Alice fanfiction - Garden
Alice in Wonderland 2010 fanfiction
Spoilers: Movie
Title: Garden
Summary: Tarrant waiting for Alice and Alice waiting for Underland
Pairing: implied Alice/Hatter, but nothing terribly obvious
Word count: ~1.500
Rating: G?
Garden
Tree
The uncertainty in him spreads like the roots of an old tree, gripping his legs and grounding him to the chair. At the same table with broken teacups and old scones, he drinks his usual tea. The roots of hope and doubt bid him not to move.
Waiting, waiting.
The tree branches up in his mind into thousands thoughts, each fighting as a piece atop an endless chessboard. One red, one white, one red, one white. None has a champion to win the battle over.
S... soon, shortly, suddenly. Alice will return soon. No, he is gone. S. Sooner than I know. S. So he said. Back before you know it. No, back begins with B. Wrong letter, wrong letter. S. Soon is never, when the clock doesn't tick.
Inside his head the black branches bloom into madness. Pink and vulnerable, the flowers open their buds and wait for harsh winds to tear them apart.
He is never of the right size, my Alice. I should make a hat for each possible size, big and small, narrow and large. When Alice will come back to Underland... he'll go back to his world as well. Will not. Alice never stays. This time he will. Will not.
Waiting, waiting.
And the blossoms grow into a red red fruit of desperation. It shimmers under the sunlight, red and ripe. Anger trickles down like juice at the slightest pressure of fingers.
Will, will not. Shall, shall not. Can, cannot. Alice, Alice not. Why is a raven like a writing desk?
"Hatter!"
Tarrant opens his eyes and turns to Mallymkum. "I'm sorry. I'm fine now."
Waiting, waiting for Alice.
---
Flower
She thinks sometimes that there must be a flower that speaks somewhere. Perhaps not in England or in China, at least not in the places she looked. Yet there must be a flower from Underland somewhere - the world is big and she has seen such a tiny part of it.
Alice forgets about the pile of letters and papers with numbers, as she picks up her cup with the cooling tea.
Wind scatters floral seeds everywhere, why not from Underland up?
Her lips touch the porcelain and sip. Rose scented tea. Bitter, yet still vaguely sweet. She wonders if it’s teatime there. It must be. There are a hatter, a hare, and a dormouse having tea this very instant. Perhaps there is a queen to.
She smiled to herself, savoring another gulp.
Perhaps I’m drinking it right now, and I don’t even know. What if it was a talking rose they used for this tea? They plucked her before she even began to speak.
“What a discomforting thought,” Alice says. “Then how am I to ask the flower if she knows of any paths to Underland? I shall never find it, another passage down the hole. Not to mention the poor, poor rose.”
She puts the cup down and listens to its clang.
Perhaps the rose wouldn’t even know about it. A seed would not know where it has come from.
I do however. I will find another way, because there must be a way somewhere.
Must be.
---
Grass
Marmoreal is as white as the queen’s cheeks, and the ladies at court are white as well.
They bleach their hair and skin and try to smile as brightly as Mirana.
The first time Tarrant saw a mop of brown hair on one lady’s head, he burst into laughter. By accident, he had pulled her wig down together with the hat she had been trying on. The lady uttered a feint shriek, and the queen lifted her arms in the air, whispering, “Don’t mind that. He is a little…” Her dark lips curved into an embarrassed smile, as her hands made a noncommittal gesture around her head. “A bit… Well, please, continue.”
"Apologies." Tarrant deftly (Or was it daftly?) slapped the white wig back on the lady’s head and laughed again.
There are things in Underland that never change.
White were the trees in Marmoreal gardens, but the only thing that truly bothers Tarrant is that the hats are all white as well.
It does him a lot of good to be working on hats again, in a white room, more than drinking tea and waiting. Mallymkun now stabs her pins into the hats more often than into his hands, unless Tarrant loses himself in thoughts about whiteness for too long.
White bonnets, white berets, white top hat, white fez, white caubeen - white, white, white.
“Hatter! Hatter!” Mallymkun yelps and twirls her pin.
“I’m fine,” he says and sews another white ribbon on a hat. He ponders on words that begin with letter W, as he adjusts the white feathers for another hat.
White, wage, want, wail, waiting.
“Are you still waiting for Alice?” the dormouse says.
And Tarrant responds, “Everyone is.”
