A/N: I'm sort of proud for churning out four actual chapters this weekend. However, this will not be the case during the week since classes and classwork take up most of my time. Fear not, I am always bored and always writing. Expect updates regularly, just not like they have been. Also, there will be twelve chapters, and maybe a sequel. As always, huge thanks go to my reviewers! The kind words have made me smile. :]
* * *
"Will she wake up?" Tarrant asked softly, stroking the flushed cheek with the back of his hand, eyes unmoving from Alice's sleeping face.
"I don't know," Mirana said looking helplessly at her hands, "we have done everything we can. Now," she looked out to the vicious storms continuing outside, "Now, we can do nothing but wait."
Absolem glanced over the tiny crowd huddling around the tiny white room before fluttering to Mirana and resting on her hand. The only comfort he could give.
He watched over them all for another moment before looking out to the blue tinted storming world, Finish your business soon, Alice, we don't know how much longer we can keep you grounded, he thought.
* * *
Alice's eyes popped open and she sat up slowly, taking in her surroundings. She was laying in a meadow of wildflowers surrounded by a tall sunlit forest. There were spring clouds, white and fluffy, drifting lazily across the sun bright sky.
Alice stood, realizing with a happy, relieved smile that she was still in Underland - the colors of the meadow were nothing she'd ever find in Overland. They didn't hum contented wordless tunes as they swayed in the gentle breeze either.
"Hello, Alice!" The flowers greeted sweetly.
"Hello, everyone!" Alice laughed, turning into the warm breeze with a blissful expression.
She was distracted from her absorption of the peace and serenity around her by a low throbbing tone that had her looking down - finding a blue line, glowing in time with the tone running along the ground. Where she was standing was a large circular stone in the ground as if it were a part of the earth, the face was smooth and inlaid with blues and pearlescent stones to make the most beautiful and intricate image.
A soft whoosh startled her from her contemplation of the stone and a flare along the line caught her eye - there was a bright white light moving along the blue line as if going someplace.
"Fairfarren everyone!" Alice waved as she began to trot after the white bead of light.
"Fairfarren Alice!" The flowers called after her before going back to their lovely tune.
Where is the Hatter, I wonder? Alice thought as the light took her on a weaving path through the warmly lit woods. I was with him last, but it is Underland, anything could happen. She grinned and ducked under a low limb, then leapt gracefully (or as well as she could barefoot and in a filmy nightdress) over a small creek before darting after the light.
Well, I'll simply have to tell him of the adventure when I see him next. She thought decisively, then put it from her mind.
She had a little light bead to catch.
* * *
"Majesty, I think you should take a look at this." Chessur murmured from where he hovered by the open doors.
The rain had died down to a simple soaking rather than trying to flood the place, so Mirana stepped out to the balcony to see what he was staring at.
There in the ravine that the waterfalls lived in, at the bottom at the lake's edge was a figure alit and undisturbed by the storm - almost like a ghost. The skin was pearlescent like a cloud and clothed in a pale blue dress; long pale wheat locks fell in gentle curls to her waist - and it was most certainly a her - topped by a simple crown. She was walking along the water's edge, barefoot and smiling ever so softly - her cornflower blue eyes simply glowing in the depths of the shadow.
"Alice," Mirana breathed, the beauty of her friend catching her breath hostage under her ribs.
Alice would live if her Dreamself wandered in Underland.
Neither of them noticed the Hatter standing just inside the doors, staring with oddly bleak eyes at the phantom Alice on the shores below.
The phantom turned her face up to the balcony they stood on and Tarrant felt himself freeze - those piercing, understanding eyes pinned him still, then she smiled.
For the briefest of moments, Tarrant's eyes glowed a fierce and clear autumn sky blue.
* * *
Alice followed the white bead until it stopped short, hovering with an almost exasperated humming at the edge of a very tall cliff. The cliff dropped down clean and shear hundreds of stories before the land spread out like a painting before her. Her breath caught in amazement at the sight.
