Fic: As Told By, part one.
Title: As Told By
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, the Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, others.
Rating: All Ages.
Warnings: None.
Betas: The lovely mylittlepwny, who inspired this little act of insanity, and the ever-fabulous eponymous_rose.
Notes: A Doctor Who/Wizard of Oz fusion. Partly in the style of Mr. Baum, partly inspired by the 1939 film, and partly just plain odd. A WIP, with more to come soon. No, seriously.
++
Rose Tyler woke up in a cornfield.
The sky overhead was burnished blue, and the cornstalks rustled in the breeze, glowing gold in the sunlight. She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again. Nothing changed.
“Oi, Miss Lazy Bones!” a familiar, female voice called out. “Going to sleep the day away, are we?”
Rose sat up and saw a small, prettily plump woman peering at her through the cornstalks. Her hair was curled and yellow, piled high on her head, and she wore a bright pink tracksuit and an annoyed expression. Rose had just opened her mouth to say hello when the small woman turned and disappeared into the field.
Rose was a sensible girl and didn’t usually follow strangers, no matter how small or pink or oddly familiar they might be, but she stumbled to her feet and chased after. She hadn’t gone very far at all when the cornfield abruptly ended, and she found herself staring down at a narrow pavement of yellow bricks.
“I have a feeling,” Rose said, “that I’m not in London anymore.”
“Well-spotted,” the small woman said, dryly. She stood on the other side of the yellow road, sheltered and shaded by the gnarled branches of the forest behind her. “What’s London?”
“It’s a city,” Rose said. “It’s my home.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I didn’t.” She rubbed a hand over her face and wondered if she might still be asleep, and dreaming. “I was on the bus, on my way home from Henrik’s, and there was this light-” She stopped, frowning. “I don’t remember anything after that. Was there an accident?”
“That depends,” the small woman said. “Is a bus a large, funny box with wheels on the bottom like a carriage’s?”
“Yes,” Rose said, and though she thought it strange for a woman old enough to be her mother not to know what a bus was, she decided it would be very rude to mention it. “Yes, that’s exactly what a bus is like.”
“Well, then,” the small woman said. “I don’t know where London got to, but I’ve found your bus.” She pointed to the dark forest behind her, and Rose realised that not all the shadows were trees. One of them - a very large one, with wheels and shattered glass and two still feet sticking out from under the twisted metal - was a double-decker London bus.
The shoes on the dead feet gleamed jewel red, even in the shadows. Rose felt as if she were about to be sick.
“The Wicked Witch of the East,” the small woman said, stepping up beside Rose as she stared at the wreckage. She gestured at the witch’s feet. “This is what you call karma in action.”
“I don’t care how bad you are,” Rose said, “no one deserves to get a double-decker dropped on them.”
The small woman shrugged. “She did.” She bent down and pulled the shoe off the dead woman’s left foot. It came free with a soft pop, and she whistled. “The Wicked Witch’s Silver Shoes. The most precious magical objects in her possession.”
“Silver Shoes?” Rose said. “They’re red.”
The small woman whistled again. “The Wicked Witch’s Ruby Slippers. The most precious magical objects in her possession.” She turned to Rose. “Your bus killed her. They’re yours now.”
Rose stumbled back. “No way. I’m not touching them.”
The small woman smiled, and Rose felt something like a breeze against the arches of her feet. When she looked down, the pointed toes of Ruby Slippers shone back at her, bright against the dim blue of her jeans. “They’re not my style,” the small woman said, “and I’d rather they go to you than to the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“Blimey,” Rose said. “You sure do have a lot of witches around here.”
“Don’t you have witches in London?”
“Only in stories,” Rose said.
“That must be very difficult for them,” the small woman said. “I would hate to exist only in stories; books can be quite claustrophobic, you know, and when you’re inside one you rarely get enough fresh air.”
“I never thought about it like that,” Rose said. She looked again at the Ruby Slippers on her feet. It would, she thought, be horribly rude to refuse such a nice gift, even if such a nice gift had been stolen from the feet of a corpse. She decided to keep the shoes - at least until she could convince the small woman to make her trainers reappear. A thought occurred to her, and she looked up. “You’re a witch too, aren’t you?”
“I am the Good Witch of the North,” the small woman said. “I’m a bit out of my territory today, luckily for you. You’d probably still be snoozing away in that cornfield if I hadn’t passed by.”
Rose frowned. “So not all witches are wicked, then.”
“Of course not,” the Good Witch said. “Witches can be good or bad or something in between - we’re much like people that way. Only when we are wicked we tell you so right in our names, which regular people rarely do.”
“I see,” Rose said, though she didn’t, quite. “Is the Wicked Witch of the West very wicked?”
“Oh, very,” the Good Witch said. “And he’ll be even wickeder once he hears that you’ve murdered his sister and stolen her shoes.”
Rose’s eyes went wide. “What?”
The Good Witch shook her head, and her yellow curls bounced sadly. “Only just arrived, and already you’ve made an enemy of the most powerful witch in the land. You’d better find your way back home to London before he finds his way to you.”
“But how will I do that?” Rose said, her voice shaking a little. While this was certainly the sort of adventure she had longed for, she hadn’t expected it to make her feel so alone and so very far from home. “I don’t even know how I found my way here. I don’t even know where here is.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought I’d said.” The Good Witch smiled. “You’re in the Land of Oz.”
++
It was, Rose found, very difficult to explain things to a scarecrow.
“What I don’t understand,” he said, for easily the thirteen time since she’d told him the story, “is why you don’t just take the shoes off and hide them. The Wicked Witch can’t hunt you down and take them from you if they’re buried beneath a tree somewhere.” He paused, scratching the back of his neck with one hand. Some straw fell from his collar onto the road. “But then, I suppose that’s just handing your dilemma over to some poor, defenseless tree, isn’t it?”
