Fiyero, My Hero

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to L. Frank Baum, Gregory Maguire, and the creators of the musical "Wicked". I am making no money off this piece.

Summary: Trapped in the body of a scarecrow, Fiyero cannot help but dwell on his bizarre circumstances and strange company as he travels the Yellow Brick Road, while Elphaba, ignorant of her lover's fate, dogs their steps. Fiyero x Elphaba

Author Note: "Wicked" the musical is all about moving the camera to alternate characters and showing their view of events. While I know it has been done before, I was struck by how surreal Fiyero's journey must have been, traveling with Dorothy (who killed his lover's sister), the Lion (who's rescue brought him and Elphaba together), and Boq (the once innocent Munchkin lad transformed, like him, into a strange construct).

I had recently seen the musical and the image of Fiyero, now the Scarecrow, looking across the fire at his old schoolmate Boq, now the Tin Man, would not leave my head. So I wrote "Fiyero, My Hero" in a rush of inspiration, over about five days. It is based primarily on the musical; however, I borrowed from the books, the Judy Garland movie, and the novel "Wicked" in order to fill in some of the blanks.

Anyway, please enjoy.

Fiyero stared into the crackling fire as it reduced the twigs and branches to ash. On the other side, the fire reflected glinted off the body of the Tin Man, his axe lying at his side. His head was tilted back as if he were sleeping but as Fiyero watched him he shifted and opened his eyes to watch the stars.

The young girl that had pulled him from the stake in the fields lay curled up on the ground, her dog curled up beside her. She was so young, he realized, far too young to be so far from home.

He turned his gaze back to the flickering flames, the one thing that could hurt him in this new, strange body. His thoughts turned back to the events of only a few days before.

"Elphaba, go, now!" he had ordered one last time before she finally took off in a swirl of black robes, like a shadow taking flight, leaving only him and Glinda, ringed by the Wizard's Guard, who only that morning had been under his command. Their hesitance to take him spoke more of their fear for Glinda, Oz's darling of the day, than unwillingness to take his life. Betrayal had that effect on many.

But looking into Glinda's terrified, disbelieving eyes he knew that he could not keep the threat up long. Even if she was not the woman he loved, he had cared for her since that day in the courtyard when he first invited her to dance. And the tears that pricked her eyes as she gazed at him down the barrel of his musket were too much.

He let it fall and within a moment, he felt the Gale Force tackle him, holding his arms back and dragging his unresisting form towards the cornfield

"No! Please don't hurt him!" Glinda had cried, but one soldier had lifted the fallen musket and was holding her back. He wanted to tell her not to worry but then the first blow felt across his jaw and the stars that exploded across his vision dazed him into silence. Hot, salty blood filled his mouth and he spat it in the face of his attacker.

"Do your worst," he had said. Maybe just this once he could stop the idle dance and stand for something. Even if he died here, he would stand for Elphie and give her the time she needed to escape. Yet as the blows rained down, driving the wind from his lungs and the thoughts from his head, his resolve waivered and he felt the first cry rise unbidden in his throat.

"Not so tough now are you, Captain," one of the Force soldiers sneered. "That'll teach you to protect the wicked," with a vicious jab he slammed his fist into Fiyero's nose and it exploded in a shower of blood.

"That's enough, boys. Hoist him up," came a gruff voice and Fiyero felt himself being raised into the air, his wounds stinging in the air and his limbs straining against the scaffold that supported him. "He'll not last long up there."

"One more thing, sir," Fiyero shuddered as something was placed on his head. A raucous laugh went up amongst the company.

"A witch's hat? I like it, it's a good fit for his traitorous head."

"He'll makes a fine scarecrow," one of the Force laughed.

"Aye, but before long he'll be attracting more crows than frightenin' them. Let's go, we're finished here."

The sun had set as Fiyero hung from the stake, too dazed to think and in too much pain to stop the hot tears that slid down his face, stinging the gashes. He didn't feel like a hero anymore, just a fool that had convicted himself to a slow death in the middle of a cornfield, miles away from any who could hear his mumbled cries.

He begged phantoms of the air to save him as his delirium deepened. Glinda, Elphie, even that ridiculous Munchkin boy that had Glinda had tormented with her flirtations back at Shiz. Their apparitions flickered before his eyes as his exhausted mind drifted in and out of sleep, always awakened by the slightest twitch that sent pain lancing through his wounds.

"Elphie…" he had whispered just as he felt consciousness slipping from his grasp.

As he floated in the darkness behind his eyelids, he felt the pain leaking from is limbs, leaving only a delicious numbness in its wake. Even the throbbing mass that had been his nose seemed to cool and stop its bleeding.

It was not until the sun had risen the next day that he realized what had happened. His once warm flesh had been replaced by cloth, his insides by a malleable, crackling material. Straw? Had he died, only to be reborn in the very cornfield where he had lost his life as a part of the scenery?

He began to laugh at the thought, a high pitched, hysterical sound that startled the crows that had come to roost on his perch. This only made him laugh harder, until tears were rolling down his face and he felt his flesh, no, his straw growing sodden. It was just too impossible. Was this the work of the Wizard? Glinda? …Elphaba? Was this the result of some misguided attempt to save his life?

It was becoming harder to think. Had his brains become straw too? Why couldn't he focus? Even though it was impossible for him to sleep, he felt himself slipping into a blank stupor from which he did not awaken until a little farm girl with a checkered dress asked him how to get to the Emerald City…

Now he was on this mad journey with a child who claimed to be from a different world (and might just be ignorant enough for it to be true), and the strange man who sat across from him whose body seemed to be made entirely of tin. Yet something tickled Fiyero's memory as he studied the Tin Man's face. The hard set of the jaw gave the already unyielding features a severe cast that he supposed was the opposite of his own malleable features.