“She will return one day.“ The voice is Mirana’s.
The queen leads Tarrant out, in the gardens, never breaking her graceful gait, never stopping the gentle movements of her hands.
“Our champion will return, perhaps to stay next time,” she says. “Alice is as much part of Underland as of the world above. Whichever path she takes, it will lead back to us eventually. Do you find yourself comfortable here?”
“Ah, yes. Quite comfortable,” Tarrant says, and thus they walk on the white path in the gardens. Mirana lowers her head, smiling at every courtier they encounter.
“I was thinking you could make a new hat or two, not too big, with flowers, perhaps?” says Mirana.
“White?” says Tarrant, and the queen smiles.
“Yes.”
Then she kneels down to the white tiles of the path, where grass is jutting out. “It’s overgrowing the tiles again. I will have to ask one of the damsels to speak to it. Gently. Or perhaps we should dig it out and move it to the other side.” Her fingers dance in the air. “Gently, gently,” she repeats.
Tarrant looks down, at the green blades rising where there should be none, cutting trough the whiteness. He laughs.
Grass and hope have some things in common, although they share no letter. He thinks of words that begin with the letter G. Grass, garden, gloom, growth, godspeed.
Perhaps Alice will return after all.
---
Spring
A few almond petals run adrift in the breeze. The sky is limpid but for the crisp clouds on the east.
Alice thinks they look like sheep and wonders what they would look like when shorn. Probably not like sheep anymore.
“Miss Kingsleigh? Are you listening to me?” her assistant says.
She nods, forcing herself to pay attention to his words and keep his pace.
“… we should inform Lord Ascot of the progress,” Mr. James said. “He will not be pleased that some negotiations have been forestalled, of course, but we should dutifully inform him. I believe he will be more content to hear that the trade route we have established long ago at the…”
On the other side, there is a pond with rocks and large fish, and two ducks are skimming across the brilliant water surface. There are pavilions with wooden columns and curved roofs, and people look as if they have come from another Wonderland. Alice does never grow tired of them. Of clothes and colors, of language and writing. Of the tea and the porcelain.
She misses her own Wonderland dearly, however, for nothing she has seen in her travels has been as wondrous as talking animals and a hatter who speaks in riddles. Her mad Hatter, his mad riddles.
“Why do you think a raven could be like a writing desk?” she says.
Mr. James blinks. “What? You are not listening to me at all. I sometimes wonder how you manage to conduct any negotiations or trade at all, given you barely know any Chinese, you don’t listen to my advice, and you are…” He clears his throat.
He doesn’t finish, but Alice knows what he means nevertheless.
“A lady. China is hardly the right place for a lady to stroll about and even less to do business. Are you sure you are A. Kingsleigh? Forgive me; I thought Lord Ascot would send… someone else when he said his partner would be the right person for the job. It’s rather impossible that you… Are you entirely, absolutely convinced you are Lord Ascot’s partner?” That’s what he said soon after meeting her at the port of Hong Kong. He kept repeating it for the rest of the day, as if that would somehow change Alice into a respectable man. As Alice had been shrunken, stretched, and enlarged before, she found the idea of changing again amusing for a while. What would Hatter say? Would he recognize her?
By the next day she was fed up by Mr. James' doubts and shut him up by saying, “My father’s imagination stretched across half the globe. Sometimes he believed six impossible things before breakfast. It’s a habit I adopted as well. I thought a man who traveled all the way to China would possess a more adventurous nature.”
Even now, after months of working together, Mr. James’ thoughts are as obvious to her as the color of his jacket.
“I apologize,” says Alice. “I was listening. I am grateful for your advice, and I will send a letter to Lord Ascot this afternoon.”
With a corner of an eye, she sees that one of the bushes moves, and then another.
“Look! Did you see that?”
Mr. James turns around. “What? Where?”
“There was a rabbit.”
“A rabbit?”
White fur.
“There!” Alice points with her finger.
Blue waistcoat.
McTwisp has found her again. She can almost hear the clock ticking.
“I don’t see anything,” Mr. James says.
“Curioser and curioser.” Alice smiles to herself and breaks into a run.
“Wait, Miss Kingsleigh?” she hears her assistant say behind her, but she pays heed to him no more.
In front of her, there’s a small white tail disappearing behind a tree. The spring wind plays with her hair and skirt, and Alice knows she won’t catch the rabbit yet. No, first she will fall down a rabbit hole.
