Green
By real-placebo-effect
Part One: In Wonderland Again
Rating: T (can and might be changed)
Summary: Ten years. Ten long years since Alice was last in Underland. Finding other's inhibitions and prejudices obstructive to her own goals, she decides to do the impossible; return to Underland. Of course, ten years is a long time, and Underland isn't quite the way Alice left it...[Alice/Tarrant, and others.]
Author's Notes: MY GOD, ALICE IN WONDERLAND WAS AMAZING. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. GO AND WATCH IT. NOW. (Perception is on hiatus atm...sorry!)
[ I ]
("You used to be much more...muchier. You've lost your muchness.")
Alice was lonely and, being the being that she was, she was not afraid to admit so. As entertaining as China and Lord Ascot were, she still caught the looks the older man gave her, when she mentioned how much she should like to fly, or how she wanted to find out why a raven was like a writing desk and it hurt because she knew this would never have happened in Underland.
Underland, Alice's Wonderland.
It amazed her that she still woke up from the most devastating dreams. Sometimes, it was scary – what would happen had she lost against the Jabberwocky? What would've happen had Iracebeth killed her? – but sometimes, they were what could've been – her downing another one of Mirana's foul-ingrediented but surprisingly normal tasting potions, her having tea with Hatter.
Hatter. Oh, how she missed him! No, she did not believe anyone understood her muchness more than Hatter did.
Sighing, Alice looked out of the murky, dingy windows of the Wonder, her eyes trailing each of the water droplets as they hit the glass, beating softly. Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice they seemed to whisper, stretching out each syllable, each sibilant hiss, from a soft crooning to a scornful spit.
Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, ALICE, AL-
"-ice, are you alright?" Blinking her forget-me-not blue eyes, Alice turned slowly to face the man behind her. Ah yes, his name was Lucas, Lucas...Smith? Yes...no...it was Smithson, it was. Yes, an apprentice of Lord Ascot's, after she'd been promoted to his partner in business rather than an apprentice. He'd been allowed, albeit reluctantly, to accompany them on their journeys.
"Yes, quite." She replied, airily. Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice the droplets are crying. Go away, Lucas and let me listen to the rain, she wants to say, but she's been in Overland long enough to know that that would be rude, a bit too much-
You used to be much more..."muchier." You've lost your muchness.
-and Alice freezes. Has she really become less muchier? Had she really become so Overland-ly? Speaking of which, she had not seen Absolem for days and days and days and weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months and months and years and years and years and never again.
The cold, hard stone in her stomach hardened and engorged until Alice could feel the bile in her throat.
"I think you should leave now, Lucas." She proclaims, but his blue eyes-
-Should be green, GREEN, not blue, this horrible, disgusting blue-
-are narrowed in suspicion of her suddenly pale face.
"I want to stay."
"You could stay, you know..."
And despite the heaviness of her mind and heart and how the room kept spinning and the voices kept blurring, Alice still smiled and whispered back. "I want you to go. Leave me. Now."
"Why is it you're always too small or too tall?"
"Only for you, Hatter. Only you would notice and only you would be worried."
"And on that day I shall Futterwacken...vigorously."
"Who's Hatter? Notice what? What is going on?" Smithson was still here, it seemed, but Alice couldn't think, not with the voice – his voice – in her head, and the glow of green eyes and the whispering of the rain droplets, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice-
"Who are you?"
"I'm Alice Kingsley...I am...I am!"
"The Alice?"
"There's been some debate about that."
"Alice, snap out of it!" The boy's voice is hysterical now...ten years...ten years without her Underlandians...her family...
(ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE, ALICE – the droplets were screaming her name, now.)
Alice pressed a hand to her cheeks, eyes wide in disbelief at the warm tears that were pouring down her face, and she couldn't breathe-
-her heart was like lead, dragging her down, down, down, down-
-and she couldn't think and then Alice made her decision because, by God, she couldn't do this anymore, no more, no more, no more-
"NO MORE!" Alice screamed, clutching her heart gasping for breath because she was hurting. Her crazed electric blue eyes snapped suddenly to Lucas and he shuddered.
"Get out. Now."
And he ran.
And Alice made her choice.
("Fairfarren, Alice.")
[ I ]
Her fingers fumbled as she ripped the clothes out of her trunk haphazardly, not really paying attention to where the tawdry lace flew, because she had only one object in her mind and she had to find it now, now, now, now, now.
And her lips curved victoriously, when she found it. The small phial, seemingly empty. But it was there. One drop. One drop of Jabberwocky blood. For her. For home.
Smiling, without regret, Alice tipped the small phial in between her lips, savouring the bitter taste the one droplet bestowed on her.
It was the most she'd felt in years.
[ I ]
"Alice...Alice...dear...you have to wake up now...Alice..." The crooning. Who was crooning?
Mirana.
She was home.
Alice was back in her Wonderland.
[ I ]
"Of course, Lady Alice." He...she...it? said, bowing at her. No matter how long Alice would be in her Wonderland, she would never cope with that. Mirana noticed her discomfort, but her face was impassive although her eyes were twinkling, far more than usual.