She could see the distant mountains, the golden and green plains - the endless woods spotted with meadows. Rivers spider webbing over the land with pockets of water here and there. She could see the tips and lands of different castles, towns dotting around the various kingdoms with cheerful, productive smoke rising from the chimneys.
As she looked closer she bit her lip in a helpless frown - she could see the ruins of what once was a magnificent castle in the distance, could see where the woods were charred and the skeletons of pillaged and destroyed townships once resided whole and happy. Oh, Tarrant, she thought sadly as she remembered his home of Witzend and it's wasteland appearance now.
Alice could see the overwhelmingly large cemeteries, the abandoned Red castle. The borders of the Outlands, and where the green and life dropped off into black and desolation. Underneath everything though, she could see the intricate and numerous lines of blue light that connected and chased and spider webbed like crackle glass - like the web was a backdrop for the life it resided under. It went beyond everything even into and beyond the Outlands.
She looked down to the blue line she'd been chasing, where it ended with a softly humming white bead of light.
"What are you, I wonder?" Alice asked of nobody, looking closer at the line.
"A leyline." A soft voice said, startling the blonde woman.
Alice looked up to find a figure, indistinct and made of wisps of pearl, glowing blue eyes and identifiable as female only by the long locks falling about her otherwise unclothed form.
"Leyline?" Alice echoed, curious about the inverse shadow figure leaning against a tree just a few meters away.
"They mark the threads of power keeping Underland together, and there are stone markers along them that denote the more powerful pools of wild magic. No one can see them anymore, though." the ghostly figure said, sounding sad as if she'd been abandoned by the others.
"We can see them." Alice pointed out, and the figure looked at her with some amusement.
"That's because we're special." The figure said, sounding quite amused. "Come now, there is something you need to see, and it will take some time to reach." A ghostly hand reached out and without a thought Alice placed her hand in that oddly warm grasp.
"What is it I need to see?" Alice asked as the other figure tugged and they began to walk.
"You know you're dreaming here, don't you?" The figure asked instead, glancing over her shoulder to look at Alice briefly.
"Maybe. But if this is a dream, does that mean I have fallen asleep at the Hatter's table?" Alice asked, faintly horrified. What terrible manners that was, even for Underland!
"You haven't fallen asleep at his table, no. But you are sleeping in Underland. It's nice to hear that it's truly real to you again." the figure chuckled, and Alice looked down going faintly pink in shame.
"Don't fret, you did what you needed to. You've returned, and you're ready now. That's all that matters, really." The figure told her softly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
Alice studied the form leading her and wondered briefly if it was some kind of Mirana, a vision of the White Queen in her dreams showing her, like always, the way now that she'd accepted her place.
The figure glanced over her shoulder again, looking amused, as if she knew Alice's errant thought and found it amusing but incorrect. And, no, Alice agreed, the figure wasn't Mirana - Mirana had the most deep chocolate amber eyes - no, this shadow creature had blazing eyes of everchanging blue.
So, why then, was she so familiar? Alice wondered.
After some time, Alice could only tell time was moving at all by the movement of the sun and the deepening of the gold it cast along the ground, they came to the edge of a vast grounds. They stood on the edge of a long road of pale earth leading up to a beautiful castle - one looking a little blurred in the distance, but obviously made in the combined styles of Marmoreal and Salazen Grum, with circular architecture - rather than heart-shaped - and in shades of blue rather than white. It wasn't chess themed, however, but simply elegant and artistic.
The figure tugged again and they began the walk up the road to where it became smooth cobblestones of pale blue a bridge over a grand, roaring river that circled the castle proper. The river banks were emerald green with grass and flowering with a rainbow of hues.
Alice saw that the castle hadn't been blurry with distance, it had been moving! The stones themselves were simply rearranging themselves in the finishing touches of rebuilding it looked like. She stared up marveling over the rainbow glass windows, the pearlescent finishes and the deep blue stone marbled with pearl and bronze that made up the castle proper.
Alice walked up the stairs to the tall, wide double doors with their shiny finish and bronze handles, the figure was hanging back at the bottom of the stairs. Alice looked back toward her questioningly, the figure leaned casually, crossing her arms, against the bottom post of the railing.
