Disclaimer, you know.
When Dorothy found herself in the dreamscape, she wasn't really surprised. She had anticipated Madeline doing this. When she eventually found herself face to face with Madeline, she had already anticipated what Dorothy's first move would be.
"Maddie, is there a reason you had to do that to yourself?" she asked curiously.
"there's always a reason for why I do things." Madeline replied teasingly.
"Maddie, I would NEVER ask you to do something like that, even for me." Dorothy said pinching the bridge of her nose and rubbing it.
"Dot, I did it because either way I'd still have to suffer the affects, but I can also go a decent amount of time without sleep." Madeline replied firmly, "you on the other hand, I was worried about." She added.
"I think we both could have managed a few more hours." Dorothy said shaking her head.
"once I got into the process of using the excess energy, I barely made ten minutes." Madeline shaking hers.
"which is why we're here now." Dorothy said nodding.
"exactly, when we wake up, a decent number of hours will have passed, it'll probably be late evening at the earliest." Madeline said as chairs appeared behind them.
"quite frankly, I'm both surprised and relieved that your plan worked." Dorothy said taking a seat.
"well, I've got a decent track record." Madeline said smiling.
"Doesn't mean you won't be wrong at some point thought." Dorothy added a bit teasingly.
"Oh, I know, I'm completely aware of the fact that I'm not infallible, remember the rabbit incident?" She added just as teasingly.
"How could I forget? I was almost completely useless during that period of time." Dorothy said sighing.
"I still haven't quite forgiven myself for messing that up" Madeline said sighing, "but that's in the past."
"Yes, lets focus on the present, shall we?" Dorothy said nodding.
"indeed, I know neither of us have anything very coherent planned but, have you any thoughts on what we should do next?" Madeline asked curiously.
"Well, getting Cassandra, and maybe lady Angela is definitely up there on the list of priorities." Dorothy said thinking on it for a moment, "on second thought, maybe just Cassandra, don't want Theodora and Eveline being forced to follow."
"considering that the imp is the one in control here, I don't think they would be in any immediate danger, we're completely safe for now." Madeline said smiling.
"So, the other two didn't immediately retaliate?" Dorothy asked curiously.
"no which has left Imp-Etuous rather ill at ease." Madeline said sighing.
"Okay, next question, I assume I was brought to my room?" Dorothy asked curiously.
"No, I suggested mine, as its closest to the throne room." Madeline replied.
"Of course, you did." Dorothy said rolling her eyes.
"And I'm sure we'll wake up to find Alex and The Beast at your side, watching over you in the usual way." Madeline said, "though Ozma or Ellie run in tied for second." She added.
"Honestly, I would hope that the two of them might actually try to get some sleep as well, I've been under the impression that they've mostly been keeping awake for my sake." Dorothy said, a bit worriedly.
"Business as usual then." Madeline said shrugging, "I wonder if there is a way to undo the separation between the two of them?" she asked aloud.
"I assume so." Dorothy said with a shrug, "Considering that they are exactly the same person, two personalities, occupying the same body." She added.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that putting them back into a single body would be easy." Madeline said sighing, "though, it does rather open up the possibility of Alex and his double being able to separate themselves at will if they so choose, they'd still have the rather short leash between them I should think but in theory it could work." She said thinking about it for a moment.
"Maddie, transforming already hurts both of them enough as it is, and according to Alex, being separated like that felt worse." Dorothy said shaking her head.
"again, still talking theoretically, the only person who could confirm or deny the idea is Elphaba, and besides, I wouldn't put Alex through any unnecessary suffering." Madeline said reassuringly.
"no, knowing you, you'd find a way to plant the idea in his head." Dorothy said teasingly.
Madeline let out a mock gasp of shock and disgust.
"how could you think so little of me?" She asked, trying to repress a giggle.
"oh no disrespect meant I assure you." Dorothy said in the same tone.
The two of them sure shared a laugh at this.
"Dorothy, I wouldn't suggest it to him unless I was absolutely sure it would both work and be safe to do." Madeline said still trying to reassure her, "besides, like I said it's only a theory."
