Okay, standard disclaimers. I don't own any of the characters or settings. I don't make any money off of this. Please don't sue me since I don't have anything worth taking anyway.
It took some time for Theodora to tear herself away from the image in the mirror and move to sit heavily at her desk. The last couple of hours had been emotionally draining for her, especially since she was supposed to be unable to feel real emotions in the first place. She looked down at the picture the farmgirl had apparently filched from the private chambers in the Palace in the Emerald City and fought the urge to burn it to ash. She didn't know what upset her more about the picture; that the Wizard was in it, that Glinda was in it, that they were in it together, or that they looked so disgustingly happy.
Oh it must have amused him so much to toy with Theodora's heart only to have Glinda waiting for him. Glinda who had apparently looked just like a childhood friend, and if she guessed right, probably a lost love of his. One that cared enough about him that she raised her own daughter to think of him as a beloved uncle when she had to have been born nearly a decade after his disappearance.
Theodora's eyes widened a bit at the realization. She suddenly realized why the Wizard would trust Glinda so readily when Theodora herself knew he had not met her until his third day in the Land of Oz as she was the one to find him when he fell out of the sky. She had even been willing to risk horrific burns, if not her outright demise, to track him to those river faerie infested shallows. Theodora grinned cruelly as she realized that Glinda had capitalized on something very dear to the Wizard's heart and used him ruthlessly whether she knew at that point or not.
"Not so good and pure after all, were you, Glinda?" she asked the image in the photo. "Did you know that it wasn't even you that he followed? Did you care that you were using his life before he came here to turn him against us, against me?"
For some reason Theodora found the whole thing tragically comical as she cackled to herself in the privacy of her chambers. It would be some time later, vacillating between mirth and rage several times over the Wizard and Glinda, before she felt composed enough to encounter Dorothy again and try to recover her sister's Shoes.
It was a few hours later, long after the sun had set, that Theodora returned, this time accompanied by her "three generals," although the Winged Monkeys chose to remain silent in protest to her use of the Golden Helmet to force their actions.
"You… cleaned," Theodora noted with a look of mild confusion.
Dorothy gave a small curtsey, unsure how to truly act toward Miss Theodora given that she was mistress of not only the Castle, but this whole section of Oz from what Dorothy was made to understand. "Yes ma'am. I hope you don't mind. I thought I could at least be useful while I was here," she explained hesitantly.
"You're an odd one girl. That much is certain," Theodora said with a shake of her head. She had spent the better part of the last two hours trying to forget thoughts of her past and failing miserably at it. Finally she decided all she could do was to get those damnable Shoes off of the girl's feet and get her out of Kiamo Ko for good. Although she had the feeling keeping her around would make things infinitely more livable if she had some kind of compulsion to clean when nervous. Lurline knew neither the Winkies nor the Winged Monkeys were very good at such tasks and Theodora had certainly never learned the ins and outs of such things growing up as Royal child. Not with spellcraft to study in addition to etiquette and politics, even if she was only ever intended to be tasked to use the first.
"I was raised to believe that hard work was a good thing ma'am. You can't be lazy growing up on a farm," Dorothy replied.
"Well it doesn't much matter to me. I came for you answer. Will you give me my sister's Silver Shoes? They're of no use to you. You're not even a sorceress," Theodora began, trying to keep her tone level for a change.
"Oh Miss Theodora, ma'am, I would if I could. Honestly, I would. I just don't know how," Dorothy tried to explain.
Anger blossomed on the Witch's green face as she snarled, "Don't give me that. No one is too dim to figure out how to take off a pair of shoes!"
"I've tried. Honestly I have. I couldn't even take them off in the Emerald City that first night. They just won't come off," Dorothy insisted.
"Nonsense. You're trying to stall me, girl, and I won't have it. Give me those Shoes," Theodora demanded as she lunged for the footwear in question, fully intending to wrench them right off of Dorothy's feet, before she was stopped cold by what looked like arcs of yellow lightning that prevented her from getting within half a foot of the Shoes themselves. For a moment, save for the color, it looked as if Evanora's own powers had been summoned from beyond the grave to punish her sister for daring to touch something that wasn't hers.
Although the reality was more likely a kind of feedback loop between the power Theodora had stored in the Shoes when she had created them years ago and her own powers flaring in her agitation as she tried to take them.
"Curse you," Theodora snarled at the girl as she backed away and rubbed her injured hand.
"Oh my, they've never done that before. Are you all right?" Dorothy asked in genuine compassion. She had no desire to see the confused and angry woman before her hurt. She was not raised to wish ill upon anyone.
"I'm fine," Theodora spat indignantly as she glared at the child, unsure of how to react to genuine human kindness after being denied it for so long. "Tell me girl, did you take the Shoes off of my sister's feet yourself?"
Dorothy looked somewhat affronted at the very notion as she shook her head vehemently and replied, "Of course not. That would be a terrible thing for me to do."
"And just how exactly did they come to be on your feet?" Theodora asked with narrowed eyes.
"I… I'm not sure. You and Miss Glinda were arguing, and then she mentioned the Silver Shoes and you went to get them, and then they just appeared on my feet. But I didn't' take them, I promise," Dorothy insisted.
"Yes. Yes, of course. Glinda. It's always Glinda. Must have been some kind of protection spell along with the transference. She would know how to counter me better than anyone now that Evanora is gone. Probably helped the Wizard call the damned farmhouse while she was at it. A good way to be rid of her without getting their hands dirty. Very clever. Very clever," Theodora mumbled to herself. Her attention shifted from Dorothy's feet to her eyes as she gave the girl a calculating look and asked, "But it leaves the question of how to retrieve them. You said you can't remove them either?"
