Chapter Text
“You really believe the animals in Kansas have never spoken?”
Fiyero shrugged, eyes on the horizon—still an endless sea of sand and craggy rock formations eroded by whistling winds. “Dorothy seemed sure of it.”
“Dorothy is a child.”
“A very smart child.”
“So you say.”
The blinding light of the setting sun made it hard to make out his expression.
“She never put Toto in a cage,” he pointed out after a moment of quiet, “and she spoke to him like an equal, yet he never spoke back. Only barked.”
“Hm.”
The only other sound was their footsteps in the sand and the winds against the dunes.
“She reminded me of you.”
Elphaba’s frown deepened. She let go of his hand, but only to hook her arm around his, pulling him closer as they walked. Straw snagged at her silk voile sleeves and lightly stung her arm with splinters, but she didn't mind. They joined the pieces of him that had already worked their way into her skin long ago.
“How so?”
A smile tugged at the corner of his woven mouth. “She had so much faith in the Wizard, but then she saw him for who he really was, and she…”
His smile faded. He lowered his voice so it was barely audible over the sweeping sands. "I wasn't there when you met the Wizard," he says, regret seeping into his voice. "But I think she gave me a glimpse of it."
“And she convinced him to leave Oz?” Elphaba grumbled. “How could an eleven-year-old do what I couldn’t?”
“I think Glinda had something to do with that,” he assured her. “But Dorothy’s their new hero, after…”
After killing my sister and me. The words remained unspoken.
Fiyero tightened his hold on her. “She took his power. You would have been proud.”
Elphaba bit her lip, pondering.
“Toto helped,” Fiyero added. “He pulled back the curtain.”
She scoffed. “And you’re still trying to convince me that Kansas animals are inferior to humans?”
“Not inferior, just… not as complex. And I’m not trying to convince you of anything.”
“That’s not true. You’re trying to convince me to like Dorothy.”
“Because you should.”
“She took my shoes!”
“Glinda took your shoes. You forgave her.”
Elphaba pressed her lips together and sighed.
Some rock formations appeared in the distance, a candidate for tonight’s shelter. They wordlessly shifted directions toward them.
After more silent walking, Elphaba asked, “They really stuff dolls with straw and put them up to scare crows? And it works?”
He chuckled. “When I asked her why they didn’t just put up signs, she laughed at me and said, ‘Don’t be silly. Birds can’t read.’”
“Have the people there tried to teach them?”
That fire, the only warmth left that can reach him, the passion that burned in the face of injustice, returned to her voice.
“We don’t have to worry about the animals in Kansas.”
“Well, I’m going to," she replied indignantly.
“Of course.” He clasped her hand in his and raised it to his rough lips. “That’s why I love you.”
He had said it already one thousand ways, but never before in those words.
Elphaba squeezed his hand tightly enough that it would have broken bones, had he had them.
They reached the rock formation and found an overhang forming a shallow cave large enough for them to make camp. Several days of travel had taken their toll on Elphaba, who practically collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
“Let’s—you, I mean. You eat.” Fiyero pulled out their food supply, somewhat diminished but still substantial enough that they weren't yet worried. It helped that only one of them needed to eat. He watched in awe—from a safe distance—as she cupped fire in her hand, turning their lackluster provisions into a warm meal for herself.
She ate in silence, and though it was hard to see once the fire was gone, he could tell she was deep in thought, her stare distant and troubled.
“The Wizard can cage countless Animals,” she muttered under her breath, breaking the silence. “She’s just one little girl.”
Fiyero, who had sprawled out on the ground like a rag doll, propped his head up on one elbow.
“But you know it was wrong.”
It wasn’t an accusation.
"I wasn't going to kill her," she continued, still not looking at him. "I just wanted to scare her."
"I know," he replied. "That hourglass could barely hurt a Fly."
Another moment of quiet, and then:
“I wish I could apologize.”
It was the first time she’d expressed regret for what transpired at Kiamo Ko. She had carried its weight out of Oz on her back, unsure if it would remain unspoken between them forever. Unsure if he looked at her differently now that he’d glimpsed the wickedness others had always seen in her.
“Others have it so easy,” she continued softly. “How do they go through life never apologizing or trying to make amends, without a shred of guilt?”
He shifted closer, though he still had trouble making out her face in the dark.
