Friday Barnes Oneshots!!

Epilouge to Fairy Tale AU: Part 1

Clarification if confused: The original 'Human' Ian that died is not the same Ian in the original FB books. He would have had a different personality and character. The Cheshire cat in this story is Ian's stand-in and has his personality and character. The original 'Human' Ian is only Ian in his looks, which the cat takes on. Human Ian (the cat who became human) is Ian through and through. Sorry if that is confusing <3

For Danni<3

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To be human is to experience life in all its glory, to be at the centre of one's own universe knowing that it'll come to an end and yet still live, just for the sake of it. Why does anyone do what they do? The indomitable human spirit was something that could conquer the universe, so they say.

He had not been human, until now. He'd been something else entirely, a being of indescribable existence that lived on, and on, and on, and on.

His namesake, one Ian Wainscott, had been. Those who know him would call him by his official 'title', the 'Cheshire Cat'. Now was that his actual name, or just a description? He didn't know himself as he was much too young and much too old to know.

Ian Wainscott. Who was he? He didn't really know. A naive and foolish passing victim he risked his freedom for. Humans never came into the forest. In fact, he hadn't even seen one before Ian. But there he was, in all of his gorgeous glory, steadily sneaking through the woods, lost. The cat had tried to warn him, to bid him off! For that was his own nature. To guide, to lead, to trick and tease. But Ian wouldn't listen, no. The other, more intelligent entities in that forest were sent to send him away. Well, that's what the cat had thought at first. But when the human had come into contact with raging beasts, the cat had realised King Hallet of the Woods (a bastard if you asked the feline) had ordered the human's death. That was the Cheshire Cat's first experience with injustice. The feeling of remorse. He felt bad, that was it. He felt bad for the poor human. It wasn't his fault he stumbled into the land. It wasn't his fault at all. Another thing that was a part of the cat's nature was to defy. Defy orders. Defy the expected. Hell, even defy the laws of the universe if he wanted. All with a wide grin on his face.

How could they blame him for wanting to help? How?! How, when all he could hear at night was the poor hunted boy's cries? And how was he rewarded for acting so gallantly?

By being trapped! Trapped and confined and constricted to the vast, gaunt forest! With a death threat placed on his head that if he was to ever help again, (and for what when they still captured the boy right on the cusp of the gate and killed him!) well, off with his head!

What other choice did he have except to stay? The conditions set in place where he was to stay trapped and immortal in the woods, his only chance at freedom was mortality; To relinquish all the powers he had and become a... human.

How could he?! How!? How did they expect him to give it all up? Oh, how he used to walk wherever he pleased, how he'd appear in any and every place imaginable.

Now, in this next part, he couldn't tell anyone why he did this, for he did not know himself. If it was a last act of revenge maybe, or the blossoming first experience of sorrow and grief, he couldn't tell. The cat had pawed its way to the body before it was taken away and mauled. He prowled around it, taking in the boy's features. He truly was a sight. More beautiful than anyone the cat had ever seen. His hair was like that of spun strands made from the finest gold. His face looked to be sculpted with the most delicate and loving hand. His physique was one of a marble statue, with the finest muscles and toned limbs a being could have. Soft fluttering eyelashes that were long and dark and the cat remembered those eyes. So blue. Blue like the crashing ocean, blue like the endless sky, a blue that could stop and start wars.