Author's Note: Okay, as usual it's a time loop thread. This one is for Oz the Great and Powerful with Oscar as the anchor and Theodora going along for the ride from time to time. All are more than welcome to add loops of their own. I tried to make the first one an exposition/feel good loop but I'm sure the crack will flow now that the die has been cast. Let's see how we can muck around with yet another universe.
Oscar blinked a bit as he became aware of himself at the start of another loop. He was soaking wet, which meant he most likely defaulted to his regular return point of when Theodora fished him out of the river after his arrival in Oz. He supposed that was better than the rare ones where he looped back to the Baum Brothers Circus. The thought of intentionally leaving Annie because he knew if he didn't Evanora's reign of terror would go on unimpeded always depressed the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
And the memory of the one loop where did DID take Annie with him...
Well the idea of bringing a powerless woman that looked exactly like Glinda the Good anywhere near Evanora went down as the worst idea in a history of bad ideas for Oscar.
Oscar's musings were cut short as, right on cue, he caught sight of Theodora's wide-brimmed red hat. He always liked seeing the naive and sweet original form of the Wicked Witch of the West. It warmed his heart to know the time loops gave him an opportunity to try to correct one of his worst mistakes.
And speaking of warm, that fireball Theodora had in her hand looked awfully warm. Wait...what?
"What are you doing here? And how are you in your human shell again Wizard?" Theodora snapped. "What have you done? The last thing I remember was that wretched farm girl melting me with a bucket of water."
"Ah, first loop. Got it. Um, have you noticed you're not green anymore?" Oscar noted with a knowing smile.
"First loop? What is that supposed to mean?" Theodora insisted as she looked at her hand and her eyes widened in shock at the creamy normal looking flesh there and her fireball guttered out due to her distraction. Her hands immediately went to her face as she felt her nose and chin and noted they were no longer unnaturally pointed. "I... I'm normal. What? How?" she asked in shock.
Oscar smiled at the sight of her wonder as he sloshed his way out of the river before the river faeries had the chance to start biting him again, he always hated that, and set his bag down on the river bank to regard the shocked young witch. "I wish I could say it was something I did. Well I could, I suppose, but I'd be lying. From what I've been led to understand it's some kind of cosmic glitch that causes certain people to experience a time loop and relive their lives upon their deaths. Occasionally, those that are close to the 'anchor looper' are drawn back as well. Welcome to your first loop," Oscar explained with a sheepish smile.
"So this is really the first day we met again?" Theodora asked as she cocked her head to the side in confusion.
"Afraid so. But on the bright side, you have someone that's done this before to help you through it. The first two or three times I relived my life I was flying blind until a very interesting deity by the name of Belldanady popped in to explain things to me. Apparently something in the system in Heaven that is used to run various universes wet haywire and loopers like us are the result. They'll let us know when they get it fixed," Oscar elaborated.
"How many times have you relived your life?" Theodora asked as she tried to absorb what he was saying.
"I've already lost count. I usually wake up right here in the river with you finding me. Which reminds me, Evanora's winged baboon should be here any minute," Oscar replied with a look up into the sky. "Do you want to run from it and hide in the cave again or should I just stop it here?" he asked.
"You can stop it here?" Theodora asked skeptically. As far as she knew he was powerless while still stuck in his mortal shell.
"I've had centuries, it not more, to learn new things, Theodora. Most of them in Oz. I've picked up how to harness my natural magic, among other things. You cannot BELIEVE what you can learn spending a few decades learning from the Tinkers. Did you know they've already worked out a way to make a full body prosthetic with minimal enchantments?" Oscar explained with an excited gleam in his eye.
"I remember. The Tin Man with the axe that helped to kill me," Theodora flatly responded.
"Oh, right," Oscar noted with wince as the bellow of the winged baboon descended upon them. Oscar looked up with far less worry than even Theodora did as he pointed at the beast and used a sleep spell Glinda had taught him to incapacitate it.
"How did you do that without a gem to focus your power?" Theodora asked in awe of the display.
