#i hope that bumbys final thoughts were fitting for him

[jackjolene]

Vampyr/Alice - Part 1

In November of 1875, Alice Liddell is wandering London in the real world while her mind fights for her survival in Wonderland. At the witching hour, as Alice mentally enters the inner sanctum of the Red Queen in Queensland, she physically enters a central drain far underneath London. A cut on her hand oozes blood, which falls into the drain, and awakens something.

As Alice confronts the former ruler of Wonderland in her mind, another Red Queen, one of blood and hate, rises up out of the darkness beneath on a lake of blood, awoken from her slumber. From Alice's blood, the catalyst for waking her, the being also known as the Morrigan, the Queen of Blood, and the Red Goddess knows that Alice doesn't fulfill the criteria for becoming a Disaster.

While Alice has anger and wrath in her heart, there is still some semblance of hope and good in her, a light within her cynicism and darkness. In order to become a Disaster, Alice's anger needs to have completely consumed her, making her perfect for bringing plague and death upon the Human race.

Still half-asleep and annoyed at being awoken by someone unworthy of becoming a Disaster, the Red Queen decides to simply kill Alice and go back to sleep. However, she stops before striking Alice.

It's obvious that this mortal's mind is broken (her eyes are unfocused and it's like she's talking to someone else), but the Red Queen can sense that not only is her mind working to repair itself, but it is special. There's something about it that sets it apart from ordinary mortal minds.

And that brings the question: What would happen if this mortal with her strange mind were to become one of her children? An immortal drinking the blood of the land?

Maybe it's because of Alice's blood, not fully consumed by wrath, or it's that she's half-asleep, or both, but the Red Queen decides to try this little experiment.

In Queensland, the Red Queen with Lizzie's face wraps up Alice in her tentacles, while in the real world, the Queen of Blood picks up Alice with her two arms, smaller ones appearing out of the lake of blood at her feet to keep the mortal from struggling. In Alice's mind, the Red Queen's jaw unhinges far beyond what it should and she is pulled into it. In the real world, the Morrigan's mouth extends fluidly, and she swallows Alice whole.

From a distance, the Skal known as Old Bridget watches as the Red Queen swallows a mortal whole and then levitates in midair as her stomach bulges outward, as though she's pregnant. After a minute or so, the Red Queen expels Alice from her body into the large pool of blood before disappearing back into the depths to slumber once more. After a bit, the new immortal stirs before getting to her feet and making her way out of the central drain.

In Alice's mind, she wakes up in a version of Rutledge Asylum created from her memories, and then finds herself in the real world, in Hyde Park, before proceeding into the Dollhouse. The newest realm of Wonderland signifies the childhoods that Bumby corrupted and Alice's subconscious noticing it while her conscious mind focused on herself. After realizing the truth about Bumby and finding his Wonderland equivalent, the Dollmaker, Alice awakens once more in the real world.

On the street outside of Houndsditch, Alice looks at the world with new eyes. She sees people as humanoid shadow beings, their features and other things identifying them as Human beings completely indistinguishable, each with their heart, arteries, and veins visible within them. And also, she's very, very thirsty.

Looking around, Alice spies a lone heart, even though its owner is in an underground train station. Somehow knowing that it's Bumby, Alice descends down to meet him.

On the train platform as she confronts Bumby, Alice's vision keeps switching between her normal sight and her new "shadow vision", and her mind keeps switching between the real world and Wonderland. After defeating the Dollmaker in Wonderland, Alice can finally face the real world version of him with her full faculties.

After pointing out that nobody would believe her over him, Bumby takes out the key to her sister's room. Alice snatches it from him and turns to leave before a realization comes over her, and she knows exactly what to do.

Turning back to Bumby, she wills him to see her as she sees herself in Wonderland: Clean, healthy, vibrant, powerful, in her blue dress, white blood-spattered apron, black and white stockings, and boots. He is mesmerized by her, staring dumbfounded, mouth agape.

Alice walks back up to him, pulls him down, puts a hand over his mouth, and latches onto his throat with her new sharp fangs. Bumby snaps out of his stupor and struggles, his cries muffled and Alice's strength increased, preventing rescue or escape.

Alice drains Bumby of his blood, before picking up his dying body and throwing him into the path of an oncoming train. As the train passes by, Alice hears his last thoughts in her mind.

"The past must be paid be for, but others have always paid for me. Why must I pay this time?!"