Rose knelt down and scooped up the loose straw. “He’d want to kill me anyway,” she said. “I dropped a double-decker bus on his sister.”
“Oh,” the Scarecrow said, frowning. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Well,” Rose said, standing up and gently stuffing the straw back into his patched pinstripe suit, “I suppose that having straw where other people keep their brains must make it hard to think rationally about things.”
“If I had a brain,” the Scarecrow said, “I would be awfully rational. I would never do a thing unless my reason told me to.”
“That sounds very dull.”
“You only say that because you have reason and can ignore it all you like,” he said. “If you’d never had it, you’d think it the most wonderful thing in the world.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Rose said.
“How can I be? I haven’t got a brain.” He sagged to the grass by the side of the road, his head in his hands. “You may as well nail me to my post again. Without a brain, I’m no good to anyone.” A crow dipped down from the sky and landed on his shoulder. He turned and glared at it with his painted eyes. “You’re not helping.”
Rose sat beside him, and the crow flew away. She reached over and took the Scarecrow’s long-fingered hand in hers. “You know,” she said, “if the Wizard can send me back to London, I don’t see why he couldn’t give you a brain.”
“Do you think so?” the Scarecrow said. “I’m rather sceptical of magic, myself.”
“You’re a talking scarecrow,” Rose said.
“Yes,” the Scarecrow said, “but what does that have to do with it?”
Like many young people, Rose Tyler suffered from many weaknesses of character; indecision was not one of them. She stood and put her hands on her hips. “Well? Do you want to come with me or not?”
The Scarecrow straightened his tie. “I’d better had. Even if the Wizard can’t give me a brain, you seem like the sort of person who needs looking after. I’ll keep you out of trouble.” He pushed himself to his feet, but he pushed too hard and his momentum carried him into a few fast forward rolls; Rose only just managed to catch him before he spun away into the forest.
“Of course,” Rose said, holding him steady and upright as he patted down his straw. “You’ll keep me out of trouble.”
“Think about it,” he said. “I’ll be excellent company. I don’t eat and I don’t get tired. I can’t die, and if I’m injured all I need is a bit of fresh stuffing and I’m good as new. There’s really only one thing in the world that can harm me at all.”
“Hubris?”
“No,” he said. “A lighted match.”
++
“I have decided,” the Scarecrow said after a few hours spent walking along the yellow brick road, “that I quite enjoy travelling.”
“That,” Rose said, “is because your feet are made of straw.” They’d left the cornfields long behind; now the forest rose up tall and dark on either side of the road, and the sky above was an ever-narrowing strip of blue. She hobbled into the shade and sat on a tree stump. “I need to rest. These shoes are killing me.”
The Scarecrow knelt down and peered at the Ruby Slippers. “Why do you think they’re so important? They just look like regular shoes to me.” He tapped a finger against her heel. “In fact, I’m not even sure they’re made of real rubies.”
“Real rubies or not,” Rose said, “they must be pretty powerful if the Wicked Witch wants them so badly.”
He looked up into her face, studying her intently. “Are you frightened of him?”
Rose thought about it carefully. “It’s hard to tell,” she said. “I’m feeling such a lot of things. I’m very sorry that my bus landed on his sister - very sorry that my bus landed on anybody, actually, though I wasn’t the one driving and can hardly be held responsible for any accidents - and I’m worried that I might never see my mum or my boyfriend or my home ever again. And-” She stopped.
“And?” the Scarecrow prompted.
She grinned. “And I’m so excited to finally be on a proper adventure that I think my heart might burst.”
He laughed. “I know! I feel just the same.”
“We must be mad.”
“You have to have a mind before you can lose it,” the Scarecrow said cheerfully. He winked at her. “You might be mad, Rose Tyler, but I’m as sane as I can be.”
She stood, and her smile turned to a wince as the sharp pointed toes of the Ruby Slippers pinched her feet. “Little wonder the Wicked Witch of the East was so wicked,” she said. “I would be wicked too if I always wore shoes that pinched.”
“I doubt you could ever be that wicked,” the Scarecrow said. “You are much too reasonable.”
Rose didn’t quite see the logic in that, but she decided not to say so - the Scarecrow was so very sensitive about his intelligence. “I wonder how much farther we have to go until we reach the Emerald City,” she said, changing the subject.
“It must be quite some ways,” the Scarecrow said. “Nothing bad or frightening has happened yet, and the forest, while dark, is not in the least gloomy or atmospheric.”
“Oh dear,” Rose said. “I hope you’re wrong.” She looked up, and saw that a nearby tree stretched very high above the others. “Perhaps if I climb high enough I’ll be able to see how far we still have to go. An emerald city should be very easy to spot.”
“That,” the Scarecrow said, “sounds like an absolutely awful idea.”
“My very favourite kind,” Rose said, and began to climb.
Now, Rose Tyler had lived all her life in a very large city, and in very large cities there are very many buildings and not, as a general rule, very many trees. And so, though she was nearly twenty years old and prone to all sorts of reckless behaviours, Rose had never before in her life climbed a tree.
Still, she was doing a rather good job of it for an amateur until the toe of her left slipper got stuck in the narrow space between two branches, and no matter how hard she tugged she could not pull it free.
She was very high up when it happened, and when she looked down (which, as we all know, she should not have done) all she could see of the Scarecrow was a small spot of brown pacing anxious circles around the trunk of the tree.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted, the words faint and thin from traveling such a great height. “Why’ve you stopped?”
“My shoe’s stuck,” she shouted back. “I can’t move.”
“Leave it and climb down before you fall!”
