Disclaimer: You know.
Thursday had been less interesting than Wednesday had been. And Friday had left dorothy feeling the most mentally drained. Once she had finished her final test, she found herself in Mr. Alistair's office, where Annabella was taking and finishing her own tests. As she sat in a desk chair, staring out the window. She found herself dozing and reflecting on the events of that week.
Ozma and Queen Dolly were still at the farmhouse. Ozma had explained the situation, how she was taking a vacation, and that oz was most certainly in good hands even with her absence. Alex at least as far as she was aware, was at the shop with his father putting some finishing touches on another project. As she had finished her tests, she could have had Mr. Alistair call her aunt and uncle and have them come pick up Aislynn and herself. but for some reason she couldn't find a reason to justify that.
"Done." Annabella said sighing, looking up from her paper and shaking her head as though to clear it.
"I'll call your mother, let her know you're ready to be picked up." Mr. Alistair said getting up, grabbing her tests and filing them away, he then made the phone call.
Annabella turned to dorothy and looked at her.
"I'm surprised you haven't used the slippers to go home." Annabella said letting out a yawn.
"For some reason, I cant find a reason to justify leaving early." Dorothy said sighing,
"But if alex were here right now you'd both be making plans to go somewhere." She said in response.
"She does make a good point." Madeline said appearing causing everyone to jump.
"I know she does" dorothy said once she caught her breath, "Maddie do you need something?" she asked curiously.
"Nothing in particular, alex and his father are putting finishing touches on their project." She said taking out her watch, "they should actually be done by now." She adds.
Dorothy rolled her eyes at this and sighed
"So, alex should be free to do stuff." Annabella said
"You know, a thought that keeps floating to the surface." Madeline said making eye contact with her "once you walk out those doors, it's the last time you're going to." She said.
"Same for all of us." Annabella said.
Madeline smiled and nodded. Dorothy took a moment to process this, Aislynn had brought that point up around the same time they had returned to the school having dealt with the imps.
"This time next year, you all will be sat in dormitories working on, whatever it is they do at the university." Mr. Alistair said sighing
"it'll be interesting, I'm sure." Dorothy said with a yawn.
"Mr. Alistair, your sister is here to pick up her daughter." Came the voice of the secretary through the intercom.
There was no wait for him to respond as Mrs. teak came right into the office. Annabella gathered up her things and joined her mother.
"Oh, Dorothy, I'm surprised you're still here." Mrs. teak, genuine surprise in her voice.
"she's been waiting on Alex to finish his work for the day" Madeline said, "which they should be done with by now, when I left them, they were nearly finished."
Mrs. teak nodded.
"So, how have things been at home?" she asked dorothy curiously.
"Well, Queen Dolly has been a treat to have around, but otherwise nothings really changed." Dorothy said stretching, trying to wake herself up, "truth be told though, I could really go for a nice nap." She said.
"You and me both, kitten" Came Alex's voice from a mirror behind her.
Dorothy turned to look at him, noticing that he didn't appear to be at the shop, but instead now at the farmhouse.
"I take it someone transported you there?" dorothy asked curiously.
"Glinda, once we were finished, I noticed the scepter was glowing, grabbed it and wound up here." Alex said looking over his shoulder, "honestly I'm rather surprised you aren't here and taking aforementioned nap."
"For some reason I couldn't find an excuse to justify it, besides it is a tiny bit rude to fall asleep with guests around." Dorothy said sighing.
"Oh, you are here." Aislynn said coming into the office
"You finished, ace?" alex asked curiously.
"a while ago, but unlike dorothy I went to the library" she replied, "most of the others are just finishing or are finished as they were heading to the library as I was leaving to see if I could figure out where you had gone to." She said turning to dorothy.
"didn't take long to work out she was probably in here I assume?" Mr. Alistair asked curiously,
"About as long as it took for me to ask the question." Was her response.
