Location: Edge of the Deep Woods
Time: Early Morning
It’s so strange… the day had started off so beautifully.It had been gorgeous weather, sunny with a strong breeze. We had reached the edge of the Deep Woods in record time, amusingly in line with Diedrich’s prediction. We cut the Devil’s Claw’s speed from a brisk pace to a lazy one; with the mind-boggling progress we had been making I called for a strategic three days of rest a few miles from the boarder where greenery subsided into acrid golden sands. The air buffeting the ship was hot and dry, but there was still enough greenery below to provide sufficient supplies to the ship, and as a result crew morale was generally high. Three days to rest, relax, and restock was generally agreed on as a good decision, and after sending Diedrich down to tie off our vessel to the sturdiest looking tree, the green grunny and I sat down for some much needed planning while the others slid down for a chance to attend to their hygiene in general.
According to Diedrich and his crayon map, the desert we are about to cross is a direct line to the sea and will shave miles off the journey that would be added on if we took the long way around through the Deep Woods. Diedrich managed to map out my dreamt shortcut and agreed, somewhat begrudgingly, that it just might be authentic. Ignoring my celebrations at this information, he then explained the conditions we would be facing. There was little to hunt, no known water sources, and shade during the daylight hours would be nonexistent, rendering all above-deck work conditions miserable. It would have to be taken at the fastest pace the Devil’s Claw could manage, meaning that several extremely difficult days would be before us.
"So I suppose it’s a good thing that we’re taking a few days off." I said lazily, resisting the urge to start coloring in Diedrich’s squiggly directional lines on the map before us.
"Most definitely." Diedrich agreed. "Before we go on, we should make sure we store as much food and water as we can hold."
It was one of the more logical things Diedrich had said, and when my manly crew returned a manly sort of clean I gathered together a hunting team. Leaving the White Rabbit and the Dormouse behind with Diedrich to guard the ship, Hatter, Cheshire, and I armed ourselves with archaic shotguns and prepared to hunt. I wanted to do it a more efficient way, with each of the three of us using our own weapons so we wouldn’t have to bother with bullets, but the White Rabbit seemed to think that if we did that, there wouldn’t be much of the hunt left to bring back. Grumblingly agreeing that this might in fact be the case, we loaded up on shotgun shells and slid down the anchor to the ground below.
We had a relatively good hunt; Cheshire is a natural at tracking prey and the Hatter has proven himself to be a crack shot. We managed to hunt down roughly 250 pounds of food, a relatively good haul. We had slight difficulty getting it all back on the ship, but we managed it and the White Rabbit and the Dormouse put their heads together to find inventive new ways to preserve it all for our impending trip across the desert sands. I decided to go back down and harvest some fruit I’d seen but had been unable to carry earlier in the day, and was surprised to be joined by the Dormouse. Though I must admit that I don’t know if he actually intended to join me; I was shimmying my way back down the anchor line when the gray skinned man fell past me, eyes closed and snores audible as he rocketed down to disappear into the greenery below.
"Dorm!" I yelped in concern surprise as startled birds took flight from the branches his limp body had disturbed. Abandoning caution, I slid down the rest of the anchor line with a grimace, crashing through the leaf ceiling with my booted feet. I landed on the branch that anchored the ship in a crouch before dropping down onto the ground below, pink eyes scanning for my fallen companion. I cursed softly as I jogged to my friend, splayed on his back with leaves still pin wheeling gently down around his form. "Damn it… Dormouse, are you alright?!"
There was no response, and when I got close enough to look down on him I saw why. The Dormouse was still fast asleep, murmuring faintly under his breath about some sort of llama factory. Despite his fall, his limp body had apparently, miraculously, avoided damage. Determined to change that, my eye twitched as I gave him a swift kick in the side.
“Oof.” the Dormouse muttered, inexplicably awakened by what was essentially a love tap in comparison to the fall he had just endured. Gray eyes bleary, he stared up at me at complete incomprehension for a long, long minute… then yawned. “Good moooorning, Marchy.”
"It’s not morning." I replied in irritation. "And you fell off the ship."
“What are you doing down here?” he said in another yawn.
"Collecting fruit." my tone was short as I turned away. The annoyance I felt at the fact that I’d actually worried about the ridiculous little creature was too great to warrant any further response.“I’ll help you.”
