Disclaimer: these little chapters should not be taken too seriously for some liberties were taken here and there. Mostly these ones are AUs.
To the most wonderful TheFowler, who always supported me in my aspirations to write! Thank you, dear friend)
Bedtime is a favourite time of little Alice Liddell, for after their mother would kiss them good night, it was time for Lorina to read stories. A book would be fetched from its place in a glass-faced cabinet and one or another beautiful story would be told.
Lorina, six years older, was the center of little Alice's world. There was nothing her older sister couldn't do or didn't know – from embroidery to cooking, from playing the piano to telling stories. The older girl knew so many pretty tales of times old and young, the knights and fair maidens, adventures, and love.
Tonight Lorina chooses Andersen.
"As soon as the children fall asleep, Ole Lukoie sits down on the bed beside them. He is well dressed. His coat is made of silk, but it would be impossible to say what color it is because it gleams red, or green, or blue, as he turns about. Under each arm he carries an umbrella» , reads Lorina, her voice going a bit whispery to show the mysterious aura of the night guest such as Ole Lukoie.
Beneath her blanket, Alice secretly smiles. As much as she loves this story, she knows for sure Ole Lukoie doesn't look like Andersen described him – he doesn't bring an umbrella, neither his suit changes colors.
She sees him almost every night.
"Welcome, Alice", - he greets her, a young boy who looks just a bit older than her, elegant and gentle as a porcelain figurine of a young marquis, - "Where would you like to go today?"
And the girl shares what she remembers from the stories Lorina told her tonight or something from the books that recently caught her attention. Take me to Neverland. Take me to Narnia. It is so convenient that when she doesn't have the words to describe what she wants, he always sees it in her mind.
"Hmm, what a lovely place you've picked", - he offers her his hand in a way of a true gentleman and it doesn't look misplaced when he does so (though surely most of her classmates would think him a sissy — a thought he terribly protests against when he happens to catch it).
She is his Wendy with lots of pretty stories and he is her Ole Lukoie, her Peter Pan, the one who takes hold of her hand and guides her to the lands no storyteller knows about, the ones woven from her fantasies, as much as his own.
There are times when she asks him to choose and he never disappoints her.
There are castles in the air, connected by rainbow bridges; a lovely rosewood ship to swim across sapphire-colored waters; rose garden so big, it stretches till horizon; flower fields of all colours, garish reds, yellows, vivid blues, and purples.
These dreams are the ones Alice loves best, though the girl is always a bit reluctant to wake up from them. It is also sad that all attempts to share the wonderful visions with Lorina are never successful. Alice sincerely regrets Lorina doesn't have the same powers as her dream friend for it certainly would have made the explanation easier. But her sister, angel as she is, only shakes her head and smiles warmly, saying that even Herr Hoffmann or Herr Hauff (to say nothing of Mr. Andrew Lang!) would be happy to make her acquaintance.
Years pass; there is a third sister now, Edith, who doesn't have the same kind of imagination as her older sisters. The youngest Liddell girl calls fairy-tales stupid, so gradually the tradition of bedtime stories dies down.
They are too old now, anyway; each has a room of her own in the vast mansion the Liddells reside at. There are lots of classes as well, which Alice excels at, but she can't help but feel that no matter how good she gets, she'd never make a great lady like her mother and Lorina.
Her dreams are still something she cherishes, a way to escape sad thoughts, even though she long ago gave up trying to describe her nighttime adventures. But when she falls asleep, no matter how boring or tiresome her day was, he is there; her dream friend.
He too is older now; his black breaches and embroidered vest gave way to a fine three-piece suit accompanied by a lovely silk neckcloth adorned with amethyst as shiny as his eye. His white waistcoat has large mother-of-pearl buttons; his hair grew longer and he wears it tied in a ponytail. Alice likes how his silver hair is darkening into purple at the ends; it is pretty like a moonflower and smells just like lilac bushes in their garden. Secretly she finds it a little funny how he still uses his hair to cover his eye patch, though he always denies it.
