sunken ships || [ARIEL]

ISN'T IT NEAT?

[attr="class","next"]
"A very merry Unbirthday to you, Ariel!" Tarrant cheered in her direction. Laughing, Ariel lifted her teacup in toast-fashion before sipping at the tea that she'd been graciously given. "Why thank you!" she cheered, taking another sip. It was much better with the sugar than without but, unsure if Tarrant would agree or not, she kept that bit to herself. She definitely didn't want to be rude or provoke any hard feelings because he was named the Mad Hatter for a reason, after all. She didn't want to be the one to make him mad. Given their conversations over the past hour, however, she could quite see he was mad without her provoking the anger from him. Bits of pieces of his sentences were strung together in a weird way, and his mannerisms tipped Ariel off that he might not be all-there. But, even with his strangeness and oddities, Tarrant was quite a nice and genuine fellow, and so Ariel had no qualms with visiting him for tea when she needed company.

And although the clock on the table stayed 6:00 as it always did (though she wasn't sure why the Hatter simply didn't have it fixed), Ariel knew her time to leave was upon them. "I really must be going now, Tarrant, but thank you for a lovely tea!" she told him. After minutes of him begging her not to leave, as the fun was not yet done, she finally was able to leave the shop. It wasn't as though Ariel really wanted to leave because she highly disliked being left alone unless on some sort of adventure that kept her mind from wandering, but she had other things to do. She had a few errands she had to run for herself as a Gatherer - that is, a person who gathers things from around Wonderland that others might need, and she sells them for money or trades for something she needs. It was actually quite an interesting job, and being in charge of herself was the best part. Ariel didn't like when people told her what to do and so having a boss might impose upon her moral values and general sense, so telling herself what to do seemed like the best solution to that problem. She got things done, had a sense of accomplishment, but did it on her own time and did her own business how she pleased, so things went swimmingly.

Heading toward the forest, Ariel couldn't help but continue to smirk about her outing with Tarrant. He was quite something, that was for sure. She loved the tea room that he kept. There was hardly ever any bad mouthing or negativity there. How could there be? After all, Tarrant and his friends were a riot and they kept the fun going all day and night. There were few times that Tarrant couldn't be bothered with a tea party, and those times were not particularly grand. His mind tended to get the best of him occasionally and it caused him duress, but Tarrant was not one of those people who could be easily consoled. He was a person who liked to be alone when he needed to sort things out in his mind. And maybe because he was doing the sorting, that's why he was so scattered - maybe he really did need someone else to help his mental state, but he would most always refuse this, and so Ariel stayed away when he needed to gather his thoughts. But those were rare occasions, mind you, and mostly Ariel enjoyed all of her visits to Tarrant and his tea room.

"Something orange...something...orange!" Ariel hummed to herself, cheering when she found an orange flower among a couple of bushes. She plucked it quickly and put it into her satchel, in a secure pocket on the outside so that the other lost things in her bag wouldn't crush it. It was for an old woman in the village and she was particularly picky about her things - but she also gave promising rewards, and so that was why Ariel continued business with her. Shaking off the old lady and her cross words, Ariel continued in search of a few more things - something sharp, something round, blueberries, a crisp apple, and some sort of home decoration. She sighed and leaned against a tree. Why did she take on so many tasks? She didn't know, but they were all to be delivered by tomorrow morning. Knowing that evening came whenever it pleased in Wonderland, Ariel pushed herself off the tree and hurriedly went on her way.

Her red hair bounced on her shoulders as she reached the outer edge of the forest near the village, having found almost all of her items. Ariel's hand was outstretched for the final item which was upon the forest floor - a round rock - when someone bumped into her. "Ouch!" she shouted instinctively, though she wasn't actually in pain. Well maybe a bit, but still. Ariel grumbled to herself as the girl continued to apologize profusely. She tried to untangle their bodies and then she realized, as the other girl tugged, that their hair had become a jumbled mess. "Oh geeze," she said, rolling her eyes before finally doing a karate-chop sort of move, though slowly, through their hair and, with a bit of pushing, they were free. Ariel massaged her scalp slightly before finally looking at the girl before her. Gee, was she pretty or what? "Uh, it's okay," she said, standing up and stretching her hand towards the girl. "It happens," Ariel finished, smiling.

CORDELIA CONSTANCE FLOUNDERS