Disclaimer: Still not ours. Dammit!

- Part 4 -

DG woke up the next morning, sprawled across Raw's chest; she had retreated there shortly after wolfing down her meal. The odd glances Cain kept shooting her were causing her to go into a state of near-violent paranoia. The worst part of it was that it was making her wings vibrate like wild. Damn the things! Everyone could tell she was disconcerted; at least Raw had the decency to keep her mostly concealed from Cain's oh-so-observant eyes.

She parted the coarse hair she was nestled in and peeked over to where the Tin Man had slept the night before. His blanket was empty and she perked up to quickly scan the clearing; Cain was nowhere to be seen. She spied Glitch, busily gathering things together, and decided it was time for her to get up as well. She fluttered her wings and lifted off of Raw to fly over to Glitch.

"Morning, Glitch," she greeted with a yawn and a stretch as she hovered in front of him.

"Good morning, Doll," Glitch replied with a bright grin as he stuffed some of their supplies into a satchel. "Did you rest well?"

"Oh, yeah," DG looked over her shoulder and smiled at the Viewer. "Thanks to Raw, he makes a comfortable bed."

"Excellent." Glitch sounded pleased at hearing this. He picked up a bucket of water that had been set aside to put out the campfire and proceeded to do just that.

Three things happened, in quick succession, after that.

First, a giant puff of smoke erupted from the now-hissing ashes, just as a light breeze blew through camp, sending said smoke right into DG's face.

Second, DG gasped in surprise and subsequently inhaled a good bit of the smoke. She coughed and flew back out of the way. Once she was out of the smoke, however, she felt an irritating tickle begin to build in her nose.

"Ah- ahhh- aaaaahhhh- CHOOOO!"

And third: Cain re-entered the camp, just in time to see DG fly across the clearing, leaving a stream of pink sparkles in her wake before smacking right into his chest. The impact caused a huge amount of the pink, sparkly dust to expand until it engulfed both miniature Princess and Tin Man.

When the sparkly dust settled, DG found herself sprawled, haphazardly, across Cain's chest. Normally, this would have caused her a great deal of embarrassment; but, at the moment, she was ecstatic to see that she was back to her normal size! She pushed herself up on his chest, straddling the Tin Man beneath her. She gave him a million-watt smile before lunging down and attacking him with a hug.

"You made me big again! Cain, I freaking love you!"

Cain was frozen below her, but seeing as this was his normal reaction to hugs - unless almost certain death was involved - she paid him no mind. She simply began to hum with happiness. Then, he did something unexpected: Wrapping an arm tightly around her, he sat up, holding her close and tilting his body forward. What was he-? Then he tossed her unceremoniously to the ground next to him.

She lay on her back, half-stunned and gaping at him. Ok, so Cain was no hugger, but that was an overreaction! He staggered to his feet and turned his head to peer over his shoulder. Then she spotted them.

'Mother Fucker!' Her gaze darted around the campsite. Nope, her eyes had not been playing tricks on her. She was still tiny. And now, so was Cain.

She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest as a look of pure horror stole over her face. As soon as Cain's mind caught up with the situation, he was going to kill her. She didn't even know what she had done. And how come he got blue wings? How was that even fair? She could totally rock with blue wings, but nooooo…

Cain whipped around and gaped at her, his wings beginning to vibrate and buzz in an oddly disturbing manner. She began to slowly inch away from him, his blue eyes turning glacial as he stomped up to her. Glaring down, he hissed out: "What did you do!?"

Her mouth opened and closed several times and, unable to come up with a verbal response, she simply pointed at Glitch before jumping to her feet and flying off to hide behind Toto.

Glitch walked over to Cain and knelt down to examine the now-diminutive man. "Now, Cain, don't do anything rash!" he admonished, although his amusement was clearly evident as he was grinning like a loon.

At Glitch's happy and over-loud response, both Raw and Toto jerked awake in obvious alarm. Raw, because he could feel all the stress, anxiety and anger flying through the camp, and Toto, because DG had accidentally pulled his fur when she lunged behind him.