"You need to know that you are accepting a great responsibility if you open those doors." The figure told her seriously, "You wont ever be able to return to Overland, and you will become different. More like us, more Underlandian."
"And if becoming a permanent resident of Underland doesn't bother me?" Alice asked, the figure smiled with a shrug.
"Then that decision will be burdenless, however, the responsibility you are gaining by opening those doors - those you may come to regret. Only," she paused, looking up at the turrets with an odd, almost forlorn look, "only, there will be no simply giving it back, or running away from it."
Alice turned and looked to the figure, "Will I be alone? Will I be forsaking my beloved friends, will I be dooming them should I not receive this responsibility?"
"No, you will neither be forsaking nor dooming them, however you will become different from them. But if it soothes you," the knowing, amused gleam came back to the figure's eyes, "you will have a constant, most beloved companion."
"You cannot tell me more? Tell me of this responsibility?" Alice asked, a little sardonically.
"You know how this goes, Alice. It is your choice only, when you step through those doors - you carry the burden alone." The figure told her seriously, and Alice nodded - she had expected nothing less.
"May I know your name?" Alice asked finally, and the figure gave her a soft chuckle.
Alice turned and placed her hands on the bronze handles, glancing over her shoulder at the figure.
"You may, Alice, another time." She said then, eerily reminiscent of Chessur, she was gone.
Alice laughed and pushed the doors open, walking freely through the doors just as the last stone fitted into its rightful place.
* * *
Alice woke with gasp, jerking slightly. The room she woke to is spotless white, and quite crowded. She can make out in the soft moonlight filtering through the gauzy drapes that there are several recognizable figures curled up on cots around the room.
"Alice?" a sleepy, concerned voice asked just from her left, and she turned her head to find a familiar face.
"Hello, Hatter." She murmured, unsurprised to find him curled protectively around her, laying on the quilts wrapping her up.
He seemed to wake up more fully at that, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at her with relieved, fairly glowing grass green eyes.
"You have given us, me, everyone! Quite the scare, young miss. Very naughty." He told her, voice low in deference of the sleepers in the room, and she wrinkled her nose at him.
"Scared you? What have I done?" She asked a little anxious.
"Shh, no, no I've said it wrong. Well, no I haven't, you did scare us (me most of all!), but it was by falling ill, rather than anything you did consciously. However, your spectacular weather antics of unconsciousness were cause for some worry, but no matter. I am just ever so relieved that you are awake!" He babbled quietly, running the back of his hand against her thankfully again-porcelain cheek.
"I was ill?" Alice hmmed, closing her eyes and leaning into his touch, "Well, she had said that I'd fallen asleep, and not at your table."
"You didn't fall asleep at all, you fell unconscious!" Tarrant told her, looking a bit wild eyed in remembrance, "You were talking and then Chessur said something, then you were babbling nonsense before you slumped over! And then there was the shaking and sweating and bleeding an -"
"Tarrant!" Alice cupped his distressed face with her hands and he stopped his panicking.
"I'm sorry, thank you. It's just," he took a shaky breath, "it was horrible." he whispered.
She shushed him softly and pulled him down to rest his forehead to her's, making him wrap an arm around her to steady himself.
"I'm well now, darling, I'm better. No need to worry any more." She assured him, and it was not a lie - she felt just as well as she had when she'd first decided to come back - better even! She felt as if she had been energized with pure light.
He collapsed into her, burying his face into her neck, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders burying one hand into his wild locks. She felt him shake, tightening his arms around her as if he could keep her from death by simply holding her.
After a few minutes, his shaking seemed to fade and she looked to find him sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, salty trails on his cheeks. She smiled softly, and brushed the tears away, then pulled the covers to cover them both. Which situated him completely into her, and made her go faintly pink, but she didn't mind as she settled with him once more - falling asleep listening to him snore gently.
Absolem watched as they fell firmly into slumber's embrace, then looked out the window where Alice's Dreamwalker reappeared walking along the shoreline. The image appeared much, much stronger than it had previously.
The butterfly glanced at the sleeping blonde curled up with their Hatter, and smiled to himself.