"Well, since everyone else seems to be finishing, I suppose we can go home if you want, ace" Dorothy offered.
"So, how are Ozma and Queen dolly doing?" Mrs. Teak asked curiously.
Alex looked over in the direction they were, and quickly turned back to face the mirror.
"Very well as far as I can tell, they're both watching the triplets at the moment who like always seem incredibly uninterested in doing anything other than sit there and play with their toys." He said.
"Even the cats and toto don't tend to get much trouble from them." Madeline remarked causing everyone to look at her.
"I mean, Alexa, patch and oddball rarely ever stray far from the triplets, apart from when its time to feed them." Aislynn remarked, "but even Eve is kinda like that at the end of the day."
Dorothy nodded and sighed, she then felt something strange. As though something had just been placed in her pocket. She looked at Madeline who shrugged. She reached into her upper pocket and found a small note written in Ellie's handwriting.
"Alex, could you tell Glinda to let Ellie know we're ready if everyone else is?" she asked curiously.
"I could, but you basically asked her yourself, she's at the dining room table going over some things with your aunt." He replied.
Dorothy nodded and went into her bag, pulling out the slippers. Changing into them, she sighed. It would be easy to just wish everyone back to their homes or just to the farmhouse, but multiple students disappearing at once would almost certainly bring a lot of questions that wouldn't be easy to answer.
"Mr. Alistair, it has been a privilege to have you as my principal for all these years" dorothy said with a weak smile.
"And it has been an honor and a privilege to have you as a student, I know this isn't something that you would want to hear, but I do think your parents would be very proud of you." He said
Dorothy gave another weak smile and nodded, and without another word left the office. she was immediately met by Ellie, or rather, she almost immediately walked into her.
"I thought we had broken that habit." She said with a giggle, "strange to think that this is the last time ill see the inside of this place."
"Even if we did come back, it's being completely changed." Aislynn said looking around.
"Betsy, Trot, Donna and Zeb will be around in a bit." Ellie added, "and that is a good point ace."
"And Kelly?" dorothy asked curiously
"Kelly." Mrs. teak said, "is already waiting outside with their mother."
Dorothy nodded in response to this, unable to think of anything else to say in that regard. Once Betsy, Trot, and Zeb had joined them, donna opting to go with her mother and sister. dorothy smiled and wished them all to the farmhouse. Ellie immediately sat herself down at the Dining room table with her sister to listen to the explanations of things. Dorothy found herself once more laying on the couch. Ozma and Queen Dolly were both sat on the floor watching the triplets with the rest of the animals.
"They, really don't seem to do much." Queen Dolly remarked.
"Well as you've seen they're always perfect angels." Ozma remarked in return, "not too many things interest them, we've also found that it is generally a bad idea to separate them from each other for any period of time longer than 5 or 10 minutes"
"Their connection to each other." Glinda said looking over, "is a rather strong one."
"As far as any of us are concerned, they seem to communicate with each other mentally as opposed to actually speaking, though they can speak when they choose." Madeline added.
"Not that explaining that clears anything up." Alex said coming over to the couch.
He stood there for a minute, making eye contact with Dorothy, he then grinned. He immediately picked up Dorothy's legs, lifted them slightly and sat down setting her feet on his lap once again.
"You know, you could just ask me to move." Dorothy said with a giggle.
"I know, but I prefer this set up more." Alex said with a grin.
"If we're going with this set up again." Dorothy said with another giggle, "I have to at least request no tickling."
Alex glanced up at the ceiling
"Oh, ill think about it." he said.
Dorothy stuck out her tongue teasingly at him.
"I mean, if we really, really had the ambition to." Aislynn said looking at her, "we could…" she began pointing to herself and the others around the room counting off.
"Sextuple team you, since I don't see Zeb taking part and I'm pretty sure Madeline would be on the floor laughing as well." Glinda said not looking up from the papers. "And dorothy, when has requesting them not do something like that, ever worked?" she added.