The Good Witch had told Rose quite particularly that she must never, under any circumstances, take off the Witch’s Ruby Slippers. She had said it in a very dire voice and with a very dire expression, so Rose was inclined to take the warning rather seriously. She looked down at the shoe where it was wedged between the branches and thought long and hard about her options. Then she reached down, wrapped the fingers of one hand around her foot, and pulled as hard as she could.
The shoe came free from the branches with a soft pop, and for a breathless moment she nearly lost her one-handed grip on the trunk. Then her other arm looped around a nearby branch, and she was steady again.
“Well,” she said, “that’s the worst over with,” and then the branch beneath her feet snapped neatly in two. She fell.
Falling from a very great height is frightening for a number of reasons, the most obvious being the rather abrupt bit at the end. Rose had not reached that bit yet and would not for some time, as she had fallen from a very great height indeed and thus was able to spend her final moments contemplating the cosmic unfairness of dying for the sake of a pair of rather ugly, uncomfortable shoes - which were probably not made from real rubies, anyway.
Maybe the Scarecrow is cleverer than he looks, she thought, and then she landed.
++
“Very convenient, wasn’t it,” the Scarecrow said, “that you happened to rust with your arms outstretched like that.”
The Tin Woodman smiled, his handsome, square-jawed metal face perfectly charming despite the much rusted hinges of his jaw and mouth. “Nothing convenient about it,” he said, his joints still squeaking slightly. “I’ve always been very good with damsels in distress.”
Rose oiled the Tin Woodman’s jaw, and his smile grew even wider and even more charming. “Thank you very much for saving my life,” she said. She knew it had only been luck that she had fallen into his rusted arms instead of falling to her death, but she was grateful to him all the same. “If this were a proper adventure, which I think it must be, I would owe you a great debt of honour.”
“You needn’t owe me a thing,” the Tin Woodman said, taking her hand and pressing a cool, gentlemanly kiss to her knuckles. “It was my pleasure.”
“Your life wouldn’t have needed saving,” the Scarecrow said, his straw-stuffed arms folded over his straw-stuffed chest, “if you’d only listened to me in the first place.”
This was true, of course, but Rose did not like to admit it. She gave her saviour a charming smile of her own. “So,” she said, “how’d a tin man like you end up a rusted stiff in a place like this?”
The Scarecrow rolled his eyes.
“It’s a very sad story,” the Tin Woodman said, “but I will gladly tell it. It’s been two years since I spoke at all, and no doubt I could use the practice.”
Rose took up the oil can again and oiled the Tin Woodman’s knees until he could bend them enough to sit on a nearby tree stump. Rose sat on the grass at his feet, and the Scarecrow stood behind her, glowering.
“When I was young,” the Tin Woodman began, “I was a soldier. I was not made of tin then, but of flesh and blood and bone like you. I was the captain of a small band of fighters, and we led the resistance against the Wicked Witch of the West when he first conquered the Winkie Country and enslaved its people. It was a bitter war, and many of my comrades died.”
“That must have been terrible,” Rose said. Her father had died when she was very small, and though she had never known him she missed him still. She could not imagine how she would feel if she were to lose so many people who meant so much to her. The Scarecrow reached down and gently squeezed her shoulder.
“It was terrible,” the Tin Woodman said, and his hinges squeaked as his tin fingers tightened their grip on his axe. “We fought hard, but the Witch was too powerful. I met him in battle many times, and each time he dealt me a grievous injury. First he took my legs, and I was sure I would never fight again. But a member of my band was a talented physician, and she built me a new pair of legs from tin. In the next battle he severed my arms, and she replaced those as well. Then he cut off my head - which was most alarming, as I’m sure you can imagine - but she simply made me another.”
“Did she give you a brain?” the Scarecrow asked.
“She did not,” the Tin Woodman said, “for she knew how little I used the one I’d had and did not wish to weigh me down with unnecessary parts.”
“Unnecessary parts!” the Scarecrow exclaimed, but Rose elbowed him in his straw-stuffed leg and he did not continue.
“What happened next,” the Tin Woodman said, “was much worse, and it was the end of me. In the last days of the war the Wicked Witch of the West sliced my chest in two, and though my friend and physician built me a wonderful new chest of tin, she forgot one thing.” He knocked his fist against his metal chest, and Rose and the Scarecrow leaned close to hear the hollow echo that rumbled in reply.
“No heart?” they said.
The Tin Woodman shook his head sadly. “No heart. The Wicked Witch executed my friend shortly after, and without a heart I could not even mourn her as she deserved. One cannot love one’s friends without a heart, no matter how dear they might be, and though I fought with them until the end, I was made of tin and could not die with them. When the war was over and the Wicked Witch had won I came back east and became a woodcutter. It is lonely work, and it suits me well.”
“Until it rains and there’s no one to oil your hinges,” the Scarecrow said.
“Rusted or well-oiled,” the Tin Woodman said, “it makes little difference to me so long as I have no heart with which to mourn my friends.”
Rose and the Scarecrow exchanged a look. “We’re going the Emerald City to see the Wizard,” Rose said. “The Scarecrow is going to ask for a brain, and I’m going to ask to be sent home to London. If you were to come with us, you could ask the Wizard for a heart.”
The Tin Woodman thought deeply for a moment. “I have never heard of this Wizard. What do you know about him?”
“Only that he is very great and very powerful,” Rose said.
“Which does not mean that he is also very good,” the Scarecrow said, “or that he will be able to do any of the things we ask.”
“If there is even a chance he could give me a heart, that is a risk I must take.” The Tin Woodman stood and swung his axe onto his shoulder. “Shall we go?”
“There’s one other thing,” Rose said, twisting her fingers nervously in her lap. “You see, my bus landed on the Wicked Witch of the West’s sister and killed her, and now he very probably wants to kill me in return.”
