R-05: Firelight, by daredelvil, PG-13
Title: Firelight
Rating: PG-13 - some nakedness, some gore
Subject: Musical-dominant hybrid - Revolutions canon
Author: DareDelvil
Word Count: ~3.5k
Summary: Post-musical. Elphaba tends to Glinda, and Fiyero tends to his newborn revolution.
Disclaimer: The Wizard of Oz and Wicked are the property of L.Frank Baum and Gregory Maguire respectively. This is their playground, I just chalked the lines for hopscotch. Elsie belongs to herself, and if you wish to use her in your fic please ask me first.
Author's Note: You don't wanna know what I've been through these last few months. But I'm back, and hopefully to stay. Thanks to all the readers, particularly to those who owned up on Deliverance: at the time of typing that's zutonite, fl0rida, incaseineedyou, kdx_night, lindie_upland and lfae. A thousand thanks to lfae for her recent goading - much needed, and much appreciated.
Without further ado, here, at long last, is Part The Fifth: Firelight. Enjoy. ^.^
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Start at Part The First || Back to Part The Fourth
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Firelight
Destruction draws a crowd. Overturned cart, overturned table, broken window, broken fence, broken heart - there are always witnesses. Often some of them experience if not sadistic pleasure, then a mild sense of schadenfreude. When the little knots of people began to spill out into the street and gawp at the blazing fragments of the Palace doors, however, they were mostly too shocked to be delighted by the green flames licking the edges of the dark wooden panels. One or two small children inevitably said things like "wow" and "cool" before being hissed into silence by disapproving parents.
And then someone said "look!" and pointed to the sky, and suddenly the burning wreckage wasn't quite so interesting.
Fiyero and his companions raced out into the mayhem just as the screams were beginning. Someone had realised that the hovering shape was a figure on a broomstick, and someone else had realised that it was green. Very few people had twigged that it was almost naked, and even those who had stopped caring when the black pointed hat sailed through the air - the Monkey had a good arm, Fiyero observed as Elsie returned to earth - and was easily caught by cruel green fingers.
"WITCH!"
Everyone was thinking it, though the shout belonged to the Tin Man. It was the Witch, of course. She dropped the hat on to her head and casually flicked the brim away from her eyes. Suddenly she looked a lot more Witch-like. Even from the ground, her mocking grin could be seen as an ivory gleam amidst all the green skin.
"WIIITCH!"
The green creature looked down at the screeching Tin Man with disdain. "Witch?" She laughed mirthlessly. "Hah! And which witch would that be? I assume you're talking to the one you haven't beaten out of her senses?"
The onlookers who hadn't fled began to exhibit signs of puzzlement. Standing in the empty Palace doorway, the Tin Man seethed. "How DARE you even - I did no such thing!"
"Oh, of course - my mistake. You have people to do that for you." In twos and threes, the spectators were beginning to spot the forlorn blonde figure in the Witch's arms. "Or maybe you're going to say they went behind your back on this one? Oh, wouldn't that be convenient. Well, in that case consider this a favour: I've suitably chastised them on your behalf, and as of this moment I'm removing the Lady Arduenna to a safer and more hospitable place of 'rest' - wasn't that the excuse for locking her up in the North Tower? That she needed 'time to recover'? Don't worry, she'll get it: somewhere far, far away from you."
By now there was a ripple of "she's got Glinda!" running through the crowd. The Witch's words were beginning to sink in, and no amount of the Tin Man screaming "LIES! ALL LIES!" could stem the flood of realisation.
"You can sing that old song all you like," the Witch called down to the Tin Man. "I've heard it a thousand times before, and it won't save you forever. Truth will out. It always does, in the end..."
As the Witch turned her broom to depart, as the Emerald Guard arrived too late and aimed useless pikes at her retreating back, some of the people in the street below had already noticed the way Glinda was clinging to her - like a lifeline, they said later. Like a lifeline.
Fiyero watched the broom soar away into the night with smug satisfaction.
"That's my girl," he said.
* * *
They landed at the edge of the woods. Dappled moonlight spilled over them, catching like raindrops in the Witch's hair as she carried Glinda into the house. It was no more than a cabin, really, but it was a roof and four walls and that was more than enough. The simple pallet felt like a feather bed after the cell in the North Tower. As Elphaba moved closer, wrapping them both in a soft woollen blanket, Glinda kissed her mouth clumsily with swollen lips. The Witch did not fight her. After a moment, though, she guided her gently away.
