"I think I know where we are," Picard said, a smile forming on his face as memories of his childhood came back to him.
"Where?" Riker asked.
"Oz. Haven't you seen the movie? It's a classic." The captain turned his head, taking in the vivid blue brook, the enhanced flora, and the picturesque miniature houses.
"Oh, of course I have. But how could this be Oz? It's fiction!" For a dog, he looked skeptical.
"Well, wherever we are is pretty accurate," Picard said, looking off into the distance. "Down to the bubble in which Glinda traveled."
"Bubble?" Riker asked, then looked up to see a pink bubble alight on the ground, and a woman with reddish-brown hair wearing a pink fluffy gown and large silver crown emerge from it.
"Hello, Captain," she said, "Are you here to help or hinder?"
"With what?" Picard asked.
She sighed. "First of all, you should know you're in the Q Continuum."
"That explains everything." Picard said, his heart sinking at the memory of his dealings with the Q Continuum.
"No, it doesn't," she countered. "This is the Q Continuum as you perceive it, and right now, it is being terrorized by her."
She pointed to a pair of legs sticking out from under the house, wearing black-and-white striped stockings and ruby-colored shoes.
"Fortunately, your arrival decreased her power. How a human did that I don't know. Unfortunately, she has a partner."
A column of flame rose up in front of the Glinda-like personage, as if to prove her point. The green-skinned witch that had given Picard nightmares when he first saw her (he thought it was the laugh that did it) emerged and faced the pink fluffy witch.
"Q!" she snarled. "How did you kill my sister?"
"I didn't, the house did," Glinda-Q replied coolly. The Witch of the West turned to Picard.
"Then you—wait, you're a human," she said contemptuously, "Never mind, I'll clean up the Continuum later."
She strode towards the house with the legs sticking out from under it.
"Once I have my sister's shoes too…"she cackled as she reached to pull them off.
But when her fingers were centimeters away, the shoes disappeared.
Picard looked down at his feet. Riker laughed, a sound in between a bark and a laugh.
The witch's attention turned to him. "No! Those belong to me!"
"Don't give them to her," Glinda-Q whispered in Picard's ear.
"I won't give them to you!" Picard said firmly. He wasn't going to anyway. He knew how the story went.
"You see, you won't get him to do anything," Glinda-Q said smugly, "Now, you'd better get out of here before someone drops a house on you!"
The witch looked up quickly, then, realizing her stupidity, disappeared in the same column of flame as she had come.
"I'll get you, Picard!" she screeched as she was consumed by the fire.
Picard relaxed, which let his attention move to his new footwear. His eyebrows rose as he looked down at his red shoes.
"The shoes are a cache of Q power. They'll protect you on your journey to Q," Glinda-Q explained.
"The Q we know?" he clarified, since he had made the drastic leap to conclude that though she called herself Q, she was not that Q, because Picard was sure that Q would never humiliate himself by wearing a dress like that.
"Yes, I'm his mate," she explained. "He knows what the second cache of Q power is. As a non-Q, you'll be able to find it with less trouble, once he tells you what it is. Bring it back to him, and he knows how to use them to restore the Continuum to stability."
"And where is Q?" Picard asked, deciding to put the idea that Q had a mate out of his mind (because that thought was just too strange) and concentrate on the story.
"The Emerald City."
"And we get there by following the yellow brick road?"
She nodded and swept her hand towards it. "Go ahead."
Picard straightened his blue checked shirt, and he started down the yellow brick road, Riker at his heels.
A/N This is going to follow the Wizard of Oz movie very closely. Just warning you, because if you haven't seen the movie, this fic will make no sense. Although you should have, if you chose to read this.