Disclaimer: I do not own The Wizard of Oz or any characters contained therein.
Shattered Emeralds
Prologue
There is a magical land…a land of true adventure, one parallel perhaps to our own. A land called Oz.
A flight of fancy perhaps…many have told me so…
A land of dreams…
…of rainbows…
…of friends…
Of course, not even in such a wondrous place does peace exist for long. Every land of fancy has its witches…its tyrants…I met one…or two…yes, that's right, I did.
A savior, yeah, sure, the sweet little girl that came sweeping in from other-where and destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West…
And what a wonderful time we had…my friends and I…
…Lion…
…Scarecrow…
…Tinman…
I gave them thrones, kingdoms…dreams.
…adoring people…
…power…
And what does little Kansas girl do? She blithely clicks her heels and goes home to Auntie Em, like the poor, misguided, naïve child I used to be.
One would think that people here, in this dull, dried up, powerless land would smile to hear of Oz. Such magic and vitality can't help but bring a smile, a wish…
I was wrong.
I look back on that little girl, that rosy cheeked youth blithely telling everyone and anyone who will listen, sharing…telling…giving…
…and I hate her.
I hate her for what became of her stories…
…what became of her.
How they tried, and try they did, to convince that girl that Oz didn't exist…it was all a delusion, a dream, an illness…
…there were treatments that no doctor would ever trust…
…and out of that dark time, that painful time of fear, and blood, and surging electric…
…out of the mania, and impersonal violations, the terror for terror's sake…
…I was born.
That is something she often question…why?
Why did no one come for dear, sweet Dorothy?
Right before she died, I told her…
…no one…
...not the pile of straw…
… nor the creaking tin monstrosity…
… nor even the timid hunter…
…cared to peel themselves from the power they had now. They cared not what occurred in this world, it could not touch them…and Dorothy's time was done.
Such sweet words we shared, her and I, this person she grew up to become…
Dorothy was a child…and I watched her go the way of childish things…but she died hating…
…and that amused me.
There is a magical land…a land of true adventure, one parallel perhaps to our own. A land called Oz.
A flight of fancy perhaps…many have told me so…
A land of dreams…
…of rainbows…
…of friends…
I take no flights of fancy now…
My dreams have an adult taint…
I see the shadows the rainbows cast…
And I know the friends for what they are…
This world here has so little to offer such as I…
…so little to stop me…
…because Oz is real…
…and I learned a great deal there.