Oscar chuckled as he replied, "Like I said, you live a few centuries, you pick things up. It doesn't hurt that the various loop universes kind of bleed together and cross together on occasion. You end up picking things up from other universes here and there."
Theodora could only nod at that revelation, it was far to large for her to truly comprehend, before her face grew hard as she asked, "So what now? Do you toss me in the river to dispose of me before summoning a house to drop on my sister? Or do you still prefer to have a farm girl to do your dirty work?"
Oscar looked sad at the accusation as he responded, "Neither. I mean I have to stop Evanora somehow. I've seen a loop or two where I didn't and... it isn't pretty. You know she's pretty much reached her limit of playing nice for the masses by the time I arrive."
Theodora could only nod in acceptance of that. Evanora had abandoned her charade the moment the Wizard and Glinda had joined forces.
"Well let's just say forced labor camps and massive deaths are the nicest things she starts doing. I mean the Tin Man became what he was because she enchanted and axe to make him dismember himself for daring to love one of her servants. Evanora always had a massive mean streak," Oscar explained with a wince.
Theodora nodded as she replied, "Even as a child she was always a bit spiteful. And she was furious after Glinda broke her emerald and made her into that crone."
"I always thought that was how she really looked and Glinda just broke the enchantment she was using to hide it," Oscar returned with a shrug.
Theodora looked ready to protest until he recalled how quickly her sister had offered to craft an illusion to hide her transformed features after she ate that apple. "Maybe," she conceded. "So you have to stop her. Where does that leave me? Am I your prisoner?"
"Nope," Oscar replied with a childish grin. His face grew more serious, but no less happy, as he added, "You're my friend, Theodora. I don't know what Evanora told you to make you hate me so much after she made you green, but I make it a habit to keep you by my side to keep it from happening in any loops where I can."
"Your friend? Your friend!? And how friendly of you to have sent that girl to kill me. Or to go and seduce my sister in her chambers the night before you abandoned us both to join Glinda," Theodora snapped, her eyes alight with a fire that had nothing to do with her powers.
Oscar looked confused for a moment before he replied, "Okay, first off, I only sent Dorothy to collect your broomstick. Which was really just a way to keep her busy until she gave up since I never thought the fool kid would be crazy enough to try something like that and I needed a way to keep her out of the way because I had no option available at the time to send her home. She was never supposed to kill you. I about had a heart attack when she told me what happened. Second, when in the hell was I supposed to have ever slept with Evanora? That one doesn't make any sense at all."
"Don't give me that," Theodora growled back. "Evanora told me herself how you gave her a music box just like mine and used it to seduce her. You should have seen how enamored she was with you, you two-timing louse."
Oscar looked at Theodora sternly for a moment, as if gauging her sincerity, before he responded, "You can look in my bag if you like, Theodora. I have ONE music box with me. I had others in my trailer back home but I only had one with me when I got here. Are you telling me that's how Evanora corrupted you?"
"No, you're lying. You have to be," Theodora insisted as she grabbed the travel back and rifled through it. Sure enough, there was only one music box in there. "There has to be another. She showed it to me. You're hiding it on your body or something."
Oscar waggled his eyebrows comically as he replied, "Please feel free to strip me down to look if you like, but I promise that's the only music box you'll find."
Theodora blushed at his implications and looked away indignantly and she muttered "Masher," under her breath.
"That is one I suppose I am guilty of. Although I've always preferred subtle charm to overt gestures," Oscar admitted.
Theodora looked out into the forest for a time before she shook her head ruefully and gave a mirthless chuckle. "Nothing. It was all for nothing. Just another of Evanora's lies like when she framed Glinda," she muttered in disbelief.
"Hey now. That's enough of that. You seem to be forgetting you're not alone here," Oscar said as he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Theodora turned around slowly to look Oscar in the eyes. He had almost forgotten how large and inviting her eyes were up close, he noted in his head, as she rushed forward and hugged him.
"Now fair warning, I don't want any nonsense about becoming my queen or anything. It was talk like that that scared me off the first time we did all this. Evanora even used it to make sure I didn't say goodbye before I left the Emerald City," Oscar warned.
