Chapter Text
Cold.
One of the rare school lessons to stick in his memory had to do with the cold.
Cold does not exist. It is merely the absence of heat.
It hadn’t made much sense at the time. There was heat, and there was cold, and he could feel both, sometimes even at the same time, such as when he held frost-nipped hands to a flame, or sipped a cool drink on a hot summer's day.
The cold was an invader. The icy rush of air that burst through an open door and disturbed the cozy halls of Shiz during the winter months. The chill that seeped in through the window panes in his castle despite the thick stone walls and roaring fires. The metallic butt of a rifle as it sliced through his brow and shattered bone.
The cold was an invader, and an invader could not be an absence.
The heat beneath his skin, something to which he rarely gave conscious thought, was gone. The sun beat down on his face, but it did not burn.
His world was devoid of warmth. For the first time, he understood.
Cold.
It took him longer than he cared to admit—even with a head full of straw—to figure out what had happened.
Fiyero’s immense awe toward the woman he loved so fiercely cocooned his mind, staving off the panic that threatened to take hold of him.
Elphaba would not have allowed him—or anyone—to sacrifice himself for her without a fight. He doubted this was exactly what she had in mind, but her desperate spell had succeeded. She had cheated death, and now he was alive, in a manner of speaking, with no bones to break or blood to spill. He was alive.
He twisted his new body to extract his arms from their bonds. His torso folded lengthwise. The burlap that was now his skin pulled taut, and threads snapped at the seams. He reached back and his hands met the spike embedded through the pole and into what was once his spine.
Not content to simply bind him, the guards—his former comrades—must have fastened him there after he passed out from the pain, ensuring his slow death from exposure would be as grueling as possible.
He was grateful not to have a stomach anymore, for it would surely have been sick.
Dangling limply, Fiyero kept his thoughts on her.
She had likely gone to Kiamo Ko, at his suggestion. Though it was far, he could make it—assuming he could still walk. He looked down and found his legs were still attached, which was promising. He kicked them out one at a time, then together, his body swaying from his fixed point. That was a good sign.
The railroad spike was the one very large snag in his plan.
He thought about calling for help, but quickly dismissed the idea. He had no way of knowing if the guards who had left him here were still around, and he didn't want to find himself gleefully torn apart for their kindling.
As he contemplated the pros and cons of tearing his own back open, something—or someone—appeared out of the corner of his eye.
A girl, who couldn’t be more than twelve, skipped down the Yellow Brick Road with a small dog at her side. She made it to the fork, just a few meters away from where Fiyero hanged, and stopped, frowning. She turned, scanning her surroundings.
He held breath he no longer had and waited for her to spot him, feeling mildly guilty that his hope currently rested on a child witnessing the brutal aftermath of his execution.
However, her eyes passed over him as if he weren't there.
“Now which way do we go?” she asked the dog.
Fiyero stared at her, stunned. Had she somehow not seen him?
He threw up his arm and pointed.
“That way’s a very nice way."
He was glad to find he could still speak, and his mother would be proud to know he still had the manners, even in these circumstances, to offer the girl directions.
Of course, he had no clue where she wanted to go, but that mattered little to him at the moment.
The girl started, her eyes darting around for the source of the voice.
“Who said that?”
Once again, she didn't acknowledge him, and he started to worry he might be invisible as well as straw.
He lifted his other arm, rising to meet the absurdity of the situation with his own. “It’s pleasant down that way, too.”
This time, thankfully, the dog spotted him and barked. Not invisible, then. He supposed he had to take the small victories. They rang hollow when the girl finally looked at him but remained unfazed.
“Don’t be silly, Toto,” she said to the dog. “Scarecrows don’t talk.”
At this, Fiyero decided he had fully lost his mind. He flung his arms in both directions.
“Some people go both ways.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Why, you did say something, didn’t you!”
If he still had lungs, he would have sighed in relief.
After a brief introduction, he managed to talk her into helping him down, no tearing necessary; but as he tumbled to the ground and into the nearby fence, a bundle of straw fell out of his tattered Gale force coat, causing the girl—who until now had been remarkably calm for a child meeting a straw man tied up and left for dead—to scream.
He stuffed the straw back into his chest, relieved as he did so to find he was still capable of feeling something, if only a slight pressure.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” he assured her. “Just tickles a little. Did I scare you?”
“No, but are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”
He shook his head. “Not a bit.”
“I’ve never met a scarecrow who could talk,” she told him. “How can you talk? Scarecrows don't have brains, and you need a brain to talk.”
"Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking," he grumbled, dusting off his uniform, cloth hands catching on the bits of hay poking out of it.
