…So the first proper fic I've written in ages. Written at about midnight of course, I hadn't meant to write it all in one night but I'd forgotten how it's near impossible to stop writing once you're into it.
Thanks to the ever wonderful crazybeagle for betaing and supplying insults and the future long and amazing review that she is going to give me.
They were coming for her.
She cursed herself for roaming the Emerald City without adequate precautions. Knowing it was too late to fly away, and that a broomstick was no match for their guns, she dashed through the maze of dark allies hoping desperately to lose guards pursuing her.
But ultimately she knew it was futile.
They were coming for her.
She could sense their presence before she even looked up. Cursing herself for not finding a more secure hiding place she curled up further against the tree and tried to ignore the feeling of trepidation and lose herself in the book.
She doubted it would make any difference.
The road divided into three pathways. She preferred to stay away from Oz's Capitol, so she did not know this part of the city well and briefly halted, not knowing which way to go. At the sound of footsteps and shouting behind her she blindly picked the left alley and hoped for the best.
She had no such luck. The sound of their footsteps confirmed that they were not planning to go away anytime soon.
At the shouts of "Look, the artichoke!" she gripped her book tighter, before it was ripped out of her hands.
As her eyes got used to the dark, she saw further down the road. A dead end. Her heart sinking, she continued running. It was too late to turn back, but perhaps she could scale the wall at the end? She ran over some simple spells in her head, wondering if she would be able to use them at a time of such extreme stress. Of course if the worse came to worst she could use her broomstick and hope that the shock would temporarily halt them…
Her thoughts were interrupted as she bumped into something hidden in the darkness. It took a second or two to process that this thing was a man, and that there was enough light for him to see the colour of her skin.
She looked at him, undisguised fear in her eyes.
She scowled at them, trying her best to hide the fear from her eyes — after all, she was used to this kind of treatment, why should it scare her at all? – And said "That is my book."
The group sniggered. The boy at the front, a smirk marring his striking features. – with the typical Gillikin green eyes and blond hair – "I didn't know vegetables had the right to own books."
More sniggers.
"Give it back, Avaric."
"I don't think I will. I think green people should work out how to dispose of themselves rather than look at—" he glanced at the book's title—"the four elements and their uses in Sorcery."
For a second they stood there, just staring at each other. She watched as his eyes turned from shock to recognition as he studied her terrified face. And, with her own gasp of shock, she realised she too knew the striking features, bright green eyes and golden hair of this man.
His eyes turned puzzled, then wary, then calculating and his face twisted into a familiar smirk. She had just enough time to appreciate the irony of someone who almost certainly knew she was innocent turning her in before he had dashed up the alley towards the soldiers.
"Give. It. Back. To. Me."
He turned to her, eyes calculating. She prepared herself for public humiliation, to have yet another thing to be teased for and Avaric applauded for.
"Fine, fine, maybe I will," he jeered, "I just need to make a few… improvements."
And she watched as he ripped the pages out of her carefully kept book, tossing them at her as the gathering crowd looked on and laughed.
"Thank Oz! Officer, she's here, down that alley. Please catch her. I can't imagine what she might do to my family if she continues as she's going."
She prepared herself for the sound of footsteps coming closer, of rough hands seizing her, of endless torture, of being murdered before the week was out.
Finally, when the book was pageless, he threw the cover roughly at her – leaving what she was sure would become a bruise and laughed as he watched her attempted to collect the torn pages and stuff them in her bag.
The footsteps came closer, and then became more distant. Finally, she realised the men had gone down a different alley. She looked up to see Avaric come towards her.
"Go," he muttered, "before they notice."
She looked at him, stunned, "What? Why?"
Fighting through the large crowd, who had gathered to take joy in his acts of barbarianism, she muttered insults at him under her breath.
"Jerk, idiot, selfish, disgusting, loathsome, immature, boorish, foul, despicable, monster."
"I'm many things, Elphaba, but I'm not a murderer. I'm not a monster." He looked around, "Now go, before they come back."
She rushed off, without a backwards glance.
She never saw him again.
As she finally left the jeering crowd she headed for her dorm room, she prayed the disgustingly pink Galinda was not there, nor had she seen the incident today. And she hoped, however improbably, that she would never see him again.
Because I thought Avaric deserved to have the odd fic where he isn't trying to kill and/or screw Elphaba.
…No matter what I made him do in Say There's No Future.