It's been awhile since I wrote anything but the show Emerald City is wonderful and reimagines The Wizard of Oz in a very appealing manner. I never got into either the books or the original movie, so there are details that I may not know. I find the relationship between Tip, Jack and Languwidere compelling and fascinating character studies. I'm not sure yet if this a one shot or if there will be stand alone chapters. Reviews make my day so let me know what you think but be kind. I love to know what people think. I am aware that my thought stream style is kind of unusual. That being said this was a departure from my previous fan fictions in that it is not first person and also the first one written entirely on a tablet.
All dialogue characteres and scenes are the property of Baum and the wonderful writers of Emerald city. This is purely written for fun and I get zero profit from it. Yada Yada Yada.
The chest trails behind as his numb new legs propel him following her swishing skirts, her imperious voice calling him urging him on.
"Come along now hurry up."
His strong stiff metal arm doesn't get tired and is perfect for heavy work like lifting or fighting. He misses the feel of his natural fingers, the delicate coordination of holding something just so without crushing the darn thing into a thousand glinting shards raining embarrassment down on him as others laughed in amusement.
The crash of dishes brings him to his senses as surprise registers on his face and he quite literally nearly bumps into Tip. Her astonishment evident in her shocked face as she sees her dead friend gaping in identical surprise in front of her. Weeks of guilt and remorse wash over her as she begins to throw herself into his arms.
"Jack it's me - it's Tip"
"Nonono . . .don't touch me" Jack backs up shrinking away from her touch; not wanting her to feel his cold solid arm and chest. Ashamed about being more metal than man, feeling more the freak than ever and experiancing the pain of abandonment ripped wide open and again bleeding.
"Why didn't you try to help me?" inwardly the flashback hitting him hard making his chest ache with the memory. Seeing himself lying broken on the ground bleeding and left for dead, helped by strangers and abandoned by his best friend.
"I thought I'd killed you" Tip felt the waves of guilt seeing him again crushed into the pavement the spreading puddle of blood staining the cobblestones red as the life leaked out of the only friend she had ever had. She remembers their days together on the road his smiling happy face urging her on, making her think there was hope; starkly contrasting with the broken hearted fury before her.
"I can fix everything. Please let me" Tip's desperate face fills with tears as she remembers her disgust at his stolen kiss. Her panic at her best friend suddenly impulsively kissing her, struggling with her identity as a girl, losing the boy she thought herself to be. She saw flashbacks of her horror as the rage cleared from her mind replaced by grief at losing her only friend nearly stopping her own heart. She panicked and reflexively fled the horror of accidentally pushing him through the flimsy railing and watching him fall to his apparent death.
His fury builds as he remembers the horror of his equally transformed friend Tip, her luscious breasts and lips that caused his fall straining against the cloth, her nipples winking at him ironically as her small hands pushed furiously against his chest flinging him into the unforgiving air, his body twisting frantically trying to avoid the inevitable.
"We can't be fixed. I can't be fixed"
The taste of the stolen kiss still lingering on his lips was the last thing he remembered before he crashed into the pavement shattering both legs and the entire left side of his body. The splintered ends of his ribs lacerated his heart and liver. Hers was the only face to interrupt the blackness that swallowed him for weeks afterwards; only to be replaced with the kind face of Jane and the knowledge that he was alone in the world and dramatically changed.
He turns to lift the heavy trunk again, this time fury and hurt propelling him away from his transformed best and beloved friend. His numb metal feet contrasts the pain of his feelings with the raw wounds of his freakishness and his confusion completing his misery.
She begs him to stay.
"Jack don't go I love you"
"What does that even mean?" He drops the trunk with a crash. His metal arm twitching with the desire to shake her until her neck snaps contrasting with the aching impulse of his human arm wanting to hug her and cry at all the wrongness of the changes in both of them. He settles for anger and the feelings of betrayal as he stops to listen to her.
"I don't know. I don't know what to say and how to say it. All I know is that you're my best friend."
"I was your only friend" he bellows, the anger and hurt glinting in his grey/blue eyes.
The swishing of the skirts heralds the arrival of the beautiful mysterious woman behind the ornate mask
"Who is this Jack?" Her tone curious having returned to find her usually composed Jack literally snarling with anger into the face of a beautiful dainty teenaged girl with dark curly hair cascading to her waist and the most beautiful expressive brown eyes she had ever seen.
"No-one' he snarls into the little stranger's face. As small as he is he has to lean over to look into her face. As Langwidere approaches he backs up and his demeanor instantly calms down as the sadness in his face deepens.
