Liona and Tigers and Wargs (Oh My!)

By: Cobalt Goddess

A/N: The Kansas setting is circa 1930's, like in the film, and Middle Earth is right before the beginning of Rings. Thanks to DJ Caligula for asking me to clarify. Also, yep, this is AU if Dorothy wasn't already a dead giveaway, well…..now you know ^_^

Chapter Five: Stop the World and let me off…

"She's wakin' up", Dorothy heard a soft voice mutter. "Stella, go run and get Miss Gamgee!"

Dorothy opened her eyes just as a small girl, clearly this Stella she'd heard of, ran from the room and through a small, circle-shaped door.

"Where am I, where's Toto? Is he okay?" She asked the other girl as she tried to get out of bed, a sharp pain shooting through her spine promptly changing her mind.

The munchkin lady pulled a chair up beside the bed, and, drawing a curtain about them for privacy, lifted Dorothy's loose linen shift aside to examine her wounds.

"Aye Lass, your pooch is fine," She replied in answer to Dorothy's frantic questioning. "If it's your pooch ye mean, that is." Dorothy nodded, so she continued. "you got a nasty knock for sure, girl, but you must be a very brave one, shielding him like ye did!"

Dorothy grinned at that, and would have said her thanks were it not for the sudden pain she felt as her nurse pressed into her abdomen.

"AAAAAH!", She screeched, instinctively swatting at the lady's hand.

"Oh dear, ye have a few ribs cracked. Best bind them up a bit, then we'll work on that fever of yours." The lady padded quickly from the room and returned with a small jar of some unidentifiable dark objects, and some strips of fabric.

Dorothy winced in agony as the nurse made her sit up and almost screamed when she began wrapping her torso in the white cloth. The girl worked quickly and soon Dorothy was lying down once more, and had to admit to herself that she did, in fact feel better.

"Now dear, it's time for your fever treatment," the lady said, matter-of-factly, as she reached for the jar. "Now dear, hold still, it don't hurt near as bad when ye hold still."

"Hurt? Medicine?" Dorothy asked confusedly. "Why would medicine hur….." She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what was inside the small jar, and fainted.

"Oh for the love of carrots, you'd think the child had never had fever treatment before." The nurse said to herself as she began applying the leeches to Dorothy's arms.

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Aunt Em was frantic.

"Dorothy! Dorothy!" She screamed, her voice hoarse and painful, for she'd been screaming for hours. Everyone in their small community, even Miss Gulch, had been roaming the countryside all day, looking for any sign of Dorothy.

Uncle Henry limped up to his wife on a crutch, his free arm encircling her protectively. "Dear, go have a lie down, the boys and I'll keep searching."

Em looked her husband in the eye, and knew immediately that Henry wasn't just suggesting she rest, he was telling her she would. She managed a weak smile at him, and, knowing he was right, made her way wearily back toward the house.

Henry was hobbling back toward the search party when he was approached by Daphne, a good friend of Dorothy's. There were tears in her green eyes and a patch of crimson on her temple, where she'd clearly been pulling at her hair.

"We ain't gonna find her, are we Mr Henry?" She cried in hiccuping sobs.

"I sure hope we do dear, I surely hope we do." He replied in a soft voice, holding the poor crying child to him.

"She was sad, Mr Henry, so sad 'cause she wanted to find her friend."

" I know," Henry answered. "She always spoke about him."

It hadn't surprised him that Dorothy had told Daphne about Oz, since it was just about all that she did speak of, despite the treatments Em had insisted would help her. Henry sighed dejectedly. He wondered to himself as he stood next to Daphne, who was also seemingly lost in thought, what exactly her "treatments" had been. He hoped that the next batch, due in September, would fix her up right, and get all the demonic thoughts of talking lions and scarecrows out of her head for good…

That is, He told himself sadly, if we ever find her….

Suddenly, Daphnes eyes shone with new revelation.

" Just 'membered something Dorothy told me once! She said her friend lived somewhere's else, far and far away and that you had to ride a twister to get there! Maybe she's there you think? Cause if she is, why then she can just come right back like last time right?"

Henry looked down at her joyous face, and forced a small smile for her. Daffy, the other children called her, for she was dim and cockeyed, so much so that she seemed a youth, despite being thirty-two. But she was Dorothy's best and only friend, and he knew that the truth, the fact that Dorothy might be gone, would cause her more pain that even he or Em would feel.

"I don't know, Daphne," He answered sympathetically, "But if we don't get to searching, we'll never know."

A smile lit up her small face and she was off, determined that Dorothy was going to come home any time now, and tell her lots of stories about her friends over the rainbow.

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Okay, more to come, I promise DON'T give up on me LOL I have a 5 year old, a 3 year old and a 4 month old, and ..well… it's hard to find writing time :P