Chapter 7

AN Thank you to MyLittleElphie for informing me that burnt hair will actually give off a terrible smell, so sorry for the big boo boo in the previous chapter *embarassed*

My test results are out – the doctor did not find anything that could explain why the tumour marker shot up. More tests scheduled in April. Not looking forward to it.

Fiyero looked out of the carriage window. He had been on the road for several days, spending his days in the carriage as it sped on the Yellow Brick Road towards Emerald City and his nights in shabby inns offering badly cooked Munchkinlander meals and Munchkin-size beds that provided more aches than rest. He was the only passenger in the carriage, a luxury that came with a premium price that he had paid willingly; he was not in the mood for conversation. Outside, the scenery switched between rolling green fields and rows of pine trees, but he registered none of it. His mind was only filled with one thing, his thoughts all about one girl.

He had not expected it to happen. He had not expected to find her there, nor everything else that followed.

He knew that it was totally wrong. He was a Captain of the Gale Force and she was a criminal, a wanted resistance rebel. And he was engaged, for Oz's sake. He had a fiancée, a beautiful woman who loved him and who had been there for him throughout the years. But he was unable to get the green girl out of his mind.

Fiyero Tiggular knew himself very well. He was only attracted to girls who were pretty and brainless (even Glinda was brainless when they started dating), girls whose idea of rebelling was to skip class to go shopping, or to steal a kiss with a boy behind her parents' back. They were predictable, they made him feel safe – they took what he said at face value and they did not know what he was really thinking. But there she was – neither pretty nor brainless. Someone who did not care about how she looked and what other people thought of her. A girl who was sarcastic and rude almost to the extent of being unreasonable. A girl with moods like the erratic Munchkinland weather and who was adamant in keeping him out. A girl who also happened to be one of the top terrorists of Oz.

There was no way he could explain what had happened. He had been swept by a wave that he had not seen coming, a wash of emotions that caught him by surprise, feelings so intense that he could not describe. The tingling at his fingertips that could explode into sparks if he touched her cheek, if he kissed her lips, and how much he wanted that to happen. The perpetual feeling that he was about to catch a glimpse of the real her only to have that door slammed shut at the last moment. He had thought that finding her would put an end to everything, but now it seemed that he was back to square one with more questions, and doubts that had never been there before. And he had committed a crime by letting her go, an offence punishable by life imprisonment if he was found out.

He let out a deep growl and raked his scalp with frustration.

He tried to think of Glinda instead, his fiancée, or maybe his ex-fiancee by now. He had not thought of her at all after the first day at Boq's and he knew why. He felt guilty. She did not deserve that, not when she had been so patient and loving to him. He wondered if she would be in the Wizard's Palace. He thought of visiting her in the office, surprising her with a kiss. Perhaps they could go on a short trip over the weekend. She would like that. He tried to imagine the smile on Glinda's face when he suggested that, the squeal that she would give, but he was unable to conjure up her image no matter how hard he tried.

He dropped off at his current residence for a change of clothes before he went back to the Wizard Palace. His current home was one of the two houses that he had in the Emerald City and one of the many around Oz. The houses were bought partly with his salary, but mostly with whatever funds he had at his disposal as a prince. It was not an open secret though. There was no need to let everyone knew about his personal life. He bought a few dozen pink Gillikin roses from a flower girl on his way to the palace. He knew the girl, an orphan living with some distant relatives who owned a small florist. The florist always sent her out to the streets with two large baskets of flowers, and Fiyero always bought some flowers from her whenever he saw her, paying her more than what he was supposed to. He hoped that the beautiful flowers would hide the guilt that he felt.

She was not in her office but someone else was. In a corner, arranging a vase of pink tulips, was the man who was with her when he came into her office the morning after their engagement party. He was dressed in a brightly coloured suit and humming a song.

"Where's Glinda?" Fiyero asked.

The man gave him a strange look.

"Who are you?" Fiyero asked his second question.

The man looked at the flowers in his hands.

"I'm not the florist, if that's what you are wondering. I'm Ric, her personal secretary." He never knew that she had a personal secretary. He brushed it aside.

"So where is she?"

"Who?"

"Glinda."

"Glinda the Good?"

Fiyero sighed. "Yes, Glinda the Good." Her personal secretary was trying his patience.

"I don't know."

"Who does?"

"I don't know."

"Are you sure you are her personal secretary? You don't even know where she is. She ought to fire you."

Fiyero turned around and walked out of the room.

"Have a nice day!" Glinda's personal secretary called after him.

He went back to his office (after giving the flowers to the first female staff that he encountered in the corridor), where a stack of paperwork was waiting for him. His second-in-command had placed those that required his urgent attention on top of the pile and he bulldozed through them, scribbling his signatures on the numerous papers that required his endorsement. When that was done, he made himself a cup of coffee and spent the next hour staring at the map that was on the wall, the coffee turning cold.

He looked at the pins indicating the various sightings and attacks. The pins were scattered all over the map of Oz (the Wizard had no jurisdiction beyond that). The attacks were random. They came without warning. There was no pattern that he could find.

He focused on the pins which marked the locations where farmlands were destroyed and livestock were killed. Why would she do it when she obviously cared for Boq and the plight of the farmers? Was it the working of a brilliant mind out to confuse the Gale Force or an insane mind unable to think rationally?

