A/N
Phew, finally! I've had so much problems trying to upload this thing. Unbelievable! My computer is being stubborn. Anyway... so I've updated it. This story kind of just grew, even though I thought about just leaving it a one-shot. I don't really know where it's headed in the long run but so far I've got ideas.
These first few chapters are going to be pre-curse. Just glimpses of Alice's life before Storybrooke. You'll get more glimpses even as we enter Storybrooke but these are a bit more comprehensive. Just so you'll get an idea of her story.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens next, huh?
Alice wandered about aimlessly, simply following the weird yellow brick road that she'd found without concern. She was busy trying to figure out exactly how she'd gotten… wherever it was she were and how to get back home to Jefferson. That twister had to have been the weirdest weather phenomenon ever! There she'd been, just minding her own business foraging for herbs and mushrooms in the forest when suddenly the wind had picked up and before she knew what was happening she was swept off her feet. And now, she didn't know where she was. Certainly not the Enchanted Forest, that was for sure.
"Hello." She suddenly heard a voice to her right speak up solemnly, making her startle.
There was no one. To her right there was a field of wheats growing but there was no one there; only a sad looking scarecrow. To her left was a tree line, although what kind of trees were growing there she couldn't tell; they looked far too differently from any she'd seen before.
"Hello?" She answered uncertainly.
"Up here." The voice spoke again.
Alice turned and gave a yell of surprise. "Whoa!"
"Yes, here." The Scarecrow waved lazily.
"Hello." She smiled befuddled. "I wasn't aware that you were alive."
"Of course I am." The Scarecrow huffed. "I'm a Scarecrow."
"I can see that." Alice nodded and stepped closer to the field. She'd seen stranger things in her life so she wasn't going to question a living scarecrow. "But if you're alive, why are you hanging there? Why not walk off somewhere? It can't be too comfortable."
"Where?" Was he shrugging? Yes, Alice realised, he was. "This is a scarecrow perch and I am scarecrow, where else would I be?"
"I suppose that is a good point." She conceded. "What is your name?"
"Scarecrow." Was the simple answer.
"Yes, I know. But what is your name?" She asked again.
"…scarecrow?"
"You don't know your name?" She hesitated. "Or perhaps you were never given one?"
"Who gives names?" The straw filled man asked curiously. "I've heard the munchkins talk about these… names, but I do not know what they are precisely."
"Munchkins?" Alice mumbled confused before again focusing. "It is what other people call you. You know, if someone wants to call out to a friend in a crowd they can't very well just call out 'hey, friend!', that wouldn't work."
"But there is no crowd here." The Scarecrow made a recklessly sweeping motion with his arm, making some straw fall out. "And no one to call out to."
"But I am here, and so are you." She answered. "And everyone and everything must have a name, it's only polite."
"How is it polite?" He seemed utterly confused.
"But just think about it; not being able to call out your name in a crowd, if ever you find yourself in one, how distressing would that not be for someone like me?" Alice nodded along with herself.
"Someone like you?"
"Yes, like me. Who else would call out but not me? Do you see anyone else around here?" Alice gestured around them. "Obviously."
"But what would a name be? What is yours?"
"Alice." She smiled. "Alice Dorothea Kingsleigh. Although I don't much like that last one."
"You do not look like an Alice." The Scarecrow shook his head.
"How do you mean?" Alice scrunched her face up. "Most people say I do."
"Well, I don't." He nodded fiercely. "What was the other one? Not the one you didn't like, the one in the middle."
"Dorothea?"
"Yes, that one. But shorter, not so many sounds." He contemplated. "I know, I shall call you Dorothy; pleasantly short and rhyming."
"How is it rhyming?" She asked before shaking her head. "And my name is Alice, that is what I am called."
"Well not by myself. I am the one to call out, am I not?" He tilted his head. "So I get to decide what to call out. It's only polite."
"…I suppose that makes sense?" She phrased it like a question. "But then I get to name you, do I not? Since I'll be calling out?"
He simply nodded.
"How about Crow?" She wondered. "You are a scarecrow after all. And I can't very well be calling you Scare, that's ridiculous. But Crow, that has a nice ring to it."
He thought for a while before nodding approvingly. "It suits me."
"That it does."
"What is it like?" Alice asked suddenly.
