"My." Juvia thought to herself when Erza left. "People come and go so quickly here."
The munchkins all nodded in agreement to her comment and after once again thanking her for freeing them, the munchkins led Juvia to the boarder of their land. She found a road made entirely of yellow bricks waiting for her.
"Just follow the yellow brick road and you should reach the Emerald City." The munchkins told her,
So Juvia thanked the munchkins for their help, bid them good bye, And with Frosch trotting along soberly behind her, she started on her journey. Within a short time she was walking briskly toward the Emerald City, her ruby slippers tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow road-bed. The sun shone bright and the birds sang sweetly, and Juvia did not feel nearly so bad as you might think a young girl would who had been suddenly whisked away from her own country and set down in the midst of a strange land.
She was surprised, as she walked along, to see how pretty the country was about her. There were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and vegetables in abundance. Evidently the Munchkins were good farmers and able to raise large crops. Once in a while she would pass a house, and the people came out to look at her and bow low as she went by; for everyone knew she had been the means of destroying the Wicked Witch and setting them free from bondage. The houses of the Munchkins were odd-looking dwellings, for each was round, with a big dome for a roof. All were painted blue, for in this country of the East blue was the favorite color.
Sometime later she came across a cornfield with a fence surrounding it and unfortunately for her the yellow brick road split into two different directions at this part of the land.
"Oh no." Juvia sighed. "Now which way to go?"
"Pardon me that way is a very nice way." She heard a polite voice.
Juvia began to search the area for a person but she didn't see anyone.
"Who said that?" She asked.
Using his tail, Frosch pointed toward something that was in the center of the cornfield. It was a scarecrow, placed high on a pole to keep the birds from the ripe corn with his arm pointing in the right direction. Now having grown up on a farm Juvia had seen many scarecrows in her life but none that looked like this one. For one thing this one was dressed in a thick jacket with at least one or two shirts and while it's face had a few stitches here and there it didn't look at all like a burlap sack and it's eyes, mouth, and nose didn't look like it was painted on. But what she found to be most differing between the scarecrows she had seen and this one was that this scarecrow look very much like her friend Gray.
"Don't be silly Frosch." She told her cat. "Scarecrows don't talk."
"It's pleasant down that way too." She heard the voice say.
Looking up she still couldn't see anybody but she noticed that the scarecrow's arms was now pointing in the left direction.
"That's funny." She thought. "Wasn't he pointing the other way?"
"Of course some people do go both ways."
Now the scarecrow's arms were crossed and pointing in both directions and that time Juiva thought that she had seen him move. She blinked and rubbed her eyes a couple of times just to make sure that she wasn't going crazy, then she cautiously approached the fence that separated her and the cornfield. She looked up at the scarecrow and asked in a skeptic voice:
"Did you speak?"
For five minutes the scarecrow just remained motionless but at last it nodded it's head in response.
"Oh my goodness!" She gasped in wonder.
"Sorry for giving you a fright miss." He said. "What's the matter haven't you ever seen a scarecrow before?"
"Of course but never one who could speak."
"You've never seen a talking scarecrow before? There's almost one in every farm in Edolas. Have you been living under a rock all this time?"
"No but where I come from scarecrows don't talk or move by themselves."
"Really? Huh...I wonder what that would be like... Then again I haven't got a brain to think about it with."
"How can you talk if you don't have a brain?" She asked.
"I don't know but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don't they?"
Juvia giggled a little at his joke.
"Well I suppose introductions are in order." She said. "I'm Juvia."
"I'm Glen."
"How do you do?"
"How do you do?"
"Very well thank you."
"Oh I'm not feeling at all well." Glen sighed. "You see it's very tedious being stuck up here all day long with a pole up your back."
"Oh that must be terribly uncomfortable. Can't you get down?"
"Down? Um well... It's not exactly an easy task. I mean I've been trying to get down from here for God knows how long but you can't really do much when you're stuck to a pole."
"Well here let me help you." She stepped over the fence and went over to the pole where Glen was posted at.
"Really? If you can actually get me down from here I'd be forever grateful."
She looked around the post skeptically.
"Oh dear. Uh... How exactly does this work? I mean... How did you get up here in the first place?"
"I don't know. When the farmer put me up here, he blind folded me so I couldn't watch him pin me up and figure out how to escape. But if you just bend the nail down in the back maybe I'll slip off."
"Oh yes."
She reached for the nail that was sticking out in the back of the post and she bended it. In an instant, Glen dropped to the floor while spilling some straw out of his chest in the process.
"Whoops! There goes some of me again." He chuckled.
"Oh does it hurt you?" Juvia asked him in concern.
"Oh no I just keep picking it up and putting it back in again." He scooped up the fallen straw and placed it back in his chest. He then stood up and stretched. "My it's good to be free."
"How long have you been stuck to that thing?"
"Can't say for sure but it's been an awfully long time. In fact I've been up there so long that I think my legs are a little numb."
His legs started to wobble and he fell over, Juvia let out a small scream of fright.
"Did I scare you?" He asked her.
"Oh no, I just thought that you had hurt yourself."
"But I didn't scare you?"
"No of course not."
"Oh..."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing it's just that I was so happy about my new found freedom that I forgot why I was so unhappy this morning."
"Why were you so unhappy?"
"Well I maybe a scarecrow but I can't scare crows."
"You can't scare them?"
"No."
"But you're a scarecrow who can talk and move all by himself. Why if our scarecrow back in Magnolia could do that the crows would be scared to pieces."
"They would?"
"Yes."
"Well talking and moving around isn't enough to scare these crows. They come from miles around just to eat in my field and laugh in my face. I'm a failure at my job."
"Why don't you look for a new job?"
"There's not much work around here for someone without a brain."
"Oh you could definitely find work back in Magnolia."
"Where's Magnolia?"
"It's where I live and I want to get back there so badly I'm going to see a wizard who's supposed to help me."
"You think he could help me?"
"By what?"
"Hopefully by giving me a brain. You think he could do that?"
"I couldn't say. But even if he didn't you wouldn't be worse off than you are now."
"Yes that's true but if I have to spend the rest of my life pinned up to a post while a bunch of crows tease and torture me I'll go insane."
"I can understand that but maybe you better not go with me. I got a witch mad at me and you might get into trouble."
"Witch? I'm not afraid of witch, I'm not afraid of anything." He said. "Except a lighted match."
"A lighted match? Oh that's right straw burns very easily."
"Uh-huh so you can imagine how terrified I am of fire."
Frosch walked over to Glen and brushed up against his leg, greeting him in the process.
"Who's this?" Glen smiled and picked Frosch up.
"This is Frosch, my cat."
"He sure is cute."
"Yes and he's sweet too. Don't worry he won't scratch or bite you."
"It doesn't matter if he does or not, he can't hurt me."
He hugged Frosch and the green cat nuzzled him.
"He really likes you." Juvia said.
"Glad I made a good first impression on him. So um... Can I go with you too?"
"Of course."
Their arms linked together in an usher like manner and the two of them continued down the road with Frosch following.