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akainagiTen Extended Trips Through Wonderland (Trips 106-110)
Author: AkaiNagi
Rating: G
Pairing: Alice/Tarrant
Summary: Prompts 5-10/10 Table 11 from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
10_prompts.
Prompt: Fake
Lara didn’t like her; this fake-mother.
She took care of Lara like a mother, fed her like a mother, tried to play with her like a mother, but she wasn’t her mother. She didn’t smell like her mother. Didn’t have her mother’s soft voice, didn’t have her mother’s laugh. Didn’t tickle her until she giggled with joy like her real mother did. Her real mother was sleeping. Like when Lara took her afternoon nap. But Lara never slept for that long. Someone always came to wake her up. So why didn’t someone just wake mummy up?
One time, when she went to visit her sleeping mother, she had tried to wake her up. Lara had called to her, reached up and tried to touch her, but before she could her father scooped her up. Mummy mustn’t be moved, he said. She was sick-sleeping. She must sleep until she gets better, he said.
It must be very important, this sick-sleeping. So Lara didn’t try again to wake her mother up. But as the days dragged on she became impatient. She cried more, threw tantrum after tantrum for fake-mother. Pouted at mealtimes and refused to eat. Perhaps if she misbehaved enough, her real mother would wake up to punish her. But even that didn’t work.
Then, one morning, fake-mother came to wake her. Fake-mother was happier than usual, dressed Lara more hurriedly than usual, took her to see her real mother earlier than usual. And when they entered the room Lara’s heart exploded with joy.
Mummy’s eyes were open. Her long nap was over.
Daddy had to grab her before she launched herself on her mother’s lap. Mummy was still ill, he explained. She will get better, but we must treat her gently.
“Kiss mummy?” Lara asked tearfully.
Her mother, in that voice Lara had been longing to hear, answered, “Kisses are definitely allowed.”
Daddy lowered her down and she covered Mummy’s face with kisses until Alice laughed. The sound was music.
Mummy was home.
Prompt: Control
Ironically, Alice spent much of her first week after finally opening her eyes sleeping. The fight for her life left her exhausted, her stores of energy drained.
It was not until the second week that she really began to awaken to the realities around her. The first thing she noticed was her husband, and she was horrified. His characteristic lanky appearance had been replaced by a gaunt, undernourished figure that bespoke of too many skipped meals. His cheeks had a hollow quality to them, and every fiber of his being radiated exhaustion. Truly, he looked like he needed a sickbed of his own.
She begged him to leave her to the care of another and rest himself. He refused, allowing no one to care for Alice but him. He did not trust his wife in the hands of another.
So Alice, an expert at bargaining, informed her husband of the facts. She would eat only when he did. She would rest only when he did. She would get better, essentially, only when he did.
So they ate their meals together, and after much prodding and coaxing and assurances on Alice’s part, slept in the same bed together.
“What if I move in my sleep? I could hurt you.” Tarrant protested.
Alice replied matter-of-factly. “Then I shall kick you soundly and wake you up.” She held his hand tightly in her own. “I’m hurt, but I’m not glass. You look twice as ill as I do. Now get in this bed before I decide to get cross.”
And so Tarrant crept into bed beside his wife, careful not to bump or disturb her.
Alice brought a hand up to cup her husband’s face. “I missed you while I was asleep. I think I heard you singing to me as I slept.” She grinned. “You have a terrible voice, but it was beautiful nonetheless.”
Tarrant brought his forehead to rest against Alice’s own. “I was so afraid,” he admitted, his voice choked with emotion. “If I should have lost you –“
Alice kissed him softly, silencing her husband. “But you didn’t. I’m with you now. Always.”
Prompt: Permanent
It was, in the end, worse than Alice had feared.
The court physician informed her that the scar she carried on her lower abdomen would most certainly be permanent.
Then, in that stuttering voice stodgy people always use when discussing something they find distasteful, he informed Alice that, due to the location and severity of her injury, it was unlikely that she would be able to bear any more children.
The news hit her like a punch to the gut. Her husband, seeing her shock and dismay, took her hand and gave it a supportive squeeze. What he really wanted to do was bend the doctor over and kick him in the arse for delivering the news so callously.
It wasn’t until the doctor left that Alice allowed the tears to flow.
Tarrant comforted her as best he could, knowing it was probably woefully inadequate.