Crow had eventually climbed down from his perch (unsteadily and carelessly) and sat down by the road next to Alice, or Dorothy as he proclaimed was her name now. They had simply been chatting along, about nothing of any real worth, and Dorothy had been gazing up at the clear blue sky wishing for clouds. Not many, mind you, just a few small fluffy clouds that would take impossible shapes in the sky to be guessed by her before they changed shape yet again.
"What is what like?" Crow leaned back on his elbows.
"Being a scarecrow?" She looked at him. "I imagine it would be different from being a human."
"How would I know, I'm not human." He shrugged.
"Good point." She conceded. "Well, what do you do all day long? When I was not here."
"Were you not always here?" He gazed at her. "I can't recall."
"No, I was only here since a short while ago." She shook her head. "I was brought to this land in the strangest of fashions only just a few hours ago."
"Wherever were you before?"
"Another land." She looked at the sky again. "I miss it already, even though I haven't been here too long."
"Well, you would." He nodded. "Anyone would miss their home."
"It wasn't always." She looked back at him. "Before then I lived someplace else, and even before then someplace else again. Though I did not like it, that first place."
"What of the second?"
"That I liked. But the third was by far the best." She felt her heart constrict. "Do you suppose there is anyway for me get back there?"
"I do not know, I'm a scarecrow you know. I never know much of anything." He sighed deeply, as if this affliction was troubling him. "Sometimes I wish I knew more."
"It's not always a good thing, knowing more. Though I suppose knowing less would be just as bad." She sighed too. "Are there other scarecrows? Do they know less too?"
"Oh, there are a few." He shrugged again. "Not very talkative though, rather boring bunch really, and they loathe movement, preferring to stand still at their perches and pretend."
"Pretend what?" Dorothy asked curiously. What on earth would a scarecrow pretend?
"That they are less than they are." He sighed again. "While I wish I was more."
"Maybe there is a way for you to be more?" She wondered out loud. "Where I come from, both second and third, we have this thing called magic. It can do plenty of things; making less into more should be easy."
"Magic?" Crow tasted the word. "I think I've heard of this. Maybe it can get you home too."
"If I can find it." She shrugged. "I do not know this land, I don't know where to look."
"Maybe the Emerald City." He suggested. "I've never been, obviously, but I've heard of it. The munchkins speak of it."
"What is a munchkin anyway?" She smiled.
"Not me and not you." He said in a matter of fact manner.
"No, certainly not." She laughed. "And where is this Emerald City?"
"Just follow the Yellow Brick Road." He pointed. "It goes from Munchkin Land, where we are now, to the Emerald City. It's the only road we have."
Dorothy stood up and dusted her dark blue and brown dress off. "Well, then I suppose I will."
She looked back at him, her first friend in this strange land, and reached out with her hand. "Come on, maybe we can find you someone to make you more."
"Well, I doubt they can make me less." He took her hand with his straw fist and pulled himself up.
"You know." She started as they turned toward the road she had walked along just a few hours earlier. "I think, that just by following me away from your perch and into unknown places, you already are more."
"Certainly more than I was before. I even have a name now. That's more than any other scarecrow before me." He squared his shoulders proudly.
"Then lets go an extra mile, and make you even more more than ever before." She smiled and they started down the brick road; arms linked at the elbows and nearly skipping. She'd find her way back to Jefferson, no matter what. Because she was Alice and she needed her Madness.
Oz. That's what it was called, this strange new land she'd somehow found herself in. She explained to Crow how exactly she came to be in Oz and he told her that twisters were a common sight in Oz though probably not one quite like that.
He told her of many things he'd overheard from his scarecrow perch, mostly from munchkins passing by. They actually met a few munchkins, heading in the opposite direction, but they didn't stop to chat. They looked a lot like children and were a very cheery bunch. They'd practically danced their way passed them and aside from a few sing-song greetings they ignored their fellow travellers.
That is not to say that all people they met on the Yellow Brick Road ignored them. And of course, that is not to say that all the people they met on the road were actual people.
"Well, that is certainly something I've never seen before." Dorothy stopped walking to look upon the strange sight. "A statue, I suppose."
"It is not a scarecrow, I can tell you that." Crow nodded along.
The statue, as it turned out, wasn't actually a statue at all. This proven as it moved.
"Oh, not a statue then." Dorothy leaned in closer. "But still made of of metal."
"Tin, actually." The not-statue spoke, turning his head sharply toward them, making them jump.