But there was that word again. Scarecrow.
As if summoned, a Crow landed on the fence beside them. The girl looked between him and the Crow almost expectantly.
Fiyero frowned, but raised his hands and waved them at the Bird.
“Boo!”
The Crow glared at him.
“See?” he said. “I can’t scare a Crow.”
The girl looked at him with pity and put a hand on his shoulder. “The crows in Kansas would be scared to pieces!"
She assured him of this with such sincerity, as if he would be devastated otherwise. Fiyero had never heard of Kansas, and he couldn't understand why it would be not only desired but admirable to scare the Crows there, but her words coupled with the faint sensation of her touch offered him a strange sense of comfort.
She introduced herself properly. Her name was Dorothy—Dorothy Gale, in fact. A twister had carried her to Oz from a land called Kansas and fallen on a bad witch.
For a moment he could have sworn his missing heart raced. Then he remembered the fallen house he’d seen near a very much still alive Elphaba.
Dorothy stood and held out her hand to help him up. It was then he noticed the shoes.
“A good witch named Glinda gave me these shoes and told me to follow this road to get to the Wizard of Oz," Dorothy explained, oblivious to the storm of emotions rising within her new acquaintance. "He’s going to get me home. Do you know which way leads to the Emerald City?”
Fiyero quickly learned he didn’t need a brain to be angry.
He and Elphaba had hurt her, Fiyero knew that, and he regretted it. But to stoop so low as to tell this poor girl lies and send her to the Wizard on a fool's errand in their dead friend's shoes…
He had half a mind—or whatever was up there now—to find Glinda and…well, he may not have been able to scare a Crow, but he imagined appearing to his former fiancée in his present state would give her a well-deserved shock.
And Nessa…
He hadn't seen her since that day on the train platform—not in person. Once she'd dropped out of school to take over as Munchkinland's governor, her face had appeared on papers across Oz over the years. The last time he'd seen it, Fiyero had struggled to reconcile the joyless, gaunt face plastered across Emerald City tabloids with the bright-eyed, soft-spoken young woman at Shiz who had once told him to put his long legs to good use and help her beat the others in an impromptu race across the courtyard.
He didn't need a brain to grieve, either.
"For someone without a brain, you seem to be doing an awful lot of thinking, too."
Dorothy's voice forced him back to the present, reminding him of a more pressing issue than that of his ex's jealous anger or Nessa's death in a storm most suspicious: the child from a place called Kansas—whose only wish was to get home, and who thought he was something called a scarecrow—standing in front of him, wearing his schoolmate's shoes.
He had a few options for his straw mind to sort through.
First, he could point her in any direction and send her on her way. All roads led to the Wizard, after all. But leaving a child to fend for herself—even one who seemed to believe the lies about the Wicked Witch of the West—felt deeply wrong.
Second, he could take her to Kiamo Ko. Tell her the truth about the Wizard. He couldn’t help her, but Elphaba could, and surely would once she got her sister’s shoes back. But there was the problem of convincing the girl of this, not to mention the dangerous woods separating the Vinkus from the rest of Oz. He knew them well enough, but he wasn’t sure he could protect her in his present state.
Third, he could take her to the Emerald City, and hope to every god no one would recognize him as he searched for an opportunity to send word to Elphaba and get back to her.
Fiyero accepted Dorothy's hand and pulled himself upright, wobbling on his shaky new legs. His whole body was now a phantom limb, rustling with each wobbling step. Dorothy yelped as he swayed and nearly fell again.
“Maybe the Wizard could give you a brain!” she said after picking him up off the ground again.
He almost laughed, but caught himself when he looked at her, and he felt another pang in that imaginary heart.
Fiyero had seen that look once before—in the sparkling eyes of a certain girl he’d known at school, boarding a train headed toward her hopes and dreams. He had hated himself for not going with her every day since, for not standing by her as she faced the Wizard and for not being there to get on that broom.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“He might!” Fiyero lied.
They were about to set off when Dorothy stopped them.
“Wait,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “You never told me your name.”
Oh, right. He still had one of those.“It’s Fi—“
He snapped his mouth shut. He doubted she would know the name Fiyero, but news traveled fast in Oz. No doubt people all along the Yellow Brick Road would be talking about the traitor prince, repeating his name in hushed tones along with the more vulgar things the guards had shouted as they beat him and left him to rot.
“Scarecrow is fine,” he told her. “Even if I’m no good for it.”
Dorothy seemed satisfied with that answer. She took his arm, and together they skipped down the road, Toto beside them, toward a glittering citadel of empty promises.