Hey! I know it's not a new chapter, but I promised my friend I would write this for her. This is in the same fan-universe as An Old Role, but I'm not sure I'm going to make this a part of that story. This is more like just a cute little side-thought. :3 R&R!
-Static
/*\
As the little girl looked down over the mountain cliff, she couldn't help but to feel a little bit afraid. Sure, she had wings, but that didn't mean she knew how to use them.
Though, the five-year-old thought to herself, That is the reason Daddy brought me here.
The girl's father had taken her up to one of the tallest peaks of the mountain territory. It was cold, even for her, and there was almost five feet of snow on what little stable ground there was. She held onto her dad tightly, her arms winding around his neck, her tail curling around his arm. She was not okay with the prospect of falling.
As much as the child wanted to learn how to fly, she would have felt a lot more comfortable if someone else had been there. She knew that this was how mommy had learned, but at the same time... if something went wrong, she wanted someone to be able to catch her. As amazing as her father was...he didn't have wings. That was something she had inherited from her mother.
She looked up at her father skeptically,
"Daddy," she said slowly, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" And as she narrowed her eyes at the man holding her over the snow, he merely laughed,
"Absolutely! If your mother could do it, then so can you!"
"Yeah, but wasn't mom a lot older than me when she learned to fly?" He cleared away some of the snow, shoving it over the cliff and bent down. He set her on the ground, and smiled at her,
"She was, but you forget, your mother was seventeen when she became a dragon, you have been one your whole life." The girl stared up at him, troubled, her wide red eyes glistening with fright.
"But aren't I only half a dragon?" She questioned. Her father tilted his head to the side,
"What do you mean?"
"Well," she continued, "My tutor was explaining to me what happens when a human marries an animal. Like the Robinson's, she told me that their kids are only half rabbits, because their mother is human. You're human. Wouldn't that only make me half dragon?"
"Hmm..." her father mused, "I suppose, technically, you are half dragon, however," he answered, "The Robinson children still have rabbit ears and tails. They are just as strong and fast as any other rabbit right?" She nodded her head,
"I guess you're right..." But the girl still sounded quite uncertain. Her father smiled again reassuringly.
"Don't worry. You will fly. It's instinctual." he told her, complete and utter certainty ringing in his words. "Go on, jump!" As always, the mans enthusiasm was contagious. In a moment of bravery, she inched towards the edge, and hesitated,
"What if it doesn't work?" She asked. Daddy picked her up, and held her close for a moment.
"Ari," he started, "It's gonna be fine." He murmured, then he kissed her hair, and threw her off the cliff.
/*\
When Alice had taken her husband and child to the deepest part of the mountains with her, she was a little worried about what they might get up to. Her daughter was far more mature and thought things through much better than her father, but she was still the child. As much as she loved her husband, he was not exactly the smartest person she'd ever met. Her daughter could keep him out of trouble most of the time, but things still happened.
"Well, that's three hundred and twenty three swords." Pierce stated, breaking her out of her thoughts, "All of them are here." The Dormouse was relieved, thankful that his list was finally complete. Alice bristled, three hundred and twenty three? That wasn't right. There should have been one more, and as she gazed around her cave, eyes not missing a single coin or jewel or ornament, she was caught with the realization that the sword had indeed disappeared. Alice circled on her assistant. How could this have happened?!
"No," She retorted, "There were three hundred and twenty four. A piece of my treasure is missing." Someone had stolen one of her weapons.
Who would dare steal from a dragon's treasure horde?
However, right now that did not matter. As she was attempting to quell the instinct that told her to find whoever had stolen the solid gold blade, she heard screaming.
It was Ari.
/*\
Ari was terrified. She was falling too fast, if she hit the ground she would not survive. She'd been explicitly told to be careful. Her dad had explained to her that she took after her mother in a way that she didn't completely understand, but she knew this: Unlike the other residents of Wonderland, she would not be subject to reincarnation.
If she died, that was it.
She tried to remember what Daddy had told her when walking the trail up to the cliff, what she needed to do with her wings. She was capable of flying, she just had to figure out how to do it. She squinted her eyes shut, and tried as hard as she could to suppress her terror and think of a solution, but nothing came to her. It was no use, Ari was too scared. She knew that no one was there to save her, and as she watched the jagged stones of the cliff pass by her face faster and faster, the panic set in and grew.
Eventually, she started screaming, and looked up, tears streaming down her face. As she gazed up at the purple-tinted sky, only one thought passed through her mind.
Hey, she wondered, When did it change to Aunt Vivi's favorite time of day?
And then suddenly she wasn't falling anymore.
/*\
"How could you?!" Alice snarled at her husband. After she had teleported to her daughter in the midst of a very deep fall and wrapped the girl in her arms, she had brought the child back to the treasure cave. The danger, having passed, the woman held her daughter close, cooing at and consoling her, telling her that everything was okay and she was safe. Ari was shaking very hard, tear stains running down her face, reluctant to release her mother for a good ten minutes before she finally allowed Alice to set her down, having gotten through her complete and utter terror from the fall.