The Tin Woodman reached down and helped her to her feet. “All the more reason for me to come along,” he said. “I do not like to hurt any living thing if I can help it, but I have my axe and am well-prepared to defend you against whatever trickery the Witch might send.”
“Is that your answer to every problem?” the Scarecrow said, eyeing the axe warily. “To chop at it until it goes away?”
“I find it remarkably effective,” the Tin Woodman said with a bright, mocking smile. “What do you do in a crisis - stand there and mould?”
“Figures,” Rose sniffed. “Even when you make a man out of an old suit or some used silverware, he’s still all ego.” Then she reached out and took the Scarecrow’s hand in her right and the Tin Woodman’s hand in her left and led them through the trees back to the yellow brick road.
++
“Now this,” the Scarecrow said as they walked through the gloomy, atmospheric forest, “is more like it.”
The road had led them deep into the wildest, darkest, most frightening part of the wood, and though Rose was very brave for such a small girl in such a large forest, the strange shrieks and growls they heard in the distance made her rather uneasy. As they walked she stared into the darkness beyond the nearest trees. “I wonder what sort of creatures live here.”
The Scarecrow shrugged. “Pretty horrible ones, I should think.”
“If you could think,” the Tin Woodman said, “which you can’t.”
The Scarecrow glared at him. “I don’t know why you’re so determined to insult me. I’d ask if I’d done something to hurt your feelings, but I know you haven’t got any.”
“I’ve decided,” Rose said, “that when we finally reach the Emerald City I’m going to ask the Wizard for a pair of magic ear plugs so I never have to listen to you two idiots bicker ever again.”
Just then there was a terrible roar from the bushes, and they jumped in alarm. The Tin Woodman raised his axe and braced himself for an attack, and Rose could hear the hinges of his knees shaking. The Scarecrow stepped in front of her, but she pushed him to the side so she could see. The bushes shook violently, and there was another awful roar.
“Hello!” the Scarecrow called out, and gave the bushes a friendly wave. “I’m the Scarecrow, and this is Rose, the Tin Woodman, and the Tin Woodman’s very sharp axe.”
“Oh, I see,” the Tin Woodman said out of the corner of his mouth. “Now you like the axe.”
The Scarecrow scowled at him. “Can we please save the accusations of hypocrisy for a time when we aren’t all in terrible danger?”
The creature in the bushes roared again, and Rose saw a flicker of a tail in the greenery; it was yellow and tufted on the end like a lion’s, and not very large at all - at least, not nearly as large as its owner’s roar. “Keep arguing,” she whispered to the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, and then she slowly backed away from the bushes.
“Yes!” the Scarecrow said, very loudly. “This is all your fault, you clanking overgrown tea kettle. I despise you and your tea kettle ways.”
“I’d rather be a tea kettle than a walking sack of old straw,” the Tin Woodman said, watching her anxiously as she circled around the bushes, hiding behind trees and stepping softly so as to catch the beast unawares. “The farmer who painted your face must have been blind in one eye with a squint in the other.”
“How dare you!” the Scarecrow cried, genuinely offended. “I’ll have you know I am an artistic statement.”
The beast was a Lion, and he was curled in a tight ball behind the bushes, his tail clutched in his paws. He was a handsome cat with a large, well-groomed mane and a sweet face, and he looked absolutely terrified.
Rose stepped out from behind her tree, her hands on her hips. “It was very rude of you to frighten us so badly,” she said. “We aren’t going to hurt you if you don’t hurt us.”
The Lion yelped and staggered backwards through the bushes and onto the road. The Scarecrow and Tin Woodman were about to attack him when Rose ran into the midst of the fray. “Stop!” she shouted. “Can’t you see that he’s ready to topple over from fear?”
“Me? Afraid?” the Lion said, baring his great, sharp teeth in a grim smile. “Please. Don’t make me laugh.” Then his back legs gave out and he sat down hard on the road. “Oh. Bugger.”
“If he’s so afraid,” the Tin Woodman said, axe still raised, “why did he roar at us?”
The Lion hung his large head. “Works on everyone else, doesn’t it? Every beast in the forest is so frightened by my roar that they refuse to come within ten feet of me - which is a good thing, because if they ever did I’d probably piss myself with terror.” He gave a deep, pained sigh. “I have no courage, you see.”
“That must be very difficult for a lion,” Rose said. “Everyone must expect you to be quite fierce.”
“I can be awfully fierce!” the Lion objected. “Just not when there’s anything frightening about.”
“Are we frightening, then?” the Scarecrow asked.
“Of course you are,” the Lion said. “Neither of you are proper flesh and blood, but you walk and talk like flesh and blood does. I’ve lived in this forest all my life, and I’ve never seen anything like you before.” He shuddered. “You’re just - things. How was I supposed to react?”
“And you threatened him with the Tin Woodman’s axe,” Rose added.
“And that,” the Lion agreed. “Even the bravest of lions would be frightened by an axe, and I am not the bravest of lions.”
“We’re going to the Emerald City to see the Wizard,” Rose said. “Maybe you could ask him for some courage.”
The Lion’s eyes went large. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never left the forest before.”
“What’s the matter?” the Tin Woodman asked, leaning in and nudging the Lion with one tin elbow. “Are you chicken?”
“Don’t be foolish, Tin Man,” the Scarecrow said. “I don’t have a brain and even I know he isn’t a chicken.” He grinned. “He’s just yellow.”
The Lion growled at them, a deep rumble in the back of his throat that made them both stumble backwards. “Right,” he said. “I’m going with you. And if this Wizard or whatever he is won’t give me my courage, I’ll chew on his head until he does.” Then he turned, his yellow tail swishing in the air, and began walking.
