Who: Alyssa, Ned, Peter What: a feast. Where: Wonderland feast When: Sept. (Ivory’s feast) Warnings: a little bit of chaos and brief mentions of violence
Alyssa, of course, went and greeted Ivory warmly with a hug as soon as the Red Queen arrived at the feast. Tonight, since she attended as a guest and not officially, Alyssa wore a red corset dress over silver and red leggings with a silver mushroom shaped clip holding back her hair. She’d learned long ago to not let her hair flow free during a feast. No crowns or anything else adorned her person.
She took a seat, next to Ivory, though, and waved when she saw Peter and Ned. Their relationship changed a bit when she returned, but Alyssa herself changed after being home for a decade. Obviously she pointed at the seats next to her, as Morpheus sat on the other side of Ivory. They’d been friends longer than Alyssa lived.
Feeling under her chair, Alyssa reached for her mallet, waiting for the magic words The Feast has begun. Any minute now, as she could smell the roast gooses approaching.
Ned felt weird in his Steampunk outfit He spoke quietly to Peter as they walked into the feast.. “Okay so I'm liking the top hat, but a belt on my shoulder?” Ned moved his arms a little to try to ‘break in’ the strap thing, but it seemed it would need some more time than just a minute or two.
When he saw Alyssa he raised his hand and waved a bit wildly we've got a couple of looks but Ned ignored them. Admittedly Alyssa looked really cool. The that she wanted them to sit with her was really cool too, although it also made Ned feel a little worried he was going to mess this up somehow. Sitting near Alyssa and her husband many people would be looking at them. Well, maybe not him. People didn't always look at him. Still he wanted to make sure he made a good impression.
When he got up to the throne he did a big bow to Ivory, then to Morpheus and finally Alyssa before he took a seat. That’s when he noticed the mallet in Alyssa’s had. “Uh… are we playing croquet?”
Steampunk really wasn’t Peter’s thing, either. It wasn’t that Peter didn’t think it looked cool (it did), it just didn’t feel him. Just like Ned felt out of his element, so did Peter. But when in Wonderland, do what the Wonderlandians do. He just hoped his discomfort wasn’t too obvious.
“I’m really not good at croquet,” Peter said under his breath, just loud enough for Ned to hear him. It was one of those things that Ned would know if he still had his memories, but since he didn’t…
Ivory nodded a greeting at the bow. Morpheus grinned, cocky bastard, but returned his attention to Ivory. Right now? He’d ignore Alyssa ever so slightly after the run-in with Kenny. Not that she blamed her husband. At least he greeted her friends when Alyssa introduced them.
“You look nice.” No sooner had they sat then Ivory called for the first course to be served. Alyssa clapped her hands in glee at the sight of the goldfish and popped it into her mouth. She turned to Ned and Peter. “Not croquet.”
Ivory called out, “Let the feast begin!” A cooked goose jumped off the table and started to run. Alyssa grinned. “It’s time to go catch dinner!” Netherlings all around them jumped up and started to chase the goose.
This felt like meeting the Queen of England except you were from a different planet and didn’t speak the language. Metaphorically, of course, since everyone seemed to speak English.
Ned was still kind of reeling over Alyssa eating a goldfish that it took him a second to process everything else. “Uh, what?” He stood up because others stood up, but his brain was still lagging.”What, what?!” He was not good at running. God, he was going to go hungry.
What –
Peter blinked.
What was going on here?
Peter was accustomed to the strange and unusual; it came with the whole superhero business. But right now, not much unlike Ned, his mind was struggling to process what he was seeing.
“Come on!” Peter’s hand snapped to Ned’s wrist and he dragged him forward. “We might be able to catch him with my web-shooters.”
If they managed to slow him down enough to get a good shot on him. The spider senses only worked so well and geese, well.. geese were really mean.
Alyssa took to the air with her wings and mallet. She cut a path as the goose ripped off part of its body to taunt the feast attendees and grinned when it landed next to the boys. “Dinner!”