Theodora chuckled at the first part of the warning before she stopped short at the second. "She what?" the Witch of the West asked flatly.
"It was at the end of the tour she gave me when she explained that I had to kill Glinda. She told me I had to leave immediately and I said you would be mad if I just left and she started babbling about how she would tell you about how I declared my undying love for you before I left or something. Looking back she just wanted me out of there without you knowing I had left, I suppose," Oscar explained.
"The next time I saw her she was watching you with Glinda on her crystal ball. Then she showed me her music box and told me of the night you spent with her. She took off for a while as I went to my room and wept," Theodora recalled.
"But your allergy," Oscar asked in concern.
"I was hurting a different way already at that point. While Evanora was off doing whatever she was up to I went back to her crystal ball and used it to watch your arrival in Quadling Country. I saw you strolling with Glinda and smiling with her arm in arm. When Evanora came back she gave me some speech about not being able to compete with Glinda's charms and I cried again. I asked her to take the pain away. That's when she offered to change me," Theodora recalled. She went on to explain the cursed apple and how Evanora had failed to explain exactly what it did until after she had goaded Theodora into eating it.
Oscar shook his head sadly as he responded, "Just when I thought I understood how messed up that woman was, she manages to surprise me."
"It doesn't matter now. I have a second chance here and I know who and what she is. She won't ruin my life again," Theodora insisted.
"There's the right attitude to have. You can really have fun with the loops if you let yourself. You're pretty much unlimited here," Oscar promised with a smile.
"Good. I want Evanora stopped. I want her to pay. But after that... I want to live for a change," Theodora informed him.
"Sounds good to me. So shall we begin our trek toward the Emerald City? If I remember correctly we have quite a ways to go to rescue Finley from that Cowardly Lion," Oscar inquired as he stepped out of his embrace with the Witch of the West and bowed theatrically before offering her his arm.
"Let's be off, then. I think you still owe me a dance this evening as well," Theodora noted with a tiny blush as she returned his bow with a curtsey of her own and then took his arm.
"Speaking of getting even, I do happen to know a spell that will make all of a person's hair fall out in a way that can't be hidden with any kid of illusion," Oscar said as the pair all but skipped off into the forest and toward their destinies.
Oscar blinked a bit as he became aware of himself at the start of another loop. He was soaking wet, which meant he most likely defaulted to his regular return point of when Theodora fished him out of the river after his arrival in Oz. He supposed that was better than the rare ones where he looped back to the Baum Brothers Circus. The thought of intentionally leaving Annie because he knew if he didn't Evanora's reign of terror would go on unimpeded always depressed the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
And the memory of the one loop where did DID take Annie with him...
Well the idea of bringing a powerless woman that looked exactly like Glinda the Good anywhere near Evanora went down as the worst idea in a history of bad ideas for Oscar.
Oscar's musings were cut short as, right on cue, he caught sight of Theodora's wide-brimmed red hat. He always liked seeing the naive and sweet original form of the Wicked Witch of the West. It warmed his heart to know the time loops gave him an opportunity to try to correct one of his worst mistakes.
And speaking of warm, that fireball Theodora had in her hand looked awfully warm. Wait...what?
"What are you doing here? And how are you in your human shell again Wizard?" Theodora snapped. "What have you done? The last thing I remember was that wretched farm girl melting me with a bucket of water."
"Ah, first loop. Got it. Um, have you noticed you're not green anymore?" Oscar noted with a knowing smile.
"First loop? What is that supposed to mean?" Theodora insisted as she looked at her hand and her eyes widened in shock at the creamy normal looking flesh there and her fireball guttered out due to her distraction. Her hands immediately went to her face as she felt her nose and chin and noted they were no longer unnaturally pointed. "I... I'm normal. What? How?" she asked in shock.
Oscar smiled at the sight of her wonder as he sloshed his way out of the river before the river faeries had the chance to start biting him again, he always hated that, and set his bag down on the river bank to regard the shocked young witch. "I wish I could say it was something I did. Well I could, I suppose, but I'd be lying. From what I've been led to understand it's some kind of cosmic glitch that causes certain people to experience a time loop and relive their lives upon their deaths. Occasionally, those that are close to the 'anchor looper' are drawn back as well. Welcome to your first loop," Oscar explained with a sheepish smile.