“I had always wanted to give you more children,” Alice told him, the tears streaming silently down her face. “I always dreamed of giving you a son. Someone to follow in your footsteps.”
He clutched her as tightly as he dare in her condition, trying to say with his body what his words were inadequate to convey. “I don’t need sons. I don’t need children beyond our beautiful daughter.” He pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I have you. I prayed for you to come back to me and you did. You and our daughter are all I need.”
She smiled weakly at him, an acknowledgement of his words. But the tears continued to flow. She mourned what she had never had, but had lost nonetheless.
Prompt: Tender
Alice was just about to drift off to sleep, her husband resting next to her in the bed, a carefully gauged distance away (she would be so glad when her wounds healed so she could sleep with her husband properly), when there was a gentle knock at the door. In poked the head of Lara’s nursemaid.
Alice was immediately alarmed. “What’s the matter? Is something wrong with Lara?” She shook her husband awake, fearing the worst. He opened his eyes blearily, and, seeing his wife’s alarm, focused his complete attention on the stammering nursemaid.
“No! No! Lara’s fine! I just can’t get her to sleep-“
A child’s voice interrupted insistently from behind the door. “Lara want a Lubby!”
Both parents breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s okay, you can let her in,” Alice said with a chuckle.
The toddler scampered in and ran up to the bed. “Wanna sleep with mummy an’ Daddy!”
Tarrant opened his mouth to say no, when Alice headed him off. “As long as you promise it’s just for this one time, and you’ll sleep in your own bed tomorrow.”
Lara jumped up and down with glee, “Promise!”
Tarrant, overprotective as always, looked at his wife worriedly. “Are you sure you can handle the thrashing of a two and a half year-old?”
Alice smiled. “I think I can manage. Besides, I’ve missed her so. And it’s only for this once.”
Tarrant, as usual, could deny his wife nothing. He dismissed the nursemaid with thanks and scooped up his delighted daughter, settling her down between the two of them. Lara immediately nestled under the covers. “Mummy sing lubby!”
Alice kissed her daughter’s forehead. “My, my aren’t we demanding?” she said indulgently.
“Pleeeeeease?” Lara pleaded.
“Pleeeeeease?” mimicked Tarrant.
Alice gently swatted her husband’s arm and Lara giggled.
Alice obligingly began singing the familiar tune that never failed to lull her daughter to sleep. The same tune that had lured her back from her own dreams not that long ago. The tune that had called her back to her life. Lara was soon off to her own land of dreams. Alice’s husband drifted off soon after.
The two people dearest to her by her side, Alice’s heart, which had been heavy since the sobering news from the physician, lightened a little. How could her heart be heavy when it was filled with so much love?
She had her husband, she had her daughter. She had her life. It was more than many people had.
It would be enough.
Prompt: Garden
Mirana was fully aware of the grisliness of the task she was asking her soldiers to undertake. It was selfish of her, she knew. It was for nothing more than her own peace of mind and soundness of heart that she tasked her men to find the body of the hated former Red Queen and return it to Marmoreal for burial.
She also knew that many of them felt a proper burial too good for the woman who had been known as the Bloody Red Queen. But in this one selfish instance she did not care.
It took the men a while. All things considered, one of them being the sheer vastness of the Outlands, it should have taken far greater time than it did.
What they found was not pretty. Eroded by time and the elements, the body of Iracebeth of Crims was barely recognizable, but for her by now tattered clothing. A few feet away from the body proper was her hand, hacked off by the villain Stayne in his attempt to rid himself of the woman who, from the very beginning, he had considered unloved baggage. At the sight of this, the stirrings of pity moved even the hardened hearts of the soldiers. As they wrapped the body for travel back to Marmoreal they did it with at least a modicum of respect.
Upon arrival at Marmoreal, their Queen tasked them with one final duty. To bury the remains of the Red Queen at a spot of Queen Mirana’s choosing on the palace grounds. This they did gladly and swiftly, for it meant that their gruesome task was at an end.
The grave remained unmarked save for a single red rosebush, planted by Mirana herself, and tended by none but her. And although she remained stone-faced to all who saw her, in the privacy of her rooms, she did cry. She cried for a woman she never really understood. She cried for the despot who had visited terror upon an entire land and its people.
She cried for her sister.
Author: AkaiNagi
Rating: G
Pairing: Alice/Tarrant
Summary: Prompts 5-10/10 Table 11 from
10_prompts. Prompt: Fake
Lara didn’t like her; this fake-mother.
