Notes

The story that made me fall in love with Alice in Wonderland when I was younger, combined with the story that made me fall in love with Alice in Wonderland all over again now!

For the most part, I was curious to put the Pandora Hearts characters into a setting/plot more true to the original Alice in Wonderland. I finally got around to reading the original Alice in Wonderland recently, but I don't know the original well enough to write the Pandora Hearts characters into it. Tim Burton's version was also the first version of Alice in Wonderland I ever experienced, so it has more of a 'this is the original' feel to my heart, despite it being quite different. Not to mention that the plot itself is a bit more coherent, and therefore easier to use as a baseline than the original.

Thank you for stopping by, please enjoy! Leave a comment if you liked it, ask me any questions you have!

Once again, major Pandora Hearts manga SPOILERS starting on page one! This will probably make very little sense if you haven't read through Pandora Hearts, as well as watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010).

DISCLAIMER I do not own Pandora Hearts or Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

Alyss awoke, at first, she didn't see her room—the safety, the reality, of it; her bed with the soft, white sheets, the books and dolls surrounding her. With the dream blurring her senses, her dolls would surely come alive, the shadows were deeper than the walls they fell upon, and no doubt reddened eyes would peer from that black before long. The strangeness of the dream still swam before her eyes, that place, that Wonderland, that…Abyss…

"Alyss?"

The six-year-old turned, and saw another version of herself, but with brown hair instead of white. This sight, however, was not some figment of her far-flung imagination; the two violet eyes, wide with worry, belonged to her twin sister.

The dream again? those eyes asked her.

Alyss nodded.

Alice, her sister, sat up, yawning and stretching.

"I had the dream too, a few nights ago." She grinned, "But I wasn't scared!"

"Y-You weren't?" Alyss repeated, as if the notion was unthinkable.

She paused, then shook her head. "Nope."

"Why not?"

Her sister turned to pick up the stuffed animal beside her and grinned, holding it right up to Alyss' face. "We have Oz to protect us," she bonked her on the nose with plush, black rabbit, "idiot!"

"That isn't very nice!" Alyss whimpered, rubbing her nose, though quickly found her own, identical, rabbit toy, sitting on the pillow beside her. "Oz," she whispered softly, picking him up, holding him tight.

A little bell jingled as a black cat jumped on their bed, as if to say: Hey, what about Cheshire?

"And Cheshire will protect us too, of course," Alice added, though she glared at the cat as he let Alyss scratch him behind the ears—animals and Alice never really got along.

"But!" Alice exclaimed, "If my sister needs additional encouragement," she held out her hand, "let's talk to Father."

"Really?" Hope lit in Alyss' eyes, though fear attempted to dampen it; "don't you think he'll be mad?"

"You don't think he'll be able to resist his daughter's adorable face do you?"

"Thanks, Alice." She giggled.

"I was talking about my face!"

"Hey!"

As a smile starting to spread across her features, Alyss took her sister's hand. They hopped off the bed, Alyss still holding Oz tightly in the crook of her other arm. Cheshire leapt off the bed to follow them.

Alice led her through the checkerboard hallways, toward their father's study, whose unmistakable laugh reached their ears. If they were honest, it wasn't a very nice laugh—it had a rather mocking note to it, but its presence had become comforting to the two girls. Her brown-haired counterpart squeezed Alyss' hand, flashing her a smile, as if to say See? He won't be mad.

"Well, gentlemen, the only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible," they heard him say.

"You have an odd way of thinking," said another man.

"You think it'll ruin me, don't you?" Levi—their father—chuckled as if ruin was a hilarious notion.

They crept cautiously into the doorframe. Their father was the man sitting the midst of the three other dukedom representatives, leaning backwards on his chair. Levi was wearing a blue waistcoat, and had hair of a similar color to Alyss', which he never could get to cooperate, so it was almost always tied into a sort of messy ponytail, with part of it falling in front of his face. Upon spotting the twins, now highlighted in the office's glow, his words stopped in their tracks.

Alyss tried to hide behind her sister as all the grown ups' eyes fixed on them, but Alice kept her hand wrapped firmly around hers. Alice's expression was defiant, demanding attention, and she took a step forward, like that was enough to say Well? Aren't you going to help us?

Alyss' unhidden eye was fixed on her father, timid and patient.