"I'd ask you not to pursue it." Dorothy said sighing, "but you would go behind my back about it anyways." She added.
"In that, you're probably right." Madeline said nodding.
"and that's what worries me." Dorothy said nodding back.
Meanwhile, outside the dreamscape, at Gale hall.
Alex and the beast were now sat on the floor of the parlor at gale hall, Ozma and Annabella were both seated on the couch watching them. They were reorganizing and going through all the sheet music that was brought there. Though neither of them would admit it, they had brought Annabella and Ozma with them this time Partly to get them both out of the palace for a time, but mostly because they really wanted the company. They had left the scepter floating next to Dorothy, guarding her the best it could. Eventually Annabella looked up at Ozma, then jumped off the couch and sidled over to them.
"Yes Annabella?" They both asked curiously.
"Nothing, just wanted a closer look." She said looking over the papers.
"Maybe when we're all back to some kind of relative normality, we can teach you how to read it." Alex offered as he neatly stacked some sheets together and hit the bottoms against the floor.
"That's a question I haven't asked yet actually." Ozma said, getting to her feet and walking over to them, "I can understand how you two can read it, but how is Dorothy able?" She asked curiously as she sat down and scratched Annabella behind the ears.
"During our first few years of school, music was a required class." Alex said sighing, "we learned the basics of reading music, Dorothy and I picked up on it the fastest, me because of my other hobbies from the time, and…well Dorothy just picked it up, she's rather smart like that." He added.
"are there any other instruments you can play, apart from the piano and the drums…and the harmonium?" Ozma asked looking over at it.
"well…" Alex said trailing off, the beast looking away.
"oh, come on brother dear, it's bound to come out sooner or later." Annabella said with a yip.
Alex winced at this.
"I'll tell you, but I want your word Ozma, that you won't tell Dorothy, this is something I want to share with her myself eventually." Alex said firmly.
"you have my royal word; I promise I will not tell this to Dorothy or anyone else." Ozma said holding up one hand and crossing her heart with the other.
"what about anyone who might be watching?" the beast asked curiously.
"can't be anyone watching unless they're using the rainbow mover, or are more powerful than Glinda." Ozma said smiling.
"Doesn't that put us in danger?" The beast asked curiously.
"no more than we would be if we were still in the city." Ozma said.
"Well, anyways, the first instrument we actually learned to play is the violin." Alex said sounding rather uneasy, "I would never admit that to anyone, but if push came to shove, I could play a few pieces" he said.
"and you hide this from Dorothy because?" Ozma asked curiously.
"oh, this one is deliberate teasing, if she manages to guess my birthday before a year has elapsed." He said with a grin, "I'll still tell her anyways to be fair, I'm honestly surprised that she hasn't been able to guess my birthday yet." He added with a chuckle.
"I know, I mean, seriously the reason you don't just out right tell her makes it completely obvious." Ozma said nodding in agreement.
"I think the part that always gets her, is that you don't really celebrate your birthday, though you don't exactly treat it like another day either." Ozma said with a chuckle.
"nope, and that's what gets me, it's not even guess-work to work it out at the end of the day." Alex said and the beast said both through chuckles
"but we're also making it fair, giving her till the literal last possible minute to guess it." The beast added on his own.
"wait…Dorothy really doesn't know your birthday?" Annabella asked with a curious whine.
"Surprisingly no." Alex said sliding some music into its folder, then placing it into its box.
"that's actually kinda funny, I think, with the exception of maybe Elphaba, Nessa, and Polly, everyone else knows when your birthday is." Annabella yipped out.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Cassandra knew it." Ozma said smiling.
"Oh, she most definitely knows it, but not the original reason behind me never talking about it is." Alex and the beast said shrugging.
"You mean, you have other reasons? apart from what is essentially your game with Dorothy?" Ozma asked curiously.
"Yep." Alex said nodding, "but I won't bore you with the details" He added with a bit of a yawn.
"I won't press you for them either." Ozma said picking up some of the papers and organizing them herself.
"I won't say you wouldn't get an answer." The beast said as they finished up reorganizing the music.