Alice had recovered nicely; from the ordeal her body went through trying to transport her to Underworld with only a small amount of Jabberwocky blood as a catalyst. And she had barely seen the castle yet, just talked a lot with Mirana about nonsensical things.
"Perhaps, it's time we go and see the Hatter." Mirana said, solemnly and, for the first time in a long while, Alice felt a large knot of apprehension.
[ I ]
The Outlandian sun beat down on the back of his neck relentlessly as he dug the hole, his makeshift shovel clanging repeatedly, rhythmically, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. Finally, he was finished and he wiped the sweat from his brow, breathing deeply.
It would've been what she wanted, after all.
But he wasn't finished...no...no...he still had work to do. And so, he ran, for miles and miles, as hadn't done while she was with him and broke into a house, stealing the kitchen knife there.
And for days and nights, he sawed away.
Finally, on the fifth night, the shackle came away and he laughed.
He was free.
And Ilosovic Stayne laughed and laughed and laughed until they turned into hopeless, hollow sobs. And in the end, he didn't know what he was crying for; redemption, regret or loneliness.
[ I ]
Alice stood, wavering at the door. Her hand rose and fell back to her side, spastically. She was at the Hatter's house. The Hatter's house. He had something as average as a house.
(And she looked into his eyes, just before disappearing and nearly broke at the despair she saw.)
Gathering all the muchness she could find, Alice knocked on the Hatter's door. She waited. Then knocked again. And waited again. The third time she knocked, Alice noticed that the door wasn't properly closed. Gulping, she pushed the door open and it creaked, eerily.
"Hatter?" Alice whispered, her heart breaking at the sight of him.
He was sitting in the middle of the room, on an arm chair, staring intently into a fire. He hadn't stirred, though she'd called him. But then she took in the sight of the room.
Alice, come back. Alice, where are you? Alice, please come home. Alice. Alice, why did you go? Alice, you could stay. Alice, we need you. Alice, I need you.
She took in the signs of the pins in the walls, the lovingly carved out messages and exhaled. "Hatter, look at me, please."
And yet, he still didn't stir.
"Hatter, what's happened to you? Are you mad at me?" Alice asked, timidly. That made him react. His eyes snapped to hers.
"You're not real. Go away."
And that hurt, more than she ever imagined it would.
"Oh, Hatter, what have I done?"
[ I ]
"Ilosovic Stayne. Why are you here? You are exiled, are you not?" The White Queen asked lightly. Stayne ran a dry tongue over drier lips, contemplating his answer. Finally, he managed to answer, in a husky, out-of-use voice,
"Iracebeth is dead. She's been dead for years." And he watched, not really knowing whether he should feel happy or sympathetic, when Mirana's face transformed completely, a single tear running down her cheek.
"How?"
Here, Stayne smiled bitterly. "Iracebeth...had problems, with her health. She had high blood pressure...and she continuously lost her temper, over all these years. And being forced to live with someone who'd tried to kill her wasn't doing her any good, either, your Majesty. She died of a heart attack, in the end. Befitting the Queen of Hearts, is it not?"
The Queen – the only Queen – was silent, in shock. Finally, she released a shuddering breath and her dark eyes snapped back into focus. "And yourself, Ilosovic? What are you here for?"
"I wish to..." And Stayne stopped here, struggling with the words he wished to speak. "I wish to..."
Serve, breathe, speak, feel-
"Yes?" The Queen urged, leaning forward in her anticipation. Stayne swallowed and tried again.
"I have travelled all across the lands, your Majesty...and I realised that I wish to..." Again, the words stopped. Mirana blinked and Stayne decided on a word.
"I wish to live."
[ I ]
"Alice?" Tarrant whispered, green eyes wide, comically along with his neon orange brows raised high, as his gaze fell on the sobbing woman in front of him. "Alice, is that you?"
Alice gasped, trying to reel her emotions in and wiped hastily at her eyes. She looked up at him and Tarrant knew, he just knew, it was the Alice, his Alice.
And he got out of his chair, and fell to the floor, lime green eyes drinking in her face. Her curly blonde hair and the smile that threatened to break out on her beautiful face.
"Alice."
"Why is it that a raven is like a writing desk?" She said suddenly and Tarrant can feel his own grin spreading out across his face.
"I have absolutely no clue, dear Alice."
And his face broke out in the largest of grins, ones that would make Chessur shrivel with envy.
[ I ]
"To live..." The Queen echoed, leaning backwards in her throne, once again, clearly perplexed.
Stayne did not bother to reassure her – he didn't think she needed that.
"And have you not been living before this, Knave?" She asks, her eyes snapping back to focus.
"I have existed. And why should I be content with just existing when others, no matter how dark and dull, can live?" Stayne replied, but it was more to himself than others.
As he had run, run to Marmoreal, he had seen it, the flashes, glimpses of other's lives. A man eating breakfast with his family...an old woman tending to her flowers...a child snuggling with it's parent...and he wondered why he hadn't anything like that.
"Very well." The White Queen claimed and he felt a bead of sweat running down his neck.
"Ilosovic Stayne, you are hereby released from exile and into the custody of the White Queen, Mirana of Marmoreal. You are hereby decreed to..."
End Part One