"Don't do that, my pet," she murmured softly. "Rest. Don't do that."
This was more than Glinda, in her delicate state, could bear. She gave a little sob and collapsed against the pillow.
"Well, it's no good crying," the Witch said from somewhere to her left. "Crying won't make you better. ...Oh, you silly thing." And then she was being gathered into a half-familiar embrace, and that only made her cry harder. "Hush. Hush now. If you cry you'll burn me, and you know how grumpy I am when I'm sore. Hush."
Glinda did her very best to hush, dabbing at her tears with a bandaged hand, and if any of them had escaped Elphaba was good enough not to complain. After a while, when the quiet sobs had been reduced to quieter sniffles, Elphaba shivered and left the bed. The familiar clacks and clunks of wood on wood told Glinda that she was laying the fire, as wordlessly as she had always done back at Shiz when Galinda - as she had been then - had complained of a chill. Opening her right eye a crack, she watched Elphaba snap her fingers and create a little green flame at the tip of her thumb. The Witch set the flame to a ball of kindling, which crackled into yellowish life, and dropped that among the wood in the fireplace. As the wood caught fire, the light in the cabin grew at once brighter and more gentle.
"Come down here," the Witch said, holding out her hands to Glinda. "Bring the blanket with you. Let's get us both warm."
It wasn't too much of a struggle to obey. Glinda burrowed into Elphaba's embrace at the first possible opportunity, leaving the Witch to rearrange the blanket around them. "...I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I sh-shouldn't have - "
"Don't you dare," the Witch said gently. "You're a sorry enough mess without being sorrier. I can't let you make yourself worse, my sweet. Don't you know I'd like nothing more than to let you kiss me all you wanted? But it'd be silly after what they've done to your poor face and your poor hands, wouldn't it?"
Glinda nodded weakly - and then slowly raised her head to look Elphaba in the eye. In the darkness of the North Tower she hadn't noticed it, but there were marks on her friend's face. Scars, even. A diagonal line of dark scar tissue ran across her left eye. Close to her temple on the same side, a smaller line ran down her forehead. Glinda glanced down at the bandaged hand on her shoulder, and the fingers were a mess of darker green. "What happened to your face?" she said in a whisper. "And your hand, too..." Did it still hurt? Should she have been as careful with Elphaba as her friend had been with her?
Belatedly, the Witch appeared to realise why Glinda was staring. "Oh, that. Well, the best laid plans of Mice and Witches... Do you remember that bucket I brought out, the last night in Kiamo Ko?" Glinda nodded. "It was full of rosewater. Dilute, but still bearable. It'd've made me itch, at the worst given me mild burns. That was what the girl was supposed to throw over me, you see, and with a trapdoor and a touch of pyrotechnics I could feign death and vanish. Fiyero's idea."
"Fiyero..." The mere mention of his name made Glinda's heart ache. "...before he..."
"Changed. He's still alive, in an altered state - you'll see later, he's coming back here." Glinda didn't have time to be shocked - she had to concentrate; the Witch was pressing on. "But anyway, as I said, best laid plans. There was a leak in the roof. The girl picked up the bucket I'd been using to catch the rainwater."
Glinda felt sick. "...sweet Oz."
"Mm, quite. Luckily I realised in time and covered my face, but the burns were still pretty severe. That's how my hand and my arm got burned. I vanished through the trapdoor as planned, but I was in so much pain that I eventually passed out. My face fell against my hand...and that's why that scar's the shape it is. See?" And, indeed, when she raised her marred left hand to her face, the two sets of scars fitted together exactly. "The line over my eye was my index finger, and that one's the top of my middle finger. Luckily Fiyero arrived to rescue me before my eyelid could take too much damage. I can even wink with it now."
Those last few words had been a little too bright. Even Elphaba, perhaps, was not completely indifferent to her appearance. "A-and Fiyero?"
Elphaba stared into the crackling flames. "After I left you in the cornfield, I did a spell to try and save him. It...almost worked. I turned him into something they couldn't kill."
"...What is he?" She wasn't sure she wanted the answer - the word "altered" had felt terrible.
"You'll see. I don't know if you'll quite believe your eyes at first, but you'll see."
"But you saved him..." Glinda tried to make herself believe that this was worth the unknown price.
