“Of course, the Giant King wouldn’t leave his treasure chamber unguarded. Damn,” Clover lamented before he shook his head to rid his mind of such pessimistic thoughts. “Well, there’s only one. It would be worse.” A determined expression settled over Clover’s face and he unsheathed his sword before giving Alister a cheeky grin. “We can take him!”

Alister gawked at Clover wide-eyed. “What? Are you crazy! We can’t go out there. Look at his arms…he could pick us up and snap us in half like a toothpick. We need a plan!”

Clover’s brow furrowed in confusion. “That is the plan. We attack him from both sides, and take him by surprise!”

“You’re forgetting the part where he’s the size of a freakin mountain!” Alister hissed and started to pace. Think, Alister, think.

Katrina’s voice flitted through his mind: Just paint something, Silly.

“That’s it! I know what I have to do!” Alister whipped out his paintbrush and began to paint on the stone wall of the castle.

Clover looked over his shoulder curiously. “What is it?”

“You’ll see,” Alister said as he continued to paint with a smug expression on his face. When the artist finished his painting it glowed with a golden light and seconds later a golden harp materialized in front of the duo, sitting on the stone floor.

“Is that what I think it is?” Clover asked, somewhat starry-eyed.

Alister nodded. “Yes. It’s the harp.” He reached out and experimentally strummed its strings. The harp instantly began to play on its own, and sweet, melodious music filled the air.

The giant turned and glared in their general direction. “Who goes there?” He walked over to stand protectively in front of the door to the treasure chamber, and held his enormous hammer aloft. “Show yourself, coward, and have a taste of mine hammer!” The giant was saying, when he yawned widely. His eyelids started to droop, and then his eyes shut. The giant swayed on his feet before falling over and landing on the stone floor with a thunderous thud.

“Problem solved.” Alister flashed Clover a cocky grin.

But, Clover was looking at the harp with a wary expression on his face. “That is the enchanted harp from the legend…”

“Yeah, so?” Alister arched an eyebrow at the White King.

“According to the legend it was destroyed by a giant who stepped on it,” Clover said with a frown and shot Alister a searching look. “How were you able to summon it here?”

Alister shrugged carelessly. “I didn’t summon it. I painted it.”

“And then, it became real…” Clover trailed off, his frown deepening.

Alister was starting to grow impatient. “Come on, I don’t know how long the enchantment lasts.”

“Right. Sorry.” Clover gave Alister an apologetic look. The giant had unfortunately fallen sideways in front of the door to the treasure chamber, and so Alister and Clover were forced to climb over the giant’s fallen body in order to get to the door to the treasure chamber.

Climbing over a giant’s stomach had to be one of the strangest things Alister had ever had to do. The rise and fall of the stomach as the giant breathed made the journey strangely perilous. The White King used his superhuman strength to push the gigantic door open once they’d reached it, and then the duo made their way inside.

“Whoo,” Alister whistled softly at the sight of all the treasure inside of the room. There were towering piles of gold coins, jeweled goblets, crowns, armor, weapons, ornate boxes, and jewelry. “Wow. Can we just…?”

Clover arched an eyebrow at Alister. “No.”

Alister pouted and his shoulders slumped. Clover was such a goody-two-shoes.

“Come on…keep your eyes peeled. The fishbowl must be in this room somewhere.” Clover said as they walked further into the chamber and looked around for any signs of the rumored fishbowl. That’s when Clover spotted it. “There! It’s up there! Look!” He pointed up.

Alister followed Clover’s line of sight, and spotted an antique table draped with a tablecloth, and with only one item sitting on it: a gigantic fishbowl. “Whoa.” The fishbowl’s dimensions were similar to an Olympic-sized swimming pool: fifty-meters-long and twenty-five-meters wide. But, the fishbowl was much higher than a pool would be at around twenty-five-meters.

Swimming around inside of the fishbowl were what appeared to be fish, at first, but when Alister narrowed his eyes at them he saw that they were in fact mermaids. “Real live mermaids!” Alister’s blue eyes sparkled. “What a wonderful painting opportunity! If I had known I would have brought a fresh canvas along with me.” He pouted.

Clover chuckled amusedly at the longing look on Alister’s face. “Perhaps, some other time. But now, we have an impossible task to complete: fetch a mermaid’s tear!”

Alister frowned. “And how exactly are we supposed to do that? When a mermaid cries…won’t her tears just dissolve in the water?”

