The City beneath the Sea, or The Bedraggled Dragonfly.
Alice, my teardrop, my backward glance~
I am sorry, for I could not protect you.
A million mysterious fathoms away I recieved your letter my hideous betrayal in the same day. For they were going to kill me, my mhelancholy, the missive I carried to the King of England contained, like a bad tasting tea-packet, like a tin of sardines, nothing so honourable as my own warant of death, signed in the Hatter's hand, notorised by the Caterpillar.
Can you imagine, my dione sidhe, my banshee, my mighty roar? My horrible bellow? Believe me, I struck down the mizzen in my fury, and had nearly succeeded with the main by the time that the crew-- brute band of pirates that they were! Subdued me, shoved a tiny cake in my mouth, tied me to a tun of grog and tossed me overboard.
I sank for centuries, my caloo, my callay, or so it seemed, a sproutling sea-serpent rendered helpless by decending booze. But when I landed, it was in a marvellous subaqueous city, wreathed in the sea-bottom darkness all purple and inky black. There I was found by a fish girl of about your age, with long stringing hair the blood-red anemone color, and, after consuming the grog, she popped me in the bottle and kept me there.
Alone in the cramped and dark, my love, I waited. I thought about your compromised paws and remembered the way they wised to curl in my mane, stroke my scales, and smooth the lapels on my crimson waistcoats. And I could not remember a time when you were not my favorite sigh, my charming agony, or, more simply, my girl. And I dreamed of your hair in the sun and in ribbons, the only light in my deep, dark prison.
Finally, I escaped. Don't ask me how, my whimper, my lostling, but escape I did. And upwards I sped and out of the sea, guided towards the shore and thee by the dolphins and the albatrosses, shaking the salt off of my wings and heaving to, heavily.
Last night, I found you, sleeping in a thicket of sand and yourself, and the stars and the old familiar fur of my mane spun about you in colors that Christian never dreamed of in his most daring ballgown. I called and called and nibbled your earlobe, but in my minute state, my voice was var too tiny for you to hear me. I clung to your ear like a designer cuff and slept fitfully for some hours, before giving up and curling in the sagauro, to write this.
And that is where I am, my magnifying glass, my desert bloom. I am sitting here between two spines in the left armpit of your friendly neighborhood cactus, to small to protect you or even myself from the hugeness of this vasty plain. I am almost ashamed to disclose myself in this condition.
But here I am.
your bedraggled dragonfly,
Jabberwock.
