“Ha! Take that, you monster! No one harms the princesses! Not while I’m around!” Rainbow Dash shouted from her position on top of the Hatter. She had him pinned to the ground and was stood upon his chest, her hooves digging into his ribcage. She leaned in close and carried on her aggressive rant “Not so tough now are you? You weirdo. Your nothing compared to the awesome power that is RAINB-”
Her triumphant gloating was cut short as she was surrounded by a golden aura and lifted off of the human. She was brought to eye level with Princess Celestia and held there, forced to look into the monarch’s eyes.
“Rainbow, would you care to explain to me why you just attacked an ambassador to Equestria? Who did nothing to provoke the attack? Who was in fact, merely greeting me. Not only did you nearly cause an international incident you also just assaulted one of my oldest friends. Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Her tone was calm but it lacked the usual gentleness that it held. Instead, behind the controlled voice of a royal, there was anger.
“Indeed, your manner was most uncouth young pegasus” Princess Luna added.
“erm…you see…I thought he was trying to strangle you and I got really worried and…well, I’m sorry…” Rainbow apologized, all of her adrenaline gone at the sight of the furious alicorn goddess. Her voice broke several times in nervousness and fear and sweat began to run down her face as she stammered out her apology.
Celestia considered the trembling pegasus before her. She looked into her eyes for a moment before breaking away to look at the Hatter, who was picking himself up and brushing some dirt off of his clothes.
“Hatter, I must apologize for such rude behaviour on behalf of my subjects. It appears that this young pony was concerned about my wellbeing. Are you quite alright”
He had ceased dusting himself off now and had reached down to gently lift up his hat from where it had been knocked during the assault. He looked at it carefully for a while, rotating it in his hands and checking for any damage. Then, most curiously, he looked inside the hat, staring deep into it for a moment before sighing in relief and placing it back in it’s rightful place upon his head. He looked down at himself before nodding in satisfaction and answering the Princess’ question.
“Oh yes, I’m perfectly fine my dear. You know what they say, no harm no foul, and since I don’t see a chicken around here at the moment that must mean that no harm happened here. It’s only logical,” he announced with a little half smile.
Celestia looked at him for a moment, she blinked a couple of times as her mind tried to digest what he had just said. She then gave the pony equivalent of a shrug and set Rainbow back down on the ground.
“Now then, after that bit of excitement why don’t we all return to our seats? It’s about time we got started and we have so much to discuss” The Hatter announced, clapping his hands together and leaping back onto the table. He ran quickly along it’s length, upsetting a cake that Fluttershy had just managed to rescue. The cake swayed for a moment before tipping into the trembling yellow pony’s lap. She looked sadly at the splattered cake, tears welling up in her eyes.
There was a smashing noise as a flying teapot broke on the Hatter’s chair. He had managed to duck out of the way at the last second and gave a sigh as he stood up.
“You know, if this violence continues we’re going to be at this all day”
The ponies searched around for the source of the projectile but nothing seemed to present itself. There was no pony in sight and none of the mares seated around the table had launched the teapot at their guest. Fluttershy left her seat and walked calmly over to some nearby bushes. She looked at them for a moment before speaking gently but forcefully to them.
“Come out now Angel, that was very naughty of you. Mr. Hatter isn’t here to cause any trouble”
The bushes shook for a moment before a small white bunny hopped out. He pointed angrily at the cake that still covered Fluttershy’s hooves. He was clutching a tea cup, which he hurled at the Hatter, who simple swayed out of the way and smiled.
“Now that does bring back memories, it’s almost as if I never left home. Angel was it? I don’t suppose you would be able to do a Scottish accent would you? Maybe shout something like ’you forgot your tea!’ No? Alright, I suppose I’m asking a bit much of someone who can’t even speak”
Once Fluttershy had managed to assure Angel that she was alright and had sent him home they all took their seats and began the party. Pinkie immediately began to devour what cakes had survived the Hatters cross-table journeys whilst the others were content with their tea, not really trusting confectionaries that had boot prints in them.
“So first things first, Celestia, how long has it been since we last saw each other?”
“I’m not sure how long it’s been for you but here in Equestria it’s been over a thousand years since last contact with Wonderland”
This revelation caused the Hatter to spit tea all over the table in front of him in a very un-gentlemanly manner. Once he had run out of tea in his mouth to spit he took another sip from the cup he held and continued to spit. He carried on in this fashion until all the tea in his cup had gone. By this time the Cheshire Cat had been forced awake by the sound of the Hatter’s rude behaviour. He looked lazily at the royal princess’ at the other end of the table, one eye still closed as if he was pondering if it was worth waking up for royalty.
“Hatter, what’s brought on this sudden behaviour? I thought Friday was tea spitting day, it's still Tuesday"
“Hmm? Oh yes, it appears that a thousand years have passed here in Equestria whilst it’s only been fifteen years in Wonderland”
“A thousand years? Well, I must say, princesses, you both have aged remarkably well. Why, you don’t look a day past two hundred”
The Royal Sisters inclined their heads politely at what could, hesitantly, be called a compliment.
“You say that it has only been fifteen years in your world. How curious, do you have any idea why there might be such a wide difference in time between our worlds?” Luna inquired
“Oh, I believe I may have the answer” Hatter and Twilight said simultaneously, both of them leaping from their seats in excitement. They looked at each other for a moment before Hatter nodded to her.
“After you my dear”
“Well, I believe that the magical radiation emitter that we call the Core has a way of distorting time. Upon the inner ring dimensions, such as Equestria, time would pass far more quickly than on Wonderland, which lies on the next ring in the sequence, and so time passes slower there. I wonder if there is a way I can test this theory…” she began to ponder for a moment before looking at the Hatter “Oh, I’m sorry, was that what you were going to say?”
“No, actually that sounds far more plausible. I was going to say that the time is different because I killed Time”
“…you killed time? What does that even mean? and how is that even possible?”
“With a song of course! Even since then Time has been very put out with me and made it so that it was always tea time. Jokes on him though, tea time is actually my favourite time”
Twilight stood there for a moment trying to understand exactly what he had just said. After a few moments had passed she stopped and sat down again, muttering something about how he was just like Pinkie Pie.
The pink party mare, sitting next to the Hatter, leaned over and whispered to him. “Nice reference to the older books, those Burton haters will probably enjoy that”
The Hatter looked at her with a smile and nodded in response. He turned back at the sound of Celestia speaking to him.
“So, my old yet surprisingly young friend, what exactly happened all those years ago that caused Wonderland to close it’s borders?” The alicorn of the sun asked
“That is quite a long story, but I may as well as start somewhere…so why don’t I start halfway through? Alright then, there was once a young girl called Alice…”