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akainagiTen Again More Trips Through Wonderland (Trips 46-50)
Author:AkaiNagi
Rating: PG
Pairing: Alice/Tarrant
Summary: Prompts 5-10 (Table 5) from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
10_prompts.
Prompt: Chorus
Things went from bad to worse.
One moment Alice was sitting in on the most bizarre tea party she had ever been to, watching the Hatter verbally flay the Cheshire Cat in some language she didn’t understand, and the next everyone was in a panic.
“The Knave!” the March Hare cried.
Suddenly the Hatter was pouring pishalver down her throat, fairly choking her, and then, when she was the appropriate size, stuffed her unceremoniously in a teapot.
“Well at least it’s not full of tea,” she muttered to herself. “They’d open the lid to find me drowned in Darjeeling.“ And what the blazes were they doing out there anyway? Singing?
She could hear them singing some nonsense about teatrays and bats. And a man’s rough and cruel-sounding voice asking where Alice was. If he was unpleasant as he sounded, she didn’t relish being found by him. She’d take her chances with the lunatic trio.
Suddenly a loud snuffling sound filled her senses and the spout of the teapot was filled with what appeared to be dog-nose. The dog sniffed so strongly her hair wafted in the breeze.
Fear gripped her heart. She was found out.
Then she heard the Hatter growl lowly, “Downal wyth bluddy behg hid.”
Almost as if responding to a signal, the dog disappeared, and Alice breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently the Hatter had dissuaded the canine.
Moments later the lid of the pot was lifted and the Hatter was peering in. She flushed in embarrassment. She was entirely naked except for the remnants of her dress, which she had swathed around herself like a blanket.
“Oh! Pardon me. One moment.” The hatter fished out a piece of her dress from the teapot, and with a flash of his milliner’s scissors and some needle and thread, combined it with a tea cozy and a doily.
He took the resulting creation and dropped it into the teapot, closing the lid to allow her some privacy to change. The dress fit like it was custom made for her. Which, in reality, it was. She couldn’t help but wonder how he got her measurements so correct simply by sight.
She knocked on the teapot and the Hatter lifted her out with the greatest of care, setting her back in her seat.
“Oh! I like it!” the Hatter exclaimed merrily.
She supposed she should begrudge him making her drink the pishalver and shoving her in the china.
But it was a fine dress, and comfortable too. And he was smiling so pleasantly at her, so she supposed she could forgive getting stuffed in the teapot.
Prompt: Sadness
On her first night at Marmoreal, Alice found herself unable to sleep.
How could she sleep when, at this very moment, they could be executing the Hatter for the heinous crime of trying to protect her?
She wandered the halls of Marmoreal, wandered the grounds and the gardens, guilt gnawing at her soul. If only she had been faster, more capable, more like the champion he needed her to be and less like the girl she was, she would have succeeded in her quest to rescue him.
When it came down to brass tacks, apparently, her muchness was still not up to par.
I left him to die, she thought. She could feel the burn of tears building behind her eyes. I saved myself and left him to die. Her mind refused to process the fact that even now he might no longer be living. This was her dream world, a world she envisioned with her own mind. And she refused to envision a world without him in it.
He would meet his death bravely; she had no doubt about that. Probably with a cry of “Downal wyth bluddy behg hid.”
In his last moments, she wondered, would he spare a thought for her?
She was in the gardens when the tears finally came. The more she tried to repress them the harder they came. She collapsed to the stone walk of the garden, her head in her hands as great sobs wracked her body.
She cried for the Hatter, she cried for herself, and she cried for all the missed opportunities. All the times she could have told him what he meant to her.
But she never did. And now it was too late.
Prompt: Overwhelmed
Her day had started out horribly, exhaustion and rolling nausea seemed to be her permanent companions. I thought they called it morning sickness because it happens in the morning. They might as well call it all-the-bloody-time-sickness. She thought despairingly.
She felt foreign in her own body. She had the most disturbing bouts of melancholy, tears coming seemingly for no reason at all. Her dreams tortured her. Last night she had a dream where her own mother came to her and told her she wasn’t fit to be a mother. After all, how can a woman who eschewed corsets and stockings and constantly had her head in the clouds be trusted to bring up a child. Then there were the dreams where she gave birth to an animal; a cross between a bandersnatch and a jubjub bird with a hint of jabberwocky. And once, just once, she dreamed she had lost the baby. She had awoken with heaving great sobs, burying them in her pillow so as not to wake her husband.
She was going mad.
