10Title: Malus
Length: 1,413 words
Rating: T-ish
Summary: Alice requests to know the other side of the White Queen.
Warnings: Possible spoilers for the film, slight femslash, redundant use of a certain 'm'-word, and a brief glimpse of our favorite queen's dark side.
Disclaimer: I don't own Alice in Wonderland, the books, the games, the movies, whatever. I just loved the 2010 film and I hope to God Tim Burton makes a sequel. With devil!Alice from the American McGee game. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Note 1: The title is the Latin word meaning "bad" or "evil," also serving as the root word for the English "malice". Irony, eh?
Note 2: Mirana going semi-batshit in here was inspired by Peter Lorre's performance in the 1931 German film 'M'.
Mirana didn't know how it happened, but one minute she was instructing Alice how to mix a potion and the next she sliced the palm of her left hand open.
To begin with, Alice had recently returned from her own world as was promised and expressed a desire to bond with the queen over potions. She mentioned something about a memory of her very first visit to "Wonderland" as a child, in which she made fast friends with a beautiful Queen in white who was taught her to brew certain potions (little Alice had made a slight mistake and wound up turning the Queen into a very amused sheep). Mirana was more than delighted to acquiesce with the blonde's request, under the condition that she didn't end up with hooves this time. Things went smoothly, the two making idle small talk over how things were going in Underland and what Alice did on her voyage to China, until Alice asked a question Mirana hadn't expected.
"Why did you study Dominion over the Dead?"
That was why they were now in Alice's quarters, Mirana in a daze and Alice scrambling to stop the bleeding. The sun had set not long ago and shadows loomed large over the ivory walls. The silver armor Alice wore on the Frabjous Day and the Vorpal Sword seemed to be watching them.
"I'm sorry," Alice muttered as she applied pressure to the wound, "I shouldn't have asked..."
"Why do you want to know?" Mirana's voice was oddly slurred, as if she'd just woken up from a dream. Her eyes were glued to Alice's hands which were now wrapping bandages around her hand.
"I suppose I was curious. I remember seeing something in your eyes when I returned the Vorpal Sword and when you were making the pishalver. I don't know what it was that I saw, but I figured it had to do with your vows and healing arts. It must have been stuck in my mind for some time now..."
"Mmh."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but... I would like to know."
Mirana avoided Alice's pleading gaze and looked down at the white cloth binding her cut hand, and found herself wondering why her blood was red and not black.
Red like Iracebeth.
Not black like the malice coursing through her veins.
"Perfectly horrid," she whispered. Alice raised her eyebrows in confusion. "That's what you said about Iracebeth, was it not?"
"Yes," Alice said, recalling that brief conversation they had back when the Red Queen was still in power.
"Do you think she was proud of herself? Do you think she was proud of her crimes against Underland? Of how she used the Jabberwock to instill fear in her kingdom? Or how she sent weary fathers to the axe and led their frightened children to slaughter? Do you think that just once it may have crossed her mind to try and control the urges to shed innocent blood?"
Alice didn't know how to answer. She didn't know the Red Queen as well as Mirana, having only seen the Red Queen at her possible worst, so she couldn't really have an opinion on the matter.
"Iracebeth never had control," Mirana continued. "She couldn't help herself. It's in her blood- our blood." Tiny red spots began to seep through the white bindings. Mirana looked up at Alice, and the young Champion could plainly see what she caught mere glimpses of since that day she returned the Vorpal Sword. A dark desire to wield the Sword herself, to cut, shred, tear, chop.
The White Queen spoke again, her voice growing louder and clearer. "I'm not like Iracebeth. I have control over these urges. I have my vows, my healing arts, my Dominion over the Dead, but when I am alone I can feel this evil thing inside me. I can feel the voices, the fires, the torment! I can feel the malice in my blood lurking in the darkest corners of my mind, whispering in my nightmares! Iracebeth had to obey her malice because she succumbed to it- she embraced it long ago- but I can't! I have spent years trying to escape it, escape from myself, but it's impossible! I can never escape it!"
"Mirana...?" Alice could only breathe her name helplessly. What kind of hell had the White Queen endured?
By this point, Mirana was nearly in hysterics, her breath shallow and eyes wild and her fist continuously clenching and relaxing. The cut had reopened and more blood spilled onto white, the red almost looking black in the shadows.
Black like malice.
"And I am haunted by the ghosts of a mother crying for her lost child lying in the moat, all because the queen's youngest daughter didn't know any better, didn't yet understand the concept of life and death, because the blood in her veins told her to do it!"
Black like her soul.
"Mirana!" Alice called to the hysterical Queen, frightened by the airy woman's breakdown.
Mirana went silent; she fell to her knees and leaned against the wall, appearing to have fallen into a trance of sorts. Alice took a step forward in spite of her pounding heart.
"And then the princess can't remember what happened," the Queen mumbled. "She can hear the servant mother crying over the pale, drenched body of her little girl and the princess wonders, 'why is my friend all wet, Mummy?'" Mirana's blank eyes fell to her hand once again, and her voice rose to a near-shriek. "That was why I took my vows and studied the healing arts! But I can still hear it! I can still hear the cries and laughter! Take me! Cure me! Kill me! Obey your master! It speaks to me, always, but I can't succumb to it, I can't listen to it tell me how I want to! How I must! Don't want to! MUST! DON'T WANT TO! MUST! And then, a voice screams in my head- I can't bear to hear it! I CAN'T TAKE IT!"
"MIRANA!" Alice almost screamed. Throwing her fear and doubts to the wind, the blonde lunged down and gathered Mirana into an embrace. Alice's touch was the final straw; Mirana desperately clung to her, sobs violently wracking her shoulders, breaking down into the pale blue robes.
"I can't take it, I can't... I can't..."
"Shhh..." Alice held the Queen close as her calloused fingers stroking the pristine white hair in a gentle caress, giving all Mirana's sobs and gasps a comforting whisper in response. It was all she could think to do at the moment. "It's alright. Cry until you feel better. I'm right here."
Late that night, when Mirana had finally calmed down and fell asleep in the blonde's lap, Alice came to a decision.
She'd already expanded her father's trade route to China in her world and fulfilled her destiny to slay the Jabberwock in Underland. But now that she returned, she realized just how vulnerable the White Queen was, how badly she needed something (someone) to hold back her darkness. A mask of purity and innocence had done fine, but it wouldn't be enough. Not anymore.
As Mirana curled herself into a ball, nuzzling slightly against her thighs, Alice glanced at her silver armor standing by the bed in the umbral chamber. The Vorpal Sword, resting in the gauntlets' open palms, seemed to glint at her approvingly in the moonlight. She returned its glint with a smile. Her act on the other side as a merchant's daughter was now over; now she would stay in Underland as its Champion, to protect the White Queen and act as a sheath for her darkness.
I am your shield, Alice thought as she stared down at Mirana's sleeping face. I am your sword.
Somewhere in her dreams of a girl with a tangled mess of blonde hair pledging fealty to her, Mirana smiled.