With her family's deaths avenged, Alice turns and leaves the underground train station, her thirst still present but not so severe anymore. After everything, she is in a state of shock, not processing what she did to Bumby, or how she was able to, just glad that she's saved her mind and punished him for killing her sister and parents.

She wanders London again, seeing it and Wonderland mashed together to create a "Londerland". The sun shines down on her and she smiles at the vastly improved scenery. It's like the whole world is celebrating the death of one Dr. Angus Bumby.

Meanwhile, in the deepest depths of her mind, a sphere of glass cracks and then breaks, allowing a spark of light to finally escape, even as darkness moves in to contain it.

[my-muses-in-op]

The brother we lost

Staying with Marco wasn’t easy for her. Sure, Ann had missed him, missed having somone she could rely on and he did help her with her loneliness. On the other side, he was noisy, meanng he was asking too may questions about her, questions she felt conflicted about. She’d spent years to keep her distance from even thinking about the questions.

This led, of course, to a lot of yelling from her part but Marco kept his head cool and was patient. He let her scream, yell at him and run out of the house in frustration. When she came back, he acknowlede it and changed the subject. For a few days. Then he was questioning her again and she blew up again.

“Isn’t it tiring for you?” Ann asked, as she had come back after another of her anger fits. She sat down at the table, watching him making medicine. He looked at her with his usual calm and collected expression. She was getting tired of this, but she was also stubborn and wouldn’t give in so easily.

“It is, but if it can help you, then I’ll continue, yoi.” He said, continuing to work on the herbs. Ann frowned. How could he go on like this? Sure, he was a Phoenix, but even a his phoenix power couldn’t keep helping him with mental exhaustion, could it? She actually didn’t know much about his powers or what they could do. Only what he had showed her.

She closed her eyes and for a while, silence fell over them. “Sabo was our first friend. We met him at the age of five and we had a bumby start, but a common goal. To gather enough money so we could get a ship and set sail one day. Be free. He was also the first to know who our father was and to simply accept it.” She started. Marco looked up, but her eyes were still closed, so he hummed, to let her know he listened.

“We were unusual kids, but a bond was made. For the next five years, we gathered a pirate treasure, as we called it. Hiding the money, gold and other valuable things we stole or fund. You see, we met Sabo just outside Goa Kingdom, in Grey Terminal. A huge trash place, where outlaws lived. People threw their trash here. We found jewlery and artifacts with lots of value there. You know what they say. One man’s trash - another man’s treasure. That describes that place perfectly.”

She could easily remember their time there. “Then Luffy came around, but we weren’t fond of him at first.” Marco looked surprised at this. he had thought they had always loved Luffy. “In fact we tried our best to get rid of him, but he’s like a cockroach. Things happened and he found our treasure. He got himself captured by the Bluejam Pirates and we were sure he would tell them where our treasure were. So we hurried to hide it a new place.”

Her voice sounded a little regretful and Marco suspected that it was because they hadn’t fought of Luffy first. “Sabo was on the lockout and as dusk came, the pirates hadn’t shown up and it dawned on us that maybe Luffy hadn’t told them where the treasure were. We went to find him and we did. They were torturing him.” Her voice cracked and Marco knew that this was something she wished she could have changed.

“Somehow we managed to beat them and get away with Luffy. Sabo had lived in Grey Terminal up until that day, but we couldn’t let him stay there now. Not all by himself. So we took him along. Man did Dadan freak out, but she did accept it in the end. Even Jiji adopted Sabo as a grandchild.” There was a sad smile on her lips and tears streamed down her face, but her eyes remained closed.

Silence fell and Marco sensed that she needed to gather herself a little. He wondered what happened to Sabo. It was the first time he’d heard about him. “As you know we made a vow to be siblings forever with Luffy, but he wasn’t the only one. Sabo was there too. The four of us became siblings.” She continued after a while. “Little did we know that our time together would be limited. It happened after a storm. We had this treehouse, you see. One we built ourselves. It had gotten damaged, so they went to Grey Terminal to gather suplies to repair it. I wish they hadn’t.”

Finally she opened her eyes, looking at Marco. “I had broken my arm a few days prior, so the boys talked me in to stay at the treehousee. Climbing up and down wasn’t easy for me. I did and I never saw Sabo again. You see, he had told us that he was a runaway. His father is a noble and was horrible towards Sabo. However, he found him and forced him along or else he would have the pirates kill Ace and Luffy.”

