Yugi Meets..... Part 5

"OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!" she exclaimed so loud that all the birds in the trees flew away and every person and card standing in the garden cringed at her voice.

Yami quickly turned his head and his face turned pale white at the sight of the queen. If he didn't act quickly enough, not only would his little one loose his head, both he and Duchess Mai would loose their heads  for "betraying the Queen of Hearts," as she would normally say after she sentenced someone to be beheaded.

"Little one," Yami whispered sweetly into Yugi's ear, trying to get the young lookalike to calm down, since he was so tense. He pulled Yugi's pants back up, zipped the zipper, and buttoned the button on his pants and he swung the strap of the pendant around Yugi's neck. "Listen to me, Aibou. I need you to run, otherwise I will loose you and I do not want that. Keep this pendant with you, too."

"B-B-But, Y-Y-Yami…" Yugi stuttered quietly to said person. " Wh-Wh-What about y-y-you?"

"Don't worry about me, little one," Yami answered quietly, purring a little to ease him. "I will be fine. Just go. Now. I will distract them for as long as I can."

"Cards!" the Queen of Hearts called as the cards approached her. "Send this boy to be beheaded for betraying me!"

The cards approached Yugi and were just about to grab him to drag him away, when Yami jumped in front of Yugi, hissing and baring his teeth to the cards and to the Queen of Hearts. The cards backed up in fear, holding their swords close to their chests just in case Yami were to pounce, but the Queen of Hearts sneered at the sight of Yami protecting Yugi.

"Yami, how dare you protect that-that-that pity excuse for a boy!" she exclaimed, stomping her foot down on the ground. "You are to protect me and me only! We are meant to be together!"

Yugi, seeing his chance to escape, scurried to his feet and ran as fast as his little legs would let him. The Queen of Hearts, seeing him running out of the garden, screamed so loud that Yami's sensitive cat ears rang and the cards had to cover their ears from her high-pitch scream.

"AFTER HIM!!" she screamed to the cards. "DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY!!"

But Yugi was getting away. He was dodging everything that got in his way. Whether it was roses bushes, bushes shaped like hearts, walls, or any other cards, nothing was going to stop him from escaping. He could hear the cards coming and they were coming in packs like wolves and he sprinted through the garden. He arrived at the maze in which he came out of, the first place he saw the cards painting the white roses red. He stopped by the entrance to the maze and looked back, only for a couple seconds since he saw the cards coming along with the Queen of Hearts.

'Yami….' he thought as he held the pendant between his fingers. He came out of his thought of Yami and ran through the maze. The cards and the Queen of Hearts followed him into the maze, some cards tried going other directions to cut him off, but every time they thought they caught him, Yugi somehow managed to get to another path of the maze.

Suddenly, Yugi saw a door up ahead. He didn't remember a door being there before when he came walking into the maze. Suddenly he recognized that door: it was the door that lead him into Wonderland. What on Earth was he doing here? Yugi approached the door, thinking that this door that brought him into Wonderland would bring him home, and grabbed the handle of the door and tried to force the door open.

"Hey! You know, I am still locked!" exclaimed the door, his face squinted in pain from having his nose, or the doorknob, pulled.

"But the Queen of Hearts!" Yugi said as he looked over his shoulder to see if the Queen was coming with the cards. He was still worried about both Duchess Mai and Yami. He looked back at the door, the fear in his eyes growing as he heard the Queen's voice getting closer and closer to where he was. "She's coming after me! I must escape and go back home! I really want to go home!"

Yugi really did want to go back home. He missed his Grandpa, who was king of the country, he missed his sister Anzu, he missed his pet kitten Diana, he missed the servants and the maids who worked everyday in the palace, he missed the palace gardens, he missed everything he could think of about home. As the Queen's voice got closer and closer, Yugi began to panic and he frantically pulled on the knob, making the door almost scream.

"Wait a minute, young man, you are home," the door said, earning a puzzling look from Yugi. "See for yourself, young man."

The door opened his mouth, which was the keyhole of the door, and Yugi peeked through it. To Yugi's surprise, he saw himself! There he was sitting under the cherry blossom tree, fast asleep with Diana curled up in his lap. He was in the same spot from where he saw the white rabbit come walking by him.

"Why… why that's me!" he said in a surprised tone. "And I'm asleep!"

"Don't let him get away! Off With His Head!" came the voice of the Queen. Yugi looked over his shoulder to see the Queen and the cards come running towards him and once again he panicked. There was only one thing to do: wake himself up. He knew that this had to be a dream if he was seeing himself asleep under the tree.

"Yugi, wake up! Please wake up, Yugi!" he exclaimed through the keyhole, banging on the door a few times to see if that would wake himself up. The Queen and the cards were getting closer and closer to him. Yugi shut his eyes, waiting for the worse to happen. But it did not come.

"Yugi… Yugi… Yugi… Yugi…" called a voice. " Come on, Yugi, wake up."

Yugi opened his eyes and looked up to see Anzu's face, her calm brown eyes staring into his amethyst eyes. Yugi closed his eyes again…. Wait... Anzu's eye?! Yugi shot right up, waking Diana up from her nice cat nap and waking himself up. He was finally home, or was he home the whole time and he just dreamt up Wonderland. Yugi down at the ground, his eyes filling with sadness. He guessed that Yami was made up too…

"Are you fully awake yet, Yugi? You were out for a few hours," Anzu asked him as she reached her hand down to help him up.

