For Vi

Theodora shrieked as another tear singed the corner of her eye and continued to burn down her cheek, leaving a black streak once more. Just a few hours ago, this journey had been the best of her life; no pain, no feeling, just a pent up rage that burned deep in her chest, powering her fury and her cackle. Now, all she could do was scream with the hiss and agony of her acid tears.

"Why? Why her? Why me? I am more than this!" she shouted across the sky. Aiming her smoking monster of a broom towards the ground, Theodora sobbed once more,

"Why him?"

With a whimper, she collapsed onto the thick carpet of flora that coated most of Oz. Curling up into a tight ball, the witch gulped and shook with the power of this new combination of emotion: regret, sorrow, and the hatred, not of others as it had recently been, but of herself and whom she had become. As her face became more and more streaked, her emotions began to subside and her mind started to function again. Theodora began to pick herself up and look around to where she had crashed. Surprisingly, she sat at the center of a smoldering crater with her wretched broom nowhere in sight.

"Good riddance," she muttered as the ghost of her feelings while creating that fiend rushed through her body. She was finished with anger, hatred, and most of all vengeance.

Gradually Theodora began to hear a hiss from what seemed over her shoulder. As it increased in volume, the hiss morphed into a whine that surrounded all sides. Theodora pursed her lips in a grimace as the pitch grew louder and louder. One word faded in and out of the merge of noise:

"Eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…..eiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiii…..eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii….."

"What is-is-i-i-i-s-s-s-s-"

A shudder shook her body, then another and another until Theodora was vibrating with a frantic energy. A gasp was torn from her throat and she clutched her chest feeling something was both terribly wrong and instinctively right. One final violent shake ended as her eyes rolled up into her skull and she passed out and a thump rocked the earth.

Opening one eye just a crack, Theodora flinched at the bright light and sound that filled the air around her. Sitting up on her elbows, the witch fearfully tried to open her eyes again. The light was less vibrant as she had originally experienced and the noise was tolerable. But still, it persisted on.

Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump.

"M-m-my heart!" she exclaimed. Theodora finally realized what she had been missing, that solid beat that, unknowingly, persists throughout our existence. A heartbeat.

Sinking down once more in wonder, she shivered as the grating howl of a winged monkey pierced the air.

"How could that have been me?" she asked herself.

How could she have wished that terror and agony on anyone? Her mind turned back to one such evening full of both thrill and terror, the day she had met him…. Theodora suddenly screamed, her shriek piercing the night.

"Why?!"

An echo of that haunting hiss flirted through her skull once more:

"Eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-"

But it was cut off as Theodora crouched to the dirt and dry heaved, sobbing.

Before her heavy tears could flow again, a white ghost flew towards her from the borders of the deep crater, far beyond the tree line. Startled, she abruptly stood up, her face a mask of horror brought on by memories past. A gentle breeze was fanned past her face as the dove smoothly landed on her shoulder.

"C-coo, c-coo, c-coo," the shining bird whispered in her ear, "Thanks."

"For what? We sent you to your death," Theodora choked out, the 'we' burning her throat.

"For the biggest adventure of my entire existence, of course!" the dove flapped his wings triumphantly.

"H-how?"

"Well," the dove cleared his throat, "After your wizard through me at that hell-risen mongrel to save your wretched hides…," here Theodora flinched, "…I was more than slightly annoyed. He has kept me in that pocket for a total of about five straight years! Five years crammed in a tight, smelly, hand-me-down jacket only released to appease the blood-thirsty crowds! Imagine! That day when we were shot up in that flimsy thing dared to be called transportation, I was screaming my tail feathers off, not that he noticed. My end had come! I could feel it! My thoughts turned to the great bird-feeder in the sky, I immediately noticed when we entered Oz. Who couldn't? The bright colors! Laughter just bubbling up from nowhere! A gentle breeze carrying samples of a paradise beyond! Paradise, yes, pure ecstasy. I never imagined making it here: The Wonderful Land of Oz! I would finally be free, or so I hoped. But no no no! That ungrateful wizard just feel in the river and completely forgot about me once more. It took you and the monkeys' attraction to your scent to put me in a situation of escape."