The Witch's expression was unreadable. "...Mostly. He's not human any more, but in most of the essentials he's still Fiyero. And he's happy, you know. Happier than he's ever been, particularly since we decided to come back to Oz." She cracked a smile. "We couldn't be without you, you see. Even though we'd always said it was too dangerous to come back, we had to risk it for you."
Glinda nestled closer, warmed from the inside out. "...I always hoped you'd come back just for me."
"Just for you," the Witch confirmed, unwrapping the grimy bandages from her hands with an air of mild amusement. "Now that we're here, of course, we've a lot more to worry about. No rest for the wicked, eh?"
It was testament to Elphaba's soothing presence that Glinda managed a small chuckle. Her right index finger, just peeping out of the carefully wrapped bandage, traced a soft line down Elphaba's upper arm. The dragonfly brooch was still pinned to the back of her hand, holding the bandage together, and she watched it gleam in the firelight. Gradually she began to realise that Elphaba's skin was oddly slick. The scent that hung about her was familiar, but it wasn't entirely Elphie. There were less roses, more...coconuts? Yes, definitely coconuts. "...What's all this coconut oil for?" she ventured quietly, watching the broomstick drift across the room at the crook of one green finger.
Elphaba offered her a familiar grin, extracting a bottle of the aforementioned oil from the leather pouch on the broomhandle. "That's how I got through the window bars."
Glinda goggled at her as best she could with a swollen eye. "You covered yourself in coconut oil and climbed through the window?"
"I did."
As matter-of-fact as the statement had been, Elphaba seemed to be enjoying Glinda's reaction. Glinda obliged her by attempting an answering grin. "...Why wasn't I conscious for this?"
"Good thing you weren't," the Witch said with a short but genuine laugh. "It was far from dignified. Now...let's see what we can do for some of your little hurts, shall we?"
She rubbed her hands with the fresh coconut oil and wiped them on a clean cloth. Glinda had seen her friend wash her hands before, but to see her doing it again was another welcome scrap of reality. Trusting the Witch implicitly, she leaned against her shoulder and allowed herself to be tended to. The dragonfly, carefully unpinned and set on the floor beside them, winked at her in the flickering firelight.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but its gemstone eyes seemed to hold just a touch of compassion.
* * *
Back at the Green Dragon, the fire had begun to die down. The Scarecrow watched the old Quadling tend to it with quiet admiration - even with only a few twigs, he brightened the room considerably. He and his family would be staying here tonight; a few words to the Ram behind the bar had seen to that. Most of the other patrons would soon be making their way home in twos and threes. Best not to go alone, but a large group might attract unwelcome attention.
"You're goin' back to th' Witches, ain'cher?"
He turned toward the source of the voice. Elsie, as he had been firmly instructed to call her (because Miss Elspeth made her feel "like an ole gran'ma"), was sitting on the bar, readjusting her jade pendant. The enchantment hid her wings completely - an impressive piece, and one that had probably taken her months to craft. He nodded to her. "I am, as soon as I may."
"...I can't come wivya, can I?"
The Scarecrow wished he could allow it. Elsie was just the kind of fiercely dedicated servant Glinda and Elphaba would need. "I wish you could," he said, "but at the present time it would be an unacceptable risk. They must not be found until Glinda is ready to move."
The Monkey nodded sadly. "Tha's what I thought. I don't wanna see Miss Glinda 'armed 'cos 'a me. So I just want you to..." She extracted a crumpled scrap of paper from her sleeve. It was a note. "...give 'er this, an' tell 'er...tell 'er I'm sorry I 'ad to pinch it. I din't like to lay my thievin' 'ands on it, sir, truly I din't. Not when it were from 'er swee'art."
The Scarecrow recognised the handwriting at once, and easily fought off a smile that in the old days would have been irrepressible. Her sweetheart? If only. He doubted Elphaba could make things that simple for herself. "Of course. I'm sure she'll understand."
Elsie nodded once. "How're you gonna get t'them, though?" she asked. "Won't the Gale Force stop you? After a fuss like that they'll be all over the damn place."
Of course she still called them by the old name. One dictator's private army was pretty much like another, especially when the uniform had changed so little. "Why in Oz would they want to stop me?" the Scarecrow pointed out smugly. "I'm just the old wandering scarecrow who wouldn't be King - what harm would I do?"
The Monkey affected an expression that might, on a human, have been called a smirk. "Good thinkin'."
