A/N: Sooooo... Updates are really slow during school... probably won't change. But we're finally in Oz!

"…Fairy Queen Lurline on a voyage. She was tired of travel in the air. She stopped and called from the desert sands a font of water hidden deep beneath the earth's dry dunes… The flood, occurring sometime after creation and before the advent of humankind, wasn't a massive piss by Lurline, but the sea of tears wept by the Unnamed God on the god's only visit to Oz. The Unnamed God perceived the sorrow that would overwhelm the land throughout time, and bawled in pain. The whole of Oz was a mile deep in saltwater tides." - Tibbet and Boq (pg 114-115)

A small Fairy dressed all in white gazed longing out at the pouring rain and sighed. Water had been incessantly falling from the skies for a month now, and it was beginning to cause problems.

Firstly, for the people of the Land of Oz, for they were always her first concern, housing problems arose. At the beginning it was just along the banks of the meandering rivers, the Munchkin and Vinkus Rivers, and then a day or two later the Great Gillikin also. The creatures who dwelt too near had migrated inland en masse, which was fine on the grasslands, ordinarily quite sparsely populated, but which caused problems in other places, the Great Gillikin Forest, where current residents, used to competing only amongst themselves, joined forces to drive away the refugees.

That had been early on. Now the fields had spread over nearly all of central and eastern Oz, and revealed only the tops of hill-mountains in the south; islands of trapped creatures quickly running low on food and other necessities. Many had fled north to the higher ground or west to the mountains, but the fact that the combined inhabitants of Oz could not survive on a third of the land could not be ignored.

So they did what those in distress always do, they cried out to their leader.

"Lurline," they said, "help us; we are starving!"

"Please, Queen, stop this torrent; use your magic to stopper the clouds!"

They shouted out their woes to her, prayed to her, and she heard them, as she always had with her fairy-magic, but she was next to powerless, her second problem.

Those unversed in fairy-magic had an annoying tendency to ignore its limitations, seeing only miraculous tricks and assuming the existence of infinite hidden stores, and quite frankly, fairies throughout history had enjoyed the air of supremacy and admiration of this reputation, never bothering to educate the masses and correct it.

"Isn't that convenient," said a rough, gravelly voice from the floor of the cave. "Or is it just the way of mortal beings – to build themselves up and up, as far as they can, regardless of whether or not there's any truth to what people are saying about them? If the truth is inconvenient then ignore it, because it won't help anything, as far as can (or will) be seen, and if it doesn't help then it's not good."

Lurline turned from the rain to the source of the voice, a figure wrapped in grays and blacks, crouching at the edge of the cave entrance.

"Hush, Kumbricia, you're not helping. And bear in mind that it is the goal being helped, not the helping, that defines goodness."

"Yes, my Lady," said Kumbricia submissively.

Lurline watched her contemplatively, temporarily distracted from the land's troubles. Kumbricia had found Lurline and her retinue nearly a year ago, and had begged to be taken on as Lurline's student. The Fairy Queen had agreed, initially from surprise that a human had been able to find them in the mists surrounding Mount Runcible, and later from a sense that Kumbricia would, no matter what, have the urge, the compulsion, to probe the higher mysteries of Oz, and that it would be better for Lurline to be there to guide her in a favorable direction.

So far though, Lurline wasn't sure how much of an impact she was having on the girl. She followed Lurline everywhere, like a shadow, but rarely spoke unless the two were alone. When she did speak, it was of abstract concepts, right and wrong, goodness, justice, making Lurline have to concentrate to stay with her at times. Some of the girl's ideas and conclusions struck a dissonant chord with Lurline, and the Fairy wondered from whence she had come and what she had experienced to form her notions, for many of the seemed to contrast ideals with a grim, pessimistic worldview.

A tremendous drum roll of thunder made them both start. Kumbricia stumbled upright and they stood together, staring wide-eyed at the forces of nature displayed raw before them. In the distance, smoke could be seen, rising from a burning tree. The air was filled with tension, even as so many forces released their energy. Kumbricia spoke, and Lurline could only nod in silence at her words.

"Something bad is happening in Oz."