Chapter Text
Fiyero missed his days of brainlessness.
Of dancing in libraries, spending hours carefree at the Ozdust and wandering through poppy fields with friends.
Now, he stood in his uncomfortable uniform, the embezzled collar digging into his neck like a noose, staring at the door before him. A thousand thoughts ran marathons in his supposedly empty head.
-
The only reason he was even in Munchkinland was because of a vague letter from Morrible, telling him that the Governor of Munchkinland was demanding a meeting - some manic ramble of the country needing better ways to protect itself.
However, all Fiyero could think about was that he was being sent to Nessa’s estate.
The same one that, with a little research, he found out that Boq still lived at.
After years, he’d see Boq again.
Would he be different?
Fiyero cursed himself internally. Of course he would have changed, it had been half a decade of no communication, living such different lives so far away from each other.
Maybe Boq had even forgotten about what they used to be. What they had.
Maybe he’d forgotten the kiss they shared, in a dark corner of the Ozdust - the one that still echoed Fiyero’s every move to that day.
He ran a hand through the messy styling of his hair, snapping himself out of his spiral.
The meeting.
For all he knew, Boq might not even be here.
His knuckles rapped against the wood of the door, ringing loud through the empty air.
It was a chilly day, the sky overcast and rain lightly spitting onto the parched dirt.
The trees that overshadowed the entryway to the extravagant mansion were bare, looking starved of any life.
The place was eerie - lifeless.
Fiyero stopped himself from flinching back when the door swung open, the hinges creaking to reveal a woman, adorned in a stiff-looking, grey uniform.
“Good evening, Captain Tigelaar.” She said, opening the door wider and stepping back to allow him inside with a mechanical bow. “The Governor has been waiting for you.”
The woman’s blue eyes seemed to have had the life snuffed out, her skin pallid and her stature seemed trained to the likeness of a statue.
If Fiyero already had a terrible feeling about this place, the sight only amplified it.
He slapped a cheerful mask onto his expression, bowing back as he side-stepped into the lavish hallway. “Good evening to you too, Miss..”
He was met with a blank expression. It was almost uncanny how still the woman - who Fiyero assumed to be a servant - was, blinking far too little and standing fixed in place, unmoving.
It was strange enough that his regular charisma faltered, and he instantly changed the subject.
“So, I better get going. Lovely chat, very informative- Would you care to tell me where the Governor's office is?” Fiyero smiled, itching to simply run out of the still-open door into the rain that began to harden its fall.
The servant clicked into motion, robotically swinging the door shut with a Bang! and gesturing for Fiyero to follow her. “Of course, Captain Tigelaar.”
Fiyero bit back a remark at his title, instead trailing behind her, eyes darting back and forth around the hallway.
Potted plants stood on delicate tables, pristine mirrors standing tall against the walls that held torches, lighting the room.
The rain slammed against the few windows and it only made Fiyero wish he’d sprinted out that door the moment he got the chance.
But he couldn’t. He had to go to the meeting and find out if Boq was okay. Especially after so long in a place… like this.
Momentarily, he stopped to check his reflection in one of the mirrors.
Frankly, Fiyero looked like a right mess. His hair was ruffled, and not even in the rugged-ified way he usually left it. His uniform seemed picture-perfect, but was slightly darkened in patches from the weather. He was paler than usual.
“Here, Captain Tigelaar.”
“Thank you-“
Before he could continue, the servant was gone, her boots clicking on the polished floor.
Fiyero stared down the ornate door he was left in front of, as if it would swing open and fix everything for him.
He never normally hesitated to do… anything. Let alone open a door.
But, the thought of a certain Munchkin standing on the other side tugged at his heart, pulling him towards and away from the office simultaneously.
Okay. Fiyero steeled his nerves, deciding it would be politer to knock, than to barge straight in. You can do this. He might not even be in there. Just get through the meeting and go home.
That was, until he heard quiet chanting from behind the door, and shouting.
The chanting, that was from what was clearly Nessa, plus a voice he hadn’t heard in years.
Elphaba.
Elphaba was shouting, her voice tainted with anger and fear.
Fiyero twisted the door handle, swinging the door open.
Elphaba stood across the room, looking panicked at Fiyero as her dark eyes snapped towards him.
Nessa froze in her chair looking furious. Her hair was tied uncomfortably high, her uptight outfit looking unnatural on her.
However, in the moment, they didn’t matter.
Boq stood anxiously in the corner of the room closest to Fiyero, staring at him as if he were a ghost.
He wore the same outfit as the servant, clutching a matching hat so tight that his fingertips were a stark white.
His skin was of an unhealthy pallor, his freckles looking more like speckles of mono-chrome paints rather than the warm splatters that used to adorn the sky of Fiyero’s mind like stars.
“Fiyero?” Boq croaked, his voice faltering and eyes flickering between him and Nessa.
“Fiyero.” Elphaba echoed, her expression unreadable. “Why… are you here?”
Nessa remained silent.
“I was supposed to be here for a meeting, but I’m not sure that’s the height of our worries.” Fiyero glanced between the three, his eyes hardening when he saw an abnormally shaped book on the desk beside Nessa.
One he only assumed to be the Grimmerie.
