It was Minerva Mulch's first full day without her beloved servant girl tending to the household. Her first full day tending to crops she usually arranged through the use of her magic, but now attempted to do the old-fashioned way. Perhaps in an effort to put the memories of having a servant girl behind her.
Minerva didn't mind the effort, soiled as it made her by consequence. There were times where she felt she needed to do it more often, even with her pride as a witch.
By the end of that first full day, however, she could not escape admitting to the emptiness in her heart. The bunny witch continued to find it difficult to grasp how someone like Wendy Wylie…a human from the outside world who literally came out of nowhere…seemed so eager to serve. Granted, she had learned of how the Texas girl was an orphan child living with foster parents, much like the girl from Kansas who had been hailed a heroine over the unintended deaths of two witches. Learned of how the Waldens cared more for their farm business than they truly cared for Wendy.
Minerva now had to admit, as she sat in her chair by the fireplace, that something arguably good was lost when she chose to let Wendy go, and she actually began to wonder if the servant girl would return to the doorstep of her home. She practically expected it. Even hoped for it.
She waited well into the late night, too, never once moving from her seat. She never spoke a single word.
It got to the point where Minerva wished she were strong enough in magic to be able to simply zap Wendy right in front of her, but she had no such potency.
As she slowly closed her eyes, Minerva resolved to return to Bunnybury and at least confirm Wendy was still there.
Her eyes blinked back open, preferring the fight to stay awake. Wearily, she rose up from her seat…with some effort…and approached the front door.
As she did, Minerva began hearing the murmurs of a crowd outside. Angry murmurs.
She also noticed a glow the color of fire around the edges of the door.
They seized her the moment she opened the door. Human hands, screaming with hatred and spite. Their clothes looked very unlike the kind of outfits anyone would ever wear anywhere in Oz. Gone were the many colors of the land in their clothes. Only whites and blacks everywhere she looked. They held every limb of Minerva's body as she fruitlessly struggled against their grips, ignoring each and every one of Minerva's protests.
They finally dropped the bunny witch in front of a very familiar-looking, red-haired woman who wore white robes. Minerva was used to hearing the woman speak in the most tender of tones, but her voice was entirely harsh here, and she looked much older than the beautiful woman Minerva remembered Glinda to be.
Trinkets of some manner of spiritual belief…perhaps the belief which perpetually frowned upon the practice of witchcraft…adorned Glinda as she shot an accusing finger down upon the bewildered Minerva.
"You shall BURN tonight, heretic!" Glinda barked. "Just as we have cleansed all who practice witchcraft in this…this land of demons!"
Minerva could hardly speak in her utter shock. She looked around at the angry crowd, wondering if there were other faces she could recognize. Human and munchkin alike now looked entirely unspectacular in dress. They all seemed to look as normal as Wendy did when she arrived through the other end of the sinkhole path.
Had Oz gone so wrong in the space of a single night? Who could have cast such a horrendous spell over the entire land?
"Take her to the stake!" Glinda cried out, raising her voice to the heavens in her exultation.
Once again, the torch-holding mob seized her, and dragged her over to a large bundle of logs. From the center of this pile, a tall, thick wooden stake could be seen, and a single figure stood next to it. Minerva could not make out who it could be, for this torch-wielding person…who had a long length of coiled rope in the other hand…was wearing a hood, and enough clothes to capably conceal this person's gender.
Minerva was helpless to prevent the mob from placing her against the stake while the hooded individual began wrapping the rope around her furry body. As they tied her to the wooden pole, Minerva gazed in wide-eyed horror as others within the mob began setting her home ablaze with their torches.
Once she was secured to the post, the smell of gasoline ran thick in the air as elements of the mob doused the wood around her with the flammable liquid. They angrily splashed the horrible-smelling liquid upon her as well.
It was all happening far too fast for her to comprehend, and she began to wonder if this was all some terrible premonition. Minerva wondered if she had done something that led to this.