The Scarecrow winked at her. "Blame the good brains." He turned to the room at large. "If everyone understands their tasks, I shall be off. Avoid the Emerald Guard by any means necessary - after the disturbance they'll be twitchy, as Miss Elspeth says, and the last thing we need is to be picked up for scapegoats." The significance of the term was lost on most of the room. He remembered Doctor Dillamond, and felt a tiny twinge of sadness. "Good fortune go with us all, my friends."
There was a murmur of agreement, and the Scarecrow, satisfied, made his way to the door. He heard the Monkey following him, and turned to her with an expectant look. "I just thought," she said. "You reckon Miss Elphaba an' Miss Glinda'll be wantin' th' Grim...um, the big spellbook?"
"...The Grimmerie, yes, almost certainly so..." Oh, Glinda had picked a good one in Elsie. "I assumed it was already in the hands of the enemy."
A little Monkey hand was waved dismissively. "Nah - Miss Glinda don't take it wiv 'er, do she? It's blinkin' 'eavy, that thing. It's kept up at the 'ouse, under lock an' key. Only me an' 'er even know where it is."
"And do you have a key?"
"Not on me...but I know where ta find it."
The Scarecrow almost danced. Jackpot. "Meet me at the inn by the watermill. In the village nearest the house - you know it?"
"The Wheel?" He nodded, and she nodded back. "I know it. When?"
"Before sun-up." He stepped out into the street, holding the door for her and closing it behind them both. Without the orange-yellow glow of the firelit inn, the night seemed that much colder.
"Can you make the trip that quick?" the Monkey asked.
The Scarecrow grinned. "Can you?"
Elsie grinned back, making a slightly better job of it. "Is a Duck's arse watertight?"
The Scarecrow laughed. "Don't worry about me, Elsie. I have my ways. I'll be there."
"You better be, wi' me goin' to all this trouble," Elsie grumbled good-naturedly, making as if to leave and then pausing. "Oh, 'ey - what do I call you?"
A pause.
"...Fiyero."
With that he turned and began walking away, and even before the Monkey spoke he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. "...'Ave I 'eard that name summ'r before?"
The Scarecrow - Fiyero - did not turn as he answered. There was an invisible smile on his face. "Perhaps. Somewhere."
As he melted into the shadows, he heard the beat of leathery wings behind him.
* * *
The dragonfly cleaned up beautifully with a little of the coconut oil. Elphaba used it to fasten the fresh bandage she'd tied around Glinda's right hand - it wasn't necessary, Glinda knew, now that they were here and had a whole box of bandages at their disposal, but its presence was comforting. With such a fine decoration about her person, she felt a little less ragged. The clean shirt she wore, though it was too big for her and hardly her style, helped as well. Elphaba helped her back into the bed, then sat in front of the fire with some more of the coconut oil and set about washing. She didn't seem to care too much that Glinda could see her, though she did turn mostly away: the air about her was not so much shy as modest, almost as though she was turning her back for Glinda's sake rather than her own. Glinda watched, mostly out of curiosity, partly out of a desire to remind herself that Elphaba was still there. The Witch's left hand functioned very much as her right did, for all its ruined appearance. Already Glinda was beginning to see the scars as a part of her friend. It could, she reasoned, have been so much worse. Besides, there was something oddly dashing about a hero with a scar over one eye. It made the Witch look more like the survivor she was, like a veteran of her own personal war. One against the system. She'd cheated death, in a way. She'd probably cheated death a dozen times.
"You know, Elphie," she said softly, watching as Elphaba slipped into a patched grey nightdress, "to look at you, a person wouldn't know how gentle you can be."
"I know," said the Witch matter-of-factly, adjusting the garment. "That's the idea. Now hush, my sweet, or you'll ruin my reputation."
She settled herself next to Glinda in the small cot, arranging them both comfortably and tugging the blanket up around them. Glinda leaned to kiss her, but the Witch moved faster: her first two fingers met Glinda's lips, stopping her in her tracks. For one terrible moment Glinda thought she might be angry, but then she smiled crookedly and spoke.
"In the morning, pet," she said, her voice rough yet tender. "I'll still be here in the morning."
Those words, in their quiet certainty, warmed Glinda's heart. By the light of the dying fire, she fell asleep in Elphaba's arms.
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On to Part The Sixth
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Not such a horrid cliffie as the last few chapters, I hope you'll agree. My current target is to write 2000 words of something every day six days a week, and keep Saturday as "launch day" - look for something new this time next week, and if there isn't anything then message and pester me!
