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crossover_chickNot that's necessarily a bad thing, I suppose -- it's a definite change from the angst. So let's have a reasonably sweet Victor/Alice:
20. The road home – No Place Like Home
On some level, everyone had been expecting them to move into Heart Palace. The huge castle had been largely abandoned after the troubles. The Card Guard still made their headquarters there, of course, and the other three suits occasionally visited their personal wings, but the bulk of the palace lay empty. The other residents of Wonderland had told her that it would be perfect for her and Victor. She was their savior – she deserved a palace! Hadn’t she and her husband lived in sprawling great houses before anyway? It would be familiar ground, then – they could move in immediately and make it their own.
But the instant Alice had actually stepped inside the place, she knew she couldn’t live there. The red walls and furnishings, though relatively normal-looking now, were an awful reminder of the bad times. Everywhere she looked, she saw something from before – there was the room where she’d killed that contingent of Hearts, there was the spot where the tentacle had beheaded Cheshire, that was the throne the Queen had destroyed before –
That was the main problem. Alice could feel the Queen’s presence everywhere. She knew that side of her had been reigned in, that the Queen no longer wanted her dead, but it was still quite disconcerting. Alice had wanted a home that felt like it was hers, not the Queen’s.
Still, she’d been willing to try and put up with it if Victor liked it. But their first day there, he’d woken up screaming in the middle of the night. And when she’d tried to comfort him, he’d sobbed in her arms about “pain,” “fire,” “burning. . . .”
And that sealed it. They couldn’t live there. Alice could take the Queen’s presence picking at her mind.
She couldn’t take the King’s presence picking at Victor’s.
So they’d gone to their friends, and together they built a little house some distance away, near Wonderland Woods and the Vale of Tears. It was much smaller than the large houses she and Victor had grown up in, but that suited them just fine. Who needed all that room anyway? They certainly didn’t. It took them a couple of months, but in the end they had a lovely cottage all their own. And once it was done, Victor carried her across the threshold, gave her a kiss, and said, “Welcome home, Mrs. Van Dort.”
And Alice really did feel like she’d finally come home.
Ahh, a nice mix of angsty and sweet elements here, methinks.
-D: Well, what's sugar without a little spice, I suppose. . . .-
I knew I wanted to do a "Alice and Victor temporarily move to Heart Palace" fic for this prompt, though it took me a bit to think up just how I wanted to do it. I imagine the place as looking a lot nicer now that Alice is reasonably sane -- cheerier reds for the walls and furnishings, for sure -- but still a bit disconcerting. It IS Heart Palace, after all.
-HD: Wait, why is the Queen still alive? Didn't Alice essentially blow her up?-
It's a bit complicated -- basically, when Alice fixed Wonderland, she brought almost everyone back to life, which included a rather toned-down version of the Queen. She's still a tentacle monster, but she's not out to kill Alice anymore and lives in the Tulgey Wood to help keep the Jabberwock under control. Alice doesn't think she can properly kill the woman -- there's too much of Alice herself inside of her.
-TD: Fair enough -- but almost everyone?-
The single exception was the King of Hearts -- who, in actuality, is Victor. It's a little complicated, I'm still figuring out how it'll work for "The Solicitor's Ward." The basics are that Victor has the King's memories and can turn into a black-themed tentacle monster to match the Queen's red.
-TTV: *pout* I think I'm starting to prefer your threesome ideas.-
-M: Dude, she turns you into the Grim Reaper for the one she's got plotted out.-
-TTV: . . . Still better than a tentacle monster!-
-VM: What's the deal with the nightmare, or don't we want to know?-
It's like this -- Alice initially assumed that the Queen of Hearts murdered her husband, but the truth is actually a lot sadder. The night of the fire in the real world, fires raged across every part of Wonderland -- including Heart Palace. The King and Queen tried to escape, only to find the ceiling collapsing in on them --
And the King of Hearts sacrificed himself to save the Queen.
Naturally, the Queen -- who genuinely loved her husband -- does not take this well. It's shortly after this that she starts feeding off Alice's insanity and goes pure evil, instead of just bossy and demanding. Victor, being the King's current analogue, occasionally has nightmares about his former self's death, as seen above.
-WRM: . . . You're harsh.-
Yeah, but it all ends happily, I swear! Anyway, Victor and Alice get a nice little cottage right by the Vale of Tears for their new home. I imagine that Victor, at least, is happy to have a house you can't get lost in (because God knows how big the Van Dort estate was if it was bigger than the already cavernous Everglots'). One of these days I'm gonna fire up the Sims again just so I can build this house, and maybe a couple of others I've been thinking about.