Theodora sniffed her arm experimentally.

"Do I really smell?" she asked.

"No, not to most Ozians. And defiantly not to him…" the dove murmured with a smirk on his beak.

"Anyway, when Oz became truly desperate, he finally pulled out the big gun: me! Believe me, fresh air had never smelt so good compared to his stinky pits! A couple flaps of my wings and I thought I was home free, until that brute plucked me out of the air. And I thought Oz smelled bad! Well, I was a goner until my ninja instincts kicked in (my years of dovejo training paid off) and that monkey won't be eating any birds for a good long while. No siree! Miss, you saved my life and made me a Ozian superstar in one day! That is why I thank you, and that is why I wish to offer you my services in gratitude."

"Dove…" Theodora started off tentatively.

"Ratnik!" the dove looked up hopefully.

"Ratnik, I…I'm not good, and I'm not the hero you've said I am. Look at me!" she held up her emerald-green hand. "It's all my faul-"

Theodora cut off immediately.

"No…no it's not. It's my sister's! I remember! Her….her…her apple! Yes! She gave me a green apple and…..AAAAAAAAH!" she let out a scream of rage and the hiss quietly grew in her ears.

"Eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…"

"SHE DID THIS! TO ME! TO OZ!"

The hiss grew and grew until it was a roar again, but this was different, this was…controlled, but only barely. Ratnik took off in a puff of feathers from the witch's shoulder when the next thing that left her mouth was a cackle; murderous on the edge of hysteria.

"Never again will she control me! Never again will she control him! NEVER AGAIN WILL SHE RUIN US! NOT WHEN I'M DONE WITH HER! NEVER!"

Theodora punched her fist out from the side of her body with a snarl and opened her hand, expecting the broom to wiz into her awaiting palm like it had done just hours ago.

"NEVER!" she screamed as Ratnik hid in the branches of a tall apple tree.

Theodora paused for a second, waiting for the touch of solid, splintered wood to race into her grasp, but the wait was in vain. No broom appeared.

A glimpse around proved to no avail as the evil thing was nowhere in sight. That pause, from the disobedience of a moody broomstick, was just enough to bring reason back to her mind and Ratnik, seeing her rage dissipate, back to her shoulder.

"I c-c-c-can't kill her. She's my sister, and always will be, no matter how much dirt separates us," Theodora muttered with a cynical chuckle.

"Miss, if I know anything at all about Evanora, it's that she will not stand any disagreement with herself, even if you are her sister," Ratnik continued, "She will never stop hunting you. You've broken her spell."

Theodora looked up at that.

"I….guess I did," she whispered, still in awe over the beating from her chest, "I really am more powerful."

"That's also why she will never let you escape. The only reason she's kept you close all these years is fear that you may one day abandon her and wrest away her control of Oz."

"What about Glinda? And…." she couldn't even speak his name.

"Glinda isn't as powerful as Evanora. Both of them know that. Only, Glinda's good heart gives her any chance. Dark is always stronger than light."

"That is why I have a chance," Theodora sat up," I am dark," a glimpse at her green skin once more confirmed her fears, "I was born that way…"

"But you have a good heart!" Ratnik finished.

Theodora abruptly stood up.

"I need to go," she insisted, "Now."

"And I shall go with you, Miss, wherever you wish!"

Theodora walked over to an apple tree and picked up a long branch that had fallen to the ground. Straddling the limb, she closed her eyes as tight and hard as possible. Three seconds passed before the witched looked up and saw that she was hovering a foot off the ground.

Looking longingly past the grove behind her towards Munchkin land, Theodora reached over to the tree next to her and with her long black finger nails carved two words into the trunk.

ONE DAY

With Ratnik on her shoulder, hat pulled down to her ears, and long black hair flowing behind her in the wind, Theodora pointed her branch up and noticed for the first time a small green apple blossom sprouting off the end of the limb. Letting loose a final cackle, she kicked off the grass straight into the earth.

"To Kansas!" she shouted into the wind.

White dove. Blue sky. Green skin.

The witch was complete.