"No ma'am. I tried. They just won't come off," Dorothy responded.
"Grr, damn that Glinda. I should have realized. But…No! Fool that I am, I should have realized…" Theodora began before trailing off. Her expression grew devious as she continued, "Those shoes Shoes will never come off as long as… you're alive."
Dorothy looked startled at the realization as tears began to gather in her eyes as she whimpered, "What are you going to do?"
Theodora's lips pulled into a heinous smile as she responded, "What do you think I'm going to do? But that's not what's worrying me; it's how to do it. Things like this must be done delicately or I could hurt the spell," Theodora thought aloud.
In truth, she had no intention of actually killing the girl. She had long ago decided that if she was to kill anyone herself she would reserve such an act for the Wizard (which was impossible) or Glinda. As much as she hated this girl for looking like what a daughter of Glinda and the Wizard would look like, she also appreciated the pain that seeing such as child must have brought them both. And she rather liked how her arrival probably hurt the Wizard with memories of his past before he was named the Wizard. But she needed something. Perhaps an endless sleep potion? There were a number of spells that could simulate death well enough without the body considering them to be an attack and setting off the defensive enchantment. Then she could recover the shoes and send the girl to the Wizard as a reminder of the cost of defying her.
Dorothy looked panicked for a moment before she pleaded, "Please Miss Theodora, don't do this. This isn't right. You know it's not. It's just a nasty, wicked, spell that was forced on you. Uncle Oscar said you were still good inside. You don't want to hurt anyone."
Theodora's expression went from calculating to furious in the blink of an eye as she demanded, "What!?"
"You're not evil. I know you're not. This is something the Wicked Witch of the East did to you. Uncle Oscar told me he's been trying to find a cure for you since it happened. He wants you to get better," Dorothy insisted through her mounting tears.
"How dare you judge me?" Theodora roared as her hands came alight in her fury. "Did your sainted 'Uncle Oscar' also tell you that he was responsible for me looking like this? That he did everything in his power to charm me and convince me I would become his Queen those first two days after I found him only to go behind my back and seduce my sister the same way? And then the scoundrel had the nerve to vanish in the night like the lying cheat that he was and toss us both aside for Glinda. I suppose she should at least be grateful she could manipulate his fickle heart by looking like your mother. No doubt he would have betrayed her too if she hadn't."
Dorothy took a step back in shock as Theodora's tirade grew progressively more powerful along with her anger.
"And you dare blame my sister for this? I went to her begging to make the pain stop. To make the Wizard's treachery no longer hurt as I saw him preparing to make Glinda his Queen after agreeing that we were meant to be together. And that's what she did. She took away the pain and freed me from my own broken heart," Theodora spat as she curled her hands into fists and extinguished her flames.
Dorothy knew this might be the best, and perhaps the only, chance to learn exactly what happened the day the Witch of the East cursed Theodora. And so she screwed up her courage as she prodded, "How? How did she take away your pain, Miss Theodora?"
Theodora gave Dorothy a narrow-eyed look before she cackled manically and responded, "You really want to know, my pretty? She came to me with an apple, an apple as green as my skin became, and told me it would take away my pain. That it would seal away my emotions so I could never be hurt by them again and then I would finally be ready to rule beside her, rather than stepping aside to watch Glinda serve as Oz's Queen next to the Wizard. And I took it. I took it and I realized in a moment of clarity that Evanora had been the Wicked Witch all along, and not Glinda as she had claimed to the fool the people in Emerald City. And she smiled as a terrible pain blossomed in my chest while I demanded to know what she did to me. And Evanora laughed as she told me that it was my heart withering away to nothing. My skin became green, and my face became hideous. I was suddenly the Wicked Witch that those fools always assumed I would become. One just like the stories The Wizard had told me of how witches were seen where he came from. And it was liberating. I finally understood that this was what I was meant to be all along. So don't tell me I'm not wicked, girl. I'm more wicked now than you could ever understand."
"But don't you see? That isn't you. Your sister did something to you in order to change you. Uncle Oscar may have hurt you terribly but what you're doing isn't really you. It's a curse that your sister used in order to use you," Dorothy insisted.
Theodora's rage returned full force as he gathered a fireball in her hand, full intending to burn the girl to a crisp then and there for daring to insult what Evanora did to try to help her when another voice stopped her in her tracks and made her blood run cold.
"She's right, Theodora. I may have made a mistake but it was Evanora that truly hurt you. You know that deep down. I know you do," a voice called out from behind Theodora.
And with an icy stab of fear the Wicked Witch of the West turned slowly to see a face she had not seen directly since she was last allowed in the Emerald City. It was far more aged and weathered than it once was, which made no sense to her, but it was still familiar. "No…it can't be. It's a trick. Or a dream. It must be," Theodora whispered to herself. The apparition refused to go away, though, no matter how hard Theodora wished for it to.
"Hello Theodora. It's been a long time," said Oscar Diggs as he stood to confront the Wicked Witch of the West, with his old Winged Monkey friend Finley perched safely on his shoulder.
Author's note: Yes, I know I'm Wicked through and through myself for stopping right there but I have a lot of work to finish tonight and not a lot of time to do it in. Also, the next chapter will run concurrent to this one with Oscar getting to Kiamo Ko and encountering Finley. It depends on my muse whether the full confrontation will be in the next chapter or the one after, so stay "tuned," so to speak. And as always I eagerly await your feedback and reviews. Until next time.