"but you certainly wouldn't get it from us" Alex added, putting the last of the freshly stacked music in the box.
"So, we cleaned up your mess, now what?" Annabella asked curiously as she pushed her head against the box in an attempt to move it.
The three shared a chuckle at this, however she did manage to slowly start pushing the box across the floor. After a few moments Alex got up, picked up the box and carried it back over to where it belonged, next to the harmonium.
"To answer your question Annabella." Alex said reaching for his watch, only to remember that he still hadn't gotten it fixed yet, "I was thinking we could have a late lunch then go back to the city, it'll be passed dinner time when Dorothy and Madeline wake, if Mads is to be believed."
"Well, she's basically been right so far." Ozma said getting back on her feet.
Back in the dreamscape
The problem with being in a place like the dreamscape, at least from Dorothy's perspective, was the fact that you couldn't really have a concept of time in there. As Madeline had pulled her into it involuntarily once again, she found herself subject to Madeline's mind and her whims.
"I have no idea, few minutes, maybe hours." Madeline said before Dorothy even had a chance to ask.
Dorothy opened her mouth to say something but Madeline cut her off again.
"because this seemed like the best way for the two of us to properly regroup and get something out of it." Madeline said with a smile, "and to answer your next question, yes, yes I am."
"look I have no problems with you doing this Maddie, but I do enjoy a fair warning, I can't leave this place before you do." She replied.
"I know, but I'll be able to feel when the dreamless sleep is wearing off, you won't, because you don't have the skills quite yet." Madeline said teasingly.
"And I assume you're hoping that time spent in here will be enough for it to rub off on me? Like some of your vocabulary?" she asked curiously.
"Well, that wasn't my original intention, but if you want it to be my intention, we could try, but I have no control over what information you manage to take back with you." Madeline said firmly.
"well, what's the full plan with regrouping in here?" Dorothy asked curiously.
"well, we've already agreed contacting Lady Cassandra is probably a decent idea." Madeline said thinking for a moment, "is there anyone else you can think of calling on during this emergency?" She asked curiously.
"Just one, and you and I both know who it is." Dorothy said snapping her fingers.
Immediately the dreamscape shifted and they found themselves where they had been the first time Madeline pulled her into the dreamscape.
"impressive." Madeline said blinking, "and yes, I think Emma could be very helpful." She added nodding, summoning some armchairs for them.
"The only reason I feel I can't justify the idea, is that I still can't help but feel we'd be putting her into some immediate danger." Dorothy said sighing and plopping down into the armchair behind her.
"and I'll repeat what I said before, there's not really much of an immediate danger thanks to the imp." Madeline said reassuringly, "you and I can no longer be touched by her sisters, but Emma knows more about transformation magic than you or I, if anything she should at least be able to fix scarecrow, tin man, the china princess and maybe Marshall mallow." She added.
"whys that?" Dorothy asked curiously.
"well, with the former three, the imps only changed their shapes, not what they were made from." Madeline said smiling, "so it is, in theory, terribly simple to change them back, Marshall Mallow however, is a touch more complicated." She said.
"because he was made of marshmallow, and is now a porcelain lamb?" Dorothy asked curiously.
"yes, a full conversion, theoretically it's not impossible to reverse, and as a Yookoohoo Emma has a few advantages." Madeline said smiling.
"oh, I'm fully aware, I've had at least that explained to me before." Dorothy said smiling.
"Well, she's essentially the closest we've got to a transformations expert, unless you and I want to go to the western castle and search the library ourselves?" Madeline offered.
Dorothy thought about this for a moment.
"Honestly I don't think that would be a bad idea either, we could always do both." She suggested.
"the only issue being that you really don't understand magic, you have a basic idea and can reach out to the scepter, but you have no real concept of how to use it for anything other than shooting mostly harmless balls of light, and locking and unlocking doors." Madeline said, "which I'm 90% certain is one of the reasons lady Cassandra wants you to attend her classes for at least a year."
"which you and I both know I'm going to attend, because one, Glinda went through all this trouble to get Cassandra to reinstate herself at the university, and two Cassandra probably went through a lot of trouble to get these conditions set for us" Dorothy said sighing.
