Black Rabbit

"Hrm." He slurped up some of what he had in his bowl before responding to the stranger's question.

"Not anymore. It is just myself, and my three siblings."

   (not that you're usually supposed to have cake at morning tea ... that's never stopped him in the past, though.)

' you're like a ravenous beast, ' he quips easily, slapping oz's hand away as he tries to reach for the strawberry parfaits. ' i suppose growing up a noble doesn't exactly teach you patience, but it should have taught you table manners. '

   he's one to talk. swinging himself from the edge of the dining table that has been turned against another table to make for a bigger version, he squeezes oz's cheek once. ' i hope you've been feeding yourself. zhilan usually keeps the fridge stocked ... he should be here any second, so try not to eat it all before we even start. '

He does try to squirm away and half-heartedly swats at Break's hand when he goes for his cheek. What was it with old people always wanting to pinch your face, anyways? He's yet to find out the answer to that quirky little mystery of life.

Ah, that's the great puzzle! – Alice in Wonderland, Chapter II

Hi @the-mad-owl I was your secret santa this year! Thank for the alice in wonderland prompt, I absolutely loved playing with this idea :D

Thank you @i-prefer-the-term-antihero for the organization again this year!!

"oh! yes, it's rather fascinating hearing about all the other tales that are out there. other stories and variations of the same tales are absolutely a thing. i've seen it with my own eyes, before coming here. is it something rather novel for you?"

albedo has a particularly bad habit of hiding himself among the shelves of the library deep in the forest, sometimes losing track of the time that has passed him by until someone finds him with his nose burrowed into a book.

though granted he doesn’t take note at first of the young man reaching to grab something from the shelf nor that he’s blocking the way, until several moments later when he sidesteps away with what he’s reading still open in his hand as if he’d hardly stopped reading for even a second.

Nonetheless, he has his sought after novel in hand now. It's a good thing this library accesses things from different universes -- it enables Oz to finally catch up on his favorite series; even if Elliot had already spoiled the ending for him...

"Do I? I am but a young...25."

Well with how much stress lines Orson has, many people can actually think different on how old he is. After all when one love one di-

"I think convenience store is the term used these days. Whether there's much of a difference I have no clue, I've never really spent much time in a city before coming here."

"Hmmm."

There was a piece of paper with graceful looking writing on it, all in cursive which might be a problem. It was a lot of tomato based items in it, well its just mostly tomatos and pasta. It seems that that was all in the list.

.

.

.

That's a lot of tomatoes. Well, at least the list was simple.

"So... meat, meat water, and more water, basically? Heh. I have a friend who would absolutely love this."

He does try it. It's... well. It's something. He preferred things to actually have flavor beyond 'meat, with left meat, and a hint of salt.'

"But thank you for the offer." he utterly ignores the hundred year old comment, compared to what he seen, one hundred year old people who look younger than him is not that unusual. or rather he's too focused on his wife to care.

"I don't suppose you know, where the market is. I was thinking of making my wife favorite, but I do not know where it is."

   it is rage, then, that keeps him adrift in the drowning of it. for the book to be closed on him, his story finished, and for the stars to so carelessly disregard it. they've found their end— there is no sense in replaying it in front of them. and yet, sablier spills over, the bricks beneath his boot so familiar, a distant sounding of a bell tower.

   ' not just, ' he replies, monotone. his sword remains tight in his grip, yet the only blood on his body is his own, dripping from his chin and nose. he's not unsteady on his feet yet, though. the anger drives him. ' i saw the raven, earlier. or, i heard. when we were first in sablier. '

   a pause. break's voice is tight. mad hatter's voice in his mind echoes, tells him to d̸e̵s̸t̸r̸o̴y̸. ' before i went blind. '

He's grateful that Break can't see the look on his face, at all the blood. He almost freezes, the more of it he notices. It'd have been an awkward thing to acknowledge, surely. He doesn't want to look at it anymore. Looking at Sablier isn't any better, so it seems he's tough out of luck. Even if Break says he can hear something else, he finds himself hesitating; because, he knows what he'll see first. What he always sees first --

Then he hears it. Blinks. Whirls around to try and find the source. The note of the song that's out of place.

"Laughter?" He says, voice faint. It's familiar. He knows that laugh. It's something he hasn't heard in a long time. "It's... But..."

He blinks, and there's no longer broken bricks under their feet. Grass. They're in the yard of the Vessalius estate. There's no scent of blood. None of the echoing screams. The summer breeze ruffles their hair, brushes against their faces like a long lost friend. The sun is warm.

Then there's three distinct, childish voices laughing and shrieking as they run around. Oz and Gil and Ada, all so much younger than they were at the end of the tale. Well, Ada was a toddler and not actually capable of joining the boy's game of tag -- but she was clapping excitedly from the sidelines and shrieking with glee the way all small children do.

And a young Oz is carrying a fluffy kitty in his arms as he chases after a young Gilbert. Who's shrieking doesn't actually sound like childish glee at all. It's just shrieking.

The memories chase each other straight through the both of them.