When I woke up, I could see that the sun would soon be setting. Oh, so it really was late afternoon, yes? It was few of my days that were like this. Days where my thoughts came the moment I opened my eyes — in that order. Usually it was vice versa.

These days were a blessing.

I wish I had a different kind of job. Anything is better than this. Then again, that is probably what the miner says about tuberculosis.

As the first thing that morning I sigh. Sigh about my rough life with no order and no need for so.

I'm tired, I feel that now. And I have headache. My stomach aches, and so does my throat from vomiting last night.

But I enjoy these pains. As long as I feel them, I know that I am conscious. Even the things I can not feel are a proof: my right ear and the tips of my toes are numb. I haven't felt them for years.

I raise myself up but my vision is blurred, so I stand still for a few seconds in order for my blood to reach my eyes. Not that my eyesight is very good when working optimally, though. Also, I feel nauseous even though emptying my inner totally last night.

I throw up every night. It hasn't always been like that, it got worse over the years.

After gaining balance, I walk to the mirror. I expected it: my eyes are surrounded with solid black circles, contradicting the white mask that covers my once almost natural looking features, now they're dominated by whatever my skull looks like, and my hair... oh, dear... at the top it is a rose-like dark red: flat and dark, it has never seen sunlight. And the rest is a carrot-ish nest.

Carrot...

The word that spelled my doom. This is why some nouns shouldn't be verb-ified.

I reach for the brush that I have not used for months and start running it through the nest. My hand is shaking but I manage to reduce it to a more hay ball than nest looking pile.

But that is it. I cannot stand the sight anymore, and I walk away from the mirror.

Hm, mirror... could a poor fire gilding glazier somewhere be sharing my fate? Then I am sorry to ever have bought that mirror.

I will try to eat breakfast — even though it is late afternoon. I have some leftover lemon cake from yesterday's tea party.

Then again, the others will most likely drop by sometime soon. I should try and do the dish wash while I still can. So that is what I do. I know no one else in the universe who enjoys dish wash as I do.

I'm right: while I'm laying the table, I hear Thackery's creaky voice yelling behind me:

"Tarrant! Tarrant! I'm here for Tea Time!"

I turn around. He freezes.

"T... Tarrant..."

"What?" I kind of snap. I know perfectly well what: I'm wearing sunglasses. I hate those. But today the sunset is really sharp. And... And my head aches.

"Is this another Clear Day?"

I resume laying the table orderly while sighing. "It's good we're on first names with each other. I'm not feeling very high today... least of all at the top."

We're both silent for a moment.

"Can you wack your ears?" I ask.

"What? Sure I can, are you crazy?"

One would think that doing it would be the natural response. But that is not his logic. Usually it ain't mine either.

"No, I am not," I mumble.

Not today at least. And I cannot stand the thought of tomorrow and the days that follow. Not today, but if I ever have another one of these days, I guarantee it'll be my last day at all.

The Dormouse arrived five minutes later, but the moment she got seated, she fell asleep.

Chess is late as usual. But I wait patiently for him before serving the tea. I cannot let it get cold. The time mostly passes with Thackery babbling nonsense while I try to not listen.

But then, there he is. Out of the blue(smoke). His grin wider than ever.

"Hello, Chessur."

"Tarrant, you aren't lisping."

"No."

"Do not tell me..."

"Oh, yes."

"Oh, no."

The others hate it when I'm like this. They don't recognize me. It is understandable. Or rather not, but you know what I mean.

Chess eyes the neatly arranged silverware and dishes. "Young man! What an awful way to lay a table! This place is clean!?"

He is probably joking. Chess is sarcastic and cynical, not nuts.

I drop my head in my hands. Ow, that hurt.

"Chess... I'm not young."

The cat's grin changes into a playful smirk. "Nah... you're only... what are you?"

Another realization strikes my mind. How ironic.

"Actually... today I'm 53."

The cat lifts his eyebrows. He almost spits out the tea from pure surprise. "T-today!?"

Wow, the Cheshire cat... startled. What a sight. And what a day it is today. February 29th. The day I was born, luckily. However, I would want that day to never occur, ever. And not just because I would like to never have a birthday. No, I would like it to have been the last leap day 57 years ago. Then I would have avoided all this madness. All this suffering. All this... life.