Dorothy had to admit Glinda had a point, but she did at least try to ensure that it wouldn't happen.
"Besides dorothy, you did admit you were starting to like the feeling." Ozma added.
"Nothing wrong with a little laughter." Queen Dolly said with a giggle.
"Besides, it would most certainly wake you up." Alex added teasingly.
"Alex, I could achieve the same result with a cold shower, amongst other things." She replied rolling her eyes, "I mean, we've already established, it's not like I could stop you all if you decided to rush me."
"I mean, if you were holding the scepter, I'd say you'd have a fighting chance." Alex said looking at it.
The scepter pinged in agreement at this.
"Yes, against Ace, Betsy, Trot, and maybe ellie." Dorothy said with a giggle.
"That said, none of us have any plans to rush you" Betsy said with a yawn, "at the very least not today."
"Oh thanks, now I have to be paranoid that some day all of you are going to rush me in a tickling onslaught." Dorothy said rolling her eyes, "just what I needed." She added with a giggle
This resulted in everyone either giggling or chuckling and after that the room for the most part fell silent. Dorothy found herself suddenly feeling fatigued and drowsy yet again. She started to doze and felt she must have nodded off for a bit as the next thing she knew she was being woken up by pockets jumping onto her stomach and knocking the wind out of her.
Betsy, Trot, Aislynn, and Ellie were sat at the dining room table now with Queen dolly sat upon it. Alex didn't appear to have moved from the couch as her feet were still on his lap. Madeline, Glinda, and Zeb were nowhere to be seen. She assumed that Zeb had returned home, And Madeline and Glinda had returned to the emerald city. Ozma, she noticed was sat in an armchair still watching the triplets with a lot of interest. Looking at the clock she noticed it was now half passed four.
"Enjoy your nap, kitten?" Alex asked curiously.
"I guess." She said as pockets removed herself from her stomach.
"Aunt Melinda called; Zeb apparently promised to help with something this afternoon, so he had to go home." Alex said, "and Glinda and Mads returned to the city about half an hour ago."
"you've been sleeping so soundly we didn't think it right to wake you." Ozma said looking over at her, "your pets seemed to disagree."
"of course, they did." Dorothy said turning to look down at them, "I'm surprised you two aren't curled up for a nap, you usually are."
"Spent most of the morning doing that" Pockets said.
"All of you are here now so something interesting is liable to happen." Toto added.
"that's generally true, isn't it? enough of us in one room something is bound to happen sooner or later whether we want it to or not." Alex said looking down at them, "though I suppose that rings true for most friend groups."
"Get enough people in a room and someone's bound to call it a party." Aislynn said with a sigh, "though the most interesting things that tend to happen at our parties center around you two dancing."
"And even that's only because magic forms between us when we do so, making it impossible for people to look away." Alex said nodding, "so interesting, but not by anyone's choice."
"Well, we know it's not like you two try, you two are just so perfectly in sync with each other that it just happens." Ellie added with a bit of a giggle, "Jude and I and even Alyssa and Terrance haven't even managed to be able to pull that off."
"I mean, all things considered only these two could unintentionally use what is generally considered a lost art without trying." Aislynn said with a chuckle, "we've already established several times that the laws of magic don't fully apply to them."
"Or are at least more flexible around them." Ozma said looking over to them, "just because something is believed to be impossible doesn't make actually so."
"Cassandra explained that with the right calculations you could theoretically do anything." Ellie said nodding in agreement, "but, and I can't remember where I heard this before, but there are some things you shouldn't mess with, you mess with certain things, certain things have a tendency to fight back to balance it out."
"it's a just because you can, doesn't mean you should situation." Aislynn said flatly, "everyone we've encountered that has used dark magic has managed to meet some kind of sticky end."
"Though that's not entirely true." Alex said firmly, "Cassandra used dark magic to force me and the beast back into our own head when we were sent into Glinda's dreamscape." he explained.
