AN: Sorry this took so long to update. My Bunny and Alice muse crapped out on me. Originally, this was suppose to be part of chapter one, but I liked the note chapter one ended on, so I decided to break this up into another chapter. Also, did anyone notice my new story cover? Isn't it just the most fantastic thing ever? It was done by one of my Tumblr buddies; StormeRed!
RECENTLY RE-EDITED
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.
~Easter Sunday, 1861~
Bunny really didn't know what had possessed him into returning to Hyde Park after he had finished with the rest of his egg deliveries. He really didn't.
Maybe it was because he had been, more or less, in the neighborhood when he was making his way back to his underground warren and maybe he just wanted to make sure that oddball of a girl hadn't left his beautiful, hand-painted Easter eggs on the park bench like the weird child she was. He worked really hard on those eggs and didn't appreciate them going to waste.
It was late at night by the time Bunny arrived at the park, just a little past ten o'clock if his internal clock was wired correctly. The park was mostly empty except for the occasional couple taking a romantic, late-night stroll, or a police office leisurely patrolling along the abandoned dirt paths, whistling a light tune to help fill the silence and make a solitary job feel just a little less lonesome.
Raising his nose to the dark sky and taking in a deep breath of the night-time air, Bunny tried to pick up his previous scent from earlier that day so he could navigate his way back to the park bench easier in the dark. Once he found it, he followed it towards the small playground and beyond, all the way to the outskirts of park. All the while, mumbling to himself under his breath.
What was he even doing here? He should be back in his warm warren, sleeping off his Easter Sunday high - not mucking about in some random park millions of miles from his home just so he could make sure his precious eggs weren't left abandoned. Of course he didn't want to run into the infuriating little girl again, with her wide eyes and mute nature. Because of her, Bunny had to triple his pace just to make sure he didn't fall behind schedule. He nearly missed the egg hunts in Nebraska, for MiM's sake!
And even if Bunny wanted to see her again, why would he come back to the park during the middle of the night? That just made no sense. There was no way the girl would still be there, sitting on the park bench, quiet as death.
As the park bench finally came into view, Bunny stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw nearly hit the ground when he squinted through the darkness and caught sight of a tiny figure sitting on top of it, the size and shape of it utterly recognizable even at night. But just in case his mind was playing a cruel trick on him, Bunny had to rub his eyes twice, just to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
There she was, still sitting there.
The little, dark-haired girl.
She was sitting on the park bench just like before except she was wearing a different dress, another hand-me-down, in gray this time. She sat patiently on the bench with her hands in her lap and her tiny legs swinging over the side. Normally, Bunny wouldn't have found such an image strange if it hadn't been the middle of the night. She couldn't have been more than four or five and she was sitting alone in a potentially dangerous park, late at night.
Where the hell were this girl's parents?!
Throwing all caution to the wind, Bunny fell on all fours and quickly hopped over to the little girl. As he approached, the girl's head turned towards him and her green eyes immediately lit up when she saw him. For a split second, it looked as if she was going to say something, opening her mouth a tiny bit and breathing in, but he didn't stop to find out, being the brash spirit that he was.
"What in the world are you doin', kid!?" He demanded as soon as he reached her. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be out here?"
Just like before, the girl didn't do anything except look up at him with piercing eyes and a blank expression. Maybe the situation wouldn't be as infuriating for Bunny if the girl would only just speak every once in a while. It didn't even have to be a full sentence. Just one word. Couldn't she just say one word?
Apparently not. She remained silent.
Curbing his frustration by rolling pent-up tension out of his shoulders, Bunny let out a pained groan before pulling back to his full height. He crossed his arms and looked down at the girl with a stern look. It was silent for several minutes on both ends as Bunny regarded the girl almost as if she was some rare, unique species of animal he had yet to come across in his long lifetime.
"Get up, kid," The exhausted pooka finally said. He wasn't even going to bother with questions. The girl wouldn't answer them anyways.
When the girl didn't move, Bunny bit back a potentially mean snap and instead said, "I'm takin' you home."
The little girl shifted her gaze away from the pooka's and stared straight ahead at the darkness around them, looking at something far off that even Bunny couldn't see before letting out a quiet sigh of her own. Then, she carefully climbed down from the bench without any sign of protest.
"Well, alright then," Bunny coughed once to mask his surprise with the girl's compliance. "Where do ya live?"
The girl pointed obscurely with a small hand in the opposite direction Bunny came from as if that was all the information he needed to know.