Until next time...this is Dare, signing off. ^w^
~ D
Rating: PG-13 - some nakedness, some gore
Subject: Musical-dominant hybrid - Revolutions canon
Author: DareDelvil
Word Count: ~3.5k
Summary: Post-musical. Elphaba tends to Glinda, and Fiyero tends to his newborn revolution.
Disclaimer: The Wizard of Oz and Wicked are the property of L.Frank Baum and Gregory Maguire respectively. This is their playground, I just chalked the lines for hopscotch. Elsie belongs to herself, and if you wish to use her in your fic please ask me first.
Author's Note: You don't wanna know what I've been through these last few months. But I'm back, and hopefully to stay. Thanks to all the readers, particularly to those who owned up on Deliverance: at the time of typing that's zutonite, fl0rida, incaseineedyou, kdx_night, lindie_upland and lfae. A thousand thanks to lfae for her recent goading - much needed, and much appreciated.
Without further ado, here, at long last, is Part The Fifth: Firelight. Enjoy. ^.^
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Start at Part The First || Back to Part The Fourth
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Firelight
Destruction draws a crowd. Overturned cart, overturned table, broken window, broken fence, broken heart - there are always witnesses. Often some of them experience if not sadistic pleasure, then a mild sense of schadenfreude. When the little knots of people began to spill out into the street and gawp at the blazing fragments of the Palace doors, however, they were mostly too shocked to be delighted by the green flames licking the edges of the dark wooden panels. One or two small children inevitably said things like "wow" and "cool" before being hissed into silence by disapproving parents.
And then someone said "look!" and pointed to the sky, and suddenly the burning wreckage wasn't quite so interesting.
Fiyero and his companions raced out into the mayhem just as the screams were beginning. Someone had realised that the hovering shape was a figure on a broomstick, and someone else had realised that it was green. Very few people had twigged that it was almost naked, and even those who had stopped caring when the black pointed hat sailed through the air - the Monkey had a good arm, Fiyero observed as Elsie returned to earth - and was easily caught by cruel green fingers.
"WITCH!"
Everyone was thinking it, though the shout belonged to the Tin Man. It was the Witch, of course. She dropped the hat on to her head and casually flicked the brim away from her eyes. Suddenly she looked a lot more Witch-like. Even from the ground, her mocking grin could be seen as an ivory gleam amidst all the green skin.
"WIIITCH!"
The green creature looked down at the screeching Tin Man with disdain. "Witch?" She laughed mirthlessly. "Hah! And which witch would that be? I assume you're talking to the one you haven't beaten out of her senses?"
The onlookers who hadn't fled began to exhibit signs of puzzlement. Standing in the empty Palace doorway, the Tin Man seethed. "How DARE you even - I did no such thing!"
"Oh, of course - my mistake. You have people to do that for you." In twos and threes, the spectators were beginning to spot the forlorn blonde figure in the Witch's arms. "Or maybe you're going to say they went behind your back on this one? Oh, wouldn't that be convenient. Well, in that case consider this a favour: I've suitably chastised them on your behalf, and as of this moment I'm removing the Lady Arduenna to a safer and more hospitable place of 'rest' - wasn't that the excuse for locking her up in the North Tower? That she needed 'time to recover'? Don't worry, she'll get it: somewhere far, far away from you."
By now there was a ripple of "she's got Glinda!" running through the crowd. The Witch's words were beginning to sink in, and no amount of the Tin Man screaming "LIES! ALL LIES!" could stem the flood of realisation.
"You can sing that old song all you like," the Witch called down to the Tin Man. "I've heard it a thousand times before, and it won't save you forever. Truth will out. It always does, in the end..."
As the Witch turned her broom to depart, as the Emerald Guard arrived too late and aimed useless pikes at her retreating back, some of the people in the street below had already noticed the way Glinda was clinging to her - like a lifeline, they said later. Like a lifeline.
Fiyero watched the broom soar away into the night with smug satisfaction.
"That's my girl," he said.
* * *
They landed at the edge of the woods. Dappled moonlight spilled over them, catching like raindrops in the Witch's hair as she carried Glinda into the house. It was no more than a cabin, really, but it was a roof and four walls and that was more than enough. The simple pallet felt like a feather bed after the cell in the North Tower. As Elphaba moved closer, wrapping them both in a soft woollen blanket, Glinda kissed her mouth clumsily with swollen lips. The Witch did not fight her. After a moment, though, she guided her gently away.