"A Tin-man." Dorothy nodded as if this was nothing unusual. "This truly is a land unlike any other."
"Is it?" The Tin-man asked while trying to get his arms to move in spite of their stiffness. "Do you have experience with such things as other lands to be making comments like that?"
"Oh, I do. Several. And in none of them would you have seen any such as you." She nodded before pausing briefly and gesturing towards Crow. "Or him, really."
"I say, what is your name?" Crow asked, proud to be able to ask, as he hopped closer to their new friend. "Mine is Crow and this is Dorothy."
"Not technically but never mind." She sighed as she too stepped closer. The Tin-man had managed to breathe life into his limbs again and was waving his left arm like a windmill to ease up his movements.
"Name?" He said thoughtfully. "I'm sure I used to have one, once, but I can't for the life of me remember it."
"Not many to call out for you, then?" Crow tipped his head sympathetically. "Neither did I until Dorothy came along."
"I suppose we could give you a new one." Dorothy put her hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. Crow put his finger to his mouth and tapped thoughtfully.
"Were you always a Tin-man? I was always a scarecrow though I long to be more but Dorothy wasn't always a Dorothy and now she longs to be home. Are you what you always were? Do you long for something as well?"
"Oh, goodness, no. I wasn't always so silvery though I carry no regret for it. Though I suppose, longing for longing's sake, I too wish I could sometimes be more." He shook his head sadly. "Or perhaps less. Less tin and more heart. I do so ever miss my heart."
"Your heart?" Dorothy asked, thinking back to her time in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts. "Wherever did you put it to be able to miss it?"
"I am not sure I put it anywhere." He shook his head. "I just don't feel it like I used to. Before the tin."
"However would one go about becoming a Tin-man, though, I'm curious?" Crow asked, hand on chin and face scrunched up as if trying to think a particularly elusive thought.
"Oh, I was cursed." He answered nonchalantly, as if it didn't matter too much. "By the Good Witch of the South, you see."
"Why?" Dorothy wondered.
"I can't really remember anymore. I think I angered her somewhat, though I can't tell you for sure. My life before the tin is rather blurry. I don't mind though, I rather like the tin." He smiled stiffly, his facial muscles hindered by the tin metal. "But I do miss my heart."
"Maybe your tin comes in the way for your heart." Dorothy mused. "Muffles it, like."
"Do you think so?" He seemed alarmed by this. "However do I get it to stop?"
"Well, we're hardly experts." Crow grimaced. "Though perhaps the magic can help you too?"
"Oh, yes!" Dorothy smiled. "I bet it can."
"Magic, like the curse that made me this?"
"Well, obviously not exactly like it. You're already tin, you don't need to be more tin, but perhaps less…" Dorothy thought out loud. "Tell you what, Tin-man, why don't you come with us? We're headed to the Emerald City to look for magic, to make Crow more and to take me home."
"Yes, marvellous idea. The more the merrier!" Crow made a small hopp in excitement.
"The Emerald City? I've been there once, long ago. Maybe the Wizard of Oz can help? He lives there, in the Royal Palace of Oz." The Tin-man cried out in epiphany.
"A wizard? Well, that's perfect." Dorothy exclaimed happily. "A wizard would not be a wizard without magic!"
"Then that's where we need to go!" Crow cheered and danced out on the Yellow Brick Road again. "Come along, friends! We're off to see the wizard!"
They'd almost made it to the Emerald City, Dorothy could see it glinting and glimmering in the distance, when they stopped again. It wasn't agreed on or planned or anything; they all just stopped simultaneously and as one turned to the left. Just about ten feet into the tree line off the road there was a hunkering figure shivering in the shadows.
"How about that." Crow whistled. "A shivering shadow."
"Most peculiar." The Tin-man agreed.
"I don't think it's a shadow, per say." Dorothy inched closer to the tree line to see more clearly. "Nope, definitely not."
"Then what is it?" Crow asked confused.
"Oh, don't ask that. Ask who, not what. No need to be rude." Dorothy chided him lightly, the need for politeness never quite having left her even though she hadn't been in Wonderland for a while now.
"All right, who is it?" He gave a suffering sigh.
"He looks a bit… like a lion."
"A shivering lion?" The Tin-man scoffed. "Never heard of such a thing."