She hadn’t even meant to ask the question out loud, but before she could stop it, out it came. In retrospect it had been a cruel, stupid question to ask. But when he answered the way he did she couldn’t help herself. The seed had been planted in her brain. Would her husband still desire her when she was round as a Tweedle? Would his love remain constant through the morning sickness, the cravings, the mood swings, the nightmares, the bouts or crying for no reason at all? Or would he give up in his frustration and withdraw from her?
I can’t do this alone she though despairingly as, sobbing, she ran from her dumbstruck husband, ran from Castle Marmoreal, ran until she reached the clearing in the Tulgey wood and collapsed, exhausted, and cried herself out.
Prompt: Missing
Bielle was every bit as fine a tracker as her husband, Tarrant realized. She led him swiftly from the grounds of Castle Marmoreal, following Alice’s scent through the Tulgey wood where, in a clearing full of soft grass and sunlight, littered with flowers, sat Alice herself.
She cut a tiny figure, sitting on the grass, her knees pulled tightly to her chest with her chin resting on top of them.
Tarrant started towards her hesitantly, not sure what to expect. Bielle took the opportunity to depart back to the Castle. What was going to be said here was not for her ears to her.
Alice must have heard his footsteps, though he treaded lightly as he could. She didn’t bother to look at him. She simply kept her chin rested on her knees, staring off into the distance.
“How did you find me?”
Tarrant sat next to her in the grass, “I had Bielle lead me here. She has as fine a nose as her husband.”
Alice let out an indignant puff. “Isn’t that cheating, using a bloodhound to find me?”
Tarrant’s voice turned peevish. “I wouldn’t have had to if you had let someone know where you were going. What if something had happened to you?”
Alice’s voice turned rather pointed also, “I’m a grown woman, and I can take care of myself.”
“You’ll forgive me for being overly concerned, but the last time I saw you were running through the halls of the castle bawling and carrying on like a madwoman.”
Alice turned to him sharply, “And whose fault is that?”
When Alice saw the pained, genuinely concerned expression on her husband’s face, her anger deflated. “I’m sorry, Tarrant. I shouldn’t have even have asked you that question.”
For his part, Tarrant felt the familiar twinge of guilt when he looked into his wife’s eyes, reddened from hours of crying. “Well, with your permission I’d like to answer it again.”
Alice shook her head. "You don’t have to. I was just having a wretched day and I took it out on you.”
“I’d still like to answer again,” Tarrant replied. “Now that I actually understand the question.”
Tarrant took a deep breath. “The answer is yes, I will still love you, even if you are the size of a house. I will still love you even when you snap at me for no reason. I shall still love you when you get angry for no reason and cry for no reason, and if you should decide to throw teapots at me for no reason like Thackery does, I will continue to go right on loving you. You are my wife. And soon you will be a mother to my son or daughter. And I shall love you all the more for it. And someday when you are old and gray and have liver spots and are surrounded by a dozen grandchildren, I shall love you then too.”
The sincerity in his eyes made Alice’s own tear over anew. “Oh, Tarrant, I do so love you. And I’m sorry I’ve been such a beast. I’m just afraid. Afraid I don’t have what it takes to be a mother. I don’t know the first thing about it. Part of me is so happy, yet part of me is so terrified.”
Tarrant chuckled. “Likewise. My forte is making hats and starting revolutions. I don’t know any more about being a father than you do about being a mother. But I promise I will be there with you. Between the two of us I think we can gather enough muchness to raise at least a halfway decent child.”
Alice laughed and laid her blond head on her husband’s shoulder. “You and your muchness,” she said affectionately.
“Muchness is a very important quality,” he said in all seriousness. “It’s right up there with mostness and completeness. Ah!” Tarrant exclaimed, suddenly remembering something. He fished a kerchief out of his pocket, unwrapping it. “Would you like a scone?”
Alice looked at him in surprise. Well, she was hungry. “Thank you, dear.” She took the scone and bit into it. Quite good. “Do you always carry scones in your trousers?”
“Not as a rule, no,” he answered. “I did it on the advice of a friend. Though, I think I shall always have one on hand from now on.”
Prompt: Clouds
The eve before the Frabjous day, Alice and the Hatter stood in a comfortable silence on one of Castle Marmoreal’s high balconies. Looking out at the moonlight streaming through the gathering clouds, it was a picturesque sight.
“Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?” the hatter asked rather mischievously.
Alice smiled warmly at her friend, “I don’t know. Let me think about it.”
The Hatter’s voice lost its playful tone. “You know what tomorrow is, don’t you?”
Alice sighed. “Frabjous day. How could I forget? I wish I’d wake up.”
The Hatter looked at her, bemused. “You still believe that this is all a dream?”
“Of course,” she replied matter-of-factly. “This has all come from my own mind."
