Alice (2009)
Wonderland lives. It breathes. It is not the same as the dead and lifeless rock that the Othersiders live on. Wonderland is an entity unto itself. It is the parent of every man, woman, and child. It is the lifeblood that flows through their veins, giving them longer lives than the so called “oysters.” Yet her children run rampant, without a care in - or for - their world. They stole, they killed, they destroyed. They lived without love. They lived with hatred, despair, revulsion, and fear. Hatred towards each other, hatred towards the Queen, hatred for themselves, despair for their lot in life, revulsion for the Queen, sometimes revulsion for their addictions to tea, revulsion for the way that the Queen was ruling them, fear for their lives, fear of the Queen, fear of the future.
Oh, the Queen of Hearts may have said that Wonderlanders didn’t feel, but Wonderland herself knew better. Her people did feel. Just not the emotions they wanted to feel. They felt the bad, the scary, the dark. There had been no light in Wonderland to bring them the good since Alice of Legend arrived. There was no hope for a better tomorrow - one without the Queen of Hearts in it. When Alice - not of Legend, but a Legend of her own right - arrived, things changed. Word began to trickle through the Resistance. Hope began to blossom even without the Queen’s drugged teas.
Wonderland owed Alice a debt of gratitude. Alice had restored the Wonderlanders sense of purpose again. The only way that Wonderland could possibly repay Alice was to give her the same life as any other Wonderlander. Alice was Wonderland’s new Champion. She deserved to live with her Knight, the one gifted with the Sledgehammer, the one who protected the Legend from harm.
The hold that Wonderland had on the Hatter and the Legend would diminish through the Mirror but would never fade completely. The Hatter and the Legend would live together for quite some time.