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His strange accent tickles the ears of anyone brave enough to speak with him, and the people at the general store try not to stare as he barters for food and supplies to bring back to his home in the hills.
He’d be handsome, they always say, if it weren’t for the splash of burlap-like skin across his face—likely the result of a fire, though no one has ever seen burn scars quite like that. He buys enough provisions for two to survive the month, along with a newspaper, a book or two, and some paper and fresh ink. His horse and cart disappear on the horizon as the sun reaches high noon. No one bothers to follow.
-
Kansas is no star. It’s an endless stretch of flat land that’s been sold, fought for and stolen. In the absence of Animals, humans here have found new ways to hate their own kind. The two of them have traded a world that hated her skin for one that would hate her mother’s and sister’s the same. The townsfolk Fiyero encounters each month sleep soundly at night, plugging their ears to the blood that cries from the soil.
“It’s not your burden,” he tells her. “Not anymore. You deserve to rest. Humans may be this way anywhere we go.”
Maybe so, but the thought doesn’t bring her peace. Only his (mostly) human touch can do that.
-
You can’t reverse a spell once it’s been cast turns out to be hogwash.
Or maybe not. Maybe in Oz, the nature of magic is such that spells bow to time. But they’re not in Oz anymore. Kansas, for all its faults, brings him back to her.
It’s not a perfect transformation. His hair is still streaked with the color of straw, and only one eye has returned to its natural color. Large patches of skin are still rough to the touch and shed wispy threads of flax. The incomplete reversal confuses her until she notices the shapes—lashes across his back, marks left by rope on his arms and legs. A deep gash across his face and eye.
“I’d do it all over again,” he murmurs as her tears dampen each woven scar she kisses.
His heart beats, his mismatched eyes cry, and he can make love to her under the stars again. It’s more than they ever dared to dream of after Oz, and it’s enough.
-
Even though they’re half a day’s journey away, rumors of the Green Lady of the Smoky Hills find their way into town.
Some townsfolk grow bold and ask him, “Is your wife really green?”
“She’s beautiful,” is his only answer.
One day, she makes the journey with him, face veiled and hands gloved. People still stare, but the good will Fiyero has built keeps their curiosity polite. She even speaks with a friendly shopkeeper, and when the gauze concealing her face catches the light and reveals a hint of emerald, his smile barely falters.
She throws up over the side of the cart on the way home and assumes it’s her nerves.
-
A small parcel arrives one day, accompanied by a letter scrawled in a shaky hand. Elphaba unwraps the familiar bottle and nearly drops it in shock.
Elphaba,
If the rumors of the Green Lady are true, I’m grateful. Knowing you’re alive is my only solace here.
Before that bottle was yours, it was mine. Our dear friend Glinda has the one you left behind, so I’ve sent you its match. I think you know what it means.
I wish your mother had told me. Everything would have been different.
Your Wizard.
There’s no return address, no expectation of reply. Just a few words that shatter her world.
Fiyero holds her as she unravels and hot, angry tears spill down her cheeks.
“All this means,” he murmurs into her hair, “is that he gave the world one good thing.”
When she’s exhausted herself, he weaves his fingers through hers over the gentle swell of her abdomen and wraps himself around her.
-
Liir is born with a shock of black curls, a tinge of olive that fades with time, and no trace of burlap or straw. He lives as normal a life as a boy from Kansas can.
-
Perhaps one day, historians will separate fact from fiction regarding the Green Lady of the Smoky Hills. Perhaps scientists will find an explanation for her skin that satisfies the curiosity of those who hear the stories, as they will with blue-skinned mountain settlers or the Canary girls. Or perhaps she’ll be lost to time when the blissfully unremarkable life Kansas has given her comes to an end.
Oz knows, she’s earned it.