Butterfly Wings

Trickmaster

Sora lit the second lamp.

Nothing changed in the room that he could see, but an instant later the Cheshire Cat had returned, in an identical position but now on the platform Sora had been standing on before, rather than the one he was on now.

"All the lights are on," it purred. "You'll see the shadows soon." It was grinning widely. "They'll arise in this room, but somewhere else. The shadows might go after that doorknob, too." And it was gone.

"So...where now?" Goofy asked.

"I guess a different area of this room," Sora said, glancing at Kimi for confirmation. She only shrugged.

"Down there!" Donald said suddenly, pointing up all the way to the floor. "The doorknob we talked to must be what that cat means. And that's where the shadows first appeared too."

"That's good reasoning..." Kimi looked almost meditative, as if there was something profound in what Donald had said. Then she shook her head suddenly and said, "Well, it's not because the shadows show up there first, it's because it's the only way to have the big fight happen when we're small like this. Only reasonable. It'd be a huge disappointment otherwise, y'know?"

More dream logic, Sora thought. But that probably meant Donald was right. This place seemed insane at first glance, but there were common threads running across it, and you could reason your way through if you used something other than reason.

He wondered if this was true about all the other worlds, if each had their own kind of sense that looked mad from any other standpoint. He opened his mouth to ask, and then he remembered they didn't know any more than he did. Instead he said, "Then let's go. Let's rescue Alice."

They made their way back to the painted forest. Sora watched carefully, but that white heartless seemed to have left for good. Nothing arose to challenge them.

When they entered the Queen's box-hedge room, the card guarding the doorway must have seen something he disliked in their slower, cautious walk, because he said curtly, "Keep looking. She can't have gone far." The Queen remained on her judge's throne, staring out in a way that might have seen them or might not have. "Hurry, or you, too, will incur the Queen's wrath."

Sora didn't reply. He only had to find Alice. The ship was just beyond the giant room. When he found her, all the rest of this wouldn't matter. She could go with them, back to her own world or Traverse or wherever, and never have to get anywhere near here again.

They walked through the black doorway beneath the hedges, into the giant room. The Cheshire Cat awaited them, or perhaps it had just appeared. It lounged on the table with the two bottles.

"You'll have a better view from higher up," it advised, tail waving idly.

He hesitated, but what else did he have to try? He thought about mad dream logic again, about things really being different if you looked at them differently, and headed toward the chair. Kimi, for whatever reason, was wandering off to the side, toward the now three dimensional flower in its pot.

Well, there was no reason to think they all had to be there to get a good look at things. He grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself up. The Cheshire Cat, he was surprised to note, was still there, instead of taking this as another opportunity to vanish. He walked to it, and it sprang up to dance on two legs, radiating a mad sort of delight. "The shadows should be here soon," it said. It waved its head about, then raised one paw with slightly too long fingers to point upward. "Are you prepared for the worst? If not, too bad!"

A - thing fell from the ceiling, twisted black legs - or no, arms - coiling like springs and then shooting it upward again to spin through the air over their heads, heavy feet smashing into the ground as it landed again with a sound like metal on stone. It had a long narrow cylinder of a head, alternating red and black with bands of gold and little vicious squiggled faces, then a round little torso of black and red. Its legs...it had four bound together into two. The top halves were red tubes. Two came from each hip and jeweled knees connected each set to two black tubes that came from its feet, wicked looking metal things, iron pendulums half flattened into shoes. Its legs bent at the joints, one forward like a real knee, the other reversed. Its paper arms uncurled. Two purple - thin batons? Or thick matchsticks? - were held in its impossibly thin needle-like fingers. It began to toss them from hand to hand.