"three, she set it up to completely benefit all of us." Madeline said smiling, "this is treatment that is rare, and even then, was only granted to students who took Cassandra's classes back in the day, usually to keep the non-practitioners safe." She added.
"And I assume you got that information from Glinda?" Dorothy asked curiously.
"Nope." Madeline said shaking her head.
"well the only other options are Locasta, Elphaba, Nessa, or even Angela if you really had the time." Dorothy replied.
"and you're still completely wrong." Madeline said giggling.
"then from whom?" Dorothy asked curiously.
Madeline's smile changed to a grin, a grin that Dorothy really didn't like.
"that would be telling." She said teasingly.
Dorothy shook her head, sometimes she really didn't understand her double. She could either be amazingly helpful, or annoyingly cryptic and secretive. She was getting used to the latter, but that didn't mean she approved. From anyone else, she found this fine so long as the secret didn't immediately affect her in any way, such as secret war councils and the like. She certainly didn't approve of people going behind her back, but it was becoming more situational, based on the previous thought.
The two of them sat there in silence for a few minutes or was it hours? She genuinely wasn't sure. After a bit Madeline began to chuckle.
"Spells wearing off." She said, "Wonder how long we've been out." She added.
"Well, of the two of us, you'll be the first to know." Dorothy said getting up from the chair.
Madeline smiled and snapped her fingers. Immediately the dreamscape shifted once again to where they had arrived. The door waiting for Dorothy to exit through it.
"See you when you wake up." Madeline said smiling again.
Dorothy nodded and stepped through the door. The process of waking up from or arriving in the dreamscape always made her feel uncomfortable, even more so than transport spells. She either felt like she was falling terribly fast, or rising uncontrollably. Within moments however, her eyes fluttered open and she found, surprisingly not Alex and the beast at her bedside, but Ozma. Alex and his double were on the other side of the room, pouring some tea.
"Thinking on it, Ozma, do you take sugar in your tea?" Alex asked curiously as he turned around, "Oh, we were wondering when you we're going to wake, five minutes seems a bit of a pattern with that." He added turning to look at Madeline.
Alex then set down the cup he was holding onto the tea tray and he and his double walked over. Ozma however walked over to the tea tray, opened the sugar bowl, and poured a single spoonful into her tea.
Dorothy pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around. She knew for a fact she was definitely in Madeline's room. She had been in it enough times to know it. She found the scepter floating idly at the foot of the bed, silent.
"We took a quick trip to gale hall, Alex wanted to clean up the mess he and the beast had made the last time they were there." Ozma said smiling as she poured a fresh cup of tea and brought it over to Dorothy.
"I can only assume he brought you with him so he wasn't literally talking to himself the whole time." Madeline said teasingly.
Ozma giggled, handing the cup to Dorothy. Dorothy sighed.
"Alex, don't tell me you actually made a mess of that music looking for a single book, did you?" She asked giggling.
"of course, we did." The beast said sighing
"figured it be best if we cleaned it up before you woke up, took us less than an hour, we had a late lunch then came back here, been making idle conversation since." Alex added with a shrug.
"and to be perfectly honest about it." Ozma added, "we quickly found ourselves going in circles for the past few hours."
"What time is it by the way?" Dorothy asked taking a sip from her cup.
Immediately the clock in the room struck 8 and began to chime, negating the need for anyone to verbally answer. Dorothy said nothing, she just continued drinking her tea.
"told you." Madeline said sipping her own cup, "and of course tea was prepared for this, best way of unwinding from…well any magical onslaught no matter how minor."
"Explains a lot." Alex said turning to her.
Dorothy said nothing, she simply set her cup on the side table and shifted her position so she could turn and face all of them without twisting herself into an uncomfortable position.
"Dot, really, have a little more faith in me." Madeline said teasingly,
"bit of an ask when you do stuff like this." Dorothy said stretching a bit.
"anyways, before you two start arguing, we have come up with something of a plan, but we wanted to run it across you two first." Alex said.