Despite being tiny, Cain's growl was just as fierce as it was when he was normal-sized. He marched closer to Glitch and glared up at him angrily. "Glitch, you'd best be telling me that there's a way to fix this whole thing right now, or I swear to Ozma that I will shoot you." For emphasis, Cain pulled his revolver - that had just so happened to be pixie-sized along with him - and aimed it right between the former advisor's eyes.

At this point, DG dared to poke her head above Toto's back. Her transformed teacher heaved a rather large sigh for such a small dog before he got to his feet, knocking her to the ground in the process.

'This is getting so old,' she thought before he turned and grabbed her wings with his teeth. "Hey! Bad dog!" Her protests went unheeded as Toto walked over to the tiny Tin Man and dropped her at his feet. "Woof!" he barked bossily at them both and then went to sit next to the seer.

Cain returned his gun to its holster as he turned his glare from Glitch back to DG. "Well, Princess, are you happy now?" He sounded so angry that DG flinched in reaction to his words.

"No, why would I be happy? Who's going to shoot at the snakes now?"

Cain did a double take. "Snakes? What snakes?"

"Uhh... nevermind," she said quickly, realizing maybe it hadn't been a smart move to mention her previous brush with danger. "There were never any snakes. In fact, does the O.Z. even have snakes?"

"What do you mean? Of course it has snakes!" A thought occurred to Cain. "Wait, did you see a snake, DG?"

"Well, not in its entirety." Which was true; there was no way he could get her on that one.

Cain's temper was beyond repair at this point. None of them were safe, and it didn't matter that he was six inches tall. They were all gonna die. Jaw clenched, he spoke, slow and precise: "DG, when did you see a snake?"

DG sighed, her shoulders drooping in defeat. She might as well tell him, because he'd never leave it alone now that he was this wound up. "Earlier, when I went to... you know..." she gestured in the direction Raw had taken her the day before to do her business. "Well, I sorta got snuck up on."

Cain turned on Raw so fast she was surprised his head didn't spin off. "I told you not to leave her alone!"

"It wasn't his fault!" DG protested, rising to her feet to grab hold of Cain as he made as if to draw his gun again. "I told him to give me some privacy. Geez, Cain, what'd you expect him to do, watch?"

Raw looked at them sheepishly. "Raw sorry Cain. Felt for danger before leaving. Didn't feel any. Very sorry DG."

"It's alright, Raw, there's no need for you to apologize." She glared at Cain as she said the last part.

Cain obviously disagreed with this particular assessment of the situation; his eyes were sparking like mad. She really needed to diffuse the situation before it got out of hand.

"Okay," DG held up both hands in a peaceful gesture and turned to Cain. "Obviously, you're upset about this, Cain, and I understand. I'm in the same boat as you, remember?" She gestured down her body to emphasize her point. Cain's eyes followed the move, sweeping down her body and DG blushed, but continued on in spite of it. "We've just got to keep our heads until we figure out what to do to reverse it."

Cain was silent for a few moments, his head tilted down in a way that the brim of his hat shielded his eyes from her so that she couldn't see his expression.

Finally, he sighed heavily and looked back up at DG. "I'm sorry, Princess. You're right, we've got to stop this bickering and focus on fixing this thing." So saying, he turned his gaze onto Glitch, who had climbed to his feet through all the drama that had been taking place. "You," he said sternly, "You mentioned there was a way to fix this."

Glitch peered down at them from his impressive height. "Of course! It's very simple, actually, all you have to do is... all you have to do is... all you have to do is..." Raw got up from his seat against the tree and shook Glitch hard to stop his misfiring. Glitch smiled. "Oh, hello! Have we met? My name's..." He blinked, shaking his head. "I glitched again, didn't I?"

DG sighed softly. She hoped Cain didn't notice as she really didn't want him to worry any more than he already had. Instead, she plastered on a fake smile and turned her face up to Glitch and Raw. "Well, looks like you two are going to be our new beasts of burden. Who wants to carry the pretty pink princess?"