AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a blend of Gregory Maguire's novel and Stephen Schwartz's musical. I'll let you figure out which of the details is which yourself. I hope you enjoy Obsessive.
It is a fact universally accepted in Oz that their beloved Throneminister— the Scarecrow, who had been one of the four Companions of the Savior of Oz— has an unhealthy obsession with the person he murdered.
Well, that is not quite true. The Scarecrow did travel with Dorothy to the Witch's Castle in the west— formerly the seat of power in the Vinkus— and he did aid Dorothy in cornering the Witch, with the help of the Tin Woodsman and the Lion known as Brrr. But the Scarecrow did not, in fact, kill the Witch himself. That honor, of course, belongs to Dorothy, the Goddess of Gifts.
But that does not change the fact that after Dorothy and her four Companions returned to the Emerald City for their second famous audience with the Wizard, the Scarecrow did not seem quite right. If anything, you would expect that Dorothy would be the one to be affected, but it wasn't so.
Well, at least Dorothy wasn't the one holing herself up for days on end in a guest room that she had been assigned. Dorothy wasn't the one who could hardly face Glinda the Good when the Sorceress came to the Wonderful Wizard's departure ceremony. Dorothy wasn't the only who nearly had a breakdown when faced with the Witch's killer. If Dorothy had been affected... There would be no telling on how that would distress the citizens of Oz. Better to have their Throneminister be afflicted; after all, they were used to Ozmas going off their heads.
Not to say that the Scarecrow was not given the best possible help that could be found, mind. The most pretentious psychologists from around the nation, even from Ix and Ev and Fliaan, came to the Emerald City in hopes of healing the Scarecrow. The Emerald City's cabinet eventually had to take over the majority of the Throneminister duties, because simply put, the Scarecrow was not longer fit to rule.
The citizens of Oz would never call for an impeachment or demand that the Scarecrow step down from the Throneministry, however, because the Wizard himself had appointed the Scarecrow as his successor, and no one could go against the Wizard's wishes, even if he was no longer in power. So Oz contended itself with a Throneminister who was deemed insane. As long as the Emerald City's cabinet was truly running the country and not the Scarecrow, everything was fine.
As hard as they tried, however, the psychologists never could draw out the real reason behind the Scarecrow's affliction. It was said that in later years, Glinda the Good was of more help than any certified psychologist. She would often be seen with the Scarecrow at royal functions and public events, gently speaking with the straw man and hardly ever leaving his side. Some wondered if there was a romance, but the rumors were quickly suppressed. It was purely a platonic friendship; and besides, Glinda the Good would never leave her husband, Sir Chuffrey.
The Scarecrow, it was rumored, would frequently be seen wandering the libraries at night (because after all, a man made out of straw did not need sleep), reading books that he showed to no one. The sections of the Royal Library he haunted were of the more modern era— specifically, concerning the Wizard's later reign, Dorothy, and Dorothy's Triumph.
Glinda the Good kept on insisting that the Scarecrow had not gone insane with the shock of the death of the Witch, but that he was merely in a deep grieving period. Exactly whom the Scarecrow was grieving, Glinda would not say. It must be noted, however, that the Scarecrow occasionally made regular visits to specific places: Colwen Grounds in Munchkinland, where the Witch of the East had been killed; Shiz University, although there had been no record of the Scarecrow attending the university; visiting Milla, the widow of the Munchkin Boq (Boq had mysteriously disappeared after the birth of his last child and was last seen near Colwen Grounds); and, most surprisingly, the Witch's castle in western Oz. Why he would he want to visit a place where he had been driven practically insane, no one knew.
But did anything being him relief from the voices that wouldn't let him rest? No one ever knew.
There was one record, a memoir written by Glinda the Good a few years before her death, that was obviously filled with lies, something Glinda the Good could have never written; it just had to be someone else using the Sorceress' name.
It said— and this will come as a shock— that Glinda the Good had been friends with the Wicked Witch of the West.
Such horrible falsifications had made the memoir banned (in later years, after the Scarecrow had stepped down from the Throneministry) by the Emperor Apostle and made taboo for the rest of its publication. The few who had read it— without knowing its content, of course— had read that the Scarecrow, in Glinda's mind, had certain characteristic similar to the deceased prince of the Vinkus. Glinda had not known where the Scarecrow had been created, or else she "would have gone to the Scarecrow's creators to find more details", to take a quote from the memoir.
All of that to say, the Ozians never stopped adoring their leader. The roar would be deafening whenever the Scarecrow stepped out to face the crowds. But one simply could not ignore the fact that, for the Scarecrow's entire term in office, he had developed an unhealthy obsession for the person he indirectly murdered: the Wicked Witch of the West.
Well, that's it. While I was writing this, I saw that some of the details could be turned into one-shots or multiple-chapter stories. Stay tuned…