"I-I think I am… but I had the strangest dream…" Yugi answered as he took his sister's hand and was pulled up onto his feet. He brushed some of the dirt off his pants.

"I dreamt that I went to a world beyond ours where things were different from ours, like-"

"-how about you tell me while we walk back to the palace," Anzu interrupted as she pulled Yugi in the direction of the palace, which could be seen from where Yugi and Anzu were. "We need to get home, it's time for dinner."

"Oh, all right. Come along, Diana," Yugi said as he was being pulled away by Anzu. Diana scurried alongside Yugi, and together they set off for their home.

As they walked home, Yugi told Anzu about everything that happened in his dream. He told him about how he followed a white rabbit name Ryou down his rabbit hole, which lead him to world of Wonderland, how he had to go through a small door by shrinking himself by dinking a small bottle, but since he didn't have the key he had to grow big by eating some little cakes, but he grew so big that it upset him to the point where he was crying. He then told her that he shrunk himself back down, fell into the bottle, and the water from his tears went through the keyhole and beyond the door. Then he landed on shore where he saw some animals dancing around a rock trying to get dried, but the tide kept coming in and kept getting them wet.

"Who's idea was it to dance around a rock when trying to get dry when it is making them more wet than usual?" Anzu asked as she interrupted Yugi's story.

Yugi explained to Anzu that a dodo named Tristan told the animals that they would get dry, but he was the only one who was getting dry. He continued his story by telling her about seeing the white rabbit again and went after him through a forest and ran into two crazy twins named Marik and Bakura. They were getting on his nerves with their crazy, unusual ways, so he went along his way. He told her next about arriving in a garden after shrinking himself again from eating a carrot he picked out of the ground and came across flowers that sang songs for him. But their idea of him being a weed drove him away from them since he told them he wasn't a flower.

"With your hair, you could be," joked Anzu as she and Yugi arrived outside the palace.

As they walked in, Yugi told her about the caterpillar named Seto who was sitting on a mushroom, smoking from a hookah and was creating words and other things from the smoke. With Seto's help, Yugi was able to grow from eating the sides of the mushroom in which Seto was sitting on, after Yugi turned him into a butterfly. Yugi told Anzu about how he grew so large that he was as tall as the trees and that he disturbed a bird and her nest.

"She kept calling me a serpent and I tried to tell her I wasn't, that I was a little boy," Yugi said to Anzu as the walked up the marble staircase that lead them into the dinning room. "But she did not believe me! That darn bird!"

Anzu laughed and asked him to continue. She found Yugi's dream to be very interesting. Yugi told her that he was able to shrink himself to being small again by eating the other side of the mushroom. He then told her that he had to lick the one side of the mushroom and he grew back to his normal height and he traveled along a path into a forest. He explained about the forest being very dark and very confusing since the signs he saw on the trees were giving different directions and the paths were going in all different directions.

Suddenly Yugi stopped in front of the door to the dinning room and placed his hand on the wooden door, but he did not open it. Instead he looked down at the ground, remembering that he had met Yami in that same forest. Anzu, with half of her body through the one door, looked at Yugi.

"Yugi, are you coming in?" she asked him worriedly. "You can tell me the rest later, if you would like."

Yugi nodded his head and slowly opened the door. Inside the dinning room was a very long, maple wooded table decorated in different types of foods. There were five maple wooded chairs lined up the sides of the table, two on the right side, two on the left side, and one at the head of the table where their Grandpa would normally sit. Above the table was a golden colored chandelier that lit up the whole room in a brilliant radiance in which no shadows would be able to hide from the light. The windows also helped light up the room by drawing in the light from the sun and keeping it into the room until night time came.

"Ah, good. Welcome home children," Grandpa said as he stood up from his place at the table. "Please come and sit, children. Our guests have just arrived before you did and they are ready for a fine meal."

Anzu took her spot at the table next to one of the guests. She was a young looking woman with very long blonde hair. She was dressed in very nice clothing and the color of her clothes shone radiantly under the light of the chandelier, making her very beautiful. Her lavender colored eyes were watching Yugi as he approached his seat on the other side of Anzu.

"Yugi, Anzu, this is Duchess Mai," Grandpa introduced, practically making Yugi almost jump out of his clothes at the name. That was the same name as the Ugly Duchess from his dream, but it couldn't be the same person…. could it? "She will be joining us for dinner."

"Very nice to meet both of you, Prince Yugi and Princess Anzu," Mai said as she stood up and curtsied to them both. "Your Grandpa, the King, told me everything about you."

"Welcome to our kingdom, Duchess Mai," Anzu said as she curtsied to Mai. "It is an honor to have you here tonight."

"And this…" Grandpa said as he directed his attention to the other guest who was sitting across from Mai. "Is Duchess Mai's son."

Yugi looked down at the boy and his eyes widen. The boy looked up at him, his eyes reflecting in Yugi's amethyst eyes, and smiled sweetly to Yugi.

"Hello little one…"