Title: Realizations.
Fandom: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.
Rating: General.
Length: 848 words.
Content notes: None.
Author notes: Written for the rough prompt in fan_flashworks.
Summary: On a starry night Alice comes to realize that phrase 'nothing in life ever comes easy' applies to many situations.


Nothing worthwhile in life ever came easy; Alice had heard that many times over the course of her childhood. She’d always wondered about it, she thought that some things should be easy. Certain things just should be and not require a lot of work.

Such as love from her father. That should have been easy. And yet, it had been an uphill battle and the road there had been rough. Even at the end, she still didn’t have his love, the best she could call the emotion she received from him was indifference. He didn’t hate her, but he certainly didn’t love her either. She had known, even as a child, that he blamed her for her mother’s death. And yet, she continued to try to earn his love.

That ongoing and futile quest had tossed her into the path of the most unlikely person: Cyrus. When she’d looked for refuge in what she’d assumed to be an abandoned bottle from the Queen’s men, she had not expected to find someone living inside. There were many curious things in Wonderland, but she was fairly certain this one took the cake. At least, up to that point. She could never rule out even stranger and more wondrous things to be found in that odd realm of nonsense.

Their friendship had moved forward into something more when she’d taken a chance that she’d read all the signs properly. She’d observed people in love, or smitten, with one another back in England. And in that moment, if she was going to get out of the little situation whilst he was teaching her sword play, she had to use something to throw him off guard.

She was certain he liked her, she’d thought it from the start, but had learned early on he really wasn’t one for expressing his wants or desires. It was frustrating at times, and for a short while she’d been rather angry about it. She never said anything out loud, but she was reaching a breaking point. Why couldn’t he just make a decision on his own? Why did he always look to her to make all the choices, and why did he always have to go along with anything she wanted to do, even when it was more than obvious from the look in his dark eyes that he wanted to refuse?

Finally, the evening after he began to teach her sword play, and she’d managed to disarm him with a kiss, she began to realize the problem. She’d told him a few of the more amusing stories of her childhood as they sat by a warm fire, some from her mischief in Wonderland while others were of her life in England, and she’d delighted at how he’d laugh at all the trouble she would get into. She could tell he enjoyed the stories about her life in England a little more, likely due to the fact they were a touch more extreme. She had to do something to get attention, and what difference did it make if she was being showered with love or being reprimanded? At least her father was taking the time out of his days lost in melancholy to acknowledge her existence.

But when it came to Cyrus telling her stories, she began to notice an underlying theme: not one included him doing something because he actually desired to do so; every single action was due to people telling him what to do. The phrase my will is thine had not struck her until that moment.

She could not imagine a life where she couldn’t do what she pleased, whenever the notion struck her. Not all her choices had been wise, some of them had ended poorly but she’d had the free will to do as she chose to. To live a life forever doing as other’s told you to was no way to live, and she didn’t care if you were a normal person or a genie; everyone should be able to do whatever they wanted.

As the fire died down, and Cyrus had fallen asleep, she came to a decision whilst she gazed up at the stars over Wonderland. From that moment on, she’d gently encourage him to make choices. She wouldn’t push it too much, but she knew with a gentle nudge here and there, even for simple things, he’d realize with her he wasn’t some wish granting entity, but a person with a will of his own. He’d given her so much since they’d met, he loved her unconditionally and had taught her to be confident in who she was instead of feeling the need to bend to suit the conceptions of other’s, she felt it was time she did something more for him.

She smiled softly, her blue eyes moving from the stars above to glance over at Cyrus while he slept. Like trying to earn her father’s love, she knew this would be an uphill battle with an equally rough path, but she instinctively knew the outcome to this would be far more favourable for them both.