"So this is really the first day we met again?" Theodora asked as she cocked her head to the side in confusion.
"Afraid so. But on the bright side, you have someone that's done this before to help you through it. The first two or three times I relived my life I was flying blind until a very interesting deity by the name of Belldanady popped in to explain things to me. Apparently something in the system in Heaven that is used to run various universes wet haywire and loopers like us are the result. They'll let us know when they get it fixed," Oscar elaborated.
"How many times have you relived your life?" Theodora asked as she tried to absorb what he was saying.
"I've already lost count. I usually wake up right here in the river with you finding me. Which reminds me, Evanora's winged baboon should be here any minute," Oscar replied with a look up into the sky. "Do you want to run from it and hide in the cave again or should I just stop it here?" he asked.
"You can stop it here?" Theodora asked skeptically. As far as she knew he was powerless while still stuck in his mortal shell.
"I've had centuries, it not more, to learn new things, Theodora. Most of them in Oz. I've picked up how to harness my natural magic, among other things. You cannot BELIEVE what you can learn spending a few decades learning from the Tinkers. Did you know they've already worked out a way to make a full body prosthetic with minimal enchantments?" Oscar explained with an excited gleam in his eye.
"I remember. The Tin Man with the axe that helped to kill me," Theodora flatly responded.
"Oh, right," Oscar noted with wince as the bellow of the winged baboon descended upon them. Oscar looked up with far less worry than even Theodora did as he pointed at the beast and used a sleep spell Glinda had taught him to incapacitate it.
"How did you do that without a gem to focus your power?" Theodora asked in awe of the display.
Oscar chuckled as he replied, "Like I said, you live a few centuries, you pick things up. It doesn't hurt that the various loop universes kind of bleed together and cross together on occasion. You end up picking things up from other universes here and there."
Theodora could only nod at that revelation, it was far to large for her to truly comprehend, before her face grew hard as she asked, "So what now? Do you toss me in the river to dispose of me before summoning a house to drop on my sister? Or do you still prefer to have a farm girl to do your dirty work?"
Oscar looked sad at the accusation as he responded, "Neither. I mean I have to stop Evanora somehow. I've seen a loop or two where I didn't and... it isn't pretty. You know she's pretty much reached her limit of playing nice for the masses by the time I arrive."
Theodora could only nod in acceptance of that. Evanora had abandoned her charade the moment the Wizard and Glinda had joined forces.
"Well let's just say forced labor camps and massive deaths are the nicest things she starts doing. I mean the Tin Man became what he was because she enchanted and axe to make him dismember himself for daring to love one of her servants. Evanora always had a massive mean streak," Oscar explained with a wince.
Theodora nodded as she replied, "Even as a child she was always a bit spiteful. And she was furious after Glinda broke her emerald and made her into that crone."
"I always thought that was how she really looked and Glinda just broke the enchantment she was using to hide it," Oscar returned with a shrug.
Theodora looked ready to protest until he recalled how quickly her sister had offered to craft an illusion to hide her transformed features after she ate that apple. "Maybe," she conceded. "So you have to stop her. Where does that leave me? Am I your prisoner?"
"Nope," Oscar replied with a childish grin. His face grew more serious, but no less happy, as he added, "You're my friend, Theodora. I don't know what Evanora told you to make you hate me so much after she made you green, but I make it a habit to keep you by my side to keep it from happening in any loops where I can."
"Your friend? Your friend!? And how friendly of you to have sent that girl to kill me. Or to go and seduce my sister in her chambers the night before you abandoned us both to join Glinda," Theodora snapped, her eyes alight with a fire that had nothing to do with her powers.
Oscar looked confused for a moment before he replied, "Okay, first off, I only sent Dorothy to collect your broomstick. Which was really just a way to keep her busy until she gave up since I never thought the fool kid would be crazy enough to try something like that and I needed a way to keep her out of the way because I had no option available at the time to send her home. She was never supposed to kill you. I about had a heart attack when she told me what happened. Second, when in the hell was I supposed to have ever slept with Evanora? That one doesn't make any sense at all."