++
part two
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, the Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, others.
Rating: All Ages.
Warnings: None.
Betas: The lovely mylittlepwny, who inspired this little act of insanity, and the ever-fabulous eponymous_rose.
Notes: A Doctor Who/Wizard of Oz fusion. Partly in the style of Mr. Baum, partly inspired by the 1939 film, and partly just plain odd. A WIP, with more to come soon. No, seriously.
++
Rose Tyler woke up in a cornfield.
The sky overhead was burnished blue, and the cornstalks rustled in the breeze, glowing gold in the sunlight. She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again. Nothing changed.
“Oi, Miss Lazy Bones!” a familiar, female voice called out. “Going to sleep the day away, are we?”
Rose sat up and saw a small, prettily plump woman peering at her through the cornstalks. Her hair was curled and yellow, piled high on her head, and she wore a bright pink tracksuit and an annoyed expression. Rose had just opened her mouth to say hello when the small woman turned and disappeared into the field.
Rose was a sensible girl and didn’t usually follow strangers, no matter how small or pink or oddly familiar they might be, but she stumbled to her feet and chased after. She hadn’t gone very far at all when the cornfield abruptly ended, and she found herself staring down at a narrow pavement of yellow bricks.
“I have a feeling,” Rose said, “that I’m not in London anymore.”
“Well-spotted,” the small woman said, dryly. She stood on the other side of the yellow road, sheltered and shaded by the gnarled branches of the forest behind her. “What’s London?”
“It’s a city,” Rose said. “It’s my home.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I didn’t.” She rubbed a hand over her face and wondered if she might still be asleep, and dreaming. “I was on the bus, on my way home from Henrik’s, and there was this light-” She stopped, frowning. “I don’t remember anything after that. Was there an accident?”
“That depends,” the small woman said. “Is a bus a large, funny box with wheels on the bottom like a carriage’s?”
“Yes,” Rose said, and though she thought it strange for a woman old enough to be her mother not to know what a bus was, she decided it would be very rude to mention it. “Yes, that’s exactly what a bus is like.”
“Well, then,” the small woman said. “I don’t know where London got to, but I’ve found your bus.” She pointed to the dark forest behind her, and Rose realised that not all the shadows were trees. One of them - a very large one, with wheels and shattered glass and two still feet sticking out from under the twisted metal - was a double-decker London bus.
The shoes on the dead feet gleamed jewel red, even in the shadows. Rose felt as if she were about to be sick.
“The Wicked Witch of the East,” the small woman said, stepping up beside Rose as she stared at the wreckage. She gestured at the witch’s feet. “This is what you call karma in action.”
“I don’t care how bad you are,” Rose said, “no one deserves to get a double-decker dropped on them.”
The small woman shrugged. “She did.” She bent down and pulled the shoe off the dead woman’s left foot. It came free with a soft pop, and she whistled. “The Wicked Witch’s Silver Shoes. The most precious magical objects in her possession.”
“Silver Shoes?” Rose said. “They’re red.”
The small woman whistled again. “The Wicked Witch’s Ruby Slippers. The most precious magical objects in her possession.” She turned to Rose. “Your bus killed her. They’re yours now.”
Rose stumbled back. “No way. I’m not touching them.”
The small woman smiled, and Rose felt something like a breeze against the arches of her feet. When she looked down, the pointed toes of Ruby Slippers shone back at her, bright against the dim blue of her jeans. “They’re not my style,” the small woman said, “and I’d rather they go to you than to the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“Blimey,” Rose said. “You sure do have a lot of witches around here.”
“Don’t you have witches in London?”
“Only in stories,” Rose said.
“That must be very difficult for them,” the small woman said. “I would hate to exist only in stories; books can be quite claustrophobic, you know, and when you’re inside one you rarely get enough fresh air.”
“I never thought about it like that,” Rose said. She looked again at the Ruby Slippers on her feet. It would, she thought, be horribly rude to refuse such a nice gift, even if such a nice gift had been stolen from the feet of a corpse. She decided to keep the shoes - at least until she could convince the small woman to make her trainers reappear. A thought occurred to her, and she looked up. “You’re a witch too, aren’t you?”
“I am the Good Witch of the North,” the small woman said. “I’m a bit out of my territory today, luckily for you. You’d probably still be snoozing away in that cornfield if I hadn’t passed by.”
Rose frowned. “So not all witches are wicked, then.”
“Of course not,” the Good Witch said. “Witches can be good or bad or something in between - we’re much like people that way. Only when we are wicked we tell you so right in our names, which regular people rarely do.”
“I see,” Rose said, though she didn’t, quite. “Is the Wicked Witch of the West very wicked?”
“Oh, very,” the Good Witch said. “And he’ll be even wickeder once he hears that you’ve murdered his sister and stolen her shoes.”
Rose’s eyes went wide. “What?”
The Good Witch shook her head, and her yellow curls bounced sadly. “Only just arrived, and already you’ve made an enemy of the most powerful witch in the land. You’d better find your way back home to London before he finds his way to you.”
“But how will I do that?” Rose said, her voice shaking a little. While this was certainly the sort of adventure she had longed for, she hadn’t expected it to make her feel so alone and so very far from home. “I don’t even know how I found my way here. I don’t even know where here is.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought I’d said.” The Good Witch smiled. “You’re in the Land of Oz.”
++
It was, Rose found, very difficult to explain things to a scarecrow.
“What I don’t understand,” he said, for easily the thirteen time since she’d told him the story, “is why you don’t just take the shoes off and hide them. The Wicked Witch can’t hunt you down and take them from you if they’re buried beneath a tree somewhere.” He paused, scratching the back of his neck with one hand. Some straw fell from his collar onto the road. “But then, I suppose that’s just handing your dilemma over to some poor, defenseless tree, isn’t it?”