Spoilers: Movie
Title: Garden
Summary: Tarrant waiting for Alice and Alice waiting for Underland
Pairing: implied Alice/Hatter, but nothing terribly obvious
Word count: ~1.500
Rating: G?
Garden
Tree
The uncertainty in him spreads like the roots of an old tree, gripping his legs and grounding him to the chair. At the same table with broken teacups and old scones, he drinks his usual tea. The roots of hope and doubt bid him not to move.
Waiting, waiting.
The tree branches up in his mind into thousands thoughts, each fighting as a piece atop an endless chessboard. One red, one white, one red, one white. None has a champion to win the battle over.
S... soon, shortly, suddenly. Alice will return soon. No, he is gone. S. Sooner than I know. S. So he said. Back before you know it. No, back begins with B. Wrong letter, wrong letter. S. Soon is never, when the clock doesn't tick.
Inside his head the black branches bloom into madness. Pink and vulnerable, the flowers open their buds and wait for harsh winds to tear them apart.
He is never of the right size, my Alice. I should make a hat for each possible size, big and small, narrow and large. When Alice will come back to Underland... he'll go back to his world as well. Will not. Alice never stays. This time he will. Will not.
Waiting, waiting.
And the blossoms grow into a red red fruit of desperation. It shimmers under the sunlight, red and ripe. Anger trickles down like juice at the slightest pressure of fingers.
Will, will not. Shall, shall not. Can, cannot. Alice, Alice not. Why is a raven like a writing desk?
"Hatter!"
Tarrant opens his eyes and turns to Mallymkum. "I'm sorry. I'm fine now."
Waiting, waiting for Alice.
---
Flower
She thinks sometimes that there must be a flower that speaks somewhere. Perhaps not in England or in China, at least not in the places she looked. Yet there must be a flower from Underland somewhere - the world is big and she has seen such a tiny part of it.
Alice forgets about the pile of letters and papers with numbers, as she picks up her cup with the cooling tea.
Wind scatters floral seeds everywhere, why not from Underland up?
Her lips touch the porcelain and sip. Rose scented tea. Bitter, yet still vaguely sweet. She wonders if it’s teatime there. It must be. There are a hatter, a hare, and a dormouse having tea this very instant. Perhaps there is a queen to.
She smiled to herself, savoring another gulp.
Perhaps I’m drinking it right now, and I don’t even know. What if it was a talking rose they used for this tea? They plucked her before she even began to speak.
“What a discomforting thought,” Alice says. “Then how am I to ask the flower if she knows of any paths to Underland? I shall never find it, another passage down the hole. Not to mention the poor, poor rose.”
She puts the cup down and listens to its clang.
Perhaps the rose wouldn’t even know about it. A seed would not know where it has come from.
I do however. I will find another way, because there must be a way somewhere.
Must be.
---
Grass
Marmoreal is as white as the queen’s cheeks, and the ladies at court are white as well.
They bleach their hair and skin and try to smile as brightly as Mirana.
The first time Tarrant saw a mop of brown hair on one lady’s head, he burst into laughter. By accident, he had pulled her wig down together with the hat she had been trying on. The lady uttered a feint shriek, and the queen lifted her arms in the air, whispering, “Don’t mind that. He is a little…” Her dark lips curved into an embarrassed smile, as her hands made a noncommittal gesture around her head. “A bit… Well, please, continue.”
"Apologies." Tarrant deftly (Or was it daftly?) slapped the white wig back on the lady’s head and laughed again.
There are things in Underland that never change.
White were the trees in Marmoreal gardens, but the only thing that truly bothers Tarrant is that the hats are all white as well.
It does him a lot of good to be working on hats again, in a white room, more than drinking tea and waiting. Mallymkun now stabs her pins into the hats more often than into his hands, unless Tarrant loses himself in thoughts about whiteness for too long.
White bonnets, white berets, white top hat, white fez, white caubeen - white, white, white.
“Hatter! Hatter!” Mallymkun yelps and twirls her pin.
“I’m fine,” he says and sews another white ribbon on a hat. He ponders on words that begin with letter W, as he adjusts the white feathers for another hat.
White, wage, want, wail, waiting.
“Are you still waiting for Alice?” the dormouse says.
And Tarrant responds, “Everyone is.”
“She will return one day.“ The voice is Mirana’s.