He is as well-mannered as always, offering her his hand and changing the surroundings around them faster than lightning. Alice allows him to do most of the choosing now – she doesn't read fairy-tales anymore and has no new stories for him, though he doesn't seem to be bothered by it.
They ride turtles and a giant purple bird with feathers soft as a cloud, even if Alice isn't necessarily fond of heights. But she learns quickly that there was nothing truly scary with him by her side. With him, she could walk on water without a single care as to who might be lurking beneath. With him she could fly and dance on rainbows, enjoying how gently he held her hand.
He shows her new land as picturesque as any they've visited before. It has an amusement park and a beautiful rose maze, where they nearly got lost; a funny shaped-mansion where they come for tea time. Alice especially loves an old Clocktower, a tall and grey building from which they could observe the whole land as if having it in the palm of their hand. As they admire the view, he tells her he too lives in a tower in a voice that is proud and shy at the same time. When Alice expresses her desire to visit, he just smiles and it strikes the girl as sad.
These days Alice doesn't always remember her nightly escapades when she wakes up, which is for the best, really, because she needs to focus on her studies. Those would seem awfully boring in comparison, even if her tutor is as handsome as a prince (not as handsome as him, though, truth to be told, no one is).
She develops a crush on her tutor eventually; though older, he, who shares her love for books and stories, is the closest to her idea of how a man should be(at least, in the waking world; but a dream boyfriend is hardly someone she can introduce to her family). When he accepts her confession, Alice is so blissfully happy about finally having her own beau, she doesn't notice at first that her fairy-tale-like dreams stop.
When she does notice, she is sad. She tries to remember whether she used to do something special before bed. She keeps Andersen's fairy-tales on her nightstand. She even goes as far as spending some nights at their old nursery, a deed which makes Edith mutter something spiteful once she hears about it. Even Lorina raises one of her delicate brows in surprise.
Yet nothing works – for the first time in the longest, her dreams are ordinary, without a single touch of magic to them.
But then their mother passes away and dreams stop matter altogether. This sudden death and the funeral which followed shatter their fragile family bonds like glass. Now Mr. Liddel is rarely at home and there is a rift between her and Edith, the one that Alice knows not how to cross.
But she still has Lorina and together they try to create new traditions to keep themselves going. That is how they come up with their shared Sunday afternoons, a leisure time they spend in the garden reading, given the weather is good. And she still has her tutor, who comes more often now, preparing her for upcoming college exams. Alice works twice as hard as before, wanting to make it for both herself and Lorina, a lovely, endlessly good-tempered Lorina who turned down the college in order to stay and run the house. She owes Lorina so much, Alice allows her sister to dress her up the way Lorina used to dress up their dolls. The dresses the oldest Liddel sister chooses closely resemble ones that porcelain figurines wear: with voluminous skirts, heavily decorated with lace and embroidery. Secretly, Alice isn't very fond of these; she is rather envious of her sharp-tongued little sister, who turned down Lorina's offer to add some golden embroidery to her green dress (even if she can't think how one can say no to Lorina).
Alice's blue dress has golden patterns running across the rim and puffy sleeves, the only consolation being that Lorina's own favourite purple dress has the very same pattern decorating it. It becomes another one of their little traditions – to dress up for their Sunday afternoons, even if all they do is sit beneath the giant oak tree and read.
It is really a bit too young for her, thinks Alice as she puts her sister's present on, a dress inspired by both Carroll's novel and the Disney cartoon, though with a touch of Japanese lolita fashion to it. But her tutor tells her she looks lovely in it and praises Lorina's hands of gold. So Alice wears the dress often.
Until her world crashes.
These days he finds himself ill at ease and frightfully bored, no matter whether he is running his Tower or escaping to his realm. The dreams of inhabitants of his world bore him stiff, like an old schoolbook one might pick up when having nothing else to read, just to send it flying across the room after finding nothing but old formulas on its pages.