"Uh, okay," He mumbled before lowering her raised arm with his paw and gently coaxing her in that direction. "Lead the way then, sheila."
At that, the girl's eyes lit up with surprise and excitement. Nobody has ever Alice lead before.
With a new sense of determination and a little skip in her step, the girl twisted on her heel and began the long trek back home with a surly Easter Bunny following close behind.
~O~
The walk to the girl's house had been longer than Bunny thought it would be. So far that the pooka was surprised the girl was able to make her way to the park on her own, at night no less.
The unlikely pair weaved through streets, passed over a small bridge or two, and arrived at the girl's neighborhood without incident. The girl wasn't stopped by any passing Oxford patrons, policemen included, which only served to irritate Bunny more. Surely, a small child walking the streets alone at night would attract attention, but the two were left alone as they walked. He angrily chalked it up to carelessness of the police force and pure apathy from the patrons.
The house the girl led Bunny to was the very last one on the block. It was a tall, two-story home with a large yard and a fair amount of trees surrounding it, making it a bit more secluded than the other houses in the neighborhood. All was quiet and every visible window displayed darkness within it. When the pair reached the house, Bunny moved towards the front porch, but when a small hand found itself wrapped around one of Bunny's hanging paws, the pooka recoiled from the touch out of pure reflex. He almost flinched at how callous that made him look, pulling away from the girl like she was poison. Thankfully, the girl didn't seem to take notice. She just looked up at him for a second before she veered away from him and walked around the side of the house.
Puzzled, Bunny didn't say anything as he followed the girl. When he caught up to her, she was standing under an open window on the second floor. She was looking up at it blankly as if she was contemplating something deeply.
"It that your bedroom?" Bunny asked, coming to stand behind her with his arms crossed and his head turned upwards just like her.
She nodded.
"How'd you get out?"
The girl stepped up to the back wall of her home, grabbing hold of the rose vines that covered it. When she moved to hoist herself up and climb the wall, Bunny quickly jumped forward and grabbed her around her middle.
"Whoa there, half-pint," Bunny chided. He held her in the air at arm's length (she practically weighed nothing) and turned her around. "No need for that, we'll use the front door."
He placed the girl back on the ground and after a few seconds of careful consideration, Bunny reached out and grabbed her hand. It was so small that his paw almost swallowed it completely, warming the pale skin instantly and reminding the pooka that it was getting colder outside. He flinched a little at the thought. That wouldn't do at all.
Aiming to get the kid back inside and into her bed before she caught a cold, he led her back to the front porch of her house.
He could feel the girl's eyes trained solely on him as he reached behind his shoulder and pulled out a tiny lock picking kit from his boomerang pouch (in case of emergencies) after trying the front door and discovering it was locked. She watched curiously as he crouched down in front of the door's lock and set to work with picking it. In a matter of seconds, the lock made a satisfying click and the door creaked open, leaving Bunny feeling a bit prideful when the girl looked up at him in awe. He then ushered the girl inside before following, locking the door again behind them.
The house was just as dark inside as it was outside. It was well furnished with a nice cozy atmosphere to it, sort of like North's domain after workshop hours when all the yetis and elves have cleared out. Bunny's forest green eyes quickly scanned the foyer for any signs of life, but found nothing except the distant ticking of a grandfather clock and a small candlelight glowing from somewhere in the second floor hallway.
"Alright," Bunny whispered, crouching down towards the ground so he was level with the girl. "Are your parents asleep?"
The girl nodded.
"It would be very bad if we woke them up, so we have to be super quiet, okay?"
Again, the girl nodded as she raised a finger to her lips in the universal sign for silence.
"Good, now come on-"
Bunny nearly jumped five feet in the air when something suddenly brushed up against one of his hind legs. "Crikey! What the bloody hell was that?!"
Ears at full height and senses on high alert, Bunny searched the ground around him for what ever it was that startled him. He saw something moving around by his feet, but it was too dark for even his enhanced eyesight to pick up.
Not at all alarmed like her companion, the girl walked over to him and bent over to pick something up. When she pulled back up, she had something black and furry in her tiny arms. Bunny was leaning down to get a better look when the thing let out a loud hiss that caused the gray pooka to jump back in alarm. He then found himself under the piercing, yellow gaze of a small black cat. Not small enough to be a kitten, but not big enough to be full grown yet. It looked up at him with its fur on end and its ears bent back in warning.
