lived in a forest half my life, because trees were the only places that the monsters wouldn’t bug you if you climbed high enough, and I would rather kiss Sephiroth than sleep like a drunk hobo on some random bench.
(Actually, that isn’t the best example. Sephiroth is still one of the scariest things I have ever had the misfortune of meeting, but damn, now that I think about it, if he wasn’t a complete psycho he would have been kind of hawt.)
(And I can’t believe I just thought that. That must be, like, blasphemy of a higher being, so I’ll just stop now. Grossness.)
“Vincent, admit it. We are LOST.”
“We - are - not - lost,” Vinnie grounded out, eyes narrowed more than usual as he quickened his pace forward again.
“What is it with men and asking for directions?” I made it sound obnoxious, too, because that was just too classic not to throw at an already scowling Vincent. His scarlet eyes darted to me sharply and I grinned, because we had been through a lot together, and I already knew how to pull his strings like Pinocchio; sure enough, he just let out a deep sigh.
“There is no… problem,” he seemed to stress the word, much to my amusement, “With asking for directions. However, there are no creatures, people, or any inhabitants of this world that could help us, unless you see someone that is invisible to me; if so, I would gladly appreciate any help this person could offer,” he stated dryly.
“Touché,” I acknowledged with a laugh. I was, and still am, a master of self deception, to the point where all I have to do is pretend - and eventually, I’ll start to believe it. Just a little, but I’ll believe it, and right then-
I didn’t want to be afraid.
“We are still on the pathway,” and he looked ahead, face forward and profile strong in the patches of lighting of the sun between the forestry above, “And we’ll get somewhere, eventually.” I nodded in agreement, absently letting the patches of yellow rays catch on my Conformer and blind me.
I wanted to be me again.
While I told myself I wasn’t afraid and believed it, I still didn’t like it at all; it didn’t frighten me as much as made me want to just go back to the rabbit’s little house and take another nap, to wake up and find the whole thing was just a bad dream.
How nice that would have been, but that’s just wishful thinking, and I know - I know, from watching Vincent, and Cloud, and even old man Godo when he looked at my mother’s favorite teacup, her old comb, her unused weapons with spider webs of rust spiraling across the once smooth metal - that thinking like that is dangerous. So dangerous, because it never stops, once it starts. It just builds up, up and up and up, until there’s too much and then you’re drowning.
The easiest road to self-torture; and for some odd reason, that reminded me that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
That little thought made little mice run up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck raise delicately to tickle the rest of my hair; so I didn’t think on it too hard, and instead turned to my companion.
“That rabbit couldn’t have gone through the door,” I remarked as the grass around us allowed a few mushrooms of many different sizes, all larger than the both of us, to steadfastly rest. “So it has to be somewhere around here.”
“It doesn’t really matter where the rabbit went,” Vincent replied suddenly, “Because it could have run through the grass. We just need to keep following the path, because it will lead somewhere eventually. Hopefully to another who can point us in the right direction towards a store of some kind; we need to restock, soon.”
“And check to see if they made it here,” I added in and he nodded, scarlet eyes flickering over to me and back as we continued along the path.
‘They’ was already a pronoun that meant something else entirely.
And it was too hard to say ‘our friends,’ anymore.
Vincent said to follow the path, and so we did - and followed, and followed, and followed. The road was a long one, seemingly endless, and I was ready to plop my little behind down and demand we take a break when we came upon a fork in the road -
No, I’m serious. Literally and metaphorically, because even though the road split in two directions, there was a freakin’ giant fork in the ground between them.
“Which way?” I finally asked as we slowed to a stop, deciding not to comment on the oddity of said utensil as large as myself and opting to ignore it instead. Vincent didn’t say anything for a moment, but right before he opened his mouth, a sing-song voice interrupted us, or not so much interrupted us as began nearby and we stopped to listen.
___“Fury said
_____ to a
___ ____ mouse,
___________That he
_______met in the
______house,
____"Let us
_______both go to
____________law: I will
______________prosecute
______________YOU.
_____________ I'll take no
___________denial; We
_________ must have a
________trial: For
_______really this
______morning I've
______nothing
_______to do."
_________Said the
___________mouse to the
____________cur, "Such
_____________a trial,
______________dear Sir,
______________ __With
_____________ _no jury
_____________or judge,
___________would be
__________wasting
__________our
___________breath."
____________"I'll be
_____________judge, I'll
____________be jury,"
__________Said
__________cunning
____________old Fury:
_____________"I'll
_______________try the
_________________whole
____________________cause,
__________________and
______________condemn
_____________ you
_____________to
______________death.”
“…What?” I managed, and it came out as a sort of whisper. The words were strange and the end oddly chilling, though not completely. No, it made me think much more of a child’s song, a morbid child’s song that wasn’t quite sung.
And then, right on top of the fork - this world freaked the CRAP out of me - a smile appeared.
It was a very wide and very white smile, and didn’t look particularly menacing or particularly inviting in the air, floating above the fork.
I opened my mouth to scream, but then mutely shut it, because seriously, after all that we had seen in this world? Why get surprised now? By expecting the unexpected, there really was nothing that frightening here.
We waited for a short few seconds, and then eyes blinked open above it, wide yellow eyes, and then came a purple head of a cat around both eyes and mouth, followed by its silly plump purple and pink-striped body. The cat was balancing on what would have been its left front paw, but was actually tiny purple fingers, only one finger resting calmly on the fork.
The head, by the way, was up in the air, held up by the bushy purple tail; the tail sprung it up and bounced it for a few moments, the slightly disconcerting grin in place, until dropping it to its rightful spot.
“…I wish I hadn’t seen that,” I finally muttered. Vincent just blinked.
“…Who are you?” His gravelly-smooth voice found my ears, and the cat’s smile widened a little.
