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akainagiAn Additional Ten Trips Through Wonderland (Trips 61-65)
Author:AkaiNagi
Rating: PG
Pairing: Alice/Tarrant
Summary: Prompts 1-5/10 (Table 7) from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
10_prompts.
Prompt: Chocolate
Chocolate dipped ladyfingers should be required teatime fare, Tarrant decided.
Especially on warm summer days.
It was quite a nostalgic teatime, indeed, Hatter, Hare, Dormouse and Alice, all gathered round the table enjoying afternoon tea and cakes. Mallymkun nibbled on a scone, while Thackery downed cup after cup of tea (Tarrant wondered the effect all that caffeine would have on the already jittery creature), while Alice found herself unable to resist the lure of the chocolate fingers.
Tarrant, for his part, was unable to resist the lure of Alice. The chocolate covered ladyfingers coupled with the hot day resulted in a lady with chocolate covered fingers. And what remedy was there for that but to lick them clean?
Tarrant watched, mesmerized, as Alice’s chocolaty fingers, one by one, disappeared between her lips. He watched her suck clean each offending digit, before reaching for another chocolate treat and starting the process all over again.
He knew he was staring at Alice, but he didn’t care. Probably couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. All he knew is that if Mallymkun and Thackery weren’t there, he should dearly love to cross the table and offer to do the honors for her. He imagined his own lips sucking gently on those slender fingers, his own tongue laving them clean.
Alice had just started again the Ritual of the Chocolaty Fingers, when her eyes traveled down the length of the table and met with Tarrant’s own. He knew he had been caught staring, but something in Alice’s own eyes trapped him and held his gaze. Rather than avert his eyes, his stare intensified, magnified by Alice’s own.
A tiny, mischievous smile curved Alice’s lips as she cleaned each digit with deliberate, agonizing slowness. Her stare dared him to look away. He probably should, as his trousers were beginning to feel a little on the tight side.
The spell was suddenly broken by a couple of flying scones courtesy of Thackery. One lobbed off Alice’s head and she yelped with surprise. The other succeeded in knocking Tarrant’s hat off.
“Rent a room, the two a’ ye’!” The Hare barked before dissolving into gales of laughter.
Mallymkun left the table entirely, stating she was quite put off her tea and muttering something about sex fiends.
Prompt: Long Distance
Alice thinks of her mother often. Ever since Lara was born. Something about becoming a mother herself has made her look at her own mother in a new light. The distance in their hearts, Alice likes to think, has grown smaller. The thought helps take the sting out of the fact that the physical distance is so far. Alice remembers their frequent spats about corsets and stockings and social propriety in a much kinder light now that she is raising a daughter of her own.
Not that she’d ever force her daughter into a corset, and she could give a tinker’s damn whether she ever wears stockings.
But not everyone expresses love in the same way. She knows this now. And her mother’s way was with corsets and stockings and Hamishes. By trying to secure her daughter a place in the world, a social standing, the right to stand among her peers as a respected equal. And if corsets and stockings were the way to do that, well then that was the price to be paid.
She wonders often if her mother receives the letters she periodically sends.
She cannot bear to think that she hasn’t. She can’t bear to think that her mother is still waiting and wondering about the fate of her youngest daughter. That thought causes a knot of guilt to form in her stomach. A knot that intensifies when she looks in her own daughter’s eyes.
How would she feel if one day Lara vanished without a trace?
The thought makes her want to weep.
Prompt: I think of you
Margaret thought of her sister often.
Like her mother, she was devastated when Alice never returned to the party at the Ascot’s. She had Waited, her heart in her throat, as the men searched the countryside for the missing girl.
And when they came up empty, she and her mother had cried in each other’s arms.
Like her mother, she refused to believe that Alice was dead. Long after everyone assumed she had met her final fate in the woods surrounding the Ascot Estate, she maintained that Alice was alive somewhere. And one day she would return. Her husband called her a fool for refusing to face reality.
That was the one and only time she told her husband to shut-up.
If Alice was dead, she would feel it. She was sure of it. And on the day her mother brought her a letter, written in Alice’s hand, she felt vindication, along with an overwhelming sense of relief. She read the letter several times. Her little sister was alive, not only alive, but happy and engaged to be married. She read it aloud to her husband, partly to show him that his wife was no fool. That she had been right.