"…can’t get back up to the ship on your own, huh?" I sighed.
The Dormouse didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Instead he moved slowly but deliberately towards a tree, peering up at the branches expectantly. I opened my mouth to inform him that this tree wasn’t the flourishing one that had prompted my return to the brush, but he moved before I could. Extending a slim gray finger to the woods before him as indication of his intentions, he traipsed forward into the brush. Ears drooping, I followed him with a sigh.
For a long while, there was silence between the two of us as we scoured the branches for fruit. I’ll admit, it was nice; or, rather, it would have been if I hadn’t been openly shunning him at that point. Apparently completely without his notice, for when the Dormouse spoke it was with no indication that he was being punished in any way.
“We’re going into the Badlands, aren’t we?”
“The Badlands? We’re heading into the desert, Dorm… ah, wait. I think that was what they were called on the map."
“The desert west of the Deep Forest is usually called the Badlands.” the Dormouse said with an unusual amount of authority. I lifted an eyebrow, but before I could question him he continued. “My people have always called them the Badlands… we have to be careful. Strange things happen in that desert.”
“We’re flying a airship stocked with saplings, seeds, and weapons to a jellyfish god in the sky that has apparently had its head set ablaze." I commented dryly. “Really, Dormy, I don’t think we could get away with calling anything on this trip anything but strange."
“The Badlands are especially strange, even for us.” the Dormouse said, surprising me by meeting my eyes directly.
The Dormouse is a very passive sort of man; it is a very rare event for him to bother making direct eye contact with any living creature. It’s an act of aggression in the animal world and, according to Cheshire, the Dormouse avoids it in an effort to avoid any sort of conflict. This is not out of character for him; he is more inclined to slumber than battle. So, when his eyes locked with mine, any sort of joviality left me. The Dormouse was warning me about something, something he was quite serious about.
“In the Badlands, I’ve heard tell that all the bad inside people comes out in force, that it becomes impossible to hide.” he continued slowly. “I’ve heard that crews are almost always attacked while attempting to cross it… by other members of their crew driven mad.”
“Driven mad?” I repeated in a murmured, a frown furrowing my brow. “Surely you don’t think that’s a great danger to us, do you Dormy? I mean… we are from Wonderland. How much madder can we get?”
“I wonder.” he whispered, his eyes finally moving from mine to a branch above. “Ah… I’ve found some fruit. Is it what we’re looking for?”Before I could confirm the Dormouse moved forward and picked some low-hanging oranges from the branches of a nearby tree that had no right to be growing oranges as it was, his expression as sleepy and disinterested as ever. I made no effort to answer him, instead giving him a long, analytical look. The Dormouse’s demeanor had never really changed throughout the discussion; he looked sleepy and sounded sleepier. Only the eye contact had convinced me… but of what? Was the Dormouse talking out of a dream, as he was so often inclined to do? Or did he really know something, something he couldn’t relay to me directly?
“Hmmm…” I cut my eyes to the side in thought, then marched towards him. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to beat the information out of him or not until I paused at his side and reached to take one of the oranges to palm for inspection. “Ah… yes, these are them. They’ll make great marmalade, won’t they?” I added with a warm smile.
“Yeah… on toast.” he replied, his dreamy expression becoming dreamier as he though of food.
I smiled, nodded, and helped him yank the rest of the fruit from the rather forgiving citrus tree. For the moment, I had decided to keep my inquires to myself. I’d even given myself a mental compliment as we made the somewhat arduous journey back up to the ship on how well I’d controlled myself, which is something I can rarely claim when it comes to the Dormouse.
Now, I look back on these several strange minutes and wish I had been a little less in control of myself, that I had taken the opportunity to get a better understanding of what was coming before it happened. But I didn’t, and now I’m sorry for it.
It didn’t start until much, much later. Things were quiet aboard the Devil’s Claw, not a sign of vampires anywhere. Everyone had eaten well, cheerful stories had been told, and all of the crew seemed to be in good humor. True, there were some clouds at the sky that hinted at rain, but that was met only with enthusiasm; rain in a desert, in our minds, could have only been a good thing. And the faint bit of cool in the air had us all outside, enjoying the growing night. There was a full moon, and though it was obscured by clouds there was still plenty of light to see with.
