[Milliways]: Southstairs
The Emerald City is nothing like Liir had expected it to be. There are places that are clearly for the tourists, but he hasn't spent much time there. He's just been waiting. Waiting for Dorothy. Waiting to see what will come next. He has nowhere to go if not with Dorothy, nothing to do.
No one wants him.
He's disappointed when it's only the Scarecrow who comes to him, telling him what he already knew, that Dorothy has gone. Back to her home without so much as a goodbye.
He misses her.
(The Scarecrow says it's the Witch he really misses, and it annoys him that he knows the Scarecrow is right.)
He asks Liir about Nor as well. Hadn't he better start looking for her?
"First I better learn a trade and find a way to support myself. Or watch how the pickpockets practice their trade. Sure, I would like to find Nor, but I'd like to fly, too. Not bloody likely without some help."
But he doesn't learn a trade, and he doesn't take up pickpocketing.
Once he's heard of Southstairs, the infamous prison that makes no distinction between rapists and dissenters, he becomes obsessed with the idea that Nor must be there. Or at least that she must have been there at some time.
He manages to get an audience with Glinda more through sheer bullheadedness than anything resembling luck or skill. She isn't anything like he'd been expecting. Any thoughts he may have secretly been harboring about Glinda taking him in and cleaning him up and educating him and treating him as a son flew straight out of his mind. He couldn't even manage to comfort her as she wept.
She did introduce him to Shell, though. He's not sure he should thank her for that.
(She'd fed him as well. Let him bathe and dressed him in her livery. For that he did thank her.)
Commander Cherrystone had been something of a shock. Liir had all but idolized him once, and the commander didn't even recognize him.
(Glinda called him brave, before she left. She said he had Elphaba's bravery. He didn't know what to make of it, didn't believe it was true.
She called the broom his as well. He didn't believe that either.)
Shell serves his purpose, though he doesn't seem to be aware of so much as the possibility that the boy he's leading into hell may be his nephew. He gives no indication of it if he is.
Liir is glad of it when he sees what sort of a man Shell really is. How sad, then, that he enjoys the privileges he does while his sister, a far better person than he, met such an ignominious end.
In the end, it hardly matters. He's found Nor. Or at least he knows she was here, knows how she got out. He's impressed by it. (And it takes away some of the horror of seeing a Piglet done in that way. He has too much of the Witch in him, he supposes. He still differentiates between animals and Animals. Murder still shocks him.)
He runs from his horror, attempting blindly to navigate his way out of the prison but likely only running deeper and deeper in. Eventually, he finds himself huddled against the dark and loneliness of Southstairs, a shaft of distant starlight shining down on him.
Hidden in its satchel, the broom twitches, and Liir takes it out, hardly knowing what he's doing. It's repairing itself, growing new twigs, replacing the charred ends.
He doesn't even think as he holds the handle firmly and mounts it, flying up toward the stars, out of this horrible nightmare of a place.
[ooc: Dialogue is from Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire.]
No one wants him.
He's disappointed when it's only the Scarecrow who comes to him, telling him what he already knew, that Dorothy has gone. Back to her home without so much as a goodbye.
He misses her.
(The Scarecrow says it's the Witch he really misses, and it annoys him that he knows the Scarecrow is right.)
He asks Liir about Nor as well. Hadn't he better start looking for her?
"First I better learn a trade and find a way to support myself. Or watch how the pickpockets practice their trade. Sure, I would like to find Nor, but I'd like to fly, too. Not bloody likely without some help."
But he doesn't learn a trade, and he doesn't take up pickpocketing.
Once he's heard of Southstairs, the infamous prison that makes no distinction between rapists and dissenters, he becomes obsessed with the idea that Nor must be there. Or at least that she must have been there at some time.
He manages to get an audience with Glinda more through sheer bullheadedness than anything resembling luck or skill. She isn't anything like he'd been expecting. Any thoughts he may have secretly been harboring about Glinda taking him in and cleaning him up and educating him and treating him as a son flew straight out of his mind. He couldn't even manage to comfort her as she wept.
She did introduce him to Shell, though. He's not sure he should thank her for that.
(She'd fed him as well. Let him bathe and dressed him in her livery. For that he did thank her.)
Commander Cherrystone had been something of a shock. Liir had all but idolized him once, and the commander didn't even recognize him.
(Glinda called him brave, before she left. She said he had Elphaba's bravery. He didn't know what to make of it, didn't believe it was true.
She called the broom his as well. He didn't believe that either.)
Shell serves his purpose, though he doesn't seem to be aware of so much as the possibility that the boy he's leading into hell may be his nephew. He gives no indication of it if he is.
Liir is glad of it when he sees what sort of a man Shell really is. How sad, then, that he enjoys the privileges he does while his sister, a far better person than he, met such an ignominious end.
In the end, it hardly matters. He's found Nor. Or at least he knows she was here, knows how she got out. He's impressed by it. (And it takes away some of the horror of seeing a Piglet done in that way. He has too much of the Witch in him, he supposes. He still differentiates between animals and Animals. Murder still shocks him.)
He runs from his horror, attempting blindly to navigate his way out of the prison but likely only running deeper and deeper in. Eventually, he finds himself huddled against the dark and loneliness of Southstairs, a shaft of distant starlight shining down on him.
Hidden in its satchel, the broom twitches, and Liir takes it out, hardly knowing what he's doing. It's repairing itself, growing new twigs, replacing the charred ends.
He doesn't even think as he holds the handle firmly and mounts it, flying up toward the stars, out of this horrible nightmare of a place.
[ooc: Dialogue is from Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire.]