When Ari had stopped sniffling, Alice sent her to her room to sleep off the scare with her favorite stuffed animal. Clutching the little cat toy - a present from Boris - she padded away to her bedroom, hanging her head dejectedly. Once Alice heard the door close, she teleported to the top of the cliff, grabbed her spouse by the ear, and brought him back to the cave as well, though she made sure they were a good distance away from Ari's space.
It would not do to allow the little girl to hear this.
"She needed to learn how to fly." He stated simply, leaning against a pile of gold coins, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Did it not occur to you that maybe you should have brought someone who actually could fly?!" She screeched, nearing hysterics,
"Alice, I don't see why you're so upset." And to that she quieted, though but for a moment.
"You really don't understand why I'm angry?" She questioned, her voice becoming dangerously low. Her husband, oblivious to his precarious position as always, shook his head, genuine confusion coloring his expression.
"I really don't." And that was what set her off.
"I am angry because you saw it fit to THROW OUR BABY OFF THE GODDAMN MOUNTAIN ACE!" She screeched, barely able to hold on to her human form.
She desperately wanted to shift into her thirty-foot-tall dragon self. It was a terrifying appearance, and it was one of the only times that the Knave of Hearts seemed to be able to fully comprehend her words, but she digressed. If Alice shifted now, then Ari would sense it an definitely know that something was amiss, but she had to do something. So she decided to whirl on her idiot husband and go check on her daughter.
"I read that book you gave me!" He yelled at her back as she stormed away, "It's instinctual!" But Alice wasn't listening, "I just wanted to help." He mumbled, knowing there was no listener.
/*\
When Alice poked her head into the little girls' room, she found her baby completely buried under her blankets. Giggling, Alice crept up and carefully removed the covers to look at her child's sleeping face. There was just one problem.
Ari wasn't there.
/*\
Ari was feeling quite irritated with herself. She was a dragon! Of course she could fly. As the girl neared the edge of the cliff of her own volition, she spread her silvery wings as wide as they could go, and gave them a couple of experimental flaps. She was surprised to find that just one powerful swoop brought her a good five feet off the ground, but she fell as soon as her wings stopped moving.
Alright, she thought to herself, I can handle this. I'm a dragon, I'm the fiercest creature known to human and animal kind alike! I can do this. I am not weak. Mommy doesn't have to be upset. As long as she remembered to keep moving her wings, she would be absolutely fine.
Feeling more and more confident in her abilities, Ari backed away from the cliff, and crouched into a runners starting position.
"Alright Ari," She muttered, "You can do this." And with what could only be described as a tiny battle cry, she launched herself off the cliff as her mother screamed for her to stop.
/*\
"Oh my God!" Alice screeched, running to follow the child off the cliff, but was stopped when Ace - exhibiting an unusual amount of strength - grabbed her arm and held her back. When Alice had discovered that Ari had gone missing, she'd raced back into the treasure cave and informed her husband of the situation. Even he was not so imbecile as to think that Ari should be wandering around the cliffs alone outside.
They had already determined that she could not fly.
"What are you doing?!" she yelled into her husband's face, and he just wrapped his arms around her waist. Ace had a feeling that they needed to wait. It was just a gut feeling. There was no rhyme or reason as to why he thought this time would be different but...Alice could teleport. She could catch Ari at any moment. If they just waited a few seconds and saw what happened...
"Give her a minute." He murmured into her shoulder, lightly kissing the skin, hoping that it might calm his wife down just a bit. No such luck. She struggled to escape his grasp without hurting him, but it was taking longer than she thought. Finally she panicked, and threw him off with her tail.
"Ari!" She shrieked, racing to the cliff, but was then confronted with the sight of...her daughter.
Flying.
Ari was flying.
Alice couldn't stop the smile working it's way across her face. Ari was flying. Ari. Was. Flying.
The little girl's wings flapped a little more than needed, and she was bobbing up and down far too dramatically. Her tail was lashing, trying to keep balance and almost succeeding, but she was staying airborne. She clutched onto her cat toy she smiled at her mother triumphantly.
"Mommy, I'm flying!" She squeaked gleefully.
"I told you she could do it." Ace squawked, pulling himself up off the ground after his wife had mercilessly thrown him into the cliff face with her monstrous tail.
/*\
Although it had all ended well, Ace had still been kicked out of his bedroom. Alice was still enraged, and it had appeared that Ari had heard their conversation. She'd escaped her bedroom when no one had been paying attention and mad her her way to the cliff.
She had been under the impression that her mother thought she was weak.
Ace took his pillow and blanket to the cave's lounge, and made himself comfortable on the couch. That had been a major downside for him, going so deep into the mountains. Alice and Ari were invulnerable to the freezing temperatures of the Northern territory. They couldn't feel the wintry cold of the wind whipping across their faces. They weren't in danger of frostbite almost every time they left the treasure caves. They didn't need to pile layer upon layer of clothing onto their person in order to stay alive.
