Sugar & Spice | jerza

Of Rabbits & Risks

"What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and all things nice.
That's what little girls are made of."

"Erza Scarlet, her mother chided. "You know very well little girls are not made of sugar. That's absurd!"

"It's just a song, mother," Erza insisted, smoothing out her little, cotton dress.

"It's an awfully weird song," Kagura added, looking up from the worn-out, paperback book that lay across her lap.

"Are you almost done with your quilt?"

"What quilt?" the scarlet-haired girl asked, her face the very image of innocence.

"What quilt?!" her mother exclaimed. "Why, the patchwork quilt you've been working on every afternoon!"

"Oh, of course," Erza answered, grabbing the silk pouch that was was slung around her waist. Rummaging through the the bag, she retrieved her masterpiece- two patchwork squares sewn unevenly together. It wasn't much of a "quilt" like Kagura's, but it would do. For now.

"What are little girls made of? What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice. That's what little girls are made of," Erza hummed, stuffing her sorry excuse of a quilt back into the bag.

~ ~ ~

"Erza!" Kagura hissed, peering up at the tall, oak tree in which the girl was perched in. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," Erza replied groggily. "What's happened?"

"Pay attention," her little sister warned. "Mother's giving us a quiz after she finishes chapter twelve."

"It's so dull," the scarlet-haired girl said, leaning back against one of the more sturdier branches of the grand oak. "I mean, all they do is complain about their lives. 'Oh! I love him, but he loves her, and she loves the prince! What shall I do?'"

Kagura stiffled a laugh and Erza beamed with pride.  It was the best feeling, making a loved one laugh. It was like getting to eat the last chocolate chip cookie or having a perfect piano recital.

"'And oh dear! The prince is a cold-hearted bastar-"

"Erza!" Mother snapped. "Don't be rude! This is an ancient piece of literature! It's not nice to ridicule it! Show some respect-"

But Erza was no longer paying attention, for her gaze had just snagged on the most curious white rabbit. 

"Wait! Wait!" the girl cried out, nimbly climbing down the tree and hurrying after the bipedal mammal. "Mister Rabbit! Mister Rabbit? Wait for me!" She didn't bother looking over her shoulder to see her family's reaction.

She watched as the rabbit scurried into the wild brush near the edge of the woods, the tail of its bright blue waistcoat trailing after it. And just like that, it disappeared.

Quietly, Erza knelt down and pushed the branches of the bush aside, feeling the ground for-

"Ah!" she shouted out as her body lurched forward. Arms flailing, Erza tried to find something to grab on to, but the ground had turned into the endless sky and everything was spinning and spinning. 

And down she tumbled, down, down, down.

~ ~ ~

You know that feeling when you doze off and suddenly jerk awake? Almost like you missed a step and caught yourself at the last second? Erza remembered asking Grandmother about it.

"Oh my," Grandmother had said, touching Erza's cheek gingerly. "That feeling? That's the feeling when the angels swoop down and take your soul at night.  They fly with your soul, far away, ready to take it back where it belongs. But then, they trip and accidentally let go. And down, down, down you fall."

Down, down, down.

~ ~ ~

She expected the landing to be hard. Erza had fallen out of plenty of trees in her life so far. Breaking bones wasn't uncommon, so when she landed on the tiled floor at the bottom of the pit, she was shocked when she realized she hadn't broken all two hundred and six.

"H-Hello?" Erza called out, realizing nervously that she could no longer see the sun's rays from above. Perhaps she was in another world. Erza loved pretending.

There was a rustle nearby and the lost girl whirled around, just in time to catch a glimpse of the rabbit.

"Ah ha!" she exclaimed. "I gotcha now!"

The rabbit's ears twitched, catching her joyous cry, and quickly darted into the next room.

Erza really felt like saying something unladylike right now.

"Oh, come on," groaned Erza, tripping over her own feet in order to get to the furry critter. She sprinted down the hall, gasping momentarily at the mirrors that lined the walls. Forcing herself to keep her gaze trained on the rabbit, she skidded to a stop and darted down the left hall. Fog was beginning to accumulate and Erza rubbed her eyes irritably, trying to catch a glimpse of where the rabbit had gone.

It was nowhere to be seen.

"Gosh darn it," Erza mumbled. The fear of being truly lost was slowly settling in.

"Oh, look what you've done!" a girl huffed. "You're not from Fiore, are you?"

"I..I was looking for a rabbit," the scarled-haired girl said, tugging at the hem of her dress self-consciously. The other girl was much younger than her, and here she was, claiming that she had gotten herself into this mess by chasing after a rabbit.

"I'm the rabbit, dummy," the girl shrieked. "Ugh. I can't see anything with all this fog! Only an intruder would set it off, and I'm clearly from Fiore."

"You're a little girl, not a rabbit," Erza said, matter-of-factly.

"I'm a therianthrope," the shorter girl said, rolling her eyes. "You know what that is, right?"

"No," she said in a small voice.

"You are so clearly not a Fioran," the girl said, digging her hands into one of the pockets of her waistcoat and retrieving a watch. "A therianthrope is a human who can shapeshift into an animal. Mine is the rabbit." She took one look at the intricate pocketwatch and shouted, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"

"Just tell me how to get out of here. How to get home," Erza protested. She blanched, realizing how whiny and shrill her voice sounded.

"Home? You mean the Normal World? Oh, you'll have to go through the Looking Glass."

"The Looking Glass?"

"It's all the way across Fiore, in the kingdom of Chess. To get to Chess, you'll have to cross Hearts." The girl scoffed. "And good luck with that, stranger."

"But you're from Hearts," Erza said, pointing at the medallion that hung around the girl's neck.

The therianthrope's eyes sparkled with approval. "You're not so stupid after all. Listen. Let's find a way to get out of here and I'll take you to Hearts." She looked up at me and stuck out her hand. "I'm Wendy Marvell, by the way. Herald to the Queen of Hearts."

"I'm Erza Scarlet," said Erza, reaching out to shake Wendy's hand.

"Oh heavens!" Wendy shouted out again. "I'm really, really late!"