He longs to see her dreams.
He came across her by chance, when bored out of his mind, he tried to venture to the furthest parts of his realm. There he met her, the glorious girl with an imagination to match his own. One accidentally shared dream soon turned into plenty.
It was so delightful to fulfill her whims, show her whatever took her fancy – dragons and all of the mysterious creatures of her favourite stories, castles, and caverns full of gems, rose gardens and waterfalls, mermaids and fairytale lands she read about. It was fun to show her his own world and see it through her wonder-struck eyes anew.
Time passed in both their worlds, but her passion for adventure and beauty never cooled. So each night he'd make time to visit her dreams, the most dutiful friend, longing for her stories and laughter.
Until something changed. The change was subtle, almost imperceptible at first. But there was something new in her now, something sharp.
It didn't suit her, not Alice, the golden Alice with a mischievous smile and bell-like laughter.
She always praised her sister and expressed sadness that Lorina Liddell couldn't take part in their nightly adventures. He never particularly liked how Alice worshiped the ground her older sister walked on. But now this pure admiration had something new within it.
Bitterness.
You don't need to feel this way, - he wanted to tell her on more than one occasion. Your sister doesn't dream like you, no matter how many books she reads.
But Alice, his Alice, was slowly losing her light, was losing her faith in magic and world beyond what ratio could explain.
He needed to do something. He loathed losing her like this – her spirit, her imagination, her ability to see things invisible to the naked eye all were too rare, too precious. There was no replacement for her in any world.
He should have remembered that things on the other side always remained out of his hands.
She went to bed numb, exhausted, though she didn't shed a single tear all day. (You are cold, Edith told her, all pretense at civility gone, - You never cared for her).
It would have been so much easier, had it been true. If she could have traded her heart for a stone the way Peter Munk did, she wouldn't feel any of this turmoil.
She lays in bed for a long time, before sleep finally claims her. When it happens she finds herself in a familiar colored place, the one she considered forever out of her reach.
And he is here too.
He looks older than Alice remembers. His hair is much shorter now, framing his bone china white face instead of half-covering it; his long pale fingers hold a pipe (when did he start to smoke?) and she doesn't know what to make out of his new suit – all black leather and metal zippers, with a fine lavender-colored handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket. A rock star with a touch of a Victorian gentleman.
But he watches her with the same warmth, her dear friend, the one she missed so much.
This night there are no stories or adventures – she didn't cry at the funeral, but here she all, but weeps with grief and he lets her. He is holding her, gently stroking her back, whispering words of sympathy. She has almost forgotten how reassuring and soothing his voice could sound.
"I wish I didn't have to go back", - she says, catching her breath at last. The same words were spoken by her many times before – half-jokingly and with real longing for their adventures were always the most delightful part of her life. At present, she wishes with all her aching, sad, and jaded heart that this was more than a dream. She wishes for a safe haven to hide at, for his arms to run to, her own Narnia to stay at.
She missed him so much, she thinks.
And then he looks at her and she nearly loses herself in his intense gaze.
And he says the words she never heard him speak.
"You don't have to"
She sits beneath an old oak tree, even if its night time and chilly. In her apron's pocket lays a small blue glass vial. From time to time Alice checks her wristwatch.
When it finally strikes midnight, her heart almost jumps out of her chest. With slow, deliberate motions the girl takes off her wristwatch, stops it, and lies it on the ground. Then she stands up and takes a vial out of her pocket. It looks made of moonstone, shiny under soft moonlight.
With one quick, last glance at the house (a big, disproportioned house their mother affectionately called "crooked"), Alice uncorks the vial and gulps its contents.
The unexpected bitterness makes her close her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, the girl sees a giant hole in the ground. It certainly hasn't been there before.
Wary, she steps closer but hesitates. Should she..?
There is a sudden movement to her right. Startled, Alice sees a small white rabbit run out of the bush and jump inside the hole. Be it nighttime or not, she notices the red jacket and a fine gold watch.
