Chapter Text
Our Wizard Lies.
Fiyero had seen the words carved out in the sky, and the black-clad figure that made them. But with a wave of her hand, Morrible summoned a flurry of clouds, disguising the letters.
Oz Dies.
He tried to push down the simmering rage he felt as Feldspur raced towards the forest where the flying Monkeys had vanished.
They were turning her into something she was not. He saw the way she was demeaned, the way the people jeered at the mere mention of The Wicked Witch, how the posters twisted the face he still saw in his dreams into a malformed caricature.
Elphaba.
Even now, four years gone, he could feel the brush of her nails against his cheek. Sometimes, when he was alone, he felt as if he could still smell her sharp, woodsy scent. Every flash of green had him on edge, always looking over his shoulder on the off-chance that maybe, maybe she would decide to come back.
Oz above, he was like a man possessed.
“There!” one of his lieutenants cried, urging his horse faster. A dark figure burst through the trees, sending a cascade of leaves flying in her wake. The Monkeys were nowhere to be found. She must have lost them.
Good.
But instead of flying West, she began to circle the trees. This close, Fiyero could make out her green face, and how it scanned the forest. What was she looking for?
”I’ve got a clean shot, Captain!” a soldier insisted, raising his gun.
Fiyero’s heart dropped to his stomach. “No! The Wizard wants her alive.”
She turned towards the sound of his voice. Then, her gaze landed on the gun leveled at her chest.
They won’t shoot, he wanted to scream. Just go!
But Elphaba had always been infuriatingly stubborn. Instead of returning to safety, instead of flying to wherever she would be protected, she simply watched them.
Taunting.
Fiyero tried to plead with his eyes, telling her to run.
She simply watched him.
“Captain-”
“No. That is a direct order.”
And then she shifted, ever so slightly. It was a reflexive action, an adjustment, like she was making to turn, to finally leave.
But the soldiers didn’t know that.
There was a crack.
Fiyero might’ve shouted, he didn’t know. Maybe it was her name, the name he said late at night, when there was no one to try and correct him. The name that was practically engrained in his brain, the only thing keeping him alive.
A bullet whizzed through the air.
He registered the pain on her face, the way her hand flew to her side. It must’ve just grazed.
Leave. Please, just get away.
She turned.
Another shot fired.
Fiyero was already moving. This time, the bullet went clean through her shoulder.
No, no no no.
She lurched forward on her broom. Against the bright hue of her skin, he could make out the ruby blood that trickled through her hand as it clamped down hard on her shoulder.
The broom began to falter.
No.
It must have been connected through her magic. And if her magic was fading…
“Go, go!” he urged Feldspur. In the half second it took to survey his surroundings, she had disappeared from the sky. He hadn’t seen her fly away.
She must have fallen.
The thought sent a fear through him that he never imagined possible. His heart pounded so furiously he could feel it hammering against his ribs.
Not Elphaba, he pleaded with whatever god would listen. Not when he had sworn to himself that he would keep her safe. She had to be alright. She would go on to defeat the Wizard, and he would be there by her side, and he would tell her everything he had wanted to say at the train station but didn’t.
She would free the Animals and give that smile that took his breath away every time he saw it.
But he saw the bullet enter, and the blood. All that blood…
When he broke through the trees, he half feared what he fight find. He braced himself for the horror of seeing her lying on the forest floor, already gone, and he would have to live the rest of his life without the one thing that had kept him going to begin with.
There was nothing. Fiyero dismounted, knowing he could cover more ground on foot.
“Captain,” Commander Cherrystone hissed, drawing up his horse behind him. “Have you gone mad?”
To the Unnamed God with you, Fiyero wanted to shoot back. But he had to find Elphaba, before anyone else did.
So he pulled his face into a haughty sneer. “Alive, I said. Alive! I made a promise to my…fiancée to bring the Witch in alive.”
Fiancée, right. But he couldn’t give a fig about that right now.
“Her Goodness is very kind,” Cherrystone declared. “Extending her mercy to the Wicked Witch.”
It took everything in his power not to aim his gun at the commander.
“Yes. She is.”
The rest of the Force appeared, all with guns raised. He feared that in the event they found her, still alive, his men would not hesitate to kill her.
