He knocks at her door early one morning, before the sun has quite managed to clear the horizon. "Come with me," he says, before taking her hand and leading her through the forest, towards the table. They pass through the clearing and around his house, where they come to a row of brambles. There's a tunnel cut through them, low to the ground on the side facing the house, and she crawls through after him.

Inside is a garden. The earth is warm and soft and slightly damp beneath her palms; when she straightens up, it clings to her and she is strangely hesitant to brush it it away. Morris takes her hand again. "The new cuptree is blossoming," he tells her. "I thought you'd want to see."

He leads her past rows of strawberries and butter-bushes, past a towering breadfruit tree and a prickly blackberry shrub with the berries just beginning to ripen, until they arrive at a slender tree with ashy bark and low-hanging, silver blossoms about the size of a walnut. Hatter can see curves of pale pink porcelain poking out between the petals.

"It's lovely," she says, crouching to examine the nearest one. The cup inside is larger than the flower that cradles it, and it has a gilded rim and a silvery pattern of thorns climbing from its base. Morris beams at her.

They harvest the cups together, packing them gently into padded crates where they can harden. The fresh cups are warm and slightly soft, and when they come free from their flowers the petals drift down in lazy spirals.


AN: Scarlet Phlame wanted to know where the Tea Party got their cups from, and also some gardenfic. This is what happened.