"Today we're celebrating only you, my friends."

I lazily drop down in my chair at the end of the table, sighing.

"Aw, cheer up, Tarrant! Let's have some cheers with tea!" Thackery cried.

"— You said, cheerily," I added.

All were quiet for a moment.

"Yeah, go ahead," I said shrugging, gesturing.

"Are... are you not going to lead us?" Mally asked sleepily. Hm, she had woken up.

"Sorry, I ain't much of a leader today," I muttered. Now I felt like falling asleep... again... Then again Marie Curie would likely take over soon. She's ahead of my time, but time has left me. Anyway, that's what I call it. Try pronouncing that name ten times in a row faster and faster. Then you will get it.

"Oh, well!" Thackery spoke. "Seems I'll be the cheerleader then! Cheers!"

Everybody, including me — cause well, my mood was bad, but it doesn't mean my manners were so — raised their cups and drank. Well that would mean I drank. Chess made the tea disappear just before it landed on his tongue. Mally got crushed under her cup as it was too heavy for her — you see, I hadn't had time to wash any cups in her size and stubborn as she was, she hadn't let me do it later wanting to take on the challenge. Thackery threw the tea in one direction, then the cup in the other.

"SPOOOOOOOOOOOOON," he said.

"I think you should keep that activity your own business," Chess commented.

"Huh?" the hare said confused.

"Chess, seriously?" I said sarcastically.

Chess grinned. As usually. "So, the Mad March Hare... doesn't get my joke about... spooning."

"Huh?" the hare repeated. "A spoon is cutlery," he stated, holding up the tiny piece of silverware.

Chess grinned once more. Wider, if even possible. "Yes... Cuddle-ery!" then he choked on his own laughter.

"What?" Thackery kept questioning.

I sighed. Deeply.

"WHAT?" he repeated.

Chess gave a cheeky look. Well, more so than his regular face, that is. "You see, Thack-" he began in a warm-mocking tone.

"-Here!" Rolling my eyes, I poured more chun mee into their cups. "Have, some tea. Stay hydrated, as they say."

"TEA," Thackery stated intensely staring down at the greenish-yellow liquid in his cup, as if had it been a ghost.

Chess deadpanned. I ignored it.

"Tarrant, how about you stay hydrargated for some time? We like you better like that," he muttered dissatisfiedly.

I snickered. I had to laugh at that joke. It was sharp, it was perfectly delivered, it was... Cheshire Cat.

The laughter died out quickly though.

"You okay?" the cat asked, voice deep and serious.

I stared at my tea, much like Thackery. Stirred it with an amalgam spoon. "I feel... pain... everywhere," I said. "And when I try to retreat from them to my mind... I find pain in there."

Chess teleported to my lap and purred. Like any cat. Which he was not.

"Trying to sympathize, I see?"

"By what?" Chess asked, obviously knowing what I referred to and most likely also the majority of the rest fo the conversation.

I would follow his track. Usually they ended somewhere good. "Acting like you're being that part of yourself that is what some call... sensical."

"What do you mean acting?" he bursted.

"Oh, do not give me that! You're the strangest cat alive. Something like lying in my lap purring... Don't get me wrong, that's much appreciated, but I don't think you can imagine what it's like to be split in two personalities like this."

Chess' smug smile appeared again. "What do you mean? I sometimes do that." He held a short break, standing up on his legs staring me into my eyes. I could see their reflection in his. Grayish turquoise, like anyone's. "Listen. I am a Cheshire Cat. A cat like no one else. Which makes me the Cheshire Cat. True, I do float in the air, true, I do talk, and that in riddles, true, I do teleport and transform my body. But I do, sometimes, purr. I do, sometimes, lick my paws. I do, sometimes, say meow. All the while it doesn't make me a different cat. Both are my habits, and I wouldn't be the Cheshire Cat without them."

"You did it on purpose," I simply stated.

"I naturally get the urge. When I'm serious, I return to my nature, Tarrant. For example when feeling pity."