Smiling and no more hesitating Alice jumps after him.
Falling is scarier than she anticipated; the rational part of her brain is screaming at her for being stupid.
But it is taking so long to reach the bottom, she starts wondering if there is no bottom at all, if this whole fall is just the last dream she is getting, before she is dead-
Until a pair of hands catch her and she finds herself pressed against someone's chest. The hands are cold and there is a faint smell of lilacs in the air, but even without it, Alice can tell it's him, despite the complete darkness.
Only his touch can be so awkward, yet reassuring.
"It took you so long, I decided to meet you halfway", - she hears him murmur into her hair. They continue descending, but the pace is much slower now. As if he is carrying her down the stairs.
"There is absolutely no need for you to be afraid. This is going to be a good dream"
"Yes", - she agrees, leaning to rest her head in the crook of his neck, a surprisingly comfortable position, - "Since you are going to be there"
He doesn't answer, but his grip on her tightens.
She slowly slides one of her hands around his neck, letting the other one fall on his chest, surprised when her fingers stumble across something that feels like a necktie. The fabric is soft beneath her touch. Surprised, Alice traces the embroidered patterns. She doesn't remember him ever wearing neckties.
"Came straight from work", - he mumbles and it's so endearing, Alice can't hold back a smile.
If he is going to be with her, she doesn't mind even if this fall shall be eternal.
He lightly chuckles and Alice belatedly remembers his mind-reading powers.
"As much as I enjoy our current position, I still would like to be able to see you properly"
She is grateful for surrounding darkness because blush is certainly gracing her cheeks now.
"And there is so much I want to show you", - he continues softly.
"I want to see it all", - and there is a surety in her voice. Everything he has ever shown her was beautiful.
"And you won't let your regrets get to you?", - he is asking, concerned.
"You know me", - Alice can't lie, not to him - "There would be times when I shall regret my choice, but- I want to leave all of my sadness behind"
I want to be with you.
Even in the darkness, she feels him smiling.
"Then welcome"
And suddenly there is no more darkness; instead, they are floating high in the air and Alice can only gasp at the beauty of the landscape before and beneath them. This land is lush with rich green; the city is all colored rooftops. She recognizes the castle with a rose maze and the mansion they went to for tea in the distance.
But most prominent is the tower right beneath them – tall and large, green and white and golden, standing proudly in the center of the land. It reminds her of Goodwin's Emerald City and Cair Paravel at the same time.
They land on its clover-shaped golden spire.
"This is my home", - he tells her as they land, and her eyes flutter to see him – too taken with this new land she almost forgot how she longed to see him through those long minutes in the darkness.
And indeed she has never seen him wearing such a suit before. He looks more handsome than ever and she can detect the uncertainty in his eye.
"I am happy you finally brought me here", - she says, smiling.
"I always meant to", - he answers and there is a blush on his pale face, -"I always thought it would be a perfect place for you"
"So what do we do to secure a deal then?", - she asks him because there is one more fear within her, the one only he can settle.
He looks her straight to the eyes and she thinks she has never felt this open before anyone.
"Will you stay here with me?"
"As long as you'll have me"
And as he leans to her, Alice feels that this is the beginning of a new story, the best of all.
Author's Notes: The title "No sleep except to dream" is actually a line from a song "Good Riddance" by Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett. Highly recommend to check it out!
Wilhelm Hauff and E.T.A. Hoffmann are both marvelous fairy tale writers (and more than that!) from Germany. I strongly believe our Alice would certainly know their works. The same goes for Hans Christian Andersen.
Andrew Lang was a fairy tale collector, who selected stories for and edited more than a dozen of most wonderful fairy-tale books (The Crimson Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book to name but a few).
Peter Munk - the main character of Herr Hauff's fairy tale "Das kalte Hertz" ("The Cold Heart"), who at one point traded his human heart for a stone.