The Hatter ruminated on this; a slightly disturbed expression came over his face. “Which would mean that I’m not real.”
“I’m afraid so. You’re just a figment of my imagination.” She chuckled. “I would dream up someone who’s half mad.”
The Hatter grinned. “Yes, but you would have to be half mad to dream me up,” he pointed out.
The grin was contagious. “I must be then.” Her smile slowly faded. “I’ll miss you when I wake up.”
The Hatter was silent for a long moment. “Then don’t wake up.”
“What?”
“Stay here, with me, and don’t wake up. You should like living here, once the White Queen is again on the throne. Stay and dream forever.”
Alice shook her head, “You’re mad.”
The Hatter smiled widely. “Already established.” His smile diminished somewhat with his next words. “Is where you come from so grand that you wouldn’t even consider staying?”
Alice looked out at the cloudscape. “Actually no. At times it’s altogether wretched. My mother is always trying to control my every move, and she's trying to marry me off to a man I can’t stand.”
The Hatter’s expression became unreadable. “You’re to be married?”
Alice shook her head wistfully. “No. I’ve decided to turn him down.”
“Really,” the Hatter replied seemingly nonchalantly. “Might I ask why?”
Alice, after a moments thought, turned to him. “You remember how you said I lost my muchness?”
The Hatter shook his head. “Of course I remember, but you’ve certainly got it back. You’re definitely definitely much muchier. You’ve got muchness to spare, bordering on mostness in fact. In fact I would go as far as to say that-“
“Hatter!”
“…fez… I’m fine.”
“Well,” Alice continued. “Hamish doesn’t have an ounce of muchness in his body. Is not even on speaking terms with it. His whole family’s like that.”
The Hatter frowned. “Sounds wretched.”
Alice nodded. “After meeting y-… everyone. After seeing all these amazing things. I couldn’t settle for that kind of life.”
The Hatter nodded in understanding. They each turned their attention to the horizon.
They continued to stand there in companionable silence, each one of them acutely aware that Alice had never answered the question of whether or not she would stay.
Author:AkaiNagi
Rating: PG
Pairing: Alice/Tarrant
Summary: Prompts 5-10 (Table 5) from
10_prompts.Prompt: Chorus
Things went from bad to worse.
One moment Alice was sitting in on the most bizarre tea party she had ever been to, watching the Hatter verbally flay the Cheshire Cat in some language she didn’t understand, and the next everyone was in a panic.
“The Knave!” the March Hare cried.
Suddenly the Hatter was pouring pishalver down her throat, fairly choking her, and then, when she was the appropriate size, stuffed her unceremoniously in a teapot.
“Well at least it’s not full of tea,” she muttered to herself. “They’d open the lid to find me drowned in Darjeeling.“ And what the blazes were they doing out there anyway? Singing?
She could hear them singing some nonsense about teatrays and bats. And a man’s rough and cruel-sounding voice asking where Alice was. If he was unpleasant as he sounded, she didn’t relish being found by him. She’d take her chances with the lunatic trio.
Suddenly a loud snuffling sound filled her senses and the spout of the teapot was filled with what appeared to be dog-nose. The dog sniffed so strongly her hair wafted in the breeze.
Fear gripped her heart. She was found out.
Then she heard the Hatter growl lowly, “Downal wyth bluddy behg hid.”
Almost as if responding to a signal, the dog disappeared, and Alice breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently the Hatter had dissuaded the canine.
Moments later the lid of the pot was lifted and the Hatter was peering in. She flushed in embarrassment. She was entirely naked except for the remnants of her dress, which she had swathed around herself like a blanket.
“Oh! Pardon me. One moment.” The hatter fished out a piece of her dress from the teapot, and with a flash of his milliner’s scissors and some needle and thread, combined it with a tea cozy and a doily.
He took the resulting creation and dropped it into the teapot, closing the lid to allow her some privacy to change. The dress fit like it was custom made for her. Which, in reality, it was. She couldn’t help but wonder how he got her measurements so correct simply by sight.
She knocked on the teapot and the Hatter lifted her out with the greatest of care, setting her back in her seat.
“Oh! I like it!” the Hatter exclaimed merrily.
She supposed she should begrudge him making her drink the pishalver and shoving her in the china.
But it was a fine dress, and comfortable too. And he was smiling so pleasantly at her, so she supposed she could forgive getting stuffed in the teapot.
Prompt: Sadness
On her first night at Marmoreal, Alice found herself unable to sleep.
How could she sleep when, at this very moment, they could be executing the Hatter for the heinous crime of trying to protect her?