"Oh yea, forgot about that." Ellie said thinking about that for a moment, "admittedly, though, she's got more experience than everyone in this room"
"she'd be the most powerful in this room next to these two as well" Aislynn said gesturing to dorothy and alex.
"The big difference here ace." dorothy said with a sigh, "is that she fully understands magic, we don't, we just tend to get lucky."
"True." Aislynn said nodding
At that moment Em came out of the kitchen with some sandwiches. Setting them on the table.
"Have a good nap?" Em asked looking over at her niece.
"As far as I can tell." Dorothy said stretching now.
Em smiled and returned to the kitchen, alex lifted Dorothy's feet off of his lap and got up, walking over to his bag. He pulled out a cloth bag which appeared to be covered with sawdust. Dorothy found she wasn't surprised by this and was glad alex was thinking ahead. He quickly disappeared into the kitchen.
"So, tomorrow we return to the emerald city." Ozma said turning to look at dorothy, "it's been rather nice, staying in Kansas for a while."
"It's been nice entertaining you as a guest." Dorothy said with a smile and giggle "we should do stuff like this more often."
"Oh, that would be delightful, but I do have a kingdom to run." Ozma said smiling, "maybe I could take some days off and stay with you two at gale hall."
"No complaints on that front." Alex said coming out the kitchen with a plate full of sawdust.
"Like we've said before Ozma, you're welcome at gale hall any time" Dorothy said cheerily.
"And it's not as far from the city as Kansas is so Glinda wont have to worry as much" Ellie said rolling her eyes.
"I mean, we've established that her worrying is technically justified, trouble always manages to find us at the end of the day" Alex said as he set the plate down in front of queen Dolly.
"Thank you" she said nodding, "so, trouble has been hitting the land of Oz recently?"
"Well substitute Us for Me and you get a more accurate description of things, whenever trouble comes knocking it has an annoying tendency to target me." Dorothy said with a sigh, "with how things have been going, I'm worried as to what coming next."
"it's always a worry, and knowing our luck, just like with every other time, it will catch us almost completely unawares" Ellie said with a sigh
"Well, that's a grim way of looking at it." Betsy said taking a bite from her sandwich.
"It's true though, the Jester and Evanora loved the long con, but they both pretty much came out of nowhere." Ellie went on.
"Whether or not Cassandra had any idea of the path Evanora was taking remains unknown to us." Alex said coming back over to the couch and resuming his previous position
"Apart from knowing that she and Theodora were still around, I genuinely don't think Cassandra believed Evanora capable of doing the things she did, it got to a point where even she seemed rather intimidated by her." Ozma said sighing herself
At that moment Em emerged from the kitchen again with more sandwiches, which she brought over to Dorothy, Alex, and Ozma. This put the conversation on hold for a bit and they ate in silence. Once they had finished though the silence remained awkwardly there.
"Cassandra." Ellie said cutting the silence, "I think was becoming intimidated by Evanora, even before she got her hands on the Grimmerie her power seemed to be growing quite rapidly"
"Her power grew to the point where she didn't even need to channel magic through her pendant" Came Theodora's voice as she appeared in the room, "Sorry for dropping in like this." She said her voice full of sorrow.
"I take it Cassandra's been watching us again?" Ellie asked curiously
"Only when she feels like it, we caught this conversation." She said nodding "Even I'm not entirely sure what happened with Evanora, sure she was always jealous of Cassandra and Angela, then one day something changed." She said shuddering, "and I've never been entirely sure what brought it on, she started becoming more malicious, I'm still not sure why I went along with it as long as I did."
"You tried to stand up to her when you realized she was literally poised to use the Grimmerie to tear everything apart and attempt to rebuild to her own liking." Ellie said with a nod, "but surely Cassandra would have tried to warn you that even you weren't safe from your sister's wrath?"
"She did, I really didn't want to believe it, I thought my sister would see the errors before she actually did something rash." Theodora said sighing
"And she met a sticky end, as they all put it?" Queen dolly asked curiously
Theodora said nothing, she simply nodded.