Rose knelt down and scooped up the loose straw. “He’d want to kill me anyway,” she said. “I dropped a double-decker bus on his sister.”
“Oh,” the Scarecrow said, frowning. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Well,” Rose said, standing up and gently stuffing the straw back into his patched pinstripe suit, “I suppose that having straw where other people keep their brains must make it hard to think rationally about things.”
“If I had a brain,” the Scarecrow said, “I would be awfully rational. I would never do a thing unless my reason told me to.”
“That sounds very dull.”
“You only say that because you have reason and can ignore it all you like,” he said. “If you’d never had it, you’d think it the most wonderful thing in the world.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Rose said.
“How can I be? I haven’t got a brain.” He sagged to the grass by the side of the road, his head in his hands. “You may as well nail me to my post again. Without a brain, I’m no good to anyone.” A crow dipped down from the sky and landed on his shoulder. He turned and glared at it with his painted eyes. “You’re not helping.”
Rose sat beside him, and the crow flew away. She reached over and took the Scarecrow’s long-fingered hand in hers. “You know,” she said, “if the Wizard can send me back to London, I don’t see why he couldn’t give you a brain.”
“Do you think so?” the Scarecrow said. “I’m rather sceptical of magic, myself.”
“You’re a talking scarecrow,” Rose said.
“Yes,” the Scarecrow said, “but what does that have to do with it?”
Like many young people, Rose Tyler suffered from many weaknesses of character; indecision was not one of them. She stood and put her hands on her hips. “Well? Do you want to come with me or not?”
The Scarecrow straightened his tie. “I’d better had. Even if the Wizard can’t give me a brain, you seem like the sort of person who needs looking after. I’ll keep you out of trouble.” He pushed himself to his feet, but he pushed too hard and his momentum carried him into a few fast forward rolls; Rose only just managed to catch him before he spun away into the forest.
“Of course,” Rose said, holding him steady and upright as he patted down his straw. “You’ll keep me out of trouble.”
“Think about it,” he said. “I’ll be excellent company. I don’t eat and I don’t get tired. I can’t die, and if I’m injured all I need is a bit of fresh stuffing and I’m good as new. There’s really only one thing in the world that can harm me at all.”
“Hubris?”
“No,” he said. “A lighted match.”
++
“I have decided,” the Scarecrow said after a few hours spent walking along the yellow brick road, “that I quite enjoy travelling.”
“That,” Rose said, “is because your feet are made of straw.” They’d left the cornfields long behind; now the forest rose up tall and dark on either side of the road, and the sky above was an ever-narrowing strip of blue. She hobbled into the shade and sat on a tree stump. “I need to rest. These shoes are killing me.”
The Scarecrow knelt down and peered at the Ruby Slippers. “Why do you think they’re so important? They just look like regular shoes to me.” He tapped a finger against her heel. “In fact, I’m not even sure they’re made of real rubies.”
“Real rubies or not,” Rose said, “they must be pretty powerful if the Wicked Witch wants them so badly.”
He looked up into her face, studying her intently. “Are you frightened of him?”
Rose thought about it carefully. “It’s hard to tell,” she said. “I’m feeling such a lot of things. I’m very sorry that my bus landed on his sister - very sorry that my bus landed on anybody, actually, though I wasn’t the one driving and can hardly be held responsible for any accidents - and I’m worried that I might never see my mum or my boyfriend or my home ever again. And-” She stopped.
“And?” the Scarecrow prompted.
She grinned. “And I’m so excited to finally be on a proper adventure that I think my heart might burst.”
He laughed. “I know! I feel just the same.”
“We must be mad.”
“You have to have a mind before you can lose it,” the Scarecrow said cheerfully. He winked at her. “You might be mad, Rose Tyler, but I’m as sane as I can be.”
She stood, and her smile turned to a wince as the sharp pointed toes of the Ruby Slippers pinched her feet. “Little wonder the Wicked Witch of the East was so wicked,” she said. “I would be wicked too if I always wore shoes that pinched.”
“I doubt you could ever be that wicked,” the Scarecrow said. “You are much too reasonable.”
Rose didn’t quite see the logic in that, but she decided not to say so - the Scarecrow was so very sensitive about his intelligence. “I wonder how much farther we have to go until we reach the Emerald City,” she said, changing the subject.
“It must be quite some ways,” the Scarecrow said. “Nothing bad or frightening has happened yet, and the forest, while dark, is not in the least gloomy or atmospheric.”
“Oh dear,” Rose said. “I hope you’re wrong.” She looked up, and saw that a nearby tree stretched very high above the others. “Perhaps if I climb high enough I’ll be able to see how far we still have to go. An emerald city should be very easy to spot.”
“That,” the Scarecrow said, “sounds like an absolutely awful idea.”
“My very favourite kind,” Rose said, and began to climb.
Now, Rose Tyler had lived all her life in a very large city, and in very large cities there are very many buildings and not, as a general rule, very many trees. And so, though she was nearly twenty years old and prone to all sorts of reckless behaviours, Rose had never before in her life climbed a tree.
Still, she was doing a rather good job of it for an amateur until the toe of her left slipper got stuck in the narrow space between two branches, and no matter how hard she tugged she could not pull it free.
She was very high up when it happened, and when she looked down (which, as we all know, she should not have done) all she could see of the Scarecrow was a small spot of brown pacing anxious circles around the trunk of the tree.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted, the words faint and thin from traveling such a great height. “Why’ve you stopped?”
“My shoe’s stuck,” she shouted back. “I can’t move.”
“Leave it and climb down before you fall!”