She wandered the halls of Marmoreal, wandered the grounds and the gardens, guilt gnawing at her soul. If only she had been faster, more capable, more like the champion he needed her to be and less like the girl she was, she would have succeeded in her quest to rescue him.
When it came down to brass tacks, apparently, her muchness was still not up to par.
I left him to die, she thought. She could feel the burn of tears building behind her eyes. I saved myself and left him to die. Her mind refused to process the fact that even now he might no longer be living. This was her dream world, a world she envisioned with her own mind. And she refused to envision a world without him in it.
He would meet his death bravely; she had no doubt about that. Probably with a cry of “Downal wyth bluddy behg hid.”
In his last moments, she wondered, would he spare a thought for her?
She was in the gardens when the tears finally came. The more she tried to repress them the harder they came. She collapsed to the stone walk of the garden, her head in her hands as great sobs wracked her body.
She cried for the Hatter, she cried for herself, and she cried for all the missed opportunities. All the times she could have told him what he meant to her.
But she never did. And now it was too late.
Prompt: Overwhelmed
Her day had started out horribly, exhaustion and rolling nausea seemed to be her permanent companions. I thought they called it morning sickness because it happens in the morning. They might as well call it all-the-bloody-time-sickness. She thought despairingly.
She felt foreign in her own body. She had the most disturbing bouts of melancholy, tears coming seemingly for no reason at all. Her dreams tortured her. Last night she had a dream where her own mother came to her and told her she wasn’t fit to be a mother. After all, how can a woman who eschewed corsets and stockings and constantly had her head in the clouds be trusted to bring up a child. Then there were the dreams where she gave birth to an animal; a cross between a bandersnatch and a jubjub bird with a hint of jabberwocky. And once, just once, she dreamed she had lost the baby. She had awoken with heaving great sobs, burying them in her pillow so as not to wake her husband.
She was going mad.
She hadn’t even meant to ask the question out loud, but before she could stop it, out it came. In retrospect it had been a cruel, stupid question to ask. But when he answered the way he did she couldn’t help herself. The seed had been planted in her brain. Would her husband still desire her when she was round as a Tweedle? Would his love remain constant through the morning sickness, the cravings, the mood swings, the nightmares, the bouts or crying for no reason at all? Or would he give up in his frustration and withdraw from her?
I can’t do this alone she though despairingly as, sobbing, she ran from her dumbstruck husband, ran from Castle Marmoreal, ran until she reached the clearing in the Tulgey wood and collapsed, exhausted, and cried herself out.
Prompt: Missing
Bielle was every bit as fine a tracker as her husband, Tarrant realized. She led him swiftly from the grounds of Castle Marmoreal, following Alice’s scent through the Tulgey wood where, in a clearing full of soft grass and sunlight, littered with flowers, sat Alice herself.
She cut a tiny figure, sitting on the grass, her knees pulled tightly to her chest with her chin resting on top of them.
Tarrant started towards her hesitantly, not sure what to expect. Bielle took the opportunity to depart back to the Castle. What was going to be said here was not for her ears to her.
Alice must have heard his footsteps, though he treaded lightly as he could. She didn’t bother to look at him. She simply kept her chin rested on her knees, staring off into the distance.
“How did you find me?”
Tarrant sat next to her in the grass, “I had Bielle lead me here. She has as fine a nose as her husband.”
Alice let out an indignant puff. “Isn’t that cheating, using a bloodhound to find me?”
Tarrant’s voice turned peevish. “I wouldn’t have had to if you had let someone know where you were going. What if something had happened to you?”
Alice’s voice turned rather pointed also, “I’m a grown woman, and I can take care of myself.”
“You’ll forgive me for being overly concerned, but the last time I saw you were running through the halls of the castle bawling and carrying on like a madwoman.”
Alice turned to him sharply, “And whose fault is that?”
When Alice saw the pained, genuinely concerned expression on her husband’s face, her anger deflated. “I’m sorry, Tarrant. I shouldn’t have even have asked you that question.”
For his part, Tarrant felt the familiar twinge of guilt when he looked into his wife’s eyes, reddened from hours of crying. “Well, with your permission I’d like to answer it again.”
Alice shook her head. "You don’t have to. I was just having a wretched day and I took it out on you.”
“I’d still like to answer again,” Tarrant replied. “Now that I actually understand the question.”
Tarrant took a deep breath. “The answer is yes, I will still love you, even if you are the size of a house. I will still love you even when you snap at me for no reason. I shall still love you when you get angry for no reason and cry for no reason, and if you should decide to throw teapots at me for no reason like Thackery does, I will continue to go right on loving you. You are my wife. And soon you will be a mother to my son or daughter. And I shall love you all the more for it. And someday when you are old and gray and have liver spots and are surrounded by a dozen grandchildren, I shall love you then too.”