The queen leads Tarrant out, in the gardens, never breaking her graceful gait, never stopping the gentle movements of her hands.
“Our champion will return, perhaps to stay next time,” she says. “Alice is as much part of Underland as of the world above. Whichever path she takes, it will lead back to us eventually. Do you find yourself comfortable here?”
“Ah, yes. Quite comfortable,” Tarrant says, and thus they walk on the white path in the gardens. Mirana lowers her head, smiling at every courtier they encounter.
“I was thinking you could make a new hat or two, not too big, with flowers, perhaps?” says Mirana.
“White?” says Tarrant, and the queen smiles.
“Yes.”
Then she kneels down to the white tiles of the path, where grass is jutting out. “It’s overgrowing the tiles again. I will have to ask one of the damsels to speak to it. Gently. Or perhaps we should dig it out and move it to the other side.” Her fingers dance in the air. “Gently, gently,” she repeats.
Tarrant looks down, at the green blades rising where there should be none, cutting trough the whiteness. He laughs.
Grass and hope have some things in common, although they share no letter. He thinks of words that begin with the letter G. Grass, garden, gloom, growth, godspeed.
Perhaps Alice will return after all.
---
Spring
A few almond petals run adrift in the breeze. The sky is limpid but for the crisp clouds on the east.
Alice thinks they look like sheep and wonders what they would look like when shorn. Probably not like sheep anymore.
“Miss Kingsleigh? Are you listening to me?” her assistant says.
She nods, forcing herself to pay attention to his words and keep his pace.
“… we should inform Lord Ascot of the progress,” Mr. James said. “He will not be pleased that some negotiations have been forestalled, of course, but we should dutifully inform him. I believe he will be more content to hear that the trade route we have established long ago at the…”
On the other side, there is a pond with rocks and large fish, and two ducks are skimming across the brilliant water surface. There are pavilions with wooden columns and curved roofs, and people look as if they have come from another Wonderland. Alice does never grow tired of them. Of clothes and colors, of language and writing. Of the tea and the porcelain.
She misses her own Wonderland dearly, however, for nothing she has seen in her travels has been as wondrous as talking animals and a hatter who speaks in riddles. Her mad Hatter, his mad riddles.
“Why do you think a raven could be like a writing desk?” she says.
Mr. James blinks. “What? You are not listening to me at all. I sometimes wonder how you manage to conduct any negotiations or trade at all, given you barely know any Chinese, you don’t listen to my advice, and you are…” He clears his throat.
He doesn’t finish, but Alice knows what he means nevertheless.
“A lady. China is hardly the right place for a lady to stroll about and even less to do business. Are you sure you are A. Kingsleigh? Forgive me; I thought Lord Ascot would send… someone else when he said his partner would be the right person for the job. It’s rather impossible that you… Are you entirely, absolutely convinced you are Lord Ascot’s partner?” That’s what he said soon after meeting her at the port of Hong Kong. He kept repeating it for the rest of the day, as if that would somehow change Alice into a respectable man. As Alice had been shrunken, stretched, and enlarged before, she found the idea of changing again amusing for a while. What would Hatter say? Would he recognize her?
By the next day she was fed up by Mr. James' doubts and shut him up by saying, “My father’s imagination stretched across half the globe. Sometimes he believed six impossible things before breakfast. It’s a habit I adopted as well. I thought a man who traveled all the way to China would possess a more adventurous nature.”
Even now, after months of working together, Mr. James’ thoughts are as obvious to her as the color of his jacket.
“I apologize,” says Alice. “I was listening. I am grateful for your advice, and I will send a letter to Lord Ascot this afternoon.”
With a corner of an eye, she sees that one of the bushes moves, and then another.
“Look! Did you see that?”
Mr. James turns around. “What? Where?”
“There was a rabbit.”
“A rabbit?”
White fur.
“There!” Alice points with her finger.
Blue waistcoat.
McTwisp has found her again. She can almost hear the clock ticking.
“I don’t see anything,” Mr. James says.
“Curioser and curioser.” Alice smiles to herself and breaks into a run.
“Wait, Miss Kingsleigh?” she hears her assistant say behind her, but she pays heed to him no more.
In front of her, there’s a small white tail disappearing behind a tree. The spring wind plays with her hair and skirt, and Alice knows she won’t catch the rabbit yet. No, first she will fall down a rabbit hole.