"Don't do that, my pet," she murmured softly. "Rest. Don't do that."
This was more than Glinda, in her delicate state, could bear. She gave a little sob and collapsed against the pillow.
"Well, it's no good crying," the Witch said from somewhere to her left. "Crying won't make you better. ...Oh, you silly thing." And then she was being gathered into a half-familiar embrace, and that only made her cry harder. "Hush. Hush now. If you cry you'll burn me, and you know how grumpy I am when I'm sore. Hush."
Glinda did her very best to hush, dabbing at her tears with a bandaged hand, and if any of them had escaped Elphaba was good enough not to complain. After a while, when the quiet sobs had been reduced to quieter sniffles, Elphaba shivered and left the bed. The familiar clacks and clunks of wood on wood told Glinda that she was laying the fire, as wordlessly as she had always done back at Shiz when Galinda - as she had been then - had complained of a chill. Opening her right eye a crack, she watched Elphaba snap her fingers and create a little green flame at the tip of her thumb. The Witch set the flame to a ball of kindling, which crackled into yellowish life, and dropped that among the wood in the fireplace. As the wood caught fire, the light in the cabin grew at once brighter and more gentle.
"Come down here," the Witch said, holding out her hands to Glinda. "Bring the blanket with you. Let's get us both warm."
It wasn't too much of a struggle to obey. Glinda burrowed into Elphaba's embrace at the first possible opportunity, leaving the Witch to rearrange the blanket around them. "...I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I sh-shouldn't have - "
"Don't you dare," the Witch said gently. "You're a sorry enough mess without being sorrier. I can't let you make yourself worse, my sweet. Don't you know I'd like nothing more than to let you kiss me all you wanted? But it'd be silly after what they've done to your poor face and your poor hands, wouldn't it?"
Glinda nodded weakly - and then slowly raised her head to look Elphaba in the eye. In the darkness of the North Tower she hadn't noticed it, but there were marks on her friend's face. Scars, even. A diagonal line of dark scar tissue ran across her left eye. Close to her temple on the same side, a smaller line ran down her forehead. Glinda glanced down at the bandaged hand on her shoulder, and the fingers were a mess of darker green. "What happened to your face?" she said in a whisper. "And your hand, too..." Did it still hurt? Should she have been as careful with Elphaba as her friend had been with her?
Belatedly, the Witch appeared to realise why Glinda was staring. "Oh, that. Well, the best laid plans of Mice and Witches... Do you remember that bucket I brought out, the last night in Kiamo Ko?" Glinda nodded. "It was full of rosewater. Dilute, but still bearable. It'd've made me itch, at the worst given me mild burns. That was what the girl was supposed to throw over me, you see, and with a trapdoor and a touch of pyrotechnics I could feign death and vanish. Fiyero's idea."
"Fiyero..." The mere mention of his name made Glinda's heart ache. "...before he..."
"Changed. He's still alive, in an altered state - you'll see later, he's coming back here." Glinda didn't have time to be shocked - she had to concentrate; the Witch was pressing on. "But anyway, as I said, best laid plans. There was a leak in the roof. The girl picked up the bucket I'd been using to catch the rainwater."
Glinda felt sick. "...sweet Oz."
"Mm, quite. Luckily I realised in time and covered my face, but the burns were still pretty severe. That's how my hand and my arm got burned. I vanished through the trapdoor as planned, but I was in so much pain that I eventually passed out. My face fell against my hand...and that's why that scar's the shape it is. See?" And, indeed, when she raised her marred left hand to her face, the two sets of scars fitted together exactly. "The line over my eye was my index finger, and that one's the top of my middle finger. Luckily Fiyero arrived to rescue me before my eyelid could take too much damage. I can even wink with it now."
Those last few words had been a little too bright. Even Elphaba, perhaps, was not completely indifferent to her appearance. "A-and Fiyero?"
Elphaba stared into the crackling flames. "After I left you in the cornfield, I did a spell to try and save him. It...almost worked. I turned him into something they couldn't kill."
"...What is he?" She wasn't sure she wanted the answer - the word "altered" had felt terrible.
"You'll see. I don't know if you'll quite believe your eyes at first, but you'll see."
"But you saved him..." Glinda tried to make herself believe that this was worth the unknown price.