Clover pointed at the bottom of the tank. “You see those pearls?” Alister nodded. “When a mermaid cries…her tears turn into pearls.”

Alister gawked at the sheer amount of pearls that covered the bottom of the tank. At first, he’d thought those pearls were decorative sand. “But…there are so many of them.”

A grim expression settled over Clover’s face. “The mermaids cry often because they long to be back in the ocean - their true home. Those mermaids are the last of their kind in Wonderland. They’ve been hunted and sold into near extinction.”

“Hunted?” Alister’s voice was laced with horror. “Why?”

“Not only are their tears valuable, but there are legends that if one consumes the flesh of a mermaid they’ll become immortal,” Clover revealed in a hushed tone.

“How barbaric.” Alister shuddered. “Are the legends true?”

“I don’t know. Nor do I want to know,” Clover said coldly.

Alister’s heart went out to those poor, trapped mermaids that were being kept as the giants’ pets or maybe an alternative food source. “How tragic. Isn’t there something we can do for them?”

Clover shook his head hopelessly. “It would be impossible to take them with us. So, unless you possess magic powerful enough to turn their tails into legs - there’s no hope for rescuing them.”

The duo approached the table, which was fifty-feet-high, and Alister stared up at it dismally. “How the hell are we going to get up there?”

Clover grabbed a hold of the tablecloth and tugged at it experimentally. He nodded to himself when it appeared to be strong enough to support his weight. “We climb, of course! Heroically!”

Alister gaped at the White King. “Uh…no. I’m afraid of heights, remember? It’s a miracle I made it up that bloody beanstalk!”

“Come on, Alister!” Clover grabbed Alister’s arm and shook him slightly. “Be brave! Be a hero! And climb!”

“Yeah, no. I think I’ll just, uh…” Alister spotted a bare table leg and smiled at the nice, flat surface it provided. “Paint myself some stairs.”

Clover shrugged lackadaisically. “Suit yourself then, Alister. Meet you at the top!” The White King said as he began to climb up the tablecloth swiftly.

Alister was suddenly reminded of the visual image of a Borrower climbing a table inside of a human’s house. He shook his head in amusement before whipping out his paintbrush and starting to paint a zigzagging staircase that became real as he painted it.

As soon as Alister had painted as many steps as he could reach up to paint, he hopped up onto the first step, and started to make his way up the staircase. The steps ascended to the right before they shifted directions and ascended to the left, and continued this way up the leg in a zigzagging pattern. When Alister reached the top step he simply painted more steps in order to continue his way up the table leg.

Alister successfully managed to reach the table’s surface in a matter of minutes. He even beat Clover. With a swagger to his steps, Alister walked over to give Clover a hand up, which the White King gratefully accepted. By the time he’d reached the top he was panting for breath. “Th-Thank you…” Clover wheezed. He was slightly hunched over as he took deep gulping breaths.

“You should have just taken the stairs,” Alister quipped dryly.

“That would have been far less heroic,” Clover argued.

“Masochist,” Alister accused teasingly. The duo walked over to the fishbowl, pressed their hands and faces against the glass and peered inside. Alister admired the bed of white, opalescent pearls that covered the entire bottom of the tank.

Inside the tank was an over-sized, open clamshell that Alister thought was probably a place for the mermaid’s to sleep. Alister’s attention was then drawn to the mermaids themselves. There were five of them, and they each had a different hair color: pink, blue, yellow, green and purple.

A pretty, blue-haired mermaid swam over to peer through the glass at Alister in an inquisitive manner. She pressed her hand against the glass where his hand was pressed to the outside of the tank. Alister flushed in response. “Um…hi,” he greeted awkwardly. Hey, she’s kinda cute.

The mermaid tilted her head at Alister before abruptly hissing at him while baring her sharp teeth.

“Eek!” Alister let out an unmanly squeak and stumbled backwards a few steps. Nope. What the hell had he just been thinking? Cute? Ha! All females were scary as hell! He really should have known better.

Clover burst out laughing at Alister’s antics. “I may have forgotten to mention that mermaids are known for being the most vicious and dangerous creatures of the sea! And like the giants they hunger for the flesh of man!”

Alister shot Clover an irritated look. “Oh, now you tell me. A little warning next time would be nice. They’re like piranhas, but if that’s true how the hell are we going to get a pearl away from them without getting eaten?”

