Attn: [@PaulHaynek][hr][hr][hr]"[color=0F52BA][i]I am... I was... Integration into this place... The kingdom I built... lost... was disconnected from Wonderland...[/i][/color]" Alice frowned, she didn’t like remembering that event, "[color=0F52BA][i]I’m the curious sort, despite my reservations and my soft-spoken tone. I love to learn; though my learnings had given way to a weak physical nature and a sense of apprehension that has plagued me since childhood,[/i][/color]" she says, "[color=0F52BA][i]I was Human, once, like you. All Mad Hatters are, you know? Another courted me and my husband, after we fell into a March Hare’s hole, and wound up in Wonderland. That was decades ago...[/i][/color]"

Alice seemed to withdraw; her expression turning wistful, as if longing for an impossible solitude. Underneath the veneer of insanity, and the impression of royalty, that he’d seen back there, hid a woman - not a monster - hurt by a clear trauma they were asked to recount.

"[color=0F52BA][i]To answer your question, I followed a March Hare here - ironic, I know - but, she promised me a wonderful tea party. And, what a wonderful party it was... for her... and her friends for a season.[/i][/color]" Alice drew back; her eyes focused on some distant point before she returned to Takeshi. "[color=0F52BA][i]I still love tea, but I’m even warier of strangers, now... less trusting... I’m only open to you, because She That Smells of Snowflakes asked I be receptive to a man with your name,[/i][/color]" she confessed, "[color=0F52BA][i]Truth be told, I’d rather be in the cave I was left for dead in, but Carroll has cursed me a second brain - braver, but ignorant, and apt for making decisions I wouldn’t, otherwise.[/i][/color]"

"[color=0F52BA][i]Unfortunately, Carroll is oft in agreement with that second brain, as well,[/i][/color]" she lamented, leaving Takeshi to ruminate on the less-than-savoury implication of that statement and her story in silence.

His question answered, and then some, Alice fell into a quiet that was almost deafening. It would seem, small talk was over, if Takeshi didn’t inspire more.