The sincerity in his eyes made Alice’s own tear over anew. “Oh, Tarrant, I do so love you. And I’m sorry I’ve been such a beast. I’m just afraid. Afraid I don’t have what it takes to be a mother. I don’t know the first thing about it. Part of me is so happy, yet part of me is so terrified.”
Tarrant chuckled. “Likewise. My forte is making hats and starting revolutions. I don’t know any more about being a father than you do about being a mother. But I promise I will be there with you. Between the two of us I think we can gather enough muchness to raise at least a halfway decent child.”
Alice laughed and laid her blond head on her husband’s shoulder. “You and your muchness,” she said affectionately.
“Muchness is a very important quality,” he said in all seriousness. “It’s right up there with mostness and completeness. Ah!” Tarrant exclaimed, suddenly remembering something. He fished a kerchief out of his pocket, unwrapping it. “Would you like a scone?”
Alice looked at him in surprise. Well, she was hungry. “Thank you, dear.” She took the scone and bit into it. Quite good. “Do you always carry scones in your trousers?”
“Not as a rule, no,” he answered. “I did it on the advice of a friend. Though, I think I shall always have one on hand from now on.”
Prompt: Clouds
The eve before the Frabjous day, Alice and the Hatter stood in a comfortable silence on one of Castle Marmoreal’s high balconies. Looking out at the moonlight streaming through the gathering clouds, it was a picturesque sight.
“Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?” the hatter asked rather mischievously.
Alice smiled warmly at her friend, “I don’t know. Let me think about it.”
The Hatter’s voice lost its playful tone. “You know what tomorrow is, don’t you?”
Alice sighed. “Frabjous day. How could I forget? I wish I’d wake up.”
The Hatter looked at her, bemused. “You still believe that this is all a dream?”
“Of course,” she replied matter-of-factly. “This has all come from my own mind."
The Hatter ruminated on this; a slightly disturbed expression came over his face. “Which would mean that I’m not real.”
“I’m afraid so. You’re just a figment of my imagination.” She chuckled. “I would dream up someone who’s half mad.”
The Hatter grinned. “Yes, but you would have to be half mad to dream me up,” he pointed out.
The grin was contagious. “I must be then.” Her smile slowly faded. “I’ll miss you when I wake up.”
The Hatter was silent for a long moment. “Then don’t wake up.”
“What?”
“Stay here, with me, and don’t wake up. You should like living here, once the White Queen is again on the throne. Stay and dream forever.”
Alice shook her head, “You’re mad.”
The Hatter smiled widely. “Already established.” His smile diminished somewhat with his next words. “Is where you come from so grand that you wouldn’t even consider staying?”
Alice looked out at the cloudscape. “Actually no. At times it’s altogether wretched. My mother is always trying to control my every move, and she's trying to marry me off to a man I can’t stand.”
The Hatter’s expression became unreadable. “You’re to be married?”
Alice shook her head wistfully. “No. I’ve decided to turn him down.”
“Really,” the Hatter replied seemingly nonchalantly. “Might I ask why?”
Alice, after a moments thought, turned to him. “You remember how you said I lost my muchness?”
The Hatter shook his head. “Of course I remember, but you’ve certainly got it back. You’re definitely definitely much muchier. You’ve got muchness to spare, bordering on mostness in fact. In fact I would go as far as to say that-“
“Hatter!”
“…fez… I’m fine.”
“Well,” Alice continued. “Hamish doesn’t have an ounce of muchness in his body. Is not even on speaking terms with it. His whole family’s like that.”
The Hatter frowned. “Sounds wretched.”
Alice nodded. “After meeting y-… everyone. After seeing all these amazing things. I couldn’t settle for that kind of life.”
The Hatter nodded in understanding. They each turned their attention to the horizon.
They continued to stand there in companionable silence, each one of them acutely aware that Alice had never answered the question of whether or not she would stay.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 07:02 pm (UTC)Got rather excited when I saw your post.
Love that you continued the one where she's pregnant. Very very sweet *waff-y joy* :D
Keep up the good work :)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 09:13 pm (UTC)Missing made me almost cry. Well done.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 11:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-30 01:08 pm (UTC)The Hatter shook his head. “Of course I remember, but you’ve certainly got it back. You’re definitely definitely much muchier. You’ve got muchness to spare, bordering on mostness in fact. In fact I would go as far as to say that-“
“Hatter!”
“…fez… I’m fine.”
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 12:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 12:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 12:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 12:25 am (UTC)