When she landed next to them, Alyssa shrugged. “Your reaction isn’t much different from my first feast. You get used to it.” Her smile took on a touch of madness. “Come on.” Her hands looped through Ned’s and Peter’s. The goose, unfortunately careened into a pig/deer Netherling and it squealed as the goose just managed to escape. And ran right into Ned.
It was definitely chaotic. Ned remembered that Alyssa had said there was a lot of chaos in Wonderland, but his imagination apparently was nothing compared to reality. Ned was a bit distracted by trying to figure out of the Netherling was omre pig or deer that there was a delay about the goose.
Did he had a mallet? Yes. Did Ned think to use it? No. Instead he reached down as if to give the goose a hug. It was really weird picking up a moving, cooked goose before that had no head or feathers, though he had no idea what it was like to pick up a live, feathered goose either.
“I got it! I got it!”
It unfortunately smacked Ned in the face with its own drumstick which had Ned releasing the goose. Ow
Peter’s spider senses went off and the very second that Ned relinquished his hold on the waterfowl, he shot off a spray of webfluid from his webshooters. The goose let out a series of loud, distressed honks as it was pinned against Ned’s body for a second time.
Peter cringed. Probably not his smartest move.
“Sorry, it was total reflex!”
By this point, Alyssa found herself doubled over from laughing so incredibly hard. Morpheus walked over when he heard his wife howling with laughter.
“That’s certainly a new trick,” he commented when he saw the goose pressed against Ned.
Finally Ivory walked over and, being the kinder of the two queens, gently helped Ned.
Could cooked birds poop? Was he going to get pooped on?
Ned definitely did not expect to have a hot, delicious smelling bird webfliuded against himself. He looked at Peter as if saying ‘how could you?’ “Dude” Of course Ned knew Peter hadn’t really meant that to happen, but still. He had a goose stuck to him.
“Am I going to smell like KFC all night now?” Yes, he did ask this to Ivory who was helping him out of the spiderwebbing.
Peter couldn’t blame Ned for being peeved. He wouldn’t want to be attached to poultry, either. But at least someone was giving him a hand.
Peter took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair nervously. He was way out of his element right now. But at least he finally got to see Alyssa’s world instead of just imagining it.
Alyssa watched as Ivory helped. “We can get you other clothes, bro.” Thankfully the goose wouldn’t be pooping.
With Ned finally free, Ivory stepped back, with a kiss to Ned’s temple. “You should have seen Alyssa at her first feast.” To which Morpheus looked annoyed, since she’d been in love with Jeb.
“I learned.” Alyssa giggled and kissed Morpheus. “Cheer up. You got me in the end.”
Morpheus grabbed the poultry and bashed its head. “It’s now dead.” More meat for the feast appeared.
“We can sit if you prefer?” Alyssa wanted to hunt, but not if it overwhelmed Ned and Peter.
Ned could be oblivious to a lot of things, but somehow he knew that Alyssa wanted to do the hunting thing. He looked a little panicky. “No! No… I mean, I can promise I’ll be any good? But I can at least try. Or maybe I can be like the person who sees where the thing is running? Like your guy in the chair.” Ned only vaguely felt like he might have said something like that before, but it was like a distant memory. “...That’d be helpful, right?” Leave the hunting to people like Alyssa and Peter who were better at that sort of thing.
He did manage to glance to Morpheous for a moment, but the dude scared him so it was brief before he averted his eyes again.
“If you want to hunt, I can help.” Hunting wasn’t exactly something Peter had ever done before, but he had fished with Ben when he was smaller. “Plus, I know Ned’s a good guy in the chair.” From experience, even. “He’ll be able to help, even if he isn’t out on the field doing it himself.”
Alyssa grinned and grabbed Peter’s hand. “Ned, just shout out directions when you see food.” Morpheus intertwined his hand with his wife’s other hand, Ivory opting to stand with Ned and not leave him alone. Truly, Ivory was the kindest soul.