Langwidere has a very quirky sense of humor. It's often cutting although it isn't meant to be, but being sheltered by her station in life she doesn't understand or care how the world reads her. The sight of the diminutive polar opposites spitting at each other like angry hunting cats is a source of amusement. She also feels pride at how her half mechanical Jack can fit in so well that the beautiful girl does not realize that she is talking to a hybrid. She thinks to herself for the hundredth time the shy and brilliant Jane is a wonder.
She approaches the petite little stranger and bends to her touching her soft cheek with a hand large enough to cup her face.
"Are you a no-one girl? You don't look like a no-one. Do you have a name little someone? And how do you know my Jack?"
She watches the play of emotions over the face of the teenaged stranger and the tears welling up in her eyes.
"We grew up together. We were best friends"
Then realization hits Langwidere with a flood of tightly controlled emotion, protectiveness, hurt, anger, sadness and jealousy. Dropping her hand from Tip's face she straightens up to her full height and glares down at her.
"Is this the one who killed you? Did you tell her what you are now?"
Jack blushes his pale cheeks aflame with shame and betrayal as he feels his chest crushed again but this time from the inside as the desire to run far away (albeit clumsily) wars with the desire to sink into the stones and just hide from the situation. Finally he meets her furious gaze.
"Why not?" She glares down into his anxious face.
"I don't want to" he mumbles his gaze sliding away from her face glancing at Tip dreading the inevitable.
He sighs deeply not wanting to show his damaged chest; to see her beautiful dark eyes cloud over with the horror of his freakishness and his reclaimed life.
"Show her what she did to you" the beautiful woman in the mask imperiously and protectively commands.
"Children can't be corrected if they don't know what they did wrong"
His anger conmpounds the surprise and mortification of being forced to show himself as if the star of a freak show. Langwidere forcing him to show the depth of the damage, his clicking metal heart. He couldn't say no, and hated that she forced him to comply cementing her control over him. He took a deep breath and pulled the string with his good hand and fumbled the shirt open with his metal one; so large but fortunately today not quite clumsy and thankfully covered with a glove. He grimaced biting the inside of his mouth until it bleeds.
Tip gasps in horror and pain as she gazed on his mutilated chest the red/raw border of his metal chest plate and his whirring miraculous metal heart. His pale skin contrasts with the redness of his vessels connecting with the metal and magical parts. They are still raw and the skin still growing used to the metal parts; his slight frame incongruous with his solid metal organ and limbs. His shame is apparent to Tip as he is completely unable to meet her gaze as she stares at his sore chest with straps around his neck.
He never noticed how Langwidere is opposite of everything that Tip was. . . Is. Blond pale imperious, unforgiving, protective, brutal, and very tall towering over him by several inches. Yet when alone, sweet, vulnerable and sheltered. She is afraid for her beloved father, the kind but demented old king of Ev. As she said he is leaving but not leaving. She doesn't understand how to be kind, how to respond to another's needs unless it serves her purpose.
A gilded cage, and he the mechanical canary, the half metal man. Jane with all her science and magic was wrong; he even told her so. A metal heart can still break, never stop feeling. He grunts as Tip watches him clatter away on numb metal feet limping ever so slightly.
And then there is Tip, she .. he? Was always there, he would climb up to his windows and share stories of the world. He spoke of the forest and the hills that he roamed and hunted. They would dream and make up stories about freeing Tip and the adventures they would have as young men. They would travel the world, become sailors and and adventurers, they would love beautiful women and find a home to live in, rich and loved.
His love for her screams silently at the separation, causing his metal heart to beat harder with more audible clicks and whirring. His corresponding hate at the betrayal of his fall, the horrer at his difference and the knowledge that she abandoned his seemingly dead body like trash. Running away when he needed her more than he needed anyone at anytime in his life. He picks up speed with the trunk screeching along behind him. Deep in his unpleasant thoughts.
"The old Jack may have been your friend but the new Jack is mine" Langwidere's formal voice echos in his head. He felt anger at the fact that he belonged to her. As pleasant as the prison; the truth was he was no longer free to choose his way in the world. He and Tip were now fundamentally changed. Only five feet away but as far apart as possible. He glanced back as he dragged the large trunk away. Tip's anguish was echoing his own; wanting to leave but also wanting to stay; hating her but deeply bonded to her as always.
"Please don't go" Tip called with tears in her voice stabbing at his memories of their childhood. He flashed back to the light of the moon on his face and the feel of TWO hands and TWO feet as he told her stories perched outside her window at Mombi's house. He hesitates as he paused to look one last time before he left. He swallowed his memories squared his human and mechanical shoulders and followed the swishing skirts away from his past. Jack the half human and completely conflicted followed his future servitude down the hall as he forcibly locked his emotions down.