The Dream Isn't Done

[Meryck]

Alice smiled and nodded. "Tempers are good here. Keeps you on your toes."

[Glyph]

"That they do," Hope nodded, "When they don't cloud your vision, anyway."

"And you would know about that." Tab muttered from above his crossed arms. "You're right dangerous when you get worked up, you know that?"

Hope chose to ignore him, but the Snark continued without her, shaking his head at Alice, "When we first met, she used to carry around this big whopping pitchfork--flailed it around every which way when she was miffed... Which happened a lot." He set Hope with a level stare, pouting. "Couldn't ask her the time of day without getting skewered to a tree."

[Meryck]

Alice blinked, frowning. "Oh my. Whatever happened to that pitchfork?"

[Glyph]

"... It was taken to an unknown location for safe-keeping." Tabor nodded, grinning, "And also so she'd stop trying to turn me into a shish-kabob every time the wind blew the wrong way."

"He stole it!" Hope snapped hopelessly, hissing between her teeth, "He snatched it from me two weeks ago and I haven't seen hide nor hair of it since!"

Tab peered down his nose at her coolly. "Well," he began, "I guess you shouldn't have tried to take my head off with it."

"Maybe I wouldn't have if you weren't so stark raving mad."

The Snark stuck out his tongue, folding his arms across his chest. "Crybaby."

"Dimwit thief.."

"Cry me a river."

Hope bristled and spat, less like a sparrow and more like an angry kitten. "Maybe if I do, you'll drown in it. Then I won't have to worry about you stalking me anymore."

Tab screwed up his face, rolled his eyes, "Oi, are we really going to start on that again?"

[Meryck]

Alice blinked, completely lost. "Um....alright...." She blinked again. "I'm....assuming I should probably not ask?"

[Glyph]

Tabor watched cheerfully as Hope stormed on ahead without uttering a word, then shrugged apologetically to Alice. It wasn't very convincing.

"Doesn't matter to me, love. She's the touchy one; I'm just the good-natured, lovable soul who puts up with everything out of the goodness of his heart." The Snark batted his eyes at her playfully, letting out a long suffering sigh. "Aaand, it's a story of decent length, and she'd probably come back here and bash my head in if I tried to bore you with it against your will."

[Meryck]

Alice chuckled. "Couldn't be as stranged as mine. Sounds like she's only been here for a short time and had no prior knowlege to this place's existance."

[Glyph]

"You're quite right, love," Tabor tapped his chin thoughtfully, "It's only been, what, two, three months tops that her ship landed? She's still rather new." Frowning, he leveled his stare in the direction Hope had disappeared. The tops of the brush were still shivering slightly, as if her passing had given the forest cold chills. The Snark shook his head, mumbling almost to himself; "And still bitter."

The wild-haired "young man" quipped Alice with his bright orange eyes, pursing his lips thoughtfully, "But you are wrong about one thing--Hope was very aware of Underland's existance, or a part of it, at least. Whether she chose to believe in it or not is entirely beyond me."

Those bright eyes darkened suddenly, glowing like cooling lava against the green of the forest. Perhaps it was just the lighting, but Tabor's snarky expression suddenly seemed to curl into a disapproving grimace. "Either way, she believed enough to come here, and she certainly can't deny our existence now."

[Meryck]

Alice frowned thoughtfully. "Hmm." She looked back in the direction Hope had vanished of to, chewing on her lip thoughtfully as she ducked under a branch. "Perhaps, perhaps not. The Tweedles once mentioned to me this could all be some sleeping sap's fantasy- the first Red King's, before the one the Red Queen beheaded no less- so if she ever heard that fabrication, she could use that to deny it. If you ask me, though, it dosen't matter if it's real or not- it's HERE, and it's whate we all must deal with."

[Glyph]

To that, Tabor merely shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure she wishes this were all a dream, but too much has happened for her to banish it all to delusion." A grin cracked the solemn stoniness that had settled on his handsome face, "Unless she wants to admit to herself that she's gone stark raving mad, that is." He winked. "It'd be a bit difficult to imagine someone as fantastic as myself without having gone 'round the bend, no?"

Tab smirked, then faltered, his expression growing darker again the moment he glanced around the ruined forest. "You're right though, love. Dream or not, Underland's all we have, and if we let ourselves lose anymore of our dreams to the Red Queen, then we're better off not existing at all."

[Meryck]

Alice nodded, moving her sword out of the way of the branble.

[Glyph]

Tab shook his head and blew a tuft of orange hair from his eyes. What a world they lived in, where you had to carry a sword at the ready wherever you went. At least in the past they'd made due with sheathes...

The Snark paused suddenly, cocking his head to the side; the footsteps and curses had subsided from the brush in front of them. Warily, he stopped. Hope didn't cool off that quickly.

As if by cue, the girl's tousled head popped from around a tree trunk, drawn and pale.

"The bushes are rustling," she hissed urgently, teeth gritted; she didn't take her eyes off the foliage on the other side of the tree, "Something's coming."