She took care of Lara like a mother, fed her like a mother, tried to play with her like a mother, but she wasn’t her mother. She didn’t smell like her mother. Didn’t have her mother’s soft voice, didn’t have her mother’s laugh. Didn’t tickle her until she giggled with joy like her real mother did. Her real mother was sleeping. Like when Lara took her afternoon nap. But Lara never slept for that long. Someone always came to wake her up. So why didn’t someone just wake mummy up?
One time, when she went to visit her sleeping mother, she had tried to wake her up. Lara had called to her, reached up and tried to touch her, but before she could her father scooped her up. Mummy mustn’t be moved, he said. She was sick-sleeping. She must sleep until she gets better, he said.
It must be very important, this sick-sleeping. So Lara didn’t try again to wake her mother up. But as the days dragged on she became impatient. She cried more, threw tantrum after tantrum for fake-mother. Pouted at mealtimes and refused to eat. Perhaps if she misbehaved enough, her real mother would wake up to punish her. But even that didn’t work.
Then, one morning, fake-mother came to wake her. Fake-mother was happier than usual, dressed Lara more hurriedly than usual, took her to see her real mother earlier than usual. And when they entered the room Lara’s heart exploded with joy.
Mummy’s eyes were open. Her long nap was over.
Daddy had to grab her before she launched herself on her mother’s lap. Mummy was still ill, he explained. She will get better, but we must treat her gently.
“Kiss mummy?” Lara asked tearfully.
Her mother, in that voice Lara had been longing to hear, answered, “Kisses are definitely allowed.”
Daddy lowered her down and she covered Mummy’s face with kisses until Alice laughed. The sound was music.
Mummy was home.
Prompt: Control
Ironically, Alice spent much of her first week after finally opening her eyes sleeping. The fight for her life left her exhausted, her stores of energy drained.
It was not until the second week that she really began to awaken to the realities around her. The first thing she noticed was her husband, and she was horrified. His characteristic lanky appearance had been replaced by a gaunt, undernourished figure that bespoke of too many skipped meals. His cheeks had a hollow quality to them, and every fiber of his being radiated exhaustion. Truly, he looked like he needed a sickbed of his own.
She begged him to leave her to the care of another and rest himself. He refused, allowing no one to care for Alice but him. He did not trust his wife in the hands of another.
So Alice, an expert at bargaining, informed her husband of the facts. She would eat only when he did. She would rest only when he did. She would get better, essentially, only when he did.
So they ate their meals together, and after much prodding and coaxing and assurances on Alice’s part, slept in the same bed together.
“What if I move in my sleep? I could hurt you.” Tarrant protested.
Alice replied matter-of-factly. “Then I shall kick you soundly and wake you up.” She held his hand tightly in her own. “I’m hurt, but I’m not glass. You look twice as ill as I do. Now get in this bed before I decide to get cross.”
And so Tarrant crept into bed beside his wife, careful not to bump or disturb her.
Alice brought a hand up to cup her husband’s face. “I missed you while I was asleep. I think I heard you singing to me as I slept.” She grinned. “You have a terrible voice, but it was beautiful nonetheless.”
Tarrant brought his forehead to rest against Alice’s own. “I was so afraid,” he admitted, his voice choked with emotion. “If I should have lost you –“
Alice kissed him softly, silencing her husband. “But you didn’t. I’m with you now. Always.”
Prompt: Permanent
It was, in the end, worse than Alice had feared.
The court physician informed her that the scar she carried on her lower abdomen would most certainly be permanent.
Then, in that stuttering voice stodgy people always use when discussing something they find distasteful, he informed Alice that, due to the location and severity of her injury, it was unlikely that she would be able to bear any more children.
The news hit her like a punch to the gut. Her husband, seeing her shock and dismay, took her hand and gave it a supportive squeeze. What he really wanted to do was bend the doctor over and kick him in the arse for delivering the news so callously.
It wasn’t until the doctor left that Alice allowed the tears to flow.
Tarrant comforted her as best he could, knowing it was probably woefully inadequate.
“I had always wanted to give you more children,” Alice told him, the tears streaming silently down her face. “I always dreamed of giving you a son. Someone to follow in your footsteps.”