She bit her lips, they quivered, as she fought back the tears. “Sabo willingly went with his father. Luffy and Ace then helped the pirates in hope that Sabo managed to run away again. Ace told me their plan, while I was waiting in the treehouse. A few days later, I thought I had lost all three of them, as there was a huge fire in Grey Terminal. However, Dadan and the bandits went to save them. Ace and Dadan took their time getting back and on the day they got back, was the day Dogra - one of the bandits - saw that the ship Sabo had set sail in, was shot down by the Celestial Dragon.”

The tears floated down and Marco looked slight horrified at the story he had not expected that turn of event, so he went to sit next to her, pulling her close to him. “Sabo had just gotten his freedom, but was then killed. I had Ace and Luffy, but I had lost a brother I loved deeply. I couldn’t protet him. I wasn’t there to help him get away from his father. I failed as a sister.” She burried her face onto his shirt and he patted her back lightly.

“You didn’t fail, Ann. Sabo had a great childhood with the three of you and I’m sure he was happy because you were his friend, his sister, yoi.” What noble born child would keep staying with Ace, Ann and Luffy, if he wasn’t happy being with them? Marco wished he knew more about Sabo. He sounded like the noble born that could have made a difference.

“Are you sure?” She sobbed, wanted to get confirmed in her abilities as a sister. The feeling of having failed her family over and over, was so deeply roothed in her and it had all started when Sabo was taken from them. Marco sensed that she hadn’t processed his death properly.

“I am. Ann, you are a wonderful sister. Always making sure that your brothers and sisters are safe and feeling good. You always put the others before yourself and while you can be selfish at some points, you rarely do it on the cost of others. You said it yourself. The four of you made a vow to be siblings forever and if Sabo wasn’t happy with you, then he wouldn’t have made that vow, yoi.” Marco pointed out and Ann nodded lightly.

Silence fell once more, as Ann calmed herself. It was the first time she spoke of Sabo with someone who weren’t Ace or Luffy and it actually felt good to talk about him. She missed Sabo just as much as she missed Ace. Their death had taken a part of her soul too. “I hope Sabo is taking good care of Ace now...” She mumbled tiredly.

Marco hummed lightly. “I’m sure they are watching over you and Luffy too. You will never be completely alone, Ann. Even if they are dead, Ace and Sabo are with you all the time. In your heart and memories. Remember them and they’ll live on, yoi.” He slowly let go of her and made her look at him. “And talk about them. Make others know them, so they will live on, even if you die. People only die when they are forgotten, yoi.”

She looked at him, his words touching her. Ace and Sabo might be physically dead, but they were still alive. In her memories, in the memories of Luffy and now Marco. Ace was even in the memories of others. “Okay. I’ll tell you about our time together. If you tell me more about Oyaji and Thatch before we met them.”

Smiling, Marco took her hand. “That’s a deal, yoi.”

[victorluvsalice]

Magical Monday: Return To Pern (Crash)

So! Last week I linked you guys a silly little “dragons and Frasier” fanfic series I found on AO3, and mentioned that it had reignited my love for those delightful little creatures known as Pernese fire lizards! And then I thought, “hey, I haven’t actually TALKED about fire lizards or my Pern Crash AU in a while, have I?” Not since mid-2016, according to the relevant tags. So! Here’s a few links to help those of you who weren’t around then catch up:

Where it all began: Forgotten Vows gets a fire lizard! This was basically my introduction to fire lizards and Pern in general -- I saw the Nest of Eggs Meme on Dreamwidth and thought, "Holy crap, someone's giving away dragons?!" So I threw the DW version of Forgotten at it and got "a relaxed, lazy and gentle silver male fire lizard." (Nest O'Flitts, the journal that did the meme, does noncanon colors, and everything's decided by dice rolls -- I had no choice in the matter.) I wanted to know more about his new pet, so I read all the information available on Nest O'Flitts, then started Googling. . .

Aaand ended up a little obsessed. XD What can I say -- they're adorable and I love them. XD (Also they avoid some of the more -- problematic things I noticed with the books focused on the dragons. Not a big fan of how sex is handled, at least when it comes to mating flights. . .) The linked post lists most of the information I came up with for deciding how big fire lizards, in both canonical and non-canonical colors, should get, along with some notes on behavior and links to other references -- the Anne McCaffrey Fans link for sizes no longer works, but the Firelizard Biology and Behavior one does! Warning, though, it's a direct PDF link. Still an excellent read!