And now he'd been thrown out of his bedroom. His wife had been a source of great warmth. Being a dragon, her body temperature was a little higher than his, and so after spending a long day out in the cold, her tiny body curled up against his was like putting his hands over the heater. Warm, comfortable, and incredibly soothing, and though the caves were not as awful as the outside, he was quite irked to have to spend the night shivering under a blanket rather than in his bed with his wife.
These were the thoughts crossing through his mind as he drifted off. He'd lit the fireplace, increasing the temperature of the room by a few degrees, but even as he got more and more warm and comfortable, he was still annoyed.
/*\
When Ari had woken in the middle of the night in need of a glass of water, she heard a light sneeze come from the den. Curious, she had crept into the room as silent as her mother. Being a predator, she could be as quiet as could be, with minimal effort. Gazing up at the figure on the sofa, puzzled, she saw her father shivering under the blanket, as the fire had gone out.
Lightly, she reached up, and poked her daddy's arm, then darted away. For some reason, Daddy sometimes had really bad dreams, and she had learned the hard way that sometimes, he swung first and asked questions later when he was asleep.
Ace sprung up, and looked around. He could have sworn-
"Daddy?" a small voice asked, more than a little confused, "Why are you sleeping out here? You should be with Mommy."
Ace was still quite annoyed with Alice, but he would never, ever lose his temper with Ari. The life he had created with the Foreigner...he had promised himself that this one person would never know what a terrible human being he really was. She looked just like her mother, wide eyes, pale skin, round face, small nose...had she not inherited Ace's brown hair and red eyes, her parentage would be completely up for grabs by anyone who'd ever held an interest in the Jabberwocky. Ace wanted to growl at the thought, but right now Ari was more important.
"Mommy and I had a small disagreement is all." He reassured her, "Don't worry about it, go back to bed." he ruffled her hair and kissed the top of her head.
"She got mad at you for throwing me off the cliff." Ace was startled, "I heard you guys talking about it, which is why I decided to do it myself. Mommy got scared, and I didn't like it. So I needed to show her that she didn't need to be scared." Ari sounded as if she had given the situation a great deal of thought. "But to be fair, I'm kind of mad at you too." And she puffed her chest out, attempting to appear threatening so as to convey her displeasure. She only succeeded in making herself look more adorable.
"What?" Ace asked, more than a little amused,
"I didn't know if I could fly, and you just dumped me off the mountain!" She flared, a few tiny blue sparks flying from her mouth, "I could have died!" And that four-word-sequence made Ace pause. That was true. Had Alice not arrived when she did, Ari would not be here right now, because she'd been too overwhelmed for her instincts to properly kick in.
"You're right," he said, "You could have died. I'm sorry." And he pulled the little girl close, which confused her. Daddy was great of course, but he wasn't one for apologies, not even to Mommy. She thought she'd heard those words come from him maybe once. Then Daddy sneezed again, and she caught an icky scent.
Daddy was sick.
"You have a cold!" She squeaked, and then she jumped up and crawled onto Ace's chest.
"Oof!" He breathed, feeling the little girl's weight a little too fast, "Ari, what are you doing?" and she scowled at him,
"I'm keeping you warm! If you're sick you can't be cold!"
"But what if I get you sick?" Ari huffed, her face adorning a prideful expression that the man saw all too often on her mother's face.
"I'm a dragon," she declared, "I don't get sick." Ace laughed,
"If you say so."
/*\
When Alice woke up in several time periods, she made her way to apologize to Ace. While she and Ari had been fine, the environment had been much harsher on him and Pierce. It had been petty to deny him the warmth of their bedroom, and she was going to apologize when she found him passed out on the sofa, Ari curled into his side.
Alice only felt worse. Ace loved Ari more than anything. She knew he'd meant no harm. He wanted nothing more than to participate as much as he could in her life, however due to the fact that Ace was human and their daughter was not... Alice's thoughts were broken when a voice sounded. Ari had woken, and as she sat up she spoke.
"Mommy?" She slurred, her eyes bleary as she blinked a few times, "Daddy got sick. He was really cold, so I stayed out here with him." And then she sneezed, a small puff of blue fire spouting from her mouth, and waking her father. She shrieked in surprise at the sudden appearance of the flame, and Ace laughed.
"That was a loud sneeze," He commented, "So dragons don't get sick, huh?" He gently teased, ruffling her hair.
Needless to say, Alice had definitely not been expecting to be nursing a sick husband and child for the remainder of her stay at the treasure horde.
/*\
My friend is a die-hard shipper of AcexAlice. Particularly, AcexJabberwocky!Alice. So I wrote this just for her! However, I really wouldn't object to getting reviews. *hint hint* *HINT HINT* XD :3
-Static