"Dorothy destroyed her, not by choice though." Ellie chimed in.
"I barely had control, the Grimmerie did a good bulk of the work with that." Dorothy said sighing.
"True, but it still chose you to do it, it turned against Evanora. Because that was what it believed was meant to happen." Alex sighed, "the Grimmerie is powerful in its own right, it said what went into its making"
"And according to Cassandra made a single avatar to help out." She said, "a sort of mist woman."
Dorothy nodded
"It was honestly strange, the bits I remember of that." Dorothy said sounding rather puzzled.
"Magic in itself is strange, even the most experienced don't fully understand it." Queen Dolly said.
"Nicely put" Theodora said nodding "even Cassandra who may as well be an expert, says even she doesn't know the fullest extents of what magic is capable of at the end of the day, anything is possible with time and calculations, but you never know what you'll get"
"It's comparable to playing pin the tail on the donkey during an earthquake." Alex said looking at the scepter, "if you come out with both eyes intact on the other side, consider it a win."
"Odd metaphor but that's the basic principle of it." Theodora said trying to repress a giggle.
"That said, even Cassandra doesn't seem to know what the scepter is fully capable of" Ozma said looking over to it, "so that does add to the point you make."
"She doesn't personally believe that magic can be fully understood, but like you guys brought up, some things aren't meant to be messed with because they have a really bad habit of messing back." Theodora said flatly, "way of the universe though, you wont know unless you try."
They all nodded in agreement at this. While experimentation was always necessary, one had to accept that they were taking a calculated risk.
"That said, I think I've intruded long enough, I only came because Cassandra said it might help me more talk about it with you guys" she said
"we're always happy to have you around, you and Eveline should drop by the palace sometime." Ozma said happily, "we'd be glad to have you as company."
"Duly noted your majesties" she said nodding in the direction of the three then vanishing.
"I feel like she still needs closure about Evanora." Aislynn said after a minute, "closure she wont ever fully get, because even we aren't entirely sure what exactly happened outside of the rudiments."
"You all have tried to explain it to us at one point or another, but some these stories feel like they cant really fully be explained and had to be lived." Trot chimed in.
"that's a nice way of putting it" dorothy said with a weak smile, "though I can't say I'd want to relieve the experiences."
"And no one would ever force you to do that." Alex quickly responded, "we're all unanimous in that"
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"Evanora was an even more dangerous threat than the jester was, where the jester juggled his feelings on whether or not he actually wanted to continue playing the game, Evanora literally lost all capacity to care, if someone got in her way, snap, ruby statue that was that." Ozma said sighing, "if what Theodora said is true, I feel like she must have seen or heard something that sent her down the wrong path."
"Like the whispers from the hourglass" dorothy said with a shudder, "I couldn't really make anything specific out, but according to father time they tempt the victim into touching it, into a battle that according to him is very similar to what happened between alex and the beast."
"But Evanora was never in times domain, at least as far as we know." Ellie said quickly
"Father Time controls who and who doesn't enter his domain, but he likely would have warned us if the hourglass was in play again, he isn't fully sure of how powerful it truly is, but people can touch it with permission and not be corrupted by it" Dorothy said shuddering again "he said it existed outside of his influence."
"Glinda has said that the Grimmerie is like that too, I wonder if there's a reason for that, the Grimmerie itself said three adepts put their spirits into created the book, knew that it would be powerful, but that means there are some forces out there that exist which are on par with or equal to Time, Mother Nature, Death, and whatever other forces there are." Ellie said after a bit of thought.
"I feel like if we keep on this line of thought" Queen Dolly interjected, "we might wind up with a visit from all of them"
They all nodded in agreement at this
"So, what do we wish to change the subject to then?" Aislynn asked after a moment, "Why not change the subject back to Oz, something to look forward to tomorrow" she said.