The Witch's expression was unreadable. "...Mostly. He's not human any more, but in most of the essentials he's still Fiyero. And he's happy, you know. Happier than he's ever been, particularly since we decided to come back to Oz." She cracked a smile. "We couldn't be without you, you see. Even though we'd always said it was too dangerous to come back, we had to risk it for you."
Glinda nestled closer, warmed from the inside out. "...I always hoped you'd come back just for me."
"Just for you," the Witch confirmed, unwrapping the grimy bandages from her hands with an air of mild amusement. "Now that we're here, of course, we've a lot more to worry about. No rest for the wicked, eh?"
It was testament to Elphaba's soothing presence that Glinda managed a small chuckle. Her right index finger, just peeping out of the carefully wrapped bandage, traced a soft line down Elphaba's upper arm. The dragonfly brooch was still pinned to the back of her hand, holding the bandage together, and she watched it gleam in the firelight. Gradually she began to realise that Elphaba's skin was oddly slick. The scent that hung about her was familiar, but it wasn't entirely Elphie. There were less roses, more...coconuts? Yes, definitely coconuts. "...What's all this coconut oil for?" she ventured quietly, watching the broomstick drift across the room at the crook of one green finger.
Elphaba offered her a familiar grin, extracting a bottle of the aforementioned oil from the leather pouch on the broomhandle. "That's how I got through the window bars."
Glinda goggled at her as best she could with a swollen eye. "You covered yourself in coconut oil and climbed through the window?"
"I did."
As matter-of-fact as the statement had been, Elphaba seemed to be enjoying Glinda's reaction. Glinda obliged her by attempting an answering grin. "...Why wasn't I conscious for this?"
"Good thing you weren't," the Witch said with a short but genuine laugh. "It was far from dignified. Now...let's see what we can do for some of your little hurts, shall we?"
She rubbed her hands with the fresh coconut oil and wiped them on a clean cloth. Glinda had seen her friend wash her hands before, but to see her doing it again was another welcome scrap of reality. Trusting the Witch implicitly, she leaned against her shoulder and allowed herself to be tended to. The dragonfly, carefully unpinned and set on the floor beside them, winked at her in the flickering firelight.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but its gemstone eyes seemed to hold just a touch of compassion.
* * *
Back at the Green Dragon, the fire had begun to die down. The Scarecrow watched the old Quadling tend to it with quiet admiration - even with only a few twigs, he brightened the room considerably. He and his family would be staying here tonight; a few words to the Ram behind the bar had seen to that. Most of the other patrons would soon be making their way home in twos and threes. Best not to go alone, but a large group might attract unwelcome attention.
"You're goin' back to th' Witches, ain'cher?"
He turned toward the source of the voice. Elsie, as he had been firmly instructed to call her (because Miss Elspeth made her feel "like an ole gran'ma"), was sitting on the bar, readjusting her jade pendant. The enchantment hid her wings completely - an impressive piece, and one that had probably taken her months to craft. He nodded to her. "I am, as soon as I may."
"...I can't come wivya, can I?"
The Scarecrow wished he could allow it. Elsie was just the kind of fiercely dedicated servant Glinda and Elphaba would need. "I wish you could," he said, "but at the present time it would be an unacceptable risk. They must not be found until Glinda is ready to move."
The Monkey nodded sadly. "Tha's what I thought. I don't wanna see Miss Glinda 'armed 'cos 'a me. So I just want you to..." She extracted a crumpled scrap of paper from her sleeve. It was a note. "...give 'er this, an' tell 'er...tell 'er I'm sorry I 'ad to pinch it. I din't like to lay my thievin' 'ands on it, sir, truly I din't. Not when it were from 'er swee'art."
The Scarecrow recognised the handwriting at once, and easily fought off a smile that in the old days would have been irrepressible. Her sweetheart? If only. He doubted Elphaba could make things that simple for herself. "Of course. I'm sure she'll understand."
Elsie nodded once. "How're you gonna get t'them, though?" she asked. "Won't the Gale Force stop you? After a fuss like that they'll be all over the damn place."
Of course she still called them by the old name. One dictator's private army was pretty much like another, especially when the uniform had changed so little. "Why in Oz would they want to stop me?" the Scarecrow pointed out smugly. "I'm just the old wandering scarecrow who wouldn't be King - what harm would I do?"
The Monkey affected an expression that might, on a human, have been called a smirk. "Good thinkin'."
