Prompt Post - Part Seven [CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS]
THIS PART IS NOW CLOSED. YOU CAN CONTINUE POSTING FILLS, BUT PLEASE PROMPT ALL NEW THINGS HERE.
Part one here!
Part two here!
Part three here!
Part four here!
Part five here!
Part six here!
Feel free to reprompt posts from parts one, two, three or four in part five once. If you do so, I'd recommend leaving a link to your fill on the original prompt, in ( Read more... )
He’d just stared at the two names, bowing his head.
“Guess I’m glad there’s something positive she can share with her mother,” was the last word on the subject. It was overly optimistic, of course; the various warrants out for Cheshire’s arrest made the very idea of her lingering long enough to read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to her daughter outright laughable. Lian’s only contact with her mother since age two were the birthday cards and child support Jade sent. While Roy refused to accept her blood money, the three cards, all signed “Mommy,” were neatly arranged on Lian’s dresser.
Artemis sat down in the solid oak rocking chair, with the old book in her lap, while Lian finished buttoning up her white rabbit pajamas. It took her two tries to match each button to its hole, but her aunt’s help was firmly refused. Artemis was stuck between muffling a smile with her hand, and wondering if she could relate this incident to Roy later without tearing up. Five wasn’t old, not really, but it was big and putting on her own pajamas was a pretty clear signal that her baby was no longer a baby.
“All ready?” she asked, and Lian nodded, grabbing her stuffed Cheshire Cat from the mountain of plush toys lovingly donated from about sixty-seven percent of the superhero community. Artemis dreaded the day her niece catalogued “sitting on Auntie’s lap” alongside “getting help putting on pajamas,” but for now, the little girl seemed to see no correlation. She chose a sparkly pink hairband from the set on Artemis’s wrist, and reverently turned the pages of the old book while her aunt brushed and braided her hair.
“Auntie?” she began.
“Yeah?”
“When I’m grown up and go to school and stuff, can I read Alice to you?”
“You know what?” Artemis asked, gently working out a tangle at the back of Lian’s neck, “I bet if you tried, you could read a little bit to me right now. Two sentences, okay? And then we can show Daddy what a smart girl you are when he gets back.”
Lian craned her neck around, so that Artemis could simultaneously see her frown and lose her place in the fine, dark hair.
“I think Daddy said he was more of a Wizard of Oz guy.”
Artemis snorted. “Daddy has no taste. Quality over quantity, sweetie. Do you know why Lewis Carroll made up the story of Alice?”
Lian shook her head, and Artemis officially gave up on brushing her hair. Roy could deal with it in the morning.
“Well,” she began, and paused. “Hold still, okay?”
Because she really couldn’t leave her niece to the mercy of a grown man when it came to hair care. Last time Roy tried to give his daughter pigtails, it took him most of an hour and far too much hairspray to get them at the same height.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl he loved very much, the daughter of a good friend. He told her the story as a gift, and only wrote it down later.”
“So then it became a gift to all little girls?” Lian asked, and Artemis nodded.
“And some little boys, too,” she said, thinking of Roy, the crayon drawings of caterpillars and queens stuck to his refrigerator, and the picture of Lian in her Alice dress and pinafore that was the wallpaper on his cell phone. “I think Daddy would be very happy if you read to him after you get up tomorrow. Do you want to practice with me? Do you remember how all your letters sound?”
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“Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank…” and while it was a sentiment that Artemis could never understand, as she praised her sister’s daughter and kissed her cheek, she was glad, too, that there was something positive that Lian could share with her mother and father, and with her aunt, too.
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