"Don't give me that," Theodora growled back. "Evanora told me herself how you gave her a music box just like mine and used it to seduce her. You should have seen how enamored she was with you, you two-timing louse."
Oscar looked at Theodora sternly for a moment, as if gauging her sincerity, before he responded, "You can look in my bag if you like, Theodora. I have ONE music box with me. I had others in my trailer back home but I only had one with me when I got here. Are you telling me that's how Evanora corrupted you?"
"No, you're lying. You have to be," Theodora insisted as she grabbed the travel back and rifled through it. Sure enough, there was only one music box in there. "There has to be another. She showed it to me. You're hiding it on your body or something."
Oscar waggled his eyebrows comically as he replied, "Please feel free to strip me down to look if you like, but I promise that's the only music box you'll find."
Theodora blushed at his implications and looked away indignantly and she muttered "Masher," under her breath.
"That is one I suppose I am guilty of. Although I've always preferred subtle charm to overt gestures," Oscar admitted.
Theodora looked out into the forest for a time before she shook her head ruefully and gave a mirthless chuckle. "Nothing. It was all for nothing. Just another of Evanora's lies like when she framed Glinda," she muttered in disbelief.
"Hey now. That's enough of that. You seem to be forgetting you're not alone here," Oscar said as he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Theodora turned around slowly to look Oscar in the eyes. He had almost forgotten how large and inviting her eyes were up close, he noted in his head, as she rushed forward and hugged him.
"Now fair warning, I don't want any nonsense about becoming my queen or anything. It was talk like that that scared me off the first time we did all this. Evanora even used it to make sure I didn't say goodbye before I left the Emerald City," Oscar warned.
Theodora chuckled at the first part of the warning before she stopped short at the second. "She what?" the Witch of the West asked flatly.
"It was at the end of the tour she gave me when she explained that I had to kill Glinda. She told me I had to leave immediately and I said you would be mad if I just left and she started babbling about how she would tell you about how I declared my undying love for you before I left or something. Looking back she just wanted me out of there without you knowing I had left, I suppose," Oscar explained.
"The next time I saw her she was watching you with Glinda on her crystal ball. Then she showed me her music box and told me of the night you spent with her. She took off for a while as I went to my room and wept," Theodora recalled.
"But your allergy," Oscar asked in concern.
"I was hurting a different way already at that point. While Evanora was off doing whatever she was up to I went back to her crystal ball and used it to watch your arrival in Quadling Country. I saw you strolling with Glinda and smiling with her arm in arm. When Evanora came back she gave me some speech about not being able to compete with Glinda's charms and I cried again. I asked her to take the pain away. That's when she offered to change me," Theodora recalled. She went on to explain the cursed apple and how Evanora had failed to explain exactly what it did until after she had goaded Theodora into eating it.
Oscar shook his head sadly as he responded, "Just when I thought I understood how messed up that woman was, she manages to surprise me."
"It doesn't matter now. I have a second chance here and I know who and what she is. She won't ruin my life again," Theodora insisted.
"There's the right attitude to have. You can really have fun with the loops if you let yourself. You're pretty much unlimited here," Oscar promised with a smile.
"Good. I want Evanora stopped. I want her to pay. But after that... I want to live for a change," Theodora informed him.
"Sounds good to me. So shall we begin our trek toward the Emerald City? If I remember correctly we have quite a ways to go to rescue Finley from that Cowardly Lion," Oscar inquired as he stepped out of his embrace with the Witch of the West and bowed theatrically before offering her his arm.
"Let's be off, then. I think you still owe me a dance this evening as well," Theodora noted with a tiny blush as she returned his bow with a curtsey of her own and then took his arm.
"Speaking of getting even, I do happen to know a spell that will make all of a person's hair fall out in a way that can't be hidden with any kid of illusion," Oscar said as the pair all but skipped off into the forest and toward their destinies.