Alice looked at her face in the vanity mirror as she brushed out her hair. She didn't look particularly queenly. Not like Mirana. Not even like the red queen. Her chin did not have enough poise to it. Perhaps she didn't hold herself regally.

Putting down the brush, she looked at her reflection. Lifting her chin slightly, and let a benevolent smile touch her lips.

Well, she tried for benevolent. Really she just looked a little like something she'd had for dinner did not agree with her. It really wasn't very queenly at all. She wasn't really very queenly at all.

Of course she wasn't. This entire thing was ridiculous.

Impossible.

I often think of six impossible things! Before breakfast!

But cats grinned. Flowers sang. Edibles and imbibeables could make you big or make you small. She fell down a rabbit hole and landed in another world. She was a champion in that world, slain an evil dragon-like creature and saved the land from an evil rule. In her own world where most women of her class occupied themselves with latest fashions and their rank in society, where she'd been expected to do the same, through her own drive she'd become shrewd businesswoman who had traveled to the ends of the earth.

Alice squared her shoulders and looked her mirror-self in the eye.

Maybe this queen business wasn't entirely impossible. After all, it was in her blood...apparently.

And that...that was a whole different kettle of fish, wasn't it?

"If the gears in that mind of yours were turning any louder, you'd wake the entire palace."

Alice started at the dry voice behind her. She grinned as a moment later a flutter of blue landed near the candle on the vanity.

"Like a moth to the flame," she said to the sour faced butterfly.

Absolem snorted. "Moth? Hardly."

"Your wings are quite beautiful. Do you like being able to fly?"

Absolem, to her surprise, did his best to hide a bit of preening. "We all must transform," he said in the same brusque tone.

Alice sighed. "You gave me that advice years ago, you know."

"Then perhaps you should have remembered it."

"Absolem..."

"Hmm?"

"Did you...know my father?"

Absolem's left antennae tilted off to one side and the corresponding eye sort of..bulged. Alice supposed it to be the butterfly-version of a raised eyebrow. He said nothing.

"My father, the High King..."

"Charles Kingsleigh. Nay, King Charles, High Ruler of All Underland."

"That would be the one, yes."

"I knew him. All in Underland did."

"What was he like?"

"You knew him."

Honestly. Getting a straight answer out of him was harder than Jabberwocky slaying at times.

"I knew him as my father. As a businessman, of wondrous vision and determination. Of great strength of character and so very much love for his family. But he was the man who read me bedtime stories, who would play silly make-believe games with me and make funny faces at me during formal dinners when I was the only one watching. I knew him as my father, not as a king."

"And is not every father a king to their child?"

"That's not quite..."

"You are your father's daughter, Alice, have you not been told that countless times?"

"I suppose, but..."

"But nothing. What has changed but that you now know more of yourself than you did before."

Alice stared at her reflection.

Was that really it? Was it all so simple? Maybe. It was true that she'd always felt so much more of a kinship with her father than with her mother - than most everyone else in her world if she were honest with herself. He never stifled her, never told her to "behave" or "act like a young lady". He encouraged her imagination, her invented games and fanciful stories. When the rest of the world told her she was "wrong", wasn't it the memory of his encouragement, his own convictions in his visions and imaginings that gave her that extra strength to stay true to herself? Wasn't his influence the reason she had neglected the "proper" way of life that was expected of her in favor of a world of dreams and impossible ideas, and eventual innovation and adventure?

Maybe this was just another adventure. Maybe this adventure would be the greatest of all.

And considering her life thus far, that really was saying something.

She took a short breath and blew out the candle. If nothing else, she would surely learn more about this man she called, "Father" and this entire world called, "High King".

A/N: WOW it's been a long time since I've written, and I'm so, so sorry. In time between the last post and this, I've gotten engaged, gotten married, and now we are buying a house, so my mind was admittedly otherwise occupied (not that any of this silly real life stuff is an excuse :P). Thanks to any of you who have stuck around - I'm ready for the escape that is this story again! I know this is a little short, but the future chapters should be longer. Let's see what happens...