"Cat, it's not so simple. You live in perfect harmony with the two. But my nature and my person disagree. They aren't suited for living with each other..." I sighed again. "Often I wish I could kill one of them. Cause I do not see how else I am ever supposed to find peace."

Chess didn't speak for a while. He then gravely talked: "You might not. Now, do you need it?"

I glared at him, confused. "What do you mean do I need it!?"

"Do you?"

Was the cat stupid? "Of course, this is hell!" I shouted. I turned my head. Mally had almost awoken from her sleep — or collapse, whatever caused her unconsciousness.

Chess snapped back playfully: "And why is it hell, Tarrants? Is it really because of your arguing or is it because your little council in there doesn't accept conflicts?"

"It is!.." I paused. Okay, now he mentioned it, what was it? "...It is... for Heaven's sake, you're right," I mumbled.

"Don't you see," Chess went on. "The existence of the fight is what troubles you. Not the content. But the 'two of you' are both dissatisfied about it. Neither suffer at the hands of each other nearly as much as they do together. I am in no way glorifying lasting exposure to toxic chemicals or dissociative personality disorder, but the latter I believe isn't your case as you 'both' always seem to have the same goals. Your ways are the only things that vary. I believe it is just a much more extreme version of what is commonly referred to as simple reasoning. It is a strength, Tarrant. Every day is different — for everybody. Your mood and your perspective will vary no matter what. The trick is that you have a lot of views and perspectives, and very different. Clearly, it must be hard handling them all sometimes. But let me tell you a secret which is not so much a secret anymore: only the greatest of minds are able to at all. It is this mix of so different kinds of views, that ever present critique, that consideration that makes you the great revolutionary leader who took care that none of us got hurt till we reached Mirana. It was your plans, un-up-make-able, over complicated plans, that saved us severally. I don't see how someone with a mind that colorful and flexible can possibly have such a black-white-seeing soul. Reasonability is a gift, and most here lack it. I know only you and Mirana who actually possess it."

"Th... thank you, Chess," I whispered.

He hadn't broken eye contact with me, making sure I'd listen closely to every word.

"Besides," he continued. "it isn't like you are less mad these 'clear days'. Being depressive is an illness too, you know," he finished sending a somewhat sincere smirk if those exist.

I could cry if it wasn't because the tea had totally drained me from water. Tea doesn't hydrate the least bit, I can tell you. Chess, once again, laid down with his tail twirled around him.

"Hah," I replied. "had not you just come with an excellent answer to my long persuaded questions about life, I would've hit you in the face for that," I joked.

"That is because you know I'm right," Chess mumbled back. "And, no, you wouldn't, you would miss."

"Evaporating is cheating. You're a very cheating cat."

"It is pronounced 'Cheshire Cat."

We laughed. Sincere laughter. Thackery's crazy laughter joined in. Until now he had apparently been lovestruck by a piece of granite he had found on the ground. Understandable, as it was getting dark and the moonlight did shine perfectly at all the little crystals in its structures.

But seriously speaking, it was a stone!

I have always believed that a sickness should never be accepted as a part of the person. That a suffering should not be regarded as something others need to respect. But I have figured where the line goes: if the suffering is something that can be changed by the individual they really shouldn't be encouraged to embrace it and live with it as a part of their self. Accepting it will stop them from growing and evolving. But if they cannot change it, it thereby being another simple condition of life, accepting is the only way of moving on.

Marie Curie has me physically. I cannot sleep for more than five hours, and I often cannot keep food or drink down my throat for a very long time. My finger are red, and my toes feelingless. It should not surprise me seeing vermillion blood if I accidentally sting myself with a needle.

But she does not have me mentally. I have her. When I did not want her, I hated the misbalance she created in me. But self hatred is a one ingredient recipe for doom.

So, living with her might not be easy, but it ain't impossible. Therefore I still have six things to find and believe in, as this one cannot count.

But I'm always too late up for breakfast anyway, so it I ain't concerned.

Thank you for reading the story. It is my first AiW-fanfic. I just hope it wasn't too messy or confusing. Anyway, here are some notes that might help if you're confused:

*"hydrargated" was a word I made up from "hydrargyrum"

*chun mee is regular Chinese green tea

*the process of making hats with mercury was referred to as "carroting" due to the orange color the felt would take