Ignoring her two new friends, Dorothy stepped closer to the huddling figure to get a closer look. It was indeed a lion, a rather large one at that, and though she had never seen any lions before she had a memory of reading about them in her first land (the one she did her best not to think about) and she recognised the creature for what it was easily. But something about his posture made him seem less a lion and more a mouse; it just screamed timidness.
"Excuse me?" She spoke softly. "Are you all right?"
He stiffened, shivering no more, before seeming to crawl in to himself even more. Leaning even closer in she could hear him mumbling something.
"Sir, really, are you well?" She reached out to touch him gently. The animal flinched under her hand but she held fast resolutely. "It's all right, I won't hurt you. And neither will my friends."
"Don't go making promises for other people." Crow spoke up from behind. "Though this one is true, you never know. Not to mention it's rude to speak for others."
"And politeness is key." She mumbled to herself, repeating Wonderland's mantra, before again focusing on the task at hand. "Really though, mr. Lion, you are quite safe. Don't be scared."
"…it?" She barely heard him but he definitely spoke just then.
"What?"
"Do you mean it?" He asked again, a little louder.
"Why yes of course, why would you not be safe?" She rubbed his shoulder softly.
He finally uncurled himself and turned to look at her. It was the strangest thing; he undoubtedly had a lion's face but the emotions she could read in it were so very human. Not even Cheshire had such human expressions as this.
"What are you doing here, Sir? In the forest and not on the road?" She hunched down to look him more directly in his eyes.
"Scared. Too scared." He shook his head.
"Whatever of, you are a lion?" Crow exclaimed and marched over to them, making the lion in question lean away in fright.
"Yes, top of the food chain, you are. What do you have to afraid of?" The Tin-man agreed as he too stepped closer.
"Ease up, you two." She glared briefly at them. "Though they are right. What are you afraid of?"
"Everything." He sniffed. "I… I just wish… that I wasn't. It's very exhausting, see."
"I suppose it would be." She nodded sagely. "But if you don't want to be afraid then simply don't be."
"Is it that simple?" The Tin-man questioned Crow in confusion.
"How am I to know? I'm not the one that's afraid." He shrugged.
"Yes, it is." Dorothy answered them both.
"No, it isn't" The Lion said.
"I'm getting confused." The Tin-man heaved a metallic groan that probably was meant to be a sigh.
"It's all confusing." Crow agreed. "But that's probably part of this whole life thing."
"If it was that easy, I would have done it by now." The Lion sighed defeatedly.
"But you are a lion." The Tin-man gestured. "Aren't you supposed to be courageous by default?"
"That's an archetype." Dorothy informed him. "But I suppose, if it is courage you want…?"
"Yes?" He looked at her with almost-not-hope in his cat eyes.
"You want to be more." Crow said in an 'aha' tone of voice. "Just like me."
"What?"
"Yes, precisely." Dorothy nodded furiously. "More of a lion. Just like you want to be more than a scarecrow and you less of a tin-man."
"Well, then it's simple." Crow smiled the biggest smile he could muster. "You should come with us!"
"…I…I don't know." He looked thoroughly confused and not a little bit scared.
"We're going to see the Wizard of Oz." The Tin-man explained. "In the Royal Palace in the Emerald City. To ask him for favour."
"Favour of more, in my case." Crow pointed at the Tin-man. "And less in his. And home for Dorothy. We could ask him for more in your case too."
"Crow want's to know more of the world, Tin-man want's to feel more and I want to go home." Dorothy explained in turn. "And you want courage, do you not?"
"Yes." He nodded, a spark of something lighting up in his eyes.
"Well, it can't hurt to try." She smiled and offered him her hand. "Do you want to come with us?"
He took her hand.
They had arrived.
It truly was unlike any other place she'd ever seen. The Royal Palace in the Emerald City was grander than even the palace of the Queen of Hearts whose palace was grander than the Red Queens by far. Though there were less guards; no one stopped them as they entered, they simply walked right in.
Following the swindling corridors that seemed to have no end they eventually ended up at a pair of gigantic looming doors.
"I've got a bad feeling." The Lion stammered nervously.
"Oh, come on!" Crow taunted. "It's just a pair of doors."
"Granted they look a bit intimidating." The Tin-man added, also rather nervously.
"Anything that big would." Dorothy tried to calm them down. She stepped closer. "Well, we haven't come all this way for nothing."
She pushed them open.
A/N
So, what do you think of Oz? Don't worry, you'll get to see more of once I finish the next chapter.