The Scarecrow winked at her. "Blame the good brains." He turned to the room at large. "If everyone understands their tasks, I shall be off. Avoid the Emerald Guard by any means necessary - after the disturbance they'll be twitchy, as Miss Elspeth says, and the last thing we need is to be picked up for scapegoats." The significance of the term was lost on most of the room. He remembered Doctor Dillamond, and felt a tiny twinge of sadness. "Good fortune go with us all, my friends."
There was a murmur of agreement, and the Scarecrow, satisfied, made his way to the door. He heard the Monkey following him, and turned to her with an expectant look. "I just thought," she said. "You reckon Miss Elphaba an' Miss Glinda'll be wantin' th' Grim...um, the big spellbook?"
"...The Grimmerie, yes, almost certainly so..." Oh, Glinda had picked a good one in Elsie. "I assumed it was already in the hands of the enemy."
A little Monkey hand was waved dismissively. "Nah - Miss Glinda don't take it wiv 'er, do she? It's blinkin' 'eavy, that thing. It's kept up at the 'ouse, under lock an' key. Only me an' 'er even know where it is."
"And do you have a key?"
"Not on me...but I know where ta find it."
The Scarecrow almost danced. Jackpot. "Meet me at the inn by the watermill. In the village nearest the house - you know it?"
"The Wheel?" He nodded, and she nodded back. "I know it. When?"
"Before sun-up." He stepped out into the street, holding the door for her and closing it behind them both. Without the orange-yellow glow of the firelit inn, the night seemed that much colder.
"Can you make the trip that quick?" the Monkey asked.
The Scarecrow grinned. "Can you?"
Elsie grinned back, making a slightly better job of it. "Is a Duck's arse watertight?"
The Scarecrow laughed. "Don't worry about me, Elsie. I have my ways. I'll be there."
"You better be, wi' me goin' to all this trouble," Elsie grumbled good-naturedly, making as if to leave and then pausing. "Oh, 'ey - what do I call you?"
A pause.
"...Fiyero."
With that he turned and began walking away, and even before the Monkey spoke he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. "...'Ave I 'eard that name summ'r before?"
The Scarecrow - Fiyero - did not turn as he answered. There was an invisible smile on his face. "Perhaps. Somewhere."
As he melted into the shadows, he heard the beat of leathery wings behind him.
* * *
The dragonfly cleaned up beautifully with a little of the coconut oil. Elphaba used it to fasten the fresh bandage she'd tied around Glinda's right hand - it wasn't necessary, Glinda knew, now that they were here and had a whole box of bandages at their disposal, but its presence was comforting. With such a fine decoration about her person, she felt a little less ragged. The clean shirt she wore, though it was too big for her and hardly her style, helped as well. Elphaba helped her back into the bed, then sat in front of the fire with some more of the coconut oil and set about washing. She didn't seem to care too much that Glinda could see her, though she did turn mostly away: the air about her was not so much shy as modest, almost as though she was turning her back for Glinda's sake rather than her own. Glinda watched, mostly out of curiosity, partly out of a desire to remind herself that Elphaba was still there. The Witch's left hand functioned very much as her right did, for all its ruined appearance. Already Glinda was beginning to see the scars as a part of her friend. It could, she reasoned, have been so much worse. Besides, there was something oddly dashing about a hero with a scar over one eye. It made the Witch look more like the survivor she was, like a veteran of her own personal war. One against the system. She'd cheated death, in a way. She'd probably cheated death a dozen times.
"You know, Elphie," she said softly, watching as Elphaba slipped into a patched grey nightdress, "to look at you, a person wouldn't know how gentle you can be."
"I know," said the Witch matter-of-factly, adjusting the garment. "That's the idea. Now hush, my sweet, or you'll ruin my reputation."
She settled herself next to Glinda in the small cot, arranging them both comfortably and tugging the blanket up around them. Glinda leaned to kiss her, but the Witch moved faster: her first two fingers met Glinda's lips, stopping her in her tracks. For one terrible moment Glinda thought she might be angry, but then she smiled crookedly and spoke.
"In the morning, pet," she said, her voice rough yet tender. "I'll still be here in the morning."
Those words, in their quiet certainty, warmed Glinda's heart. By the light of the dying fire, she fell asleep in Elphaba's arms.
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On to Part The Sixth
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Not such a horrid cliffie as the last few chapters, I hope you'll agree. My current target is to write 2000 words of something every day six days a week, and keep Saturday as "launch day" - look for something new this time next week, and if there isn't anything then message and pester me!
Until next time...this is Dare, signing off. ^w^
~ D