And now, I ought to head to bed -- least I don't have to go in until nine. Also, lists -- completed three, about halfway through the other two.
20. The road home – No Place Like Home
On some level, everyone had been expecting them to move into Heart Palace. The huge castle had been largely abandoned after the troubles. The Card Guard still made their headquarters there, of course, and the other three suits occasionally visited their personal wings, but the bulk of the palace lay empty. The other residents of Wonderland had told her that it would be perfect for her and Victor. She was their savior – she deserved a palace! Hadn’t she and her husband lived in sprawling great houses before anyway? It would be familiar ground, then – they could move in immediately and make it their own.
But the instant Alice had actually stepped inside the place, she knew she couldn’t live there. The red walls and furnishings, though relatively normal-looking now, were an awful reminder of the bad times. Everywhere she looked, she saw something from before – there was the room where she’d killed that contingent of Hearts, there was the spot where the tentacle had beheaded Cheshire, that was the throne the Queen had destroyed before –
That was the main problem. Alice could feel the Queen’s presence everywhere. She knew that side of her had been reigned in, that the Queen no longer wanted her dead, but it was still quite disconcerting. Alice had wanted a home that felt like it was hers, not the Queen’s.
Still, she’d been willing to try and put up with it if Victor liked it. But their first day there, he’d woken up screaming in the middle of the night. And when she’d tried to comfort him, he’d sobbed in her arms about “pain,” “fire,” “burning. . . .”
And that sealed it. They couldn’t live there. Alice could take the Queen’s presence picking at her mind.
She couldn’t take the King’s presence picking at Victor’s.
So they’d gone to their friends, and together they built a little house some distance away, near Wonderland Woods and the Vale of Tears. It was much smaller than the large houses she and Victor had grown up in, but that suited them just fine. Who needed all that room anyway? They certainly didn’t. It took them a couple of months, but in the end they had a lovely cottage all their own. And once it was done, Victor carried her across the threshold, gave her a kiss, and said, “Welcome home, Mrs. Van Dort.”
And Alice really did feel like she’d finally come home.
Ahh, a nice mix of angsty and sweet elements here, methinks.
-D: Well, what's sugar without a little spice, I suppose. . . .-
I knew I wanted to do a "Alice and Victor temporarily move to Heart Palace" fic for this prompt, though it took me a bit to think up just how I wanted to do it. I imagine the place as looking a lot nicer now that Alice is reasonably sane -- cheerier reds for the walls and furnishings, for sure -- but still a bit disconcerting. It IS Heart Palace, after all.
-HD: Wait, why is the Queen still alive? Didn't Alice essentially blow her up?-
It's a bit complicated -- basically, when Alice fixed Wonderland, she brought almost everyone back to life, which included a rather toned-down version of the Queen. She's still a tentacle monster, but she's not out to kill Alice anymore and lives in the Tulgey Wood to help keep the Jabberwock under control. Alice doesn't think she can properly kill the woman -- there's too much of Alice herself inside of her.
-TD: Fair enough -- but almost everyone?-
The single exception was the King of Hearts -- who, in actuality, is Victor. It's a little complicated, I'm still figuring out how it'll work for "The Solicitor's Ward." The basics are that Victor has the King's memories and can turn into a black-themed tentacle monster to match the Queen's red.
-TTV: *pout* I think I'm starting to prefer your threesome ideas.-
-M: Dude, she turns you into the Grim Reaper for the one she's got plotted out.-
-TTV: . . . Still better than a tentacle monster!-
-VM: What's the deal with the nightmare, or don't we want to know?-
It's like this -- Alice initially assumed that the Queen of Hearts murdered her husband, but the truth is actually a lot sadder. The night of the fire in the real world, fires raged across every part of Wonderland -- including Heart Palace. The King and Queen tried to escape, only to find the ceiling collapsing in on them --
And the King of Hearts sacrificed himself to save the Queen.
Naturally, the Queen -- who genuinely loved her husband -- does not take this well. It's shortly after this that she starts feeding off Alice's insanity and goes pure evil, instead of just bossy and demanding. Victor, being the King's current analogue, occasionally has nightmares about his former self's death, as seen above.
-WRM: . . . You're harsh.-
Yeah, but it all ends happily, I swear! Anyway, Victor and Alice get a nice little cottage right by the Vale of Tears for their new home. I imagine that Victor, at least, is happy to have a house you can't get lost in (because God knows how big the Van Dort estate was if it was bigger than the already cavernous Everglots'). One of these days I'm gonna fire up the Sims again just so I can build this house, and maybe a couple of others I've been thinking about.
And now, I ought to head to bed -- least I don't have to go in until nine. Also, lists -- completed three, about halfway through the other two.