At the end of the day, they weren’t his men, but the Wizard’s. If he could even call himself that, the old fraud.
Fiyero’s boots crunched against the ground with every step. If she were nearby, he hoped it might give her the chance to get away.
If she weren’t already-
No. She was alive. She had to be.
He glanced down once at the rich green earth, looking for any sign of footprints.
There was a patch of red, stark against the grass. Blood.
“I’ll go on ahead,” he ordered the men. “Cherrystone, you take a squadron the left, Shell to the right.”
Cherrystone spluttered. “Captain, take at least one soldier with you! If the Witch-”
“The Witch is injured.” It took everything in him to keep his voice from shaking. “She won’t be a match against me.”
A fat lie. Elphaba could take him down with one hand tied behind her back.
His men looked unsure, but a barked order from Shell had them falling into line. Just as he commanded, they disappeared through opposite sides of the forest.
Once they’d gone, Fiyero broke into a sprint. The trail of blood weakened every few steps. Most of it had to have come from her shoulder.
Don’t let me be too late. Please, let her be alive. Let her smile at me, or yell, I don’t care. Just let her be alive.
He heard it then. Leaves crunching, hisses of pain.
Fiyero broke into the clearing.
She turned, broom raised, then let out a sharp cry at the sudden movement.
Oz above, she still took his breath away, even now.
When she saw him, her green eyes went wide. Something like utter heartbreak crossed her face, and for a moment, her features lit up.
“Elphaba,” he breathed.
Suddenly, the light in her eyes gave out. Blood seeped through her hand, which was pressed against her left shoulder. The broom fell to the ground.
“Fiyero,” she managed to get out, taking a step forward, to him. He could have sworn she was trying to raise her arm, to reach him.
And then she collapsed.
Was she dreaming? Maybe. But this was a dream she liked, nothing like the nightmares that plagued her on nights when the loneliness became too much to bear.
He was there, standing before her. She could hate him, in his Gale Force uniform and shiny gun, but she couldn’t. No matter how hard she tried, hating him was something foreign to her.
“Fiyero,” she said, before the pain became too much and her legs gave out beneath her. One step was all she wanted, just to make sure he was real. But her body couldn’t take it anymore.
The first shot had felt like a bee sting, a scratch. It hurt, even though her body was peppered with small scars from over the past four years. And then the second bullet was fired.
She was watching him. Yes, she was egging the soldiers on, to see if they would be so cruel, so wicked as to take another human being's life. Yet…oh, after four years of being so careful, she had allowed herself one moment of recklessness.
And it cost her.
Gravity hit her like a ton of bricks. A strange sensation for a woman who spent most of her time in the sky.
Strong arms caught her by the waist. The scratch at her side flared at the touch.
“Elphaba?”
It was him. It was really him.
She wanted to open her mouth, to say his name again. But she was lost in a haze of pain and exhaustion. Nights were hard, and she had spent the last one up with the Grimmerie, practicing new spells.
It was catching up to her. In her own defense, she wasn’t exactly anticipating being shot twice in one day.
“Feldpsur!” he shouted. Oz, he sounded the same, even if the callouses on his hands were different. They chafed against her skin as his thumb brushed her hair back. She hadn’t been touched in a long time.
Faintly, she could make out the sound of hoof beats drawing near. “Fiyero? Oh, Holy Lurline.”
That bad, huh?
“The medkit, where is it?”
“In my saddle. Here.”
There was a rustling sound. “We have to get her out of here.”
Feldspur’s concern was evident. “Yero, she’s not looking too good.”
“Don’t. Don’t talk like that.”
She’d never heard Fiyero sound so…scared. Was she really going to die?
It was strange, being so close to death. Elphaba feared it as a child, up until her mother died, and she realized that it was all a part of life. Death followed everyone, especially her.
Her consciousness was slipping, and fast. Maybe this was it.
How cruel of fate, to bring Fiyero back into her life only to rip him away before she could even admit how she felt.
That day at the train station would stay with her long after she was gone.
“Elphaba, can you hear me?” he asked, his hand gripping her own firmly. “Please, say something!”
I’m sorry we didn’t have more time.
But she was too weak to get the words out.
Instead, she waited for the darkness to claim her.