Charlie and the Jabberwocky

[wanderamaranth]

Summary: Charlie remembers his relationship with the Jabberwocky before and during the fall of the White City.

Rating: PG

Fandom: SyFy's Alice

Warnings: Some angst, very little dialogue

Written for going_boldly  and the AiW Holiday Gift Exchange.

Author's Note: This is my first foray into the SyFy Alice fandom; as of right now I haven't even read any fic for this film aside from the other stories in the AiW Holiday Gift Exchange...and absolutely nothing Charlie-based. So apologies go out if this is similar to another story that has already been published, but I haven't read it, and don't mean to be stepping on any toes.

That said, the first time I watched SyFy's Alice, Charlie annoyed the crap out of me. The muttering, the random shouting, the Goldberg-style machines...wasn't into it. Only upon rewatching the movie have I been able to appreciate him and his role in the events that unfolded. I've since been creating my own version of his "background" (and that of everyone in this version of Wonderland) and what follows is a small fragment of the "history" I've created for Charlie in my mind.

The prompt I'm fulfilling with this story is "Charlie and a Jabberwocky" and while I'm pretty sure that this is not what the requester had in mind, I hope they like it a bit anyways.

*~*~*~*

Charlie and the Jabberwocky of the Woods had not always been such bitter rivals.

There had been a time, back before he was a glorious Knight and Master of the Dark Arts, when he was still a young squire who enjoyed solitary rambles through the forest, that Charlie would have even dared to call he and the frumious beast friends.

This was, of course, while the Jabberwock was not (nearly) so fearsome, nor quite so large. They'd been small, spindly (well, Charlie was spindly--the Jabberwocky was rather plump) children together, two outcasts who'd bonded after a chance meeting. Charlie did not like to think of his inglorious childhood status in such bald terms, but the truth is the truth, is it not? He had been an outcast: excluded from the other children's fun and games on more than one occasion, teased for his desire to create oddities and wish to study the Black Arts when he lived in the White Realm. The only time the other children had anything to do with him whatsoever was when they were performing their squire-ly duties--and even then, his presence was barely tolerated. Being weaker and less adept with bladed objects did not help matters, either.

If it weren't for the Jabberwocky, Charlie was uncertain what his childhood would have been like. Would he have eventually been accepted by his peers? Logic told him that was unlikely (for people, especially young, growing people, have an instinctual dislike for the odd one out--and Charlie had always been rather odd) but his adult self still wondered.

As a child, though, Charlie didn't consider this. He and the Jabberwocky (then the size of a large dog) frolicked and played for hours on end. Tag was a favorite, as was Hide and Seek; ironically, Knight and Jabberwocky was the game that they perhaps played the most, each of them taking turns being either the Knight or the Jabberwocky, never mind which role each was destined to ultimately fulfill in their adulthood. (In fact, they each took a perverse pleasure in playing opposite to their type: Charlie as the Jabberwocky and the Jabberwocky as a White Knight. They were proof that one will always be fascinated most by that which they can not or will never really be.) Any animosity between the pair was strictly for show--all a part of the elaborate games they would play.

That changed the day the Red Queen's forces attacked the White City.

Many focus on the tragedy of the Knights falling that day; Charlie is no exception. However, many others passed or had their lives irrecoverably changed that day as well. The White King, for instance, and his wife the White Queen (whom had been practicing her skills in the Arts when the City was attacked, and thus could not properly warn them. It is difficult to speak, after all, when one is a sheep) both lost their lives. Countless servants, courtiers, and visitors to the City perished. Children, elders, and those in between fell to the dark-clad Suits and the Red Queen's hunger for power.

There were survivors, though...creatures beyond Charlie that had crawled out of the crumbled City and swore that, while they would never speak of the horrors they had seen perpetuated within, they would never forget, either. Dodo, for example. Caterpillar, for another.

And the Jabberwocky.

Charlie, against both his mentor and his mother's wishes, had snuck the chubby creature into the squire's stables the evening before the attack. When the first Suits struck the City, he and the Jabberwocky were curled up in their respective beds (Charlie had made the beast a small pallet of straw next to his narrow bed) and did not stir from their slumber. Only when the alarms began to sound (much too late for many of the arms-trained citizens to do much good against their attackers) did they wake--and the sight that greeted Charlie when he opened his eyes was both amazing and terrifying.

The Jabberwocky had grown.

Gone was the happily galumphing infant creature, and in its place sat a snarling, snapping, drool-dripping monster nearly eight feet tall. The fur that had clung to its back and digits had molted off; the small flat teeth were now large, blocky things that resembled nothing so much as mortise blocks.

"Jabberwocky...?" Charlie had asked, but instead of a gravely, grunted, humanoid voice, like what he expected, the creature emitted a mid-pitch wail.

Thrashing its long neck, the Jabberwocky emitted a terrible groan, and swung his head towards the wall. The only result of this was a large crack in the plaster, so it pulled back and swung again. This time, the creature was successful in creating a hole in the wall, and thusly it turned its back on Charlie completely, and focused its energies on escaping the now-too-small space.

"Jabberwocky!" Young Charlie had cried, as it demolished the space that had been his room. "Why are you doing this?"

The City's alarms kept blaring all the while. The Jabberwocky, with a final cry of triumph, created a hole large enough for it to squeeze its body through, and did so. Charlie rushed after his (now, he somehow knew, former) friend, and stared out at the chaos that engulfed the White City.

"No..." he breathed, but he knew what it meant. The reason why the Jabberwocky grew at such a rate was right before him. Their rate of growth was directly tied into the amount of misery that surrounded them--and right now, the White City was miserable, indeed.

There were Suits everywhere; he could hardly pretend that he was unaware of what their presence, in such large numbers, meant. So he turned away from the hole in the wall, snatched up his satchel, and shoved as many things as would fit into it. There was nothing for him here, now that his friend was gone and the city was burning to the ground. He would run--into the Woods, in all those secret places the Jabberwocky had shown him, places where others would be too afraid to tread--and he would hide. Maybe when everything was over, when the battle was done and things began making sense again, he would come back. But right then, all Charlie knew was that he fell asleep and the world was one way, and when he awoke, it was completely another.

He heard another bellow. Unable to keep his eyes away from the large hole any longer, he looked out, just in time to see the beast that had been his friend reach down, pluck a Knight up in his jaws, and swallow him whole. It was nothing like the games of Knights and Jabberwockies that they used to play; nothing at all.

With a wordless cry of his own, Charlie turned his back on the scene of destruction. He'd go, and he'd run, and he'd hide, Charlie resolved. It was the coward's path, but at that moment he didn't care. Anything--even being branded a coward of the acutest kind--had to be better than staying in this crumbling city and watching his friend turn into the monster of legend.