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"Give me food, and I will live.
Give me water, and I will die."

"A fire"


Damn.

"How can you make 7 even?"

"Remove the 'S' From Seven and it becomes Even."


Damn this cat was good, or his riddles were that bad.

"What loses its head in the morning and gets it back at night?" THe kitsune asked, in one final attempt to stump the cat.

"Oh thats easy, the answer is me." The cat purred in reply, easily amused.

"HAH YOUR WRONG!" He exclaimed, finally getting one on the cat. Wait could the cheshire cat remove his head?

"But no, its a Pillow!"

Thankfully, the cat seemed only amused by his lame answer and provided him with the correct one rather readily.

"The answer is a time, it is eternally slow, though to those transient perhaps too fast."

Kiin rolled his eyes then, and was ready to take his leave. Until the cat started talking again, and proposed a little game. Games and challenges were always something that warranted a bit of thought, even if this one involved him coming up with a riddle for the cat. He'd never been very good with them, answering or formulating. But he'd heard quite a few before, so after clearing his throat he asked.

"I only have one eye and a long tail that I let fly. Every time I go through a gap, I leave a bit of my tail in the trap. What am I?"

There was a pregnant pause as the cat, still flickering into and out of sight, seemed to think on its answer. Eventually it offered an answer, and one that pulled the edges of Kiin's lips into a faint smile.

"Needle and thread," he answered, or rather, corrected the cat, who only smiled back. Kiin couldn't quite tell if it was upset with him or otherwise, but all the same this meant that he won.

The cat pulled through with its promise and dropped off a little treasure chest before disappearing, wide and unnerving smile and all. Wary or not, the Cheshire seemed only interested in riddles, so Kiin saw little reason to be all that worried. Without much more though he leaned down and picked up his spoils, then once again moved on.

» Side Quest: the Cheshire Cat's Tree completed. +1 level. +1 loot card.

"What has three legs but only uses one?"

"Death?" Millie guessed. The cat purred at her answer.

"I can run, but not walk. Thought is not far behind me. What am I?"

"What has three legs but only uses one?"

"You just asked that one!" Millie wondered if the cat was really as good at riddles as it insisted it was.

"Just checking that you are paying attention." the cat purred. "You don't seem to be very good at this game."

"The answer is death." Millie answered with a hint of irritation in her voice.

"What is flat but sharp at the edges?"

"A knife." Millie didn't even bother to remind the cat that it had asked her that last time she was here.

"At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen. What are they?"

"Hello."

The greeting drew Mimsy's attention skyward, towards the upper branches of a nearby tree. The smile atop it was familiar - she acknowledged it with a friendly wave, idly wondering if it was the same cat that she met before.

"Are you here for a story or a riddle?" it asked. She tilted her head.

"Neither." The response was not cold or harsh, simply honest. "I am not opposed to either, however. Would you like to ask me a riddle? Is there a story that would benefit me to hear?"

"If you will so indulge me," purred the cat, playfully twisting its tail into shapes that defied all of the laws of physics that she knew.

"I will so," she replied, an unavoidable smile meeting the one above her head, sharing its warmth.

"All right. Here goes the riddle! What is flat but sharp at the edges?" It swayed from side to side, as if it were attempting to distract her from the riddle, but the cat could have done nothing to tear her mind away from the riddle. Not this one. Her smile quirked - less friendly, more knowing - and she turned her eyes up towards the cat again.

"Ohh." The sigh was effervescent with a brewing laugh. "You do know me."

It made sense. This was Wonderland. There were no monsters here, each of them as unique and curious as the next. This was the place she escaped to, each time her world failed her. This was the place that asked no questions about her red, red hands and her broken soul that she could not answer. Not like the questions they asked in her world.

The cut continued to lengthen, the red continued to bubble past the glimmering stainless steel, and nobody answered his mother.

Her eyes were distant, glossy, euphoric.

"A knife," she murmured, five fingers resting comfortably against the center of her chest.
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