The mob began to hush as all eyes turned to the angry woman that Glinda had apparently become, and she raised her arms to the sides as she spoke. "Who will be the first to apply the cleansing flame?"
Minerva first surmised, upon seeing the hooded figure, that this was Wendy Wylie, or perhaps one of her foster parents, if not one of her real parents. The hooded figure, however, did not respond to Glinda's request.
A familiar-looking young girl, however, made her way through the crowd to stand before the huge array of logs surrounding Minerva. The expression on her face was emotionless as she held her torch out. Her hair was no longer in red curls. Her strands now hung lifelessly down from her head.
The bunny witch felt tears cascade along her furry face as she identified the girl.
"Wendy…please…I'm so sorry…" Minerva began, her voice trembling between her choking sobs. "…let me go…tell them to set me free…please?"
Wendy continued to stare upon the bunny witch she once served, and then was abandoned by. Minerva could not tell if the stare was one of contempt, or sympathy. The girl didn't even look like she had been enchanted, although her clothes were different. They were just as harsh as those of the mob. She looked no different from the rest.
After a moment, Wendy finally broke the silence.
"Yes, Miss Minerva."
Wendy then tossed her torch upon the gas-drenched logs, igniting a huge blaze in front of Minerva. The mob cried out in rapturous, hateful satisfaction as more torches were thrown upon the pile, and Glinda began screaming blasphemies unto the skies as the roaring blaze approached the post.
Through the rising fires, Minerva saw Wendy walk away from the blaze, literally turning her back on the proud witch of Oz. An older man and an older woman separated from the mob…both of whom did not have torches…to join her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
Minerva surmised them to be the Waldens, Wendy's foster parents.
The hooded individual also watched her leave as the rest of the mob raised their fists to the skies triumphantly, the roar of the intense fires drowning out their screams of hate.
The hooded individual then turned to Minerva as the fires were within inches of her fur, approaching very slowly in the prolonging of her agony.
Finally, the individual pulled off the black hood and stared upon Minerva Mulch with a satisfied grin as Chamberlain Plummage's bent back rabbit ears extended upwards.
The clarity of her vision blurred as the flames finally touched upon her in its searing agony…
…and she finally found the strength to scream at the top of her lungs as her eyes shot open, rising from her chair in her home as the rays of the morning sun shone through the windows of her home.
Minerva blinked, looking down upon the fireplace. The blaze had begun to die from the blackened and spent logs she remembered Wendy placing there in her dutiful maintenance of the home.
It finally occurred to Minerva that she had fallen asleep in her chair, and consequentially had a particularly bad dream.
It also occurred to Minerva that she was very, very hungry, having passed on any concept of a meal the night before, in her hope that Wendy would return.
A knock on the door of her home interrupted the silence of the moment, and Minerva's head snapped over to the door. Warily, she approached it…and then opened it a crack to see who was outside.
She had thought it would be Glinda, but the female at her door had the far more recognizable acoutrements of the beautiful young fairy girl who ruled the entire land. Minerva pulled the door back and gazed curiously upon the fairy princess, who had apparently come to her alone.
"Good morning, Minerva. I'm sorry to disturb you," Ozma began. "but we need to talk."
"My good people!"
Dorothy sounded entirely different from the Kansas girl she used to be. The accent was gone, and a somewhat haughty manner of high-pitched speaking had apparently replaced it, this after having consumed a great many enchanted carrots fed to her by the Chamberlain. By now, she was considerably unable to resist the many suggestions implanted by Plummage over the course of the day that followed her transformation.
One thing that had not been done in Malvagia's alterations was a highly important element which remained evident despite the complete physical transformation of the Kansas girl.
Her name.
Plummage made certain that she now responded to the name "Priss". Queen Priss, after all, had a nice ring to it, and the Chamberlain constantly referred to her with this name to the point where she began accepting it as her own. He had advised his servants and associates to never again refer to her as Dorothy Gale, lest she begin to break the hold he had over her.