“Well, I plan to do it like this.” Clover attached a rope to the pickaxe Alister had painted for him then started to swing it like a lasso before releasing the rope so that the pickaxe flew up into the air, and finally snagged on the lip of the fish tank.

Clover tugged at the rope to test the pickaxe’s hold, and nodded to himself when he decided it was secure enough. After that, Clover started to remove his clothes until he was down to nothing but a pair of white boxers with the pattern of green, three-leaf clovers on them.

At first, Alister thought the clovers were green polka dots since there were so many of them on the boxers. “You can’t be serious,” Alister remarked, when he realized what Clover’s intentions were. “Those mermaids will eat you alive! There has to be another way. A better way. A better plan…” He stroked his chin in thought.

Clover buckled the belt that had his sword and scabbard attached to it around his waist with hurried movements. “I don’t have time to sit around and discuss what a better plan would be. The eclipse will soon be over and I need a pearl to present it to Madeline! So, if you want to just stand there and think, feel free. But I must act!” Clover strolled over to the tank, grabbed the rope, and recklessly began to climb up the side of the slippery glass fishbowl.

Alister watched him climb in disbelief. He whipped out his paintbrush and stared intently at it. “Come on, Alister, think…there has to be a better way to get in that tank and steal a pearl!” He could paint a submarine on the glass surface or the tabletop, but…whatever he painted would materialize outside of the tank where it wouldn’t really do him much good.

He could do what Clover was doing - use a grappling hook, climb up the tank, and dive in. But, that would just be suicide. Those mermaids were not friendly guppies.

“Argh!” Alister let out a frustrated growl. He was out of ideas. Alister wrung his hands together nervously and watched as Clover successfully reached the top. The White King pulled himself up onto the lip of the tank and stood up. He unsheathed his sword with one fluid motion, and then fearlessly dove into the fish tank with a splash.

Alister continued to watch with baited breath as Clover swam down towards the pearls at the bottom of the tank. The mermaids hissed at Clover, and swam towards him, but the White King waved his glowing sword at them and managed to keep them at bay.

Clover swam all the way down to the bottom of the tank, and Alister watched as Clover picked up one pearl, hesitated for a moment, and then picked up one more. He looked through the glass, met Alister’s questioning look, and winked.

Alister’s eyes widened with the realization that Clover was getting him a pearl too. But, why? They were rivals in this competition for Madeline’s hand. Did such an honorable man really exist?

Clover wrapped his fingers tightly around the two pearls, flipped over, and began to swim towards the surface, kicking his legs. However-

Alister noticed that the mermaids appeared to be signaling at each other to do something. The artist frowned. Just what are they up to? Whatever it is - can’t be good. Alister watched as two mermaids swam down below Clover before swimming back up and grabbing his feet. They then started to pull him down.

Clover gasped and bubbles escaped his mouth. He looked down, spotted the mermaids holding his feet, and waved his sword at them threateningly. The mermaids let out an eerie shriek that made the glass of the tank vibrate, and were forced to let go of Clover, or else risk getting their hands cut off. Another mermaid was sneaking up on Clover from behind, however-

Alister pointed behind Clover’s shoulder. “Look out!”

Clover whipped around in time to see the mermaid lunge at him. But it was too late to stop her. She sank her teeth into Clover’s right hand causing him to cry out in pain and let go of his sword.

Oh, no. Alister inwardly groaned and watched in horror as the sword sank to the bottom of the tank.

Now that the White King was weaponless and thereby defenseless the mermaids closed in on Clover, and one by one sank their teeth into his flesh, biting into his arms and legs.

Alister watched Clover cry out in pain, but then watched as his pained expression morphed into one of pleasure. Then, Clover moaned blissfully.

A vein at Alister’s temple throbbed in exasperation. “Ugh! That masochistic, son of a bitch! He’s actually enjoying them biting him! That idiot! He’s going to get himself drowned or killed! I have to do something! Fast!” Alister held up his paintbrush. “I need to get in there and save him somehow. Dammit. I wish there was just a door I could open…that’s it!”

Alister quickly painted a large door on the tank’s surface and lastly added the doorknob. As soon as Alister had finished painting the doorknob the door glowed, solidified, and became real. It resembled a blue door made out of wood that had been painted blue with a golden doorknob.

Alister quickly pocketed his paintbrush, grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door. It was in that exact moment that Alister realized that he’d been hasty, and hadn’t really thought things through as much as he probably should have. Oops.