The Good Witch had told Rose quite particularly that she must never, under any circumstances, take off the Witch’s Ruby Slippers. She had said it in a very dire voice and with a very dire expression, so Rose was inclined to take the warning rather seriously. She looked down at the shoe where it was wedged between the branches and thought long and hard about her options. Then she reached down, wrapped the fingers of one hand around her foot, and pulled as hard as she could.
The shoe came free from the branches with a soft pop, and for a breathless moment she nearly lost her one-handed grip on the trunk. Then her other arm looped around a nearby branch, and she was steady again.
“Well,” she said, “that’s the worst over with,” and then the branch beneath her feet snapped neatly in two. She fell.
Falling from a very great height is frightening for a number of reasons, the most obvious being the rather abrupt bit at the end. Rose had not reached that bit yet and would not for some time, as she had fallen from a very great height indeed and thus was able to spend her final moments contemplating the cosmic unfairness of dying for the sake of a pair of rather ugly, uncomfortable shoes - which were probably not made from real rubies, anyway.
Maybe the Scarecrow is cleverer than he looks, she thought, and then she landed.
++
“Very convenient, wasn’t it,” the Scarecrow said, “that you happened to rust with your arms outstretched like that.”
The Tin Woodman smiled, his handsome, square-jawed metal face perfectly charming despite the much rusted hinges of his jaw and mouth. “Nothing convenient about it,” he said, his joints still squeaking slightly. “I’ve always been very good with damsels in distress.”
Rose oiled the Tin Woodman’s jaw, and his smile grew even wider and even more charming. “Thank you very much for saving my life,” she said. She knew it had only been luck that she had fallen into his rusted arms instead of falling to her death, but she was grateful to him all the same. “If this were a proper adventure, which I think it must be, I would owe you a great debt of honour.”
“You needn’t owe me a thing,” the Tin Woodman said, taking her hand and pressing a cool, gentlemanly kiss to her knuckles. “It was my pleasure.”
“Your life wouldn’t have needed saving,” the Scarecrow said, his straw-stuffed arms folded over his straw-stuffed chest, “if you’d only listened to me in the first place.”
This was true, of course, but Rose did not like to admit it. She gave her saviour a charming smile of her own. “So,” she said, “how’d a tin man like you end up a rusted stiff in a place like this?”
The Scarecrow rolled his eyes.
“It’s a very sad story,” the Tin Woodman said, “but I will gladly tell it. It’s been two years since I spoke at all, and no doubt I could use the practice.”
Rose took up the oil can again and oiled the Tin Woodman’s knees until he could bend them enough to sit on a nearby tree stump. Rose sat on the grass at his feet, and the Scarecrow stood behind her, glowering.
“When I was young,” the Tin Woodman began, “I was a soldier. I was not made of tin then, but of flesh and blood and bone like you. I was the captain of a small band of fighters, and we led the resistance against the Wicked Witch of the West when he first conquered the Winkie Country and enslaved its people. It was a bitter war, and many of my comrades died.”
“That must have been terrible,” Rose said. Her father had died when she was very small, and though she had never known him she missed him still. She could not imagine how she would feel if she were to lose so many people who meant so much to her. The Scarecrow reached down and gently squeezed her shoulder.
“It was terrible,” the Tin Woodman said, and his hinges squeaked as his tin fingers tightened their grip on his axe. “We fought hard, but the Witch was too powerful. I met him in battle many times, and each time he dealt me a grievous injury. First he took my legs, and I was sure I would never fight again. But a member of my band was a talented physician, and she built me a new pair of legs from tin. In the next battle he severed my arms, and she replaced those as well. Then he cut off my head - which was most alarming, as I’m sure you can imagine - but she simply made me another.”
“Did she give you a brain?” the Scarecrow asked.
“She did not,” the Tin Woodman said, “for she knew how little I used the one I’d had and did not wish to weigh me down with unnecessary parts.”
“Unnecessary parts!” the Scarecrow exclaimed, but Rose elbowed him in his straw-stuffed leg and he did not continue.
“What happened next,” the Tin Woodman said, “was much worse, and it was the end of me. In the last days of the war the Wicked Witch of the West sliced my chest in two, and though my friend and physician built me a wonderful new chest of tin, she forgot one thing.” He knocked his fist against his metal chest, and Rose and the Scarecrow leaned close to hear the hollow echo that rumbled in reply.
“No heart?” they said.
The Tin Woodman shook his head sadly. “No heart. The Wicked Witch executed my friend shortly after, and without a heart I could not even mourn her as she deserved. One cannot love one’s friends without a heart, no matter how dear they might be, and though I fought with them until the end, I was made of tin and could not die with them. When the war was over and the Wicked Witch had won I came back east and became a woodcutter. It is lonely work, and it suits me well.”
“Until it rains and there’s no one to oil your hinges,” the Scarecrow said.
“Rusted or well-oiled,” the Tin Woodman said, “it makes little difference to me so long as I have no heart with which to mourn my friends.”
Rose and the Scarecrow exchanged a look. “We’re going the Emerald City to see the Wizard,” Rose said. “The Scarecrow is going to ask for a brain, and I’m going to ask to be sent home to London. If you were to come with us, you could ask the Wizard for a heart.”
The Tin Woodman thought deeply for a moment. “I have never heard of this Wizard. What do you know about him?”
“Only that he is very great and very powerful,” Rose said.
“Which does not mean that he is also very good,” the Scarecrow said, “or that he will be able to do any of the things we ask.”
“If there is even a chance he could give me a heart, that is a risk I must take.” The Tin Woodman stood and swung his axe onto his shoulder. “Shall we go?”
“There’s one other thing,” Rose said, twisting her fingers nervously in her lap. “You see, my bus landed on the Wicked Witch of the West’s sister and killed her, and now he very probably wants to kill me in return.”