Levi gave a small smile. "Must have been quite the dream." He stated simply. "Excuse me, gentlemen." He stood, "An urgent matter has come up." A few of the gentlemen chuckled, understanding, though the others simply looked irked.

Levi stepped out of the study, putting his arms on his daughters' shoulders, leading them back to their bedroom.

The twins slipped back under the covers, and Levi reclined on the bottom of the bed, resting his head on his hand, as if to show his attentiveness.

"Tell me, what terrors lie in wait for you when you fell asleep?" he asked as if waiting for the answer to entertain him, rather than ready to comfort his daughters.

Alyss glanced at her sister, who nodded encouragingly.

"Well…I'm falling down a dark hole. And I see…strange creatures."

"And what kind of creature might they be?"

She grimaced, squeezing her rabbit toy. If she listed them all, they'd be there all night, so she settled for a few: "There's a dodo bird...a raven…a mouse…a smiling cat." She looked at Cheshire, who was currently tolerating Levi's touch. The cat knew better than to bite Levi's hand, but fervently twitched his tail to show his irritation.

"I didn't know cats could smile," he mused, smiling as he rubbed their resident cat's head.

"Neither did I."

"And you?" he turned to his other daughter.

She folded her arms over her chest, turning her head away. "I wasn't scared!"

"Of course." He sat up. "Who would ever be scared of the tickle monster?" he reached out a hand—which now, seemed more like a claw (the bandages that always coved his arms didn't help)—to tickle her.

"Father! Father stop!" she shouted through laughs, finding she couldn't stay strong.

Alyss giggled at her sister, but, as her eyes drifted back to the toy in her hand, so did her mind to her worries.

"What is it, Alyss?" Levi asked softly.

"Do you…Do you think I've…" She held tightly to the sheets, her voice getting quieter the closer it got to the end of the sentence. "Do you think I've gone round the bend?"

Her father and sister glanced at each other. Levi leaned forward, placing his hand on her forehead as if checking for a fever.

Alice glanced between them, a finger on her chin, concern dotting her eyes.

"I'm afraid so," he answered solemnly—this sparked shock in her sister's eyes, and disappointment in her own—"You're mad." He moved his hand to cup her cheek. "Bonkers. Off your head."

Her eyes fell further still, and she hugged Oz tight.

"But I'll tell you a secret." Levi moved his hand from her cheek to place a finger on her chin, so as to make her look up at him, leaning forward to whisper in her ear—her sister angled her ear toward them too, she wasn't about to miss this— "All the best people are."

As he took his finger from her chin, leaning back, he found his daughter smiling once more. Her sister, however, pouted, folding her arms over her chest, clearly finding it an unsatisfactory answer.

"It's only a dream, Alyss." He pushed a lock of her long hair behind her ear, "Nothing can harm you there. But, if you get too frightened, you can always wake up." He grinned. "Like this," he pinched them both.

"Ow!" Alyss cried.

"Oy! I don't need to wake up!" her sister protested, attempting to pinch him back.

He raised an eyebrow, "Oh? Is that so?"

"Watch me take the monsters down myself!" she punched the air.

Her father and sister chuckled.

"Do you think you'll be able to fend them off for your sister now?" Levi asked, hopping off the bed. "You see I have some gentlemen in my study who think they're very important"—He held his nose in the air, mocking how snooty they seemed to him, which warranted snickers from the two girls—"Who will 'not take kindly to my extended absence.'"

"Don't worry, Father, the great Alice-sama won't let you down!" Alice called, and Cheshire meowed to say he would protect her too.

"Good. I don't want to hear any more about smiling cats tonight," he winked as he exited the door.

Notes

It's weird, but fun, to write Levi as actually acting fatherly. Hope I wrote his character well!

Alice: "Oy! Useless Servant! How dare you make Alyss the main character and not me?!"
Me: "I just thought she fit Alice Kingsleigh's personality a bit better, I-"
Alice: "But I am the heroine of the story! I'm Alice!"
Me, getting nervous: "But so is she...Hey! Hey! I promise I'll give you a good part later on! Maybe even better than hers!"
Alice: "Better?"
Me: "Uhh...yeah, that's right."
Alice: "Alright, I have a big heart, so I'll forgive you. But don't expect me to be this merciful every time!"