He clutched her as tightly as he dare in her condition, trying to say with his body what his words were inadequate to convey. “I don’t need sons. I don’t need children beyond our beautiful daughter.” He pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I have you. I prayed for you to come back to me and you did. You and our daughter are all I need.”
She smiled weakly at him, an acknowledgement of his words. But the tears continued to flow. She mourned what she had never had, but had lost nonetheless.
Prompt: Tender
Alice was just about to drift off to sleep, her husband resting next to her in the bed, a carefully gauged distance away (she would be so glad when her wounds healed so she could sleep with her husband properly), when there was a gentle knock at the door. In poked the head of Lara’s nursemaid.
Alice was immediately alarmed. “What’s the matter? Is something wrong with Lara?” She shook her husband awake, fearing the worst. He opened his eyes blearily, and, seeing his wife’s alarm, focused his complete attention on the stammering nursemaid.
“No! No! Lara’s fine! I just can’t get her to sleep-“
A child’s voice interrupted insistently from behind the door. “Lara want a Lubby!”
Both parents breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s okay, you can let her in,” Alice said with a chuckle.
The toddler scampered in and ran up to the bed. “Wanna sleep with mummy an’ Daddy!”
Tarrant opened his mouth to say no, when Alice headed him off. “As long as you promise it’s just for this one time, and you’ll sleep in your own bed tomorrow.”
Lara jumped up and down with glee, “Promise!”
Tarrant, overprotective as always, looked at his wife worriedly. “Are you sure you can handle the thrashing of a two and a half year-old?”
Alice smiled. “I think I can manage. Besides, I’ve missed her so. And it’s only for this once.”
Tarrant, as usual, could deny his wife nothing. He dismissed the nursemaid with thanks and scooped up his delighted daughter, settling her down between the two of them. Lara immediately nestled under the covers. “Mummy sing lubby!”
Alice kissed her daughter’s forehead. “My, my aren’t we demanding?” she said indulgently.
“Pleeeeeease?” Lara pleaded.
“Pleeeeeease?” mimicked Tarrant.
Alice gently swatted her husband’s arm and Lara giggled.
Alice obligingly began singing the familiar tune that never failed to lull her daughter to sleep. The same tune that had lured her back from her own dreams not that long ago. The tune that had called her back to her life. Lara was soon off to her own land of dreams. Alice’s husband drifted off soon after.
The two people dearest to her by her side, Alice’s heart, which had been heavy since the sobering news from the physician, lightened a little. How could her heart be heavy when it was filled with so much love?
She had her husband, she had her daughter. She had her life. It was more than many people had.
It would be enough.
Prompt: Garden
Mirana was fully aware of the grisliness of the task she was asking her soldiers to undertake. It was selfish of her, she knew. It was for nothing more than her own peace of mind and soundness of heart that she tasked her men to find the body of the hated former Red Queen and return it to Marmoreal for burial.
She also knew that many of them felt a proper burial too good for the woman who had been known as the Bloody Red Queen. But in this one selfish instance she did not care.
It took the men a while. All things considered, one of them being the sheer vastness of the Outlands, it should have taken far greater time than it did.
What they found was not pretty. Eroded by time and the elements, the body of Iracebeth of Crims was barely recognizable, but for her by now tattered clothing. A few feet away from the body proper was her hand, hacked off by the villain Stayne in his attempt to rid himself of the woman who, from the very beginning, he had considered unloved baggage. At the sight of this, the stirrings of pity moved even the hardened hearts of the soldiers. As they wrapped the body for travel back to Marmoreal they did it with at least a modicum of respect.
Upon arrival at Marmoreal, their Queen tasked them with one final duty. To bury the remains of the Red Queen at a spot of Queen Mirana’s choosing on the palace grounds. This they did gladly and swiftly, for it meant that their gruesome task was at an end.
The grave remained unmarked save for a single red rosebush, planted by Mirana herself, and tended by none but her. And although she remained stone-faced to all who saw her, in the privacy of her rooms, she did cry. She cried for a woman she never really understood. She cried for the despot who had visited terror upon an entire land and its people.
She cried for her sister.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-16 12:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 12:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-16 03:39 am (UTC)thank you so much for sharing, and i can't wait for the next one (as always!)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 12:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-16 04:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 12:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-16 06:20 am (UTC)I'm getting scared that the prompts are running out. I'll make up more prompts if needed! :P Thanks once again for posting.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 12:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-16 01:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 12:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-24 05:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-16 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 12:55 am (UTC)