11Disclaimer: I do not own Syfy's Alice, the Syfy Alice universe, or any of the major characters - out of the whole damn deck, only this one diamond is mine; and as always, I make no profit for writing this fanfic, monetary or otherwise.
Enjoy! :)
She loved her life. She hated her life. Life was good. Life sucked. Life goes on... Such was the way of things in Wonderland.
Life at the casino was glittery, cushy, flashy, fucking empty. The Suites ran everything in the casino, obviously, just as they ran damn near everything in Wonderland. The Hearts ruled, of course - the royals, the nobles, the courtiers, and the Heart security suites. The Clubs held the religious power in Wonderland, but always taking their orders from the Hearts. The Spades were the muscle and the special forces of the operations in Wonderland, though some of them - if they were noteworthy asset-material - were transferred to the White Rabbit and worked the stealthy ops of bringing in Oysters from the world on the other side of the Looking Glass. The Diamonds ran the casino, peddled the emotion potions that were drained from the oysters to the Tea House owners, and entertained everyone in the casino - Oyster and Suite alike. In short, a Diamond's job was to make everyone happy - regardless of whether or not they had any happiness for themselves. Such was her life in the casino.
Every day she donned outfits that were downright scandalous or gaudy. Once decked out in diamonds, feathers, sequins, glitter, vinyl, and even mirrors, she'd sing like a lark and shake her ass for the dull ears and eyes of the oysters. Being a Diamond suited her, she loved to entertain, sing, dance, the whole sha-bang, it came naturally to her. But she always felt like she was being wasted at the casino. All her exuberance, all her energy - wasted on creatures that barely even registered her existence as little more than a dream. Slack-jawed and glassy-eyed at best, totally unresponsive and simply zombified at worst, everything they ever felt being drained from them as they lived in waking sleep and her life, like a ghostly flame, a flickering phantom in their dreams. She couldn't wait until her shifts ended and she could get out and get to the City.
The life in the City wasn't much, either; with everyone getting high on the "tea" of oyster emotions, her inner sparkle wasn't usually in widespread demand. Most everybody was always downing shots of "happiness," "energy," "thrill," - drowning themselves in their own form of entertainment, as it were - so there wasn't much need for her talents, but it held more promise than in the casino. What she lived for in the City was her deepest secret.
The back-rooms, the holes-in-the-walls, the places where real tea and coffee was served - that was where she came alive. Even the Resistance needed music and joy, after all, and she was more than happy to give it. When she sang in those dark rooms, they listened and hollered "encore!" When she danced - not like the way she had to at the casino, but really danced - their eyes watched her, wide with wonder. And whenever the look-out would give a shrill, warning whistle - a patrol of suites or a scarab was hovering nearby - she'd rush out of there, as inconspicuously as she could, and lay low, cursing and hating it all. It was maddening. It was wrong. All wrong.