Hopefully this is good... it's been awhile since I've written an actual story, as opposed to a webcomic script. My main concern is how in-character the characters are. I feel that's one of the most important things in fan-fiction... Kinda stupid of me to write this when I haven't seen the actual movie in awhile... but eh... T.T;

Anyway, the title of the story can be credited to the title of a song by Gasoline Heart. I just thought it fit and I couldn't resist using it.

"Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes."

~Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

"Fairfarren", he said, voice dripping with sadness. He quickly kissed her lips before she faded away.

Alice scurried out of the rabbit hole without looking back. Her mind felt foggy, but she felt driven, purposeful, and... mad.

She felt as though she had just awoken from a dream, yet, she couldn't remember falling asleep! Had she tripped and been knocked out?

"Maybe… but… ", she felt her head, "…there aren't any bumps there…."

Well anyway, she knew she must hurry and finish what she had set out to do before her muchness ran out!

"Muchness…?"

All she could really think of was refusing that ridiculous Hamish. How could she possibly have even considered marrying him! The thought was scarier than facing everyone's indignation for her not doing so.

She's not quite sure why she did the things she did after that…

Maybe it was just the years of not saying whatever she wanted. Part of it was to put the others in their place for trying to control her, but oh! Her mouth did have a mind of its own now!

She talked back to her sister, threatened Lowell, and she even stood up for the poor rabbits. It was all well and good… but then she did something she's regretted ever since that day.

Alice shattered Aunt Imogene's dream!

"There's no prince, Aunt Imogene... you need to see someone about these delusions!"

Had it really been necessary? No. The woman was old… she didn't really have enough energy to find any new purpose in her life. Yet, she had told the poor woman that her prince was never coming! She, the one to think up six impossible things before breakfast! Why had she done it? Imogene had died a few weeks after that… maybe because her spirit had been broken.

Alice couldn't be sure, but a part of her told herself that she did it out of fear.

A part of her was afraid she'd end up like her aunt; for upon awakening from her "dream", she couldn't shake the feeling of heartache. She couldn't stop thinking of two green eyes and the smell of tea; the feeling of a sad whisper in her ear that made her feel like crying.

It had been a dream! She didn't even want to think of becoming pathetic and delusional like Imogene… and so she had lashed out at her without thinking… lashed out not only from that small fear, but mostly from the thought that she would never see those green eyes again!

"Oh if only dreams and delusions could be real!"

Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she threw herself into planning a trip to China. The dreams and feelings faded like dreams and the feelings that come with them do. Before she set sail, however, a strange blue butterfly flittered over her head. She smiled at its beauty - a foreign, yet familiar, name from her lips, "Hello Absolem" - but her smile quickly faded as she thought she heard a condescending voice say, "The stupid girl thinks it was just a dream again!" She quickly turned around, but the sailors were all on the other side of the ship.

"Hearing voices… maybe I really am mad." She sighed and watched the shore and butterfly disappear from view.

Preview for the next chapter:

Alice dreams and Tarrant ponders feelings.