He had seen a glimpse of his face in the water when Dorothy had gone for a drink, round eyes, a dark nose and a slit for a mouth that made a ghastly parody of his former features. On his head sat a peaked black hat, not unlike the one Elphie wore. Fortunately, no one had made the connection between the witch's hat and the witch's lover.

"Did she do this to you too?" Fiyero looked up and saw that the Tin Man was speaking to him, having abandoned his stargazing. He was now hunched forward as best as his stiff body would allow and gazed intently at the man he knew as the Scarecrow.

"I don't know what you're talking about," replied Fiyero. It was easier to play dumb than to think too hard about the sudden change his life (after all, he had plenty of practice playing dumb after his younger years jumping from school to school) but the question was pointed, not just idle banter and he was curious to see where the Tin Man was going with this.

"You didn't start out a scarecrow and there's only one person powerful enough and evil enough to turn a man into a creature," he spat, "The Wicked Witch of the West."

"Elphie?" Fiyero blurted before he could stop himself and mentally berated himself when the Tin Man sat back with a satisfied smirk.

"I thought you looked familiar. I guess she got tired of Glinda having something she wanted," said the Tin Man.

"Now wait just a minute," Fiyero shot back. "Elphie would never do something like that."

"Wouldn't she?" the Tin Man rapped sharply against his chest, just over his heart, "Do you hear that? Hollow, and it's her doing. What makes you think she wouldn't do the same to you?"

"Who are you?" Fiyero said by way of dodging the question. He didn't feel like telling this complete stranger about his relationship with Elphaba, not in territory that was already hostile to the "Witch".

"Only the man Glinda stood up so she could run off with you, who ended up taking care of the Wicked Witch of the East for the rest of his natural life because I thought it would make her love me."

"Nessa? What were you doing taking care of her…" it took a moment but it slowly dawned on Fiyero who this stranger was. A dimly remembered face skulking in the corner all those years ago, spinning Nessa's wheelchair around so that she laughed aloud and clapped her hands in delight, "Bick?"

"It's Boq," he sat upright and real fury crossed his face for a moment before he sank back into his desultory slouch, "Or it was, now I'm just the Tin Man," said Boq. "You would do to forget your old name too, Fiyero. We're the only ones of our kind."

"You're not still mad about that dance all those years ago, are you?" said Fiyero, catching a hard undertone in Boq's voice.

The Tin Man's body rose and fell in what the Scarecrow assumed as a shrug. "Maybe I would be, if I had a heart. As it is, I don't feel much of anything. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not yet. For your sake it probably is," he said, gripping his axe.

"I'd like to see you try. I'm pretty much indestructible like this," Fiyero said, prodding his torso, it gave way bonelessly. "At least I don't rust when it rains."

"At least I won't go up like a match," Boq shot back. For a moment, they glared at each other before Fiyero broke it off with a laugh.

"Why are we fighting?" he said then sobered, "I'm sorry about Glinda. I don't know whether or not you'll believe me, but it was pretty much one sided. I wouldn't get too worked up over her, she's kind of a flake," her tear-stained face flashed across his mind, her desperate plea for his life and felt a pang of regret at this.

Still, his heart had belonged to Elphaba since that day he had seen her on the dance floor, awkward yet proud as she swayed alone to music only she could hear. The true meaning of dancing of life, not caring for what others think. He had thought Glinda understood his single-minded pursuit of Elphie after her disappearance but the unexpected engagement was an obvious difference in opinion.

"Hmph," grunted the Tin Man. Lifelong crushes were not so easily dispelled, even for one who no longer had a heart. "Even a flake is better than a wicked witch. I'm just glad I got away from her, I hope she rots alone."

Fiyero realized that Boq didn't know about the storm, the house, or the girl who lay next to them. She had been silent about the matter since they had met; perhaps she truly was ashamed of what had happened, even if it had been beyond her power to stop. "Nessa is dead."

"What?" Boq's head came up at this and Fiyero thought he could see the first glint of real emotion in his eyes since they had met.

The Scarecrow nodded towards Dorothy, "The storm that brought Dorothy to this world killed her. Those are her shoes on Dorothy's feet."

"She's really dead?" said the Tin Man and Fiyero couldn't tell if there was elation or despair in his voice. "I guess that means I'm free."

Fiyero nodded vaguely but all he could see was the horror on Elphie's face when the vision had sent her flying to Munchkin land to save her little sister. No matter how many people in Oz rejoiced at the death of a tyrant, there would always be one woman who mourned the death of the last of her family.

"So, what's next?" said Boq.

"We got to the Emerald City, like Dorothy wants," said the Scarecrow.

"Do you really think the Wizard can restore my heart?"

"It's about as likely as him being able to give me a brain," Scarecrow with a hint of sarcasm. If he hadn't grown one after years, chasing Elphie then magic probably wasn't going to be much help. "Or the Lion courage. But maybe he can get Dorothy home." And he wouldn't be able to walk all the way to the Vinkas like this. He needed to find Elphaba and she was looking for the girl who slept not five feet away from him. So he would travel with her for as long as it took for Elphie to catch up with them.

Author Note: Throughout this story some fiddling with time will be necessary. For example, it would have taken Elphaba several hours at least to fly back to Kiamo Ko from Munchkinland, so Fiyero would have already been beaten up before she turned him into a scarecrow. Unlike the musical, I plan to take distance, and the time it takes to transverse it, into account. Because of this, I will be making some changes that are different from the musical, movie, or either of the books.

Anyway, this is chapter one. I hope you enjoyed it. Please review!