The details are burned into my mind. Diedrich was standing at the helm with an overlarge hat on his head playing captain. The White Rabbit was sitting at port, papers spread out before him as he muttered over some calculation or the other. The Cheshire Cat was up in his crow’s nest, occupying himself with scanning the horizon with his eternal smile plastered on his lips. The Dormouse sat in the doorway that led to the lower decks, his back braced against the door molding and eyes closed as he basked in starlight. The Mad Hatter was at the ship’s railing, the wind tugging at his coat as he stared out at the desert horizon, lost in his own thoughts. I sat jut out of arm’s length at his side, perched up on the railing facing deck. We were all, for once, completely, contentedly silent; caught up in one universal moment of reverence.
Maybe that should have been my indication that something was wrong, but it wasn’t. I was, oddly enough, enjoying the moment of unity between us. It was strange, like there was a bond of strength between myself and my crew. Oddly mushy thoughts for me, I’m afraid. So when the clouds slowly drifted away from the full moon I was relaxed, a small smile on my lips as I gazed up at it contentedly. I don’t know what prompted me to do it, but my eyes traced up to the crow’s next, fully expecting to see and be amused by the Cheshire Cat’s rhythmic tail swaying side to side. It was still; I blinked and tilted my head as I focused on the feline.
He was looking up at the moon, his face illuminated to a point where his wide eyes seemed to glow. Him smile was gone and his face slack; I blinked and frowned slightly as I took in his oddly rigid mode. Cheshire didn’t move, didn’t blink; it was as if he was transfixed by the moon. For a long second it was as if he was frozen… and then he shuddered before his back stiffed and arched up violently, head dropping out of sight.
“March?” the Mad Hatter spoke from the side. “You have a strange look on your face…”
“Cheshire…” I replied slowly, confusedly. “He…”
A sudden yowl cut me off; a piercing, animalistic screech that echoed loudly in the cool night air. It was a sound that instantly raised the hairs on my arm, a sound that made the Hatter flinch and the Dormouse start from his nap to blink about in bleary bewilderment.
“What the devil was..?!” the White Rabbit started – but never finished.
At that moment there was a blur of movement from the crow’s nest, almost too fast for even me to follow. I had time to suck in a breath before the full moon’s glow illuminated the slowing standing form of the Cheshire Cat. At least, my instinct was all that informed me of his identity at first, for the Cheshire Cat looked like I had never seen him in any of the long years that I had known him. His purple locks were matted and his unusual wardrobe had been reduced to dark hair; dark fur covered his limbs with rigid purple stripes throughout, and his face elongated into a cat-like snout. But, most alarming of all was his expression; his eyes were hollow and hungry, and his normally wide grin was stretched to show every unnaturally pointed tooth, his tongue lolling from between his lips as a guttural sound escaped him.“Cheshire..?” his name left my lips with a strange, breathy quality that I am not used to associating with myself. His eyes snapped instantly to mine, and his grin spread to show every pointy tooth.
“What the hell!?”
“It’s the Badlands.” the Dormouse whispered hauntingly. “It turns our own against us…”
“Everyone hold still!!” the White Rabbit snapped, and we all complied without question. The situation made clear that anything less than absolute seriousness would be repaid with something unpleasant. “I’ve heard of this sort of morphing before… it’s triggered by the moon, and causes a transformation that boarders on the lycanthropic!”
“So… Cheshire’s become a werewolf..?”
“Well, a werecat, to be precise…”
Further debate on the subject was abruptly cut short as the Cheshire Cat abruptly sprang forward with a snarl, that unnatural speed exhibiting itself once again. I saw a flashing of claws and flinched back in some sort of instinctual, primal defensive. There was a horrible splintering sound, and I was able to process that Cheshire’s claws were raking through the wood of the ship’s railing like a hot knife through butter as I fell backwards. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to fall to my death, but I didn’t dwell on it; instead things seemed to move slowly, and I was capable of feeling only numb disbelief as I caught the maniacal glimmer visible in Cheshire’s eyes…
Cheshire… my friend… was looking at me like he didn’t even recognize me. Despite all we’d been through… he didn’t seem to remember me at all. Something was heavy in my chest as gravity forced my breath back, long pink strands of my hair flying up past my face to twist together…
Cammy… Cammy… Cammy…
“Cammy!”
