Once Upon A Time

by hara-leah

Once Upon a Time, they were beautiful and strong. Once Upon a Time, they were the evil-doers, the malicious ones. Once upon a time, they were magnificent. Once Upon a Time, they didn't need their children to be beautiful and cunning and powerful for them. Once Upon a Time, they didn't need to send their kids to rule the world for them, because they were already doing it themselves.

5. She Was Only Insane

Once Upon a Time (She Was Only Insane)

Her name was Alice. Ironic, really. So ironic. And her mother was a murderess. She was a queen. They had lived in the Underland most of her life, a nightmarish, undefined world of horror, an anti-Wonderland. Ruled by the Queen of Hearts, her mother, locked up with everyone who was mad, who Alice (the Alice) had once-upon-a-time accepted. And her father was the Mad Hatter, who was supposed to be good and in Wonderland, but wasn't, because the Council of Auradon didn't trust him, and how ironic was that? Alice's life was built on irony.

And her mama's will.

Alice had been trained to kill before she could talk because it was all good (evil) and well that her mama shouted out the order (and you know which one), but someone had to follow up on the threat. And that someone was Ali. Eventually, she would take extra, side orders to keep the household afloat, because her papa didn't give her mama money or care for either of them at all (they were, after all, villains, and he wasn't) and her mama gambled away whatever she earned selling white roses. They were never red. And her mama played poker and Russian roulette with the Blue Caterpillar and White Rabbit and Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum while Ali killed their brothers' and sisters' and wives' enemies.

And when the Queen, the true queen, the one who could and would kill discovered her secret stash, she screamed and raged and was furious with her and Ali was scared she'd say those four little words- OFF WITH HER HEAD -and Ali would have to obey because she was conditioned to and she knew that if she didn't there would be insurmountable pain, and not again, she couldn't stand that again, she'd die.

But then The Queen of Hearts realised that her daughter (servant, slave) could be used for so much more, and then she'd make sure that Ali didn't come home before midnight, and not without $2600 and if she did there'd be hell to pay. And the Queen of Hearts would gamble, gamble away her daughter's (foul creature) earnings, and spent it all on booze (vodka and whiskey by the bottle to make her heart burn), because that was the only way to forget that her beautiful daughter was not only more powerful than her, but also her second-worst enemy's daughter as well, and named for her worst enemy. Alice. Cruella may have once loved her now-enemy, may still love her, but the Queen never forgave, and never, never forgot, and Alice was at the top of her revenge list as soon as she got rid of the menace that had knocked her up, and she had just that candidate for the job right at her fingertips.

And when Alice killed her father, the Queen laughed, and laughed and laughed and laughed, because how perfect and ironic was it that the Mad Hatter's only link to Alice (the Alice) and Wonderland the Queen's darling sister was the one thing that finally did away with him. And she made her daughter bake his heart into a tart and for so many years after she'd been pushed off her throne and her precious Jabberwocky was murdered heartlessly she felt whole again, and she was just so, so, ready to wreak havoc on the Princes of Auradon and that beautifully blonde-haired Alice.

Then those four useless beasts got so close, so close, to finally liberating her, and their hearts were turned by the honest, kind, honeyed words of the citizens of Auradon, forgetting that they were only a charity case and that one day those upstanding citizens would tire of them and toss them back here like the trash they were, and there'd be no mercy.

But apparently, the 'Core Four' tired of them first, when Mal murdered her shiny new golden husband on their wedding night and the entire world saw her walking out of their suite with a blood-splattered sheet wrapped around her otherwise naked body, a feral smile on her face and their darling prince's head in her hand and the Queen of Hearts was just so proud and why couldn't her daughter be like that, and the Queen was just so sure that she'd be allowed to reign Wonderland again, disregarding the fact that all the other once-villains were being imprisoned until she got drunk and woke up in a pure white room and how dare they and white!?

Apparently, Alice (not the Alice) had made a deal with those four, and all she wanted was Wonderland and the chance to say those four little words and the Queen (who really hadn't been a queen for a long, long time) didn't know whether to be proud or horrified when her daughter sat in her old throne and it was her head in the place that so many others in her reign had known oh so well and yelled the Queen's favourite phrase at the top of her lungs and that was it and the Queen was dead and her victims were avenged.

(Because her mama may have ordered killings, but Alice could kill.)