Lexi's Adventures in Wonderland
Fandom: Wizards Vs Aliens
Rating: K+
Genre: Humor
Pairing: Sparse mentions of Tom/Lexi throughout
Summary:After reading Lewis Carroll's classictale to her son, Lexi finds herself following a familiar rabbit into her own version of Wonderland, where nothing is quite like the Carrollisms we all know. MULTICHAPTER.
AN: Wizards Vs Aliens...Wonderland...two of my favourite things rolled into one! I decided to write this for a bit of fun, incorporating the WvA characters into the Alice crew - I hope you enjoy Lexi's journey to Wonderland as much as I'm enjoying it!
If you can guess which characters will play which parts in Lexi's version of Wonderland, you get three virtual cookies and twenty fandom points :)
DISCLAIMER. I do not own Wizards Vs Aliens or any forms of the Alice In Wonderland story.
"Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days." Lexi closed the book in her lap with a snap and a soft smile. "The End."
"But, Mum!" Benny Junior pulled the blankets down from his face in protest. "That can't be the end of the story! What happens to Alice? Does she grow up and entertain other children with her stories? What about the creatures in Wonderland? The Mad Hatter and the March Hare, and the White Rabbit? What happens to them?"
"Oh..." Lexi smoothed out the creases in her skirt, picking absentmindedly at the fraying edge of the material. "I expect they're still drinking tea in little Alice's mind. Along with all her madness and her other whimsical ideas."
Benny let out a sigh. "That means that they don't exist." He snuggled deeper into his pillow, arms tight and secure around a limp, raggedy teddy bear he had become attached to. "I wish Wonderland existed. Do you wish it did, Mum?"
"Why, of course it exists, Benny." Lexi ruffled his long hair. "Wonderland, and all it's inhabitants, live up in here." She gently tapped his temple with her finger. "They live in your imagination. And your imagination is very real. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, alright?" She dropped a kiss on the place where her finger had been. "Now, get some sleep. It's school in the morning, yes?" She reached over to his bedside table, and switched out the small lamp as she rose from her seat on the bed.
"Goodnight, Mum."
Lexi smiled back as she backed out of the room. "Goodnight...my beautiful boy." She let the door swing shut with a gentle click, and stayed looking at it for several seconds, as if she could see through it and watch her son drifting off into the blissful world of dreams, before running a hand through her hair and forcing herself to move away from the spot where her feet seemed to be rooted, proceeding to go through to the kitchen, where the promise of a warm cup of tea was waiting for her. That was the thing about the evenings she was spending as a human. They were so lonely, spent on her own, wandering around her small flat with no one except herself to talk to. She hadn't made very much progress with any of her neighbours; they thought her strange, peculiar - they thought her as mad as Alice, as a matter of fact. As mad as the Hatter, the March Hare, and Alice, rolled into one.
She settled herself on the sofa with a sigh, placing the tattered Wonderland book on the small coffee table, pulling her skirt over her knees and wrapping her fingers around the ceramic mug. Maybe, in a way, those neighbours around her were right. She wasn't exactly a normal human, was she? However much she tried to pretend, no matter how carefully constructed her façade was, there would always be a part of her that was profoundly Nekross, a part that frowned at human behaviour and questioned it because it was unfamiliar to her. How on earth would she ever cope if a place like Wonderland existed outside of Lewis Carroll's little fairy story?
If I had a world of my own, she thought, sipping her drink, laying back against the sofa cushion, everything would be utterly nonsensical. I bet things would float up towards the ceiling, because gravity wouldn't work there, and there would be trees that grew inanimate human objects, like pencils and printing machines - ridiculous things like that. You can't grow printing machines...
Her thoughts continued along this tangent for a while, during which time she must have dozed off, because, before she knew it, the little living room was in darkness and her mug of cold tea was resting on the coffee table beside her book. She rubbed her eyes, trying to get the tiredness out of them, and was about to close them again, when a scratching sound at the door caught her ears, making her sit bolt upright on the sofa. It was the like a small animal was trying to get inside the flat - a cat, perhaps?
Curious, she swung her legs over the side of the sofa and stood up, wincing at the slight ache in her muscles as she made her way to the front door. After wrestling with the faulty lock for a few minutes, she pushed the door open, peering out into the darkened hallway. Nothing. No sign of life anywhere.
She was about to pass it off as something that her mind, fogged with sleep, had come up with, when there was a flash of something darting down one of the staircases that led up to her floor. It looked too big to be a cat.
Was it one of her unsociable neighbours, playing some sort of trick?
Straightening her shoulders, she let the door close softly behind her and set off down the hall at a brisk walk, determined to get to the bottom of this - whatever this was.
"Oh, dear, dear, dear! Too late, I shall be!" The oddly familiar voice wailed in its high-pitched squeal, as its owner disappeared into one of the more-often-than-not-out-of-use lifts that the high rise tower block provided its residents with, Lexi following straight after it. The number of the floor was still lit up on the keypad. Floor thirteen.
How ironic, Lexi thought, stepping into the other lift, trying to keep a brave face on. If it was some of her unsociable neighbours playing tricks on her, she didn't want them to see how uneasy she was around lifts; even when she came home from work, exhausted, tired, barely shuffling one foot in front of the other, she would still rather climb the stairs to the twentieth floor than get into one of the lifts - if they were even operational at all.
Despite her judgement that this was all completely ridiculous, and that she was too old to be chasing animals around the tower block all night, and the fact that she had probably left her door unlocked, she pressed the button for the thirteenth floor, grinding her teeth together as the graffitied doors slowly slid shut, and the elevator let out a metallic groaning as it started the slow descent towards her destination.