“Might have known she run off with some man,” was Lowell’s only answer.
In that moment, Margaret wasn’t really sure that she even liked her husband, let alone loved him.
Prompt: Sensitive
Over the years, Tarrant has gotten more sensitive to his wife’s moods. After a year-long engagement plus three years of marriage (which included nine months of pregnancy and a year of parenthood), he would have had to be totally oblivious not to gain some insight into Alice’s temperament.
She is, in his mind, the perfect mother to little Lara. Attentive, loving, proud of her child’s every achievement, every milestone. The day Lara spoke her first word (“mama”, of course), she had run from one end of the Palace to the other in her excitement, telling the news to everyone she met.
As a wife, although they have had their share of spats over the years, Tarrant adamantly believes she should be sainted. His mad, outlandish side, although tempered a little by time and happy living, is still very much a part of him. Alice accepts this, accepts the whole of who he is. It is a gift that he is thankful for on a daily basis.
It is because he knows his wife so well that he is able to catch, intermittently, that faraway look in her eyes. He keenly hears her frequent silences. He sees her dab away a few stray tears here and there, confident that it goes unobserved. But he sees it.
That’s how he knows that something is wrong.
Prompt: Wait, what?
She comes to him in his workshop.
One look in her tear streaked face tells him that this game of cat-and-mouse, this guessing game that they have been playing for months is over.
“Lara?” he asks.
She smiles a superficial smile, “Down for her nap.”
He gets up from whatever now unimportant project he was working on. He comes to her and frames her delicate face with its red-rimmed eyes between his hands. Her eyes close at the contact and she leans into his touch, drinking it in. Tarrant is encouraged by this. It is a sign that all hasn’t been lost.
“Alice. Love. What is it?” his voice has a begging quality to it, but at this point he doesn’t have enough pride to care.
She is so silent for so long that he wonders if maybe he is wrong. Maybe the guessing game will continue.
Finally she opens her eyes, and speaks the words that fracture his world into a thousand tiny pieces:
“I want to go home”
Author:AkaiNagi
Rating: PG
Pairing: Alice/Tarrant
Summary: Prompts 1-5/10 (Table 7) from
10_prompts.Prompt: Chocolate
Chocolate dipped ladyfingers should be required teatime fare, Tarrant decided.
Especially on warm summer days.
It was quite a nostalgic teatime, indeed, Hatter, Hare, Dormouse and Alice, all gathered round the table enjoying afternoon tea and cakes. Mallymkun nibbled on a scone, while Thackery downed cup after cup of tea (Tarrant wondered the effect all that caffeine would have on the already jittery creature), while Alice found herself unable to resist the lure of the chocolate fingers.
Tarrant, for his part, was unable to resist the lure of Alice. The chocolate covered ladyfingers coupled with the hot day resulted in a lady with chocolate covered fingers. And what remedy was there for that but to lick them clean?
Tarrant watched, mesmerized, as Alice’s chocolaty fingers, one by one, disappeared between her lips. He watched her suck clean each offending digit, before reaching for another chocolate treat and starting the process all over again.
He knew he was staring at Alice, but he didn’t care. Probably couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. All he knew is that if Mallymkun and Thackery weren’t there, he should dearly love to cross the table and offer to do the honors for her. He imagined his own lips sucking gently on those slender fingers, his own tongue laving them clean.
Alice had just started again the Ritual of the Chocolaty Fingers, when her eyes traveled down the length of the table and met with Tarrant’s own. He knew he had been caught staring, but something in Alice’s own eyes trapped him and held his gaze. Rather than avert his eyes, his stare intensified, magnified by Alice’s own.
A tiny, mischievous smile curved Alice’s lips as she cleaned each digit with deliberate, agonizing slowness. Her stare dared him to look away. He probably should, as his trousers were beginning to feel a little on the tight side.
The spell was suddenly broken by a couple of flying scones courtesy of Thackery. One lobbed off Alice’s head and she yelped with surprise. The other succeeded in knocking Tarrant’s hat off.
