Have you ever looked back on your life to the moments just before your world was turned completely upside down?

Whether it was a car accident, hearing bad news, losing a loved one, a relationship coming to an end...

Have you ever marvelled at the difference a few moments can make?

You look back to when you were so peaceful and blissfully unaware of how little time you had left to feel that way.

These were those moments...

DG was lost in thought and distant, her smiles were forced and never reached her saddened eyes. Cain had long since dropped into his own tormented silence, too hurt by the sight of her pained baby blues and the prospect of what was to come to find words.

But the raw emotion in his eyes told DG how much he longed for her to be happy again, and even though she knew nothing would make the hurt she felt for that child go away she tried to distract herself from it, all the while silently longing for another dream.

She wanted to walk in the gardens and who was he to deny her the one thing that seemed to ease her mind? He'd given in and brought a large security detail along just in case, finding that these days his entire body was tense whenever she was outdoors.

He pushed the feeling back as best he could watching her idly trace her fingers over the petals of a flower. The coloring in her face was improving just being in the presence of nature and he sighed as he sat beside her on the grass, pulling her up onto his lap and kissing the back of her hair. The world felt surreal to him and he knew he was close to the edge of his sanity, he needed to hold her to keep himself rooted despite the gnawing sense of danger in the pit of his stomach.

He took the moment in, forcing himself to concentrate on the good, not the impending doom. He pushed to the front of his mind his good fortune for making it to this day.

How had so many bad events led to this little bit of heaven in his life? Here he was, married to this beautiful, brave, kind-hearted woman...the Princess...who needed nothing more than him and the trees to make her happy. He was living in the palace, for God's sake. His sole purpose, his job, was the protection of his wife and her family, when that role would have been his to fill just at the words 'I do'. Somehow his world had been transformed so that he was able to focus on family, DG was right when she'd so innocently reminded him on the eve of the eclipse that it is, after all, 'what's really important'.

"I love you, Wyatt..." She breathed and he smiled against the back of her head.

"I love you, too, Princess." He said softly, closing his eyes and inhaling the scent of her.

When they opened again the time for peace and innocence had already come to an end.

The twisting of his stomach told him something was definitely wrong and he cursed himself for ever allowing her to come outside to begin with.

Their surroundings, which had been so bright under the dual suns just seconds earlier was suddenly shaded...the sky, so cloud-free and blue just a blink of an eye earlier was darkening as the wind kicked up. His heart sank in his chest as he turned to find black clouds creeping in above them with impossible speed.

Was he dreaming? He prayed that was the truth, but knew just as quickly that it was not.

"Cain?" DG screamed over her shoulder as the winds blew faster and harder, threatening to drown out her frightened voice completely.

He held her close and stood, shielding her and fighting against the force of the wind as he motioned to the startled guards that they needed to get indoors immediately. He saw their fear even as they moved to protect DG, the way their eyes were locked on the blackened sky above them and knew, even before he turned and saw the descending twister...

The clouds and wind from DG's dream had not been from just any storm...this was a travel storm.

Almost beyond the range of their hearing past the roaring of the gale-force winds the papay began their warning cry, a sound that cut right through you and set every hair on your body standing on end. Thousands of their voices joined together and raised in one deafening howl, sending out the alarm for any who had yet to see the storm.

The twister touched down at the palace entrance, behind the front lines. The ground beneath their feet trembled with the impact as it shattered the perimeter wall sending untold tons of granite raining down on the defending force. Hundreds of men stood no chance of getting clear in time, their lives blinked out instantly as the enemy began to emerge from the storm.

DG struggled to look up against the force of the wind pressing down on her where she held on to Cain's chest for dear life. She clawed the hair away from her face frantically, needing to see the battle erupting in the distance as they tried to get back to the palace...she could hear the explosions and gunshots and cannon-fire...the men screaming in pain and anger and shock...the papay growling and snarling as they mercilessly dispatched as many Long-coats as they could...

But amid all the chaos...a movement...