She tapped her foot impatiently. Did she really care what her obnoxious neighbours thought of her? When had she started to care what they thought? She was - had been - a princess of Nekron, after all, beloved by all who her family reigned over. Well, supposedly beloved by all. Past experience had shown that this wasn't true.
Was this why she was making such a big deal out of this? Because she was secretly worried that they were going to try and destroy her?
Wow. That really was ridiculous. She sighed in exasperation at her own foolish thoughts. Maybe her neighbours were right, for all their stupidity. Maybe she really was mad. Maybe she should talk to someone - not the humans here, but maybe a human doctor. Was there even a cure for madness? Lexi could only hope so.
She had grown to be very bored, standing inside this lift, waiting for it to finally wheeze past the fifteenth floor, when suddenly, the box gave a sudden jolt, making Lexi stumble over her own feet and clutch at the rail to remain upright, making sure to avoid the broken glass from the glass wall behind it. Her fractured reflection looked back at her, eyes wide, almost a vivid blue hue under the dull flickering lights from above the lift doors, splintered into a million tiny pieces. If she was only wearing a little white pinafore and tights, she could almost be a version of Alice herself, with her blonde hair and blue dress that she'd found in a jumble sale a few weeks earlier.
The lift gave another shake, breaking her train of thought, sending her off her feet and to the floor this time. She let out a small oomf as she landed painfully on her side, knocking the air from her lungs. She was up on her feet again almost immediately, rubbing the point of impact where a bruise was certainly going to blossom. The lift seemed to have stopped, arrived at her destination. About time too, Lexi thought, as the lift doors slid open, jamming halfway through. It didn't offer her much of a view. She could hardly put an end to all this business when she was stuck in a lift and barely able to see! Holding her breath, Lexi edged her way out of the little metal box, managing to free herself before the lift doors slammed shut behind her.
She had been expecting to see the hall of the thirteenth floor, the same boring view that she saw when she left her own flat. She did a double take, as she finally took in her surroundings. This was not the thirteenth floor that she had been expecting to be greeted with. Nor was it the eerily terrifying Neverside she had been fearing she'd see either. It was a corridor, yes - the familiar, blue-lit corridor that could only belong on the Zarantulus.
I'm...home? Lexi glanced behind her. The lift doors were still behind her, the bright orange graffiti and bold purple swear words out of place in amongst the sleek metallic surfaces of the ship. Home, her Nekross intellect rejoiced.
Is it, though? Her human nature questioned. Is this even my home anymore? She'd been on Earth for so long now. Hadn't she technically gone native and become a fully-fledged human in her own right? Fully-fledged humans had no place aboard the Zarantulus, or in the minds of the Nekross family she'd once had. She knew this, had first hand experience, but still, it saddened her now, that her family would want nothing to do with her. She may have despised them half the time, argued with Varg constantly, always tried to get him overthrown, but she still loved him. It hurt to think that he would turn his back on her, after all their years spent together growing up as children, and all their teasing bickering as they reached adulthood. But, then, she was here, wasn't she? Perhaps it was Varg, wanting to talk to her. But, then again, why would he? He believed like her father did - humans were insignificant. The chances of him wanting anything to do with her now were infinitesimal.
She was suddenly startled out of her inner monologue debate. A soft patter of footsteps echoed along the corridor.
"Oh my, oh my! How late, late, late, be I!"
Lexi frowned. If the owner of the familiar high-pitched voice was here, aboard the Zarantulus, it meant that it wasn't caused by one of her idiotic neighbours. What if it was something to do with Varg? A way to get her into the lift so that he could bring her to the ship? Maybe she had been right, after all. Maybe he'd had a change of heart.
Hopeful, she started down the corridor, her footsteps tapping against the metal grating as she broke out into a run. She felt just like a child again, chasing after her older brother, around the mirrored halls of the palace back on Nekron, hiding amongst the trees in the garden, straying in and out of the dark woods that surrounded the royal grounds. She could almost hear the giggles of her five year old self echoing off the walls of the Zarantulus. If she really listened, she felt as thought she could really hear them.
She came stumbling to a stop all of a sudden, skidding along the ground in her flimsy shoes. There was something obstructing her way; a small glass table, about the size of the coffee table she had found for the flat, with a small glass bottle resting upon it, a brown label tied efficiently around its neck.
Drink Me.
(Not Poison).
"Hm," she said aloud, turning the bottle over in her hand, uncorking it. "I have bad experience when it comes to things being poison..." She shuddered at the memory of the Zanti-Scale, poisoning her cells with unbearable pain. "Either this is a lie, or meant to be comforting to the unknowing drinker."
She sniffed the contents experimentally, recoiling at the foul stench, nose wrinkled. The idea of drinking the possibly poisonous liquid was certainly less appealing now that it had been a few moments earlier. She needed to be intellectual about this.
What would Tom Clarke do? The thought popped into her mind without her permission. She squashed it in annoyance. Why did thoughts of him always crop up at these inconvenient times? Hadn't she agreed that she wasn't going to think about him anymore? Almost a year had passed since she'd last seen him, and she hadn't heard a word from him. Of course, she'd half expected this, as soon as her mind had come to grips with the situation he'd suddenly put her in - the idea that he may not want anything more to do with her and their son - but, even so, the deadly silence she'd received from him...well, it hurt.
She coughed aloud, mentally berating herself. This was no time to be moping about thinking about him, when there were more pressing matters to attend to.
Resolved, possibly fuelled by her sudden irritation from the memory of the halfling she wouldn't admit to missing as much as she truly did, she raised the bottle defiantly to her lips - although, whom she was defying, she wasn't entirely sure - and took a long gulp of the vile-smelling green liquid.