Priss was in the midst of practicing her speech exercises, as ordained by Plummage, who had also directed his tailors…the same group that had dressed Wily Wendy…to work on the future ruler of Bunnybury. Dorothy's outfit had been discarded in favor of a far more elegant mixture of beautifully-arranged silks and gauzy fabrics, all of them as white as the bunny fur all over her body.
As the Chamberlain's tailors worked, he listened to his new puppet read from the script he had provided Priss with.
"It ith by my divine right of thuctheshun…"
Plummage sighed out in exasperation. "Hold a moment." He rose from where he was sitting and stepped over to the fat bunny girl. "Priss…Is there any way you can get around that disturbing impediment of yours?"
Priss tilted her head in confusion. "I don't underthtand."
"Yes, that." Plummage confirmed, clearly referencing her lisp. "Speak the word 'understand', dear. Try to make it sound exactly like I just said it. 'Un-der-ssstand."
Priss, entirely receptive to the Chamberlain, slowly repeated the word. "Un-der-thtand."
Plummage's eyes squinted shut in his irritation, but he tried not to let it show, and quickly calmed himself. "Priss…that still does not sound right. We have to work on this more!"
"Well, I'm thorry, milord Chamberlain." Priss explained, using the formal manner of identification the Chamberlain had conditioned her to use. "My tongue can't get around theeth big front teeth of mine."
As much as Plummage had wanted to scold this off as a mere excuse, and as much as he didn't want to accept the fact that this was someone who had never been a bunny all her life and thus could not apparently be so conditioned as to be able to get around this obvious side effect of her transformation, he very hesitantly decided to let this go for the moment.
With a heavy sigh, his next statement signified his relent. "Very well…continue."
Priss cleared her throat. "It ith by my divine right of thuctheshun that I deem it…nethethary…that you should have a thtrong leader who acthepth all the…" She then stopped and hurried over to Plummage, ignoring all the dress work still being done around her. "…what'th thith word?"
The Chamberlain, upon spotting the word, repeated it, his barely-contained frustration showing in his bunny face as he slowly pronounced the word. "A-cou-tre-ments."
"OK! Thankth!" Priss stepped back over to her place, the tailors resuming their work. "…that you should have a thtrong leader who acthepth all the acoutrementh of her royal thtation. Any good ruler realitheth that for all the acoutrementh of hith or her thtation, there needth to be a show of thtrength to go with it!"
With every occurrence of the lisp, Plummage put forth a herculean effort to keep from screaming in outright frustration at the top of his lungs.
Priss raised a clenched fist with this next utterance. "We need to be an invinthible exthample for otherth to follow, with every thtrong word we thpeak!"
Plummage openly winced upon hearing this utterance.
One of the tailors moved to Plummage quickly as he listened. "What do you think of…"
"Later!" The Chamberlain quickly growled, forcing the tailor to shrink back over to continue working on Priss as she spoke.
"Thith current King…ith hardly a fine exthample of the kind of thtrength we need. Thitting upon the throne in Bunnybury'th palath requireth a theriouth underthtanding of dithipline! One mutht be proud! Behave with preth-TI-gee!"
"Pres-TEEGE!" Plummage irritably growled from afar.
"Oopth! Thorry! Preth-TIGE! And have thtrong…" Again, Priss hurried over to Plummage, this time unfortunately causing a rip in her gown, much to the horror of one of her tailors. "…what'th thith word?"
By now, Plummage could not help but cover his bunny face with his furry hand. He peeked down at the word Priss asked him to pronounce…'chutzpah'…and already, visibly, dreaded hearing his puppet repeat it. "Hootz-pah."
"Thuper! Thankth!" Again, Priss stepped back into place, and the tailors immediately set upon the damaged cloth, pulling it off and preparing its replacement as their next Queen resumed her speech. "Behave with prethtige! And have thtrong chutth-pah! Ath I am your thovereign ruler, I underthtand thith!" She then looked back up to Plummage. "Did I thay 'thovereign' right, milord Chamberlain?"
Plummage offered a thoroughly fake smile to his future puppet ruler, despite his entirely apparent humiliation. "Perfectly, dear."