The Tin Woodman reached down and helped her to her feet. “All the more reason for me to come along,” he said. “I do not like to hurt any living thing if I can help it, but I have my axe and am well-prepared to defend you against whatever trickery the Witch might send.”
“Is that your answer to every problem?” the Scarecrow said, eyeing the axe warily. “To chop at it until it goes away?”
“I find it remarkably effective,” the Tin Woodman said with a bright, mocking smile. “What do you do in a crisis - stand there and mould?”
“Figures,” Rose sniffed. “Even when you make a man out of an old suit or some used silverware, he’s still all ego.” Then she reached out and took the Scarecrow’s hand in her right and the Tin Woodman’s hand in her left and led them through the trees back to the yellow brick road.
++
“Now this,” the Scarecrow said as they walked through the gloomy, atmospheric forest, “is more like it.”
The road had led them deep into the wildest, darkest, most frightening part of the wood, and though Rose was very brave for such a small girl in such a large forest, the strange shrieks and growls they heard in the distance made her rather uneasy. As they walked she stared into the darkness beyond the nearest trees. “I wonder what sort of creatures live here.”
The Scarecrow shrugged. “Pretty horrible ones, I should think.”
“If you could think,” the Tin Woodman said, “which you can’t.”
The Scarecrow glared at him. “I don’t know why you’re so determined to insult me. I’d ask if I’d done something to hurt your feelings, but I know you haven’t got any.”
“I’ve decided,” Rose said, “that when we finally reach the Emerald City I’m going to ask the Wizard for a pair of magic ear plugs so I never have to listen to you two idiots bicker ever again.”
Just then there was a terrible roar from the bushes, and they jumped in alarm. The Tin Woodman raised his axe and braced himself for an attack, and Rose could hear the hinges of his knees shaking. The Scarecrow stepped in front of her, but she pushed him to the side so she could see. The bushes shook violently, and there was another awful roar.
“Hello!” the Scarecrow called out, and gave the bushes a friendly wave. “I’m the Scarecrow, and this is Rose, the Tin Woodman, and the Tin Woodman’s very sharp axe.”
“Oh, I see,” the Tin Woodman said out of the corner of his mouth. “Now you like the axe.”
The Scarecrow scowled at him. “Can we please save the accusations of hypocrisy for a time when we aren’t all in terrible danger?”
The creature in the bushes roared again, and Rose saw a flicker of a tail in the greenery; it was yellow and tufted on the end like a lion’s, and not very large at all - at least, not nearly as large as its owner’s roar. “Keep arguing,” she whispered to the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, and then she slowly backed away from the bushes.
“Yes!” the Scarecrow said, very loudly. “This is all your fault, you clanking overgrown tea kettle. I despise you and your tea kettle ways.”
“I’d rather be a tea kettle than a walking sack of old straw,” the Tin Woodman said, watching her anxiously as she circled around the bushes, hiding behind trees and stepping softly so as to catch the beast unawares. “The farmer who painted your face must have been blind in one eye with a squint in the other.”
“How dare you!” the Scarecrow cried, genuinely offended. “I’ll have you know I am an artistic statement.”
The beast was a Lion, and he was curled in a tight ball behind the bushes, his tail clutched in his paws. He was a handsome cat with a large, well-groomed mane and a sweet face, and he looked absolutely terrified.
Rose stepped out from behind her tree, her hands on her hips. “It was very rude of you to frighten us so badly,” she said. “We aren’t going to hurt you if you don’t hurt us.”
The Lion yelped and staggered backwards through the bushes and onto the road. The Scarecrow and Tin Woodman were about to attack him when Rose ran into the midst of the fray. “Stop!” she shouted. “Can’t you see that he’s ready to topple over from fear?”
“Me? Afraid?” the Lion said, baring his great, sharp teeth in a grim smile. “Please. Don’t make me laugh.” Then his back legs gave out and he sat down hard on the road. “Oh. Bugger.”
“If he’s so afraid,” the Tin Woodman said, axe still raised, “why did he roar at us?”
The Lion hung his large head. “Works on everyone else, doesn’t it? Every beast in the forest is so frightened by my roar that they refuse to come within ten feet of me - which is a good thing, because if they ever did I’d probably piss myself with terror.” He gave a deep, pained sigh. “I have no courage, you see.”
“That must be very difficult for a lion,” Rose said. “Everyone must expect you to be quite fierce.”
“I can be awfully fierce!” the Lion objected. “Just not when there’s anything frightening about.”
“Are we frightening, then?” the Scarecrow asked.
“Of course you are,” the Lion said. “Neither of you are proper flesh and blood, but you walk and talk like flesh and blood does. I’ve lived in this forest all my life, and I’ve never seen anything like you before.” He shuddered. “You’re just - things. How was I supposed to react?”
“And you threatened him with the Tin Woodman’s axe,” Rose added.
“And that,” the Lion agreed. “Even the bravest of lions would be frightened by an axe, and I am not the bravest of lions.”
“We’re going to the Emerald City to see the Wizard,” Rose said. “Maybe you could ask him for some courage.”
The Lion’s eyes went large. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never left the forest before.”
“What’s the matter?” the Tin Woodman asked, leaning in and nudging the Lion with one tin elbow. “Are you chicken?”
“Don’t be foolish, Tin Man,” the Scarecrow said. “I don’t have a brain and even I know he isn’t a chicken.” He grinned. “He’s just yellow.”
The Lion growled at them, a deep rumble in the back of his throat that made them both stumble backwards. “Right,” he said. “I’m going with you. And if this Wizard or whatever he is won’t give me my courage, I’ll chew on his head until he does.” Then he turned, his yellow tail swishing in the air, and began walking.
++
part two