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Opening your eyes is difficult. Everything feels fuzzy and unreal. There's a blurry haze at the edge of your vision, constantly reminding you that something is Not Quite Right.

Music, loud and boisterous, is trumpeted from all sides. It's impossible to hear yourself think over all of the noise around you - and just when you think it couldn't get louder, explosion of color and sound dazzle the night sky above. There is no haven from the noise, save for your own two hands. But at least the fireworks are pretty.

The town up ahead seems to be in an eternal state of partying. Crowds line the streets, running and jostling one another as they blow noise makers and toast one another repeatedly. You have no idea what they're celebrating, but you know you will stick out like a sore thumb unless you join them. Someone hands you a sparkler and a glass of bubbly drink - and you're swept into the crowd before you have any say in the matter.

Your clothing has changed. Boils seem to be wearing red white and blue striped suits, and tall, ridiculous top hats. The women's fashion comes in many forms, but glittery champagne colored dresses are common, as well as outfits that match the men. It's time to make a decision about what you need to do, if only everyone could be quiet and let you think...

But one thing is certain. You are no longer home.

Carlos was dismayed. He woke up and his personal chariot was missing. where was the Jobberwocky? He looked around and spotted a few familur faces, Well sort of. Everything was turned on it's head and red white and blue. His pants turned into red and white stripes his collar grew and turned into a scarf that didn't quiet cover his mouth, and his coat was different. and he was wearing a hat. He liked hats.

Carlos wore a strange grin on his face but his eyes held confusion and shock. where where... he tried to turn his ears about to listen to all the nose and found they refused to move. He tried to create an illusion but it never came, tried to float and found himself planted.

He lifted his paws, originally aiming for his ears, and found they looked very strange. Fingers? Fingers? He flexed them and then let out a high pitched laugh. What was this. what was this? Someone shoved a sparkler into his new fingers. He tried to take a step forward but having never ever actually walked on two feet he fell on his face. Which only caused another peel of giggling.

But where was his friends. He recognized the others almost, changed as he was, but he had been with Mimsy. Where was his chariot?

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

He looked around for the Jabberwock. The strange ghoul with him, he didn't even know. Carlos was so confused. Was this part of his nap?

Failing to take down the homework assignment had not killed Mimsy, as it turned out. It had taken her somewhere almost as horrible as death, however, filled with racket and music and so, so many people. She raised her hands to cover her ears, caught a glimpse of pale skin rather than the teal tint of the golem, and paused.

Slowly, after one deep breath, she looked down. Braids, tipped with red dye, over a red sequined dress, over an unarguably humanoid (albeit lanky) body. Something had gone wrong. Something made her look like herself.

"Oh," she squeaked, as a reveler pressed a sparkler and flute of champagne into her hands.

Though she certainly should have been concerned that her cover was blown, or that something horrible was happening to either of her physical forms, she was too intrigued to worry. She tried to take in this new atmosphere piece by piece, but the boisterous crowd made that too difficult to achieve. In the meantime, she thought, it couldn't hurt to seek out her classmates.

"Caaarlooos," she called in singsong, voice barely raising above the noise. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here to find yooou?"

The dress was not too troublesome, but the sparkling stiletto heels on her feet were definitely a problem. She teetered around in them for a few steps, before finally giving up and tipping the glass up to drink some champagne. It wouldn't help, but why not, really.

She had all but given up on finding Carlos here - if he was even here at all - when familiar words caught her attention. Narrowing her eyes, she looked through the crowd in an attempt to find the source. None of them seemed to be reciting the poem, but she was sure that she heard it. She was so certain, in fact, that she focused so hard on finding him that she dropped the sparkler that had been handed to her.

When she bent to pick it up, she couldn't find it anywhere; there was, however, someone lying on the ground. That would explain why none of the passing partygoers were speaking the Jabberwocky.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son." She leaned towards him, fingers curled into 'claws', a wide grin spreading across her face. "Unless, by chance, you call yourself a cat?"

Now that they weren't being tussled every which way, Petro took the relative stillness (and he uses the term very loosely) to get a better look at himself. His face showed his distaste for his apparel, the jacket and shirt underneath were fine, they hid his multitude of scars, but the pants. The pants and the shoes. Tossing the sparkler, Petro used his newly freed hand to try and pull his shoes off. His feet and toes were begging to be freed when he heard someone hiss a command at him.

He turned towards the direction, his countenance grim, brown eyes hard, "What do y' mean normal? 'M normal!" he said, a little forcefully to the boil

The confirmation came as a relief, and Mimsy giggled pleasantly, reaching to poke Carlos on the nose with a decidedly clawless finger. He looked about as pleased to be here as she did, which made perfect sense to her, as most things to do with Wonderland tended to.

"Mimsy to you, remember?" she corrected, smiling down at him. "What an odd place this is. Dreadfully savage, isn't it?"

She feigned a pout and lifted him off of the ground, abandoning her glass to wrap her thin arms around him once more. It was easier to hold him now, without claws or wings or painfully pointy pieces; she settled him on her hip, carefully supporting him as she tried to remain upright in four inch heels without falling over.

Carlos scrunched up his nose at the poke but let it happen. He really didn't mind. He did try to lick it afterwards, but his tongue didn't reach. But he got what he ultimately wanted and that distracted him.

"All mimsy were the borogoves," he whispered into her ear giggling over their secret. Though she was female. Or was she male? Or was she a shape changer? He didn't know. He simply clung allowing his weight to become one with hers. He was a bit heavier now, but he didn't fidget and used those hands things to cling on.

"Here there, anywhere, this tree or that, it doesn' t matter to a cat. A nap is a nap."

Though he said nap his eyes followed everyone else just staring at all the things. His ears didn't work right so he turned his whole head to the next interesting sound and turned again eyes burly following a light or firework or person.

With a quirked brow at the remark of being normal, Ignatius pointed out the sparkler that the other had haphazardly tossed in his attempts to apparently strip himself of some clothing.

He didn't say anything about it, though. Not that anyone could really hear anything with all the noise.

Of course, that also meant he could remark on the other boil's urge to strip. "Look, I know we're in a party and a lot of people might holler if you keep trying to pull things off, but do you really want to draw that kind of attention?"

Especially considering he managed to side-eye another of their group attracting a woman that was far too old to be wearing those clothes. Yeuch.

(I should stop hitting preview)