“Rent a room, the two a’ ye’!” The Hare barked before dissolving into gales of laughter.
Mallymkun left the table entirely, stating she was quite put off her tea and muttering something about sex fiends.
Prompt: Long Distance
Alice thinks of her mother often. Ever since Lara was born. Something about becoming a mother herself has made her look at her own mother in a new light. The distance in their hearts, Alice likes to think, has grown smaller. The thought helps take the sting out of the fact that the physical distance is so far. Alice remembers their frequent spats about corsets and stockings and social propriety in a much kinder light now that she is raising a daughter of her own.
Not that she’d ever force her daughter into a corset, and she could give a tinker’s damn whether she ever wears stockings.
But not everyone expresses love in the same way. She knows this now. And her mother’s way was with corsets and stockings and Hamishes. By trying to secure her daughter a place in the world, a social standing, the right to stand among her peers as a respected equal. And if corsets and stockings were the way to do that, well then that was the price to be paid.
She wonders often if her mother receives the letters she periodically sends.
She cannot bear to think that she hasn’t. She can’t bear to think that her mother is still waiting and wondering about the fate of her youngest daughter. That thought causes a knot of guilt to form in her stomach. A knot that intensifies when she looks in her own daughter’s eyes.
How would she feel if one day Lara vanished without a trace?
The thought makes her want to weep.
Prompt: I think of you
Margaret thought of her sister often.
Like her mother, she was devastated when Alice never returned to the party at the Ascot’s. She had Waited, her heart in her throat, as the men searched the countryside for the missing girl.
And when they came up empty, she and her mother had cried in each other’s arms.
Like her mother, she refused to believe that Alice was dead. Long after everyone assumed she had met her final fate in the woods surrounding the Ascot Estate, she maintained that Alice was alive somewhere. And one day she would return. Her husband called her a fool for refusing to face reality.
That was the one and only time she told her husband to shut-up.
If Alice was dead, she would feel it. She was sure of it. And on the day her mother brought her a letter, written in Alice’s hand, she felt vindication, along with an overwhelming sense of relief. She read the letter several times. Her little sister was alive, not only alive, but happy and engaged to be married. She read it aloud to her husband, partly to show him that his wife was no fool. That she had been right.
“Might have known she run off with some man,” was Lowell’s only answer.
In that moment, Margaret wasn’t really sure that she even liked her husband, let alone loved him.
Prompt: Sensitive
Over the years, Tarrant has gotten more sensitive to his wife’s moods. After a year-long engagement plus three years of marriage (which included nine months of pregnancy and a year of parenthood), he would have had to be totally oblivious not to gain some insight into Alice’s temperament.
She is, in his mind, the perfect mother to little Lara. Attentive, loving, proud of her child’s every achievement, every milestone. The day Lara spoke her first word (“mama”, of course), she had run from one end of the Palace to the other in her excitement, telling the news to everyone she met.
As a wife, although they have had their share of spats over the years, Tarrant adamantly believes she should be sainted. His mad, outlandish side, although tempered a little by time and happy living, is still very much a part of him. Alice accepts this, accepts the whole of who he is. It is a gift that he is thankful for on a daily basis.
It is because he knows his wife so well that he is able to catch, intermittently, that faraway look in her eyes. He keenly hears her frequent silences. He sees her dab away a few stray tears here and there, confident that it goes unobserved. But he sees it.
That’s how he knows that something is wrong.
Prompt: Wait, what?
She comes to him in his workshop.
One look in her tear streaked face tells him that this game of cat-and-mouse, this guessing game that they have been playing for months is over.
“Lara?” he asks.
She smiles a superficial smile, “Down for her nap.”
He gets up from whatever now unimportant project he was working on. He comes to her and frames her delicate face with its red-rimmed eyes between his hands. Her eyes close at the contact and she leans into his touch, drinking it in. Tarrant is encouraged by this. It is a sign that all hasn’t been lost.
“Alice. Love. What is it?” his voice has a begging quality to it, but at this point he doesn’t have enough pride to care.
She is so silent for so long that he wonders if maybe he is wrong. Maybe the guessing game will continue.
Finally she opens her eyes, and speaks the words that fracture his world into a thousand tiny pieces:
“I want to go home”
