Chapter Text
The reaction hadn't been quite what Alice was expecting, if she was expecting anything at all. When she found herself arriving in Hatter's Domain in a curious outfit/form that made her feel partly amused, partly horrified, and partly fascinated (mostly the last bit), Alice found herself curiously comfortable in this form. Maybe just because her hair didn't fly in her face when she was jumping around, but maybe because she was fascinated with her new shininess.
"My, my, Alice," Cat purred when he saw her, his infernal grin widening as it had when she killed Dr. Bumby in that painfully ironic way. "What a curious choice in costume."
"Not mine, I assure you," Alice absently said, examining and flexing her left arm curiously, "although I suppose it will do."
"Yes, it will do...but do what even I'm not sure. Teatime is coming. Be on your guard."
Rolling her eyes at the typical half-riddle response, Alice just turned and walked into the Domain, specifically the area where Hatter had set up his new tea table with the help of the mostly restored Dormy and Hare. He himself was little changed from his last appearance, sitting near to the head of the table in a spindly stool, although he was shorter and his features were less grotesquely out of proportion. On one side was Dormouse, sporting only her old wind-up as a sign of her time as an experiment; on the other was Hare, morosely staring at his tea with a misshapen lip and mechanical arm still in place.
Her footsteps attracted the trio's attention, perking up Hare and causing Dormy to blink rapidly so she was slightly more awake, but their eyes went wide and whatever greeting Hare was preparing to shout died before it was uttered when they took in her appearance.
"Oh dear, sweet tea trays and biscuits," moaned Hare in his faint Scottish accent, dropping his head to the table with a thud, "not another one...!"
"Hatter...did you clone yourself...when we weren't w-w-watching?" Dormy yawned even though she looked suitably impressed, frightened, and drop-dead tired all at once. Quite a feat for a mouse, it should be said.
"No, not recently," Hatter absently replied before looking up and going wide-eyed at the sight of Alice's appearance. His gaze dropped to her feet, clad in her normal boots, then rose up to trace green tights with thigh-belts and a torn, greying white skirt of a dress held together with black straps, golden buckles in place, a split golden gear protruding like two parts of a bow, then lingering on her golden robotic-arm. Eventually he managed to tear his own wide blue eyes to lock with her green ones--which changed along with the rest of her appearance so that her pupils were shaped like gears, twirling slowly as if they were truly working.
"It's rude to stare," Alice said simply, quirking a brow when Hatter finally seemed to notice her normal-sized checker top hat hiding most of her hair. "Is there no room again? Or have I done some grievous misjustice of which I was not aware of...well, other than the obvious, of course."
A wide, unhinged grin suddenly split Hatter's face, and before Alice could say more she was being poked and prodded and examined and raved at with all of Hatter's usual slightly mumbled nonsense. She sighed and resigned herself to the scientific mind of her once-enemy, now-again-friend.
Well, at least Hare hadn't completely broken-
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"
...never mind.