“I think if you truly wanted the answer to that,” he said gently, “you wouldn’t be you.”
He expected her to make a self-deprecating remark he would then have to counter. You say that like it's a bad thing or Sometimes I wish I weren't me.
But instead she reached out and took his hand in hers, rubbing her thumb against the threadbare skin she'd conjured for him. The touch was too light for him to feel, but he sensed it all the same.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He frowned. "For what?"
"For getting her home safe."
"I'll take first watch."
He'd made the same remark every night so far, and despite herself she cracked a smile each time; the joke being, of course, that there was no need to take turns when he could no longer sleep.
His body served as an ample shield from the cold stone floor. Now that he didn't need to breathe, she was free to drape herself over his soft straw form, head tucked under his chin, her front pressed to his. Her body provided a gentle pressure that brought him comfort, and though he could no longer feel the more primal urges of his human form, the sensation stirred something within him.
“Tell me more about Kansas,” she whispered. “What else did Dorothy say?”
As she pulled their blanket over them and sank deeper into his chest, he stroked her back and spoke softly of plains stretched in every direction, of one-room schoolhouses and the kind farmhands who helped Dorothy’s aunt and uncle make a simple yet comfortable life for her.
It was a far cry from the life of a governor's daughter or an heir to a throne, but there was something beautiful in it, all the same.
Soon, he heard Elphaba’s breathing even out, and he settled in for another long night alone with his thoughts.
He wakes with an urgent need to relieve himself.
Elphaba sleeps soundly beside him, having rolled off him sometime in the night. With a grunt he pushes himself off the floor and stumbles out of the cave to find a spot nearby. He hisses in pain as his foot strikes a rock on the ground.
The night air hits his skin and it’s only then he realizes.
I woke up.
I was asleep, and I woke up.
He balances on one leg and lifts up his human foot to examine it. Blood trickles down to his heel.
He cries out as he loses his balance and tumbles backward through the entrance of the cave. Elphaba jolts awake and shouts his name when his back strikes the rough sandstone floor.
He’s naked, his Gale force uniform in tatters on the ground.
“I…” His eyes squeeze shut as pain ripples up his leg. When he opens them, he finds Elphaba beside him, staring not at him but her hand in confusion. Feeble sparks and flames flicker in her palm with little light.
“I can’t see you.” Panic rises in her voice. “Fiyero, what happened?”
He reaches out and catches her wrist, feeling every inch of skin and the warmth beneath it. Tears spring to his eyes.
She freezes. “You’re breathing.”
Fiyero realizes his panting is loud enough to echo.
“You…”
Her eyes begin to adjust. She reaches out her free hand and puts it to his bare chest. A sob escapes both their lips as skin meets skin.
“How?” she whispers, sliding her hand down his chest.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Before she can respond, he pulls her to him and crushes her lips with his, relishing every sensation. The heat, the soft wet skin that not even the taste of sleep can sour, because the fact he can taste at all makes his heart—his beating heart—leap for joy.
She melts into him, collapsing onto his chest with a shared oomph that does nothing to interrupt the bruising kiss. After a moment of this fervent contact, she hooks her leg over his. The fabric of her gown brushes against his most sensitive parts and he yelps—yelps—at the touch, so overwhelming it’s almost painful.
She freezes again and pulls back, the movement doing nothing to alleviate the building arousal that threatens to break him.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No.” He drops his head back onto the ground. “It’s… a lot, that’s all.”
A faint glow emanates from the world outside, the light of pre-dawn. In it he sees the frown forming on her face as she stares at him.
“What is it?”
She bites her lip, but doesn’t answer.
“Am I hideodious?”
Any hint of a smile at his attempt at humor is lost in the shake of her head.
“No, never,” she whispers. “It’s…”
Elphaba reaches out and drags a finger in a line across the bridge of his nose and one side of his brow. He doesn’t feel the touch there.
“There’s… it’s…”
The wind picks up outside. A draft of deliciously cold air invades their hideaway and sends a chill up his spine; but it’s the sound of it that breaks the spell between them.
It’s not the harsh spray of swirling sand, the hiss of stone fragments weathered by time beating out a song. It’s a rustling they’ve heard in the fields surrounding Shiz, and the hills surrounding Kiamo Ko, and in the forest that night.
Their eyes meet again, a flicker of hope between them.
Shhh, the grasses beckon. Shhh…