“I am the Cheshire Cat,” the Cheshire Cat responded, “And I happened upon hearing your predicament, and would like to ask if you know that you are lost,” and he jumped up and landed back on the fork by his tail without even breaking a sweat, “-Or not.”
“…Yes, I think we’re lost!” I said loudly after figuring out the question posed. The Cat only smiled more.
“Yes, but that wasn’t the question at all, was it? Just because you think so, doesn’t mean you know so. For example,” and his tail swished back and forth, almost hypnotically, “Do you know that the sky is blue, or do you think that the sky is blue?”
If bait was planted, I fell for it.
“The sky is always blue,” I responded automatically, slightly irritated, but the cunning cat only wagged a little purple finger at me with that ridiculous grin still painted on.
“But you don’t know that. If you were a dog, why, the sky wouldn’t be blue at all! It would maybe be yellow, or green,” the cat countered, the only break in that everlasting smile a moment to yawn loudly and widely before returning to the same facial position.
“But dogs are colorblind,” I stated with a frown. The cat’s grin seemed to mock me, in a way, which did nothing to improve my mood; he did a quick twirl or two on the fork, balancing on his toes.
“You think so, but you don’t know so, for tell me, dear girl, have you ever been a dog?”
I shook my head, trying to tell him that that was beside the point, but he only giggled strangely and said, “Then you don’t know so at all, and only smart people know that they don’t understand anything. That’s what makes them smart.”
“But that makes no sense,” I protested, and gratefully let Vincent cut in for me, for he had been watching the exchange silently up until then.
“That doesn’t really pertain to our problem,” he said carefully, “Because we would just like to know which way to go to find someone who can help us.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t pertain at all,” the cat agreed, sitting back on its tail in a very thoughtful position, “But as to your actual problem, that’s a little different. It really depends on what you want help with, because at one end of the road is a hatter and at the other is a march hare; it doesn’t really matter which one you pick, because they’re both quite mad anyhow.”
“We would like to go somewhere without anyone who’s mad,” I said, but the Cheshire Cat still smiled almost wickedly, but in a playful way; I wondered if this was how the fat cat got his kicks, by annoying and confusing innocent passers-by. It would have made sense to me, but the whole place was so freaking backwards and twisted I really didn’t know if that made me right or up, so I didn’t think on it too hard.
“You can’t do that, because you must be mad to have come here, which makes you in the company of another mad person, and as I am quite mad myself, that could all make us perfectly normal,” the Cheshire Cat declared quite jovially.
That grin hadn’t faltered, and was becoming perfectly disturbing, as well as perfectly annoying and perfectly making me want to throw him into a trash bin and stomp off, all quite perfectly, which only furthered the fact that I was probably perfectly mad, just like that fat cat said.
“Oh, gawd,” I muttered, but Vincent continued calmly, because nothing really ever sunk his battleship in war, y’know? Like, plenty of things sunk his cruise ship, Titanic goes down with a bang and all, but his battleship was unbreakable and unbeatable. Impossible to sink.
“We would just like to know if we’re going in the right direction,” He said slowly. The cat stretched a little.
“Well, I can’t imagine anyone going on the wrong direction, can you? If you aren’t on the right direction to anywhere, you must be on the right direction to somewhere, so wherever you’re going, I would say that it’s the right direction, even if that isn’t where you wanted to go,” came the witty reply.
I started biting my thumb nail - a real nasty habit, one that I had since childhood. If I had something in my mouth, anything, then I was much less inclined to say something stupid or annoying, or annoyed, or angry. And boy, was that cat pissing me off. Because not only did everything he said be confusing, it all made perfect sense.
What a freak of a world to land on, huh?
“Listen, we just want to find our friends-“ That taboo phrase that wasn’t quite taboo but still hurt, still hurt a lot, “And have you seen any people around that don’t look like they’re from around here?” I mustered, trying not to make it sound like a plea.
The cat looked thoughtful for a moment, but the grin was still in place. “Well, I have seen you two,” and just like that the smile widened like the whole thing was solved.
“We would like to find a shop of some sort,” Vincent finally said. The cat was helping us with nothing pertaining to our friends, and time was valuable and was being wasted, and I realized blankly how stupid it was, for me to fall right in and play the little cat’s game.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? You should really learn how to not beat around the bush,” and the cat, I knew, knew perfectly well it was being a perfect hypocrite - that word, again, that horrible and awfully annoying word (NO, not hypocrite, stupid) - and then said, “But not a real bush, that’s only a metaphorical way to say what you wanted to say in the first place. Everyone takes everything so literally here,” and the Cheshire Cat gave a little silly giggle again.
“I don’t know of any shops, but I suppose if you really wanted to find one you could ask the Queen.”
“The Queen?”
“Yes, the Queen, her most royal majesty, who is due to play croquet with the Duchess soon, but not too soon, so she’s actually probably not going to be playing croquet at all for some time.”
I was beating my head against the trunk of a mushroom by now. Vincent sighed - in pity?! It better not have been exasperation, because he didn’t know what the hell was going on, either - and hooked his claw through the belt loop on my shorts, pulling me back without looking away from the cat, though I had to disentangle the brass hand myself. (But I didn’t really think anything of it, because if there is one thing that vampire isn’t, it’s a pervert. Probably.)
“Where can we find the Queen?” Vincent inquired, taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of his nose for a total of five seconds.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” The cat’s smile widened even more, “I’m horrible with directions. Toodle-loo.”
And just like that, he started to fade, until only the smile was left - and I blinked, and that was gone, too.
A few moments passed, and then I screamed from pure frustration, and Vincent just shook his head in exasperation and started down the path towards the March Hare, only stopping to gently cover my mouth and pull me along.