Pern Crash: Okay, so I apparently never did a proper write-up of this AU on my own blog, so you’ll have to rely on my RP blog’s page on it for the details: Things You Need To Know About: Pern Crash The most pertinent points are:

Fire lizards are a common part of life in England in this AU thanks to them accidentally being taken to Earth in a weird betweening accident; magic is also more commonly known

Victor gets in extra trouble with everyone for the Emily incident because necromancy is illegal thanks to corpse-puppet shenanigans earlier in the timeline; to the point where he is disowned by his parents once Victoria makes the decision not to marry him (not because of the illegal necromancy, but because she’s not sure how she feels about him anymore)

Victor Impresses Moonlight after finding his abandoned egg, and moves to London to take a job as a clerk for Radcliffe, where he meets Alice; he later gets a job as dogsbody for Bumby after he reveals to Alice Radcliffe’s been stealing from her inheritance and gets himself fired

Alice has a magical tattoo given to her in Rutledge that, thanks to sloppy spellcasting, allows her to accidentally project her hallucinations into people’s minds via skin-to-skin contact; this leads to some shenanigans when she slips back into Wonderland and Victor and Moonlight are trying to find her

Victor manages to successfully get his hands on Bumby’s journal while helping Alice and turns it over to the police with Alice once she’s sorted out Wonderland -- the psychiatrist still gets shoved in front of a train though :p

Victor and Alice get together in the aftermath, and Alice gets two fire lizards of her own -- a white named Snowflake and a black named Sooty; Moonlight and Sooty later mate, and Victor adopts one of the resulting hatchlings, a blue he calls Skyfall

Looking back at it these days, I’d actually like to change things up so Alice gets Snowflake earlier -- I have the idea of her getting the little flitt while in the asylum (Dr. Wilson takes her to a Hatching, or a Hatching to her, hoping to provoke a response -- he gets it when she cracks open an egg that wouldn’t hatch and Impresses the runt white within). I also don’t know if I’d do the whole “magical tattoo” thing. . .I dunno, we’ll see if and when I edit any of this.

Yes I Wrote Fic: I -- actually wrote a LOT more fic than I remembered. O.o I was more into this universe than I first thought. . . Anyway, here are the fics, in in-universe chronological order (I posted a few of them out-of-order):

The Finding: Victor finds Moonlight’s egg among the remains of his dead fair, and manages to Impress the little flitt

The Naming: Victor brings the fire lizard home, and comes up with his name

The Split: Nell starts talking about how maybe they were hasty in disowning Victor, and Victor realizes she's simply angling to use his fire lizard to get some status, leading to him disowning them right back and leaving

First Meeting: as you might expect, the first time Alice met Victor, as they both prepare to enter Radcliffe's -- Victor for his job, Alice to demand back her rabbit

Not So Helpless: a furious Victor confronts Radcliffe, telling Alice that he's been stealing from her; her resultant fit of rage makes him re-evaluate his first impression of her

Aftermath of Radcliffe: Alice feels the need to apologize to Victor for losing him his job in the aftermath of the both of them getting ejected from Radcliffe's house. Victor assures her it's fine, and talk ends up turning toward why he's in London in the first place

Can You Feel It?: a quick scene with Alice asking Victor if he can feel it while she's petting Moonlight

Suddenly, Samurai!: Victor and Moonlight are both searching for Alice after she has her A:MR break with reality; Victor runs into Victoria on his journey, while Moonlight manages to track down Alice herself. Unfortunately, she happens to be navigating the Mysterious East at the moment, leading to a weird interruption to Victor's conversation when Moonlight tries to get her attention by touching her. . .

Welcome To Cardbridge: Victor and Moonlight track down Alice while she's in the middle of her Cardbridge visit, and Victor gets a more direct look at Wonderland thanks from trying to save her from a drop

Confessions: Everything's wrapping up with Bumby and his mess, so Victor feels it's time to finally make a certain confession. . .

Meet Snowflake: Alice gets her first fire lizard, Snowflake, from a seller who offers her an egg that didn't hatch for free if she can get it open. . .

The Flight: Victor and Alice go through Sooty's first mating flight -- and get a surprise in who's flying her. . .

Next Generation: Victor and Alice welcome Victor's second little flitt, the son of Moonlight and Sooty's mating flight

Whew! Maybe I’ll leave well enough alone with this AU -- that was a LOT to get through! And I still haven’t even mentioned my OTHER Pern-related AU idea. . .