Seemingly so small and insignificant it caught her eye to their side and with terror threatening to steal her ability to breathe her eyes settled on the raven perched on the wall above them. It's deadly black eyes glared back at her and the word 'witch' fell from her mouth, her whispered declaration sounding like a scream to Cain's ears, her magic carrying it to his mind and he spun to see the bird as it cawed and took to flight.

Jeb was running, the halls of the palace nothing more than a blur as he ascended the stairs to reach his wife. Azkadellia was in the library...the woman was always in the library...and his lungs were threatening to burst by the time he cut past the twenty men on her protection detail and slammed his body against the double doors to open them, not having the additional second to spare for opening them in a normal fashion.

He expected her to be frightened, to be wringing her hands with those beautiful features twisted in fear, to race to him and ask what they were going to do...

Anything but the calm, cool and collected vision that awaited him.

For a moment he mistook it for shock. "Az! Let's go, we've gotta get you somewhere safe!" He yelled over the sounds of the battle filtering in from the open balcony and attempted to snag her hand.

But she simply shook her head and took a step away, and as if seeing her for the first time he noted the magic swirling dangerously behind those eyes.

"I cannot, dear heart. I am needed here." She said softly and his face contorted in confusion as she turned from him and walked away. Seriously walked away from him as if there wasn't a battle for the palace raging below them.

He opened his mouth, anger and fear ready to pour from his lips in a demand that she listen to reason...but the books she'd been reading all this time were laying open on stands surrounding the balcony and he suddenly understood.

She was doing something important here, something she'd learned in those countless hours of study and he could not meddle in it.

So what did that leave? Was he to stand there and watch her perform magic while the rest of their people laid down their lives in a final battle?

WITCH...

Jeb and Az both held their heads as DG's voice filled their minds; across the palace the Queen held on to Ahamo for strength as her daughter's warning echoed through her thoughts.

Jeb's eyes were wild and panicked now, his father...DG...they were down there somewhere and all of those nightmares she'd had were coming to fruition. It meant losing them both and no words were needed as his gaze met with his wife's.

They each knew he had to go.

They each knew she had to stay.

There was no time for a messy, tear-filled embrace to see them through if these were their last moments together. With forced smiles of reassurance their paths led them apart and in an instant Jeb was racing back out the doors and down the stairs.

It had all happened too fast, just like her dream...

The men surrounding them began to fall as a faction of Long-coats, seemingly sent for this purpose alone, descended on them. They fought valiantly, but before long there weren't many left to protect their Princess...it didn't stop them from trying, though.

Wyatt was firing off round after round, never missing a shot, trying to buy them time but it did little good. There were simply too many of them now.

The instant they were torn apart by the hands of the enemy those crystal blue, tear-filled and loving eyes turned to her and she knew what he wanted her to do.

She'd given her word.

But how could she do this? The tears were streaming down her face as she sobbed and sought courage, fighting uselessly against the grip of her captors. He was her entire life, her reason for breathing...the OZ was just some strange, foreign place to her without Wyatt.

The world around them was slowing, his eyes were burning into hers madly now, demanding she remember what she'd sworn.

"GO." He called to her over the chaos as he struggled and she could hardly stand she was crying so hard in that moment.

If he dies, I die. She resolved, deciding that if she left him there and he lost his life she would take her own to follow him.

She had promised to travel only to spare him the torture of watching her death from the prison of a suit.

She'd never promised to spend the rest of her life afterward grieving him without putting an end to her own suffering.

I love you, Wyatt Cain...she said in his mind, her expression suddenly devoid of emotion and he searched her eyes, knowing something inside of her had just clicked...part of him realizing the decision she had just made but there was no time to argue.

"I love you, too, Dorothy Gale." He whispered, his heart breaking as he watched her close her eyes and will herself far away from the battle that was about to claim the life of her husband...

Author's Note :

Evil, evil cliffies haha but I will continue posting over the weekend, don't worry!

(looks up at where the scene left off and lets out a low whistle)

Alright, never mind, your worry is totally in order...

Also :

The phrase "Gale-Force Winds" when referring to a twister/tornado strikes me as a funny coincidence LOL

Sorry, just had to share that. Carry on... ;)