Not wanting to seem intimidated by a mangy fur ball not even half his size, Bunny sent the cat a glare of his own with his ears flattened.
"Cute," He sniffed once derisively, curling his pink nose up in contempt before looking back at the girl. "Come on."
Ignoring the cat, Bunny quietly led the little girl up the nearby staircase to the second floor and through a short hallway. To the left of the hallway was one solitary door that he guessed was the parents' room (he had half a mind to go in check if they were even alive. Someone had to be chaperoning this kid), while to the right there were two doors, both with name plates on them. The first door had the name "Elizabeth" printed across its middle. He thought maybe it was hers, but the little girl continued past it.
When the pair came to the last door with a dimly lit lamp on a small table, Bunny bent over to read the name plate.
"So you name is Alice, huh?" He whispered, looking down at the girl.
Alice just shrugged before readjusting her grip on her cat and pushing her way into her room. She put the cat on the floor and walked over to her bed, almost tripping on the hem of her dress as she went. It took a little maneuvering, but Alice was able to climb on to the mattress with quite an impressive leap for someone so small.
"Here, don't forget your vulture," Bunny grumbled, quickly snatching the bad-tempered feline from the floor and tossing it unceremoniously on the bed before it had a chance to claw him. The thing yowled indignantly and hissed, burying itself under Alice's bed quilt. Clearly, it didn't like him and the feeling was very much mutual. He hated those things, almost as much as he hated dogs.
As Bunny wiped his paws on the fur of his chest, Alice fixed her blankets and laid back against her pillow where she quietly watched the Easter Bunny mumbled under his breath.
"Alright then," He said somewhat awkwardly, not really sure what to say next. He was horrible at goodbyes. "I guess I'll be goin' now."
Despite feeling immensely disappointed, Alice just nodded in understanding. Delivering eggs around the world must be hard work, even for a fast creature like the Easter Bunny. He was probably very tired by now, but of course that didn't stop her from leaving her house to go see if he would return to the park.
She wouldn't call what she did "sneaking out" since it was past ten and her parents were out cold just like every night, so it had been easy for Alice to leave the house undetected. Lizzie did it all the time when she wanted to go visit friends past her curfew.
"And you're not goin' to do somethin' like this again, are you?" Bunny asked sternly.
Alice shook her head. Climbing down the side of the house once had been more than enough for her. The vines had only recently started to come back to life after a particularly unforgiving winter season. The thorns bit painfully into the palms of her hands and she nearly fell three times!
"Good," Bunny nodded curtly before walking over to her open bedroom window. Right before he jumped out of it, he turned towards the girl for the last time with a smile. "I guess I'll see ya around, kid."
And with that, he slipped out of the window and landed effortlessly on his feet. Immediately, he kicked off the ground into a swift run towards the tree line, and just like at the park, he stopped just before disappearing into the darkness of the forest and looked back again to find the girl at her window, watching him. Their green eyes seemed to lock even from a distance, and for a split second, Bunny felt a strange, foreboding twinge deep within his chest, almost like Deja Vu, but not quite. It was then that the pooka remembered how the little girl was able to see him even though she claimed to have never heard of him before. That in itself was nearly beyond his comprehension.
He remembered once hearing from Tooth (or maybe it had been North?) about special individuals out there in the mortal world that could just see things others couldn't, regardless if they believed or not, but Bunny has never come across one himself. Although now, he couldn't but wonder if he just did. Or maybe he was just thinking too deeply into things. Alice couldn't have been more than four or five, barely past toddlerhood. Kids of those ages had a habit of subconsciously believing in things that they might've heard of only once but never made any real note of it.
Children were weird sometimes, especially the one Bunny had encountered that Easter Sunday, so he decided to let his questions go for now as he made his way back to his warren. He was beyond exhausted.
If he didn't completely forget, he told himself he would bring it up with Sandy next time he had a chance to speak with the dreamsand spirit.
AN: Alice is four in this chapter, just about to turn five, so this isn't the last time Bunny sees her. Alice was seven when the fire happened. The black cat is, of course, Alice's cat, Dinah. And also, it's quoted by Lizzie in the AMR game that after ten o'clock, Alice's parents practically fall unconscious, so I decided it would nice to throw that in. Also along with the rose vines on the side of the house.
Sorry for any mistakes! I kind of rushed the editing on this one and I didn't get the chance to have one of my beta readers look over it. If you spot a mistake, let me know in a review.
Hope you enjoyed reading! Don't forget to review people!
~Scorpiofreak~