Teresa entered the Emerald City, her steps crisp and purposeful as she made her way through the dazzlingly opulent palace. Her gaze swept over the familiar, yet somehow irritatingly cheerful decorations, until she finally spotted Dorothy, who was just descending a grand staircase. Without missing a beat, Teresa moved quickly to intercept her.
"Oh! Hello Teresa!" Dorothy exclaimed, a genuine surprise lighting up her face. She genuinely seemed happy to see her. "Where have you been all these weeks? I haven't seen you around."
Teresa crossed her arms, her expression a mix of annoyance and a subtle smugness. "I was engaged in a far more worthwhile pursuit than whatever pointless diversions you've been occupying yourself with. I was working on building a brand new Air Castle for Professor Wogglebug," she stated, emphasizing the Professor's name as though it should be spoken with reverence. "Using my own imagination, of course. It turned out to be a far superior design to the pathetic thing that was unjustly taken from him, I might add."
Dorothy's eyes widened, not with jealousy but with genuine admiration. "You did? That was so nice of you, Teresa," she responded, her usual bright enthusiasm in full force. "I'm sure he was absolutely delighted!"
"Yes, it was," Teresa replied curtly, the corners of her lips tightening. "Which is more than I can say for the appalling way you and your so-called 'friends' have always treated him."
Dorothy's brow furrowed, her head tilting in confusion. "What do you mean?" she asked, her voice laced with uncertainty. "We're always nice to the Professor! He's one of our very best friends."
Teresa sighed dramatically, a low sound filled with exasperation. "What I mean is that you and your friends have consistently, and quite deliberately, mistreated him, treating him with a level of disrespect that is simply appalling." She paused for effect, then added in a lower tone, "How utterly blind do you have to be not to see it?"
Dorothy's face mirrored genuine shock. "But we haven't been! How could we have been? Why would you even think such a terrible thing?" She genuinely looked hurt at the idea that anyone would accuse her and her friends of being mean to anyone, let alone the Wogglebug.
"You are so utterly and completely ignorant if you think that you haven't been mistreating him for over a century!" Teresa's voice rose, her cheeks flushing with anger. "It's in every single one of your history books! The ones that you've all read and are fully aware of, I'm sure. From the moment your friends, those self-proclaimed heroes, met him, they were not only completely rude and condescending towards him, but their actions were also, quite frankly, downright cruel." She huffed out a breath, her eyes narrowed. "Do you know how hard it is to watch someone be treated this way? It's infuriating!"
"What nonsense!" Dorothy exclaimed, her indignation growing with every word. "They were his friends! They have always been his friends, as much as they are anyone's! We all are!"
"No, they weren't!" Teresa said, her voice now near a shout. "They misled him into thinking they were his friends, then dragged him along on a journey full of chaos that he had absolutely no understanding of in the first place! The truth is, they should have let him know what was truly going on at all times. They also should have allowed him to be their leader for that entire journey, as well. Instead of treating him like an unwelcome guest who was deliberately getting in their way, who they were simply tolerating and dragging along. He just wanted to be their friends and then simply wanted to help them along their journey! Was that too much to ask?" Her voice trembled with barely suppressed rage.
Dorothy's eyes widened, her face flushing with a mixture of shock and anger. "But... they were only treating him that way because..." she stammered, trying to find a justification but finding her thoughts and words becoming jumbled and tangled.
"Because of the arrogant and delusional, hypocritical and ridiculously self-centered bastards they all were in each and every one of their own natures!" Teresa interrupted, her voice rising to a sharp, cutting tone. "And they very much still are to this very day!"
"But they're not!" Dorothy shouted, the volume of her voice matching Teresa's. She was starting to feel defensive of her friends and herself. The anger she was feeling was very unusual for her.
"They certainly are!" Teresa retorted, her voice now laced with a barely contained fury. "They invented that entire college, that useless waste of space and time, just to keep him out of the way! Away from all of them and away from all the excitement and adventure!"
"No!" Dorothy replied, her own rage now bubbling to the surface. "The college was built for the purpose of… of…" She trailed off, failing to remember what the college was for.
Teresa, sensing a weakness in Dorothy's rebuttal, cut her off once again, her voice dripping with contempt. "It has absolutely no purpose whatsoever in a land where everyone is immortal and children don't have to grow up and therefore no schooling is actually needed! It's just a useless, pointless place that only exists so he doesn't have to interact with any of you. It's a place where he can't become a fully-fledged man." She glared at Dorothy, daring her to disagree.
"But he's just -" Dorothy began again, trying to find the words to defend herself and her friends.
Teresa simply ignored her, forging ahead as though Dorothy hadn't even spoken. "He has suffered for so long without having a happy life here. And on top of that, he even actually had the vacation in his Air Castle, that he had worked so very hard for, taken away from him! And nobody around here, not a single one of you, was capable of giving him another one. And so I had to do it, myself! And now, I'm sure you and your friends will be just thrilled to know that he's made the decision to leave Oz. Not for your sakes, of course, but entirely for his own. He needs to be and feel loved, happy, and truly appreciated. He wants to go on adventures with true friends for which he can use his intellectual prowess to actually help all! And he obviously cannot do any of those things as long as he lives here."
"But he can do all of that here if he wants to!" Dorothy exclaimed, the frustration and desperation evident in her tone. "He can't leave Oz! We need him here! Ozma has given him everything he has ever wanted here!"
"You clearly weren't paying any attention to anything I just said!" Teresa shot back, pointing a finger accusingly at Dorothy. "Because, nobody, and I mean nobody, knows the consequences of what it means to be a worthless, uneducated, filthy little yokel, turned petty, spoiled, self-absorbed, arrogant prima donna more than you, Dorothy Gale!" Her voice was dripping with malice.
Dorothy's eyes now welled with tears, and her face flushed redder than ever. "I'm… I'm none of those things! I… I don't even know what a yokel or a prima donna is!" she stammered, the tears finally starting to fall freely down her face.
"Exactly my point!" Teresa continued, her voice sharp and cutting. "No matter how much of a princess you may have become, you will never be more than a stupid and worthlessly uneducated little farm girl from a lesser time than my own. Which is why I am so much better than you. I may not be an immortal princess but I will one day soon be a woman and become a valuable person to the world which you abandoned. You abandoned it because you were too much of a stupid, uncaring, cowardly yokel you didn't want to grow up and face the challenges of adulthood in the world and this have to stop coming to Oz and grow out of loving the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman because they are like living toys that are to be outgrown as such. You are such a pathetic and wussy little yokel and will be forever, and you will never be a woman and so you will never amount to anything and will never be able to change the world for the better. Which I will be and will do, and have started with taking the Wogglebug away from you and this nasty and hopelessly deranged dystopia thinly disguised as a children's paradise. And I dare you to tell me with a straight face that I am not right!"
Tears flowed down Dorothy's face as she scrunched it up in agony and wailed, "I can't! You are right about everything and I truly am nothing but a stupid little yokel like you said!"
"That's the most sensible speech you've made!" said Teresa.
Then she slapped Dorothy in the face with so much force it would make the slap she gave to the Cowardly Lion so long ago look like a gentle pat.
Dorothy let out a great bellow and ran away down the hall toward the throne room.
"Such a a wuss!" Teresa called after her.