“What’s going on here?” His hand reached almost invisibly to the holster on his waist, and Fiyero knew the only one who could see from the positions the four stood in was Boq.
Nessa’s face glazed over, before her eye twitched darkly. “He was going to leave me.”
“What?”
“He was going to leave me.” Nessa repeated, her voice stone-cold in a way Fiyero didn’t recognise from their youth.
Her eyes darted back to the pages of the Grimmerie, and she began fumbling through the words again.
Elphaba jumped, her mouth opening to shout at her sister.
Fiyero acted faster.
With the practice of a trained Captain of the Guard, his gun left the holster, pointing directly at Nessa’s temple.
She stopped reading the second her eyes met the barrel of the pistol.
“I don’t know what that spell you’re trying to do is, but I assume it’s not going to do any good for Boq. If I were you, I’d give the book back to Elphaba and fix whatever you just did.”
Elphaba stared at him in disbelief, her eyes closing as she shook her head. “A spell from the Grimmerie can’t be reversed.”
“What?” Fiyero faltered, stepping away from the Thropp sisters and closer to the shaking Munchkin who gripped onto the table in front of him with his free hand for dear life.
“What’s done is done.” Elphaba said, her voice barely audible over the rain that hurled against the windows.
They stood in a stagnant pause for a moment, before the sound of something hitting the floor snapped their heads towards the corner of the room.
Boq’s hat laid on the floor, forgotten as his hand clawed at the blazer over his heart desperately as the man shallowly struggled for air all of a sudden.
“My- my heart.”
Nessa gasped, wheeling herself slightly away from the Grimmerie as if it might reach out and strike her down.
What’s done is done.
“Do something!” The Governor screeched, pure terror in her tone.
“I can’t!” Elphaba hissed. “I told y-“
Fiyero cut her off, running to Boq as the Munchkin fell to his knees. “Get out!”
“But, Fiyero, you can’t do magi-“
“Go!”
The two disappeared, pulling the door shut behind them. With their departure, the gun slid back into the holster.
“Boq-“
“You- You shouldn’t have come.” Boq struggled, clutching at his heart clumsily.
“You would have died!”
“Like I’m-“ He sucked in a breath, his voice growing more ragged. “Like I’m not already?”
Fiyero’s eyes widened, and he rushed over to the Grimmerie.
“You can’t read that!” Boq spluttered.
“I can bloody try.”
The words didn’t make sense at all to Fiyero, but he forced himself to copy what Nessa had said slightly, writing silent prayers in his head that he wouldn’t make this any worse.
Just fix him. Just don’t let him die.
The room filled with a screeching of metal, drowning out Boq’s heaving breaths.
Slamming the Grimmerie shut, Fiyero raced back to Boq’s side but stopped halfway.
The tin plate that Boq had accidentally dragged to the floor with him had laid on the carpet, but had somehow began to twist into something sharper and… liquify?
Then, the cutlery slid off the tables as if Boq were a magnet.
Fiyero stood frozen, unable to move. He only watched, one hand over his mouth to either stop himself from screaming or throwing up. Or both.
The now melted tin dragged its point across Boq’s neck, leaving a thin crimson line before it dissolved.
Dissolved, under Boq’s skin.
The tin writhed beneath his skin, turning it a pale grey where it trailed for a second, then disappeared with a horrendous creaking sound.
The Munchkin’s brown eyes flickered a pained silver for a moment, before he fell backwards against the wall behind him, hand leaving where it clutched over his chest and falling limp by his side, palms facing up.
Tin melded itself into his now exposed wrists, his veins changing from pale, deoxygenated greens and purples to silver puncturing the blood vessels, melding the entry wounds shut with metal.
The rest of the tin followed suit sickeningly, until the room fell quiet once again.
The cut on Boq’s neck bled sluggishly, his grey collar staining with blood.
Fiyero snapped out of his trance, falling to his knees beside a now unconscious Boq.
He shook his shoulder gently but frantically. “Boq? Boq?!”
-
Nessa and Elphaba stared the door down, waiting for any update after the silence they were met with for the last few minutes.
The only thing they had heard was screaming and Fiyero shouting, then silence.
The rain had stopped, leaving the sisters in a tense silence.
“I’m going in.” Nessa decided, hands reaching to push herself forward, before she was held back by the other.
“No. We have no idea what’s going on in there-“
“Exactly! This is my fault-“
“Of course it is!”
“Oh, don’t you dare-!”
The door swung open with a crash - really, were there no doors that opened quietly in this building? - revealing Fiyero, standing in the frame.
His eyes were devoid of their usual calm nonchalance, instead burning with an anger directed towards Nessa mostly.
“I don’t know what has been happening here,” Fiyero snarled, pointing a bloodied finger between the two. “But stay away.”
Elphaba stepped forwards, a determined look on her face. “Fiyero, is he-“
“No thanks to you.”
He disappeared back into the room without a word.
-
When Elphaba left for fear of recognition, Nessa forced herself to re-enter her office.
Where Boq had last been, the carpet was stained with melted tin and blood. The window closest was wide open, curtains billowing with cold air.
Fiyero’s words echoed in the ice-cold office, whispers in the wind.
“Stay away.”