But she had not shown any sign of insanity in the few weeks when they were together. Stubborn? Yes. Sarcastic? Absolutely. Insane? He could not find a single trace of insanity, unless he counted her obsession with books as a sign of mental illness. He was not a mind reader, especially with women (he used to think that he was an expert in women, but that was only on how to please them and charm them, not how their minds really worked outside of a relationship) but he seriously doubted that she was crazy.

He went to the wall and took out the pins one by one. Perhaps they were wrong, obscuring his thoughts. He removed all of them, leaving the paper heavily pockmarked, before he put a pin in the middle of the map, right in the heart of the Emerald City. A pin for the day when she appeared in the Throne Room.

The door opened behind him.

He turned around. It was Madame Morrible, who never knocked on anyone's door, not even when she entered the Throne Room or the Wizard's personal quarters. Sometimes he wondered why the Wizard let her get away with such impertinence, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

"Captain," she sashayed in. She wore a red dress with wide sleeves thick with embroidery and a trailing skirt. A dress that would be greatly improved if he poured his coffee over it. "You've definitely taken your own sweet time in coming back."

He ignored the sarcasm. "Good afternoon, Madame. Is there anything that I can help with? Did anything happen when I was away?"

"Anything?" she was affronted. "Why, Captain, didn't your men inform you? The Witch struck again when you were away. She descended on a group of miners in Quadling who had just come out of the mines with a truckload of rubies. She killed every single one of them and made off with the stones. This wickedness must be stopped!"


Glinda came and looked for him in the evening (apparently her personal secretary had managed to find her, or maybe she found him) and they had dinner in one of her favourite restaurants near the palace.

There was this awful silence after the waiter had left with their orders. Glinda played with her glass of ice juice, her finger trailing the curve of the glass, breaking the condensation. It was such a simple, innocent gesture, but Fiyero was reminded of how a particular girl he knew would never be able to do that.

He wrapped his fingers around the stem of his glass, feeling the chill moisture on his skin. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine how it would feel like if the water burned his skin.

His eyes opened and he found Glinda looking at him. She smiled.

"So how's your trip?" she asked as she dabbed her finger on her napkin. There was no blister, no burn.

"Good." He took a drink from his glass to hide his thoughts.

"So how's Boq and Milla?"

"They're fine. Milla's pregnant."

"Oh," she squeaked, and that was followed by another silence.

"She's happy," he had to add, though he suspected that Glinda would never believe that. Living a life like what Milla had, to forgo the life of a pampered child in a middle-income Gillikinese family to marry a poor Munchkinlander farmer, was most probably a sentence worse than death in Glinda's opinion.

"Mmm," she made some suitable sound and was visibly relieved when their food arrived.

They took their meals in silence. Fiyero wanted to ask Glinda something, about someone, and he broached the topic with the utmost casualness.

"Glinda, I am thinking …"

Glinda patted his hand and smiled indulgently. "Fiyero dear, you are always thinking nowadays. It doesn't hurt if you give your brain a rest sometimes."

He shook his head. "No, Glinda. I am thinking… what if we are wrong about the Wicked Witch of the West?" He almost grimaced at the name that he used to address her.

Glinda frowned, something that she rarely did, but that expression was replaced by a wide smile barely a tick tock later.

"Fiyero," she replied with a perky voice. "It's after office hours, why are you still thinking about work? Look? Music!" She turned to the source of the music, somewhere to her right a few tables away. A violinist had stepped up to a table where a couple was dining and started to play a song, his head swaying to and fro together with the movement of the bow. The music was sorrowful, but the woman at the table gave a delightful cry. Before Fiyero knew it, her companion was on one knee, an open velvet box in one hand.

"Lila, we have only known each other for a few months, but I know that I cannot live without you. You are my sunshine, my joy, my life. You are the best thing that has happened to me. I want to be with you every single day and night. It will be my greatest honor if you will agree to be my wife. Will you marry me?"

The woman, Lila, put a hand to her heart and then nodded with a soft yes. Her companion put the ring on her finger before he stood up and kissed her gently on her lips. The staff and the customers around them applauded.

Fiyero looked back at Glinda and saw the way she looked at the couple with misty eyes, the envy that was written plainly on her face. She seemed to realise that he was looking at her, and gave him a tight, nervous smile.

"I suppose we have to go over and congratulate them, shan't we?" she said, and then she stood up and tossed her hair methodically before she placed her hand on his arm and they went to the table.

The couple was delighted when they saw Glinda.

"It's Glinda the Good," the woman called Lila gasped.

"Congratulations, Dear." She said, her voice soft and friendly. "We were at our table and we overheard the proposal. This is so romantic." She placed a hand on Lila's arm. "I don't know the two of you personally, but I can see the love that you have, and I am sure that you will be very happy together."

The woman squealed at that comment and her fiancé wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Thank you, Glinda the Good."

"Oh, don't be so formal. Just call me Glinda," Glinda replied with a soft giggle.

"Glinda," the man said with a slight bow.

"Oh, Glinda, forgive me for being so rude. I forget to say congratulations to you and Captain Fiyero! The perfect couple!" Lila exclaimed and gave Glinda a hug, unable to contain her excitement. "Congratulations on your engagement! How I wish I was there to witness the proposal. Was it romantic?"

"Of course," Glinda replied as she looked up at Fiyero with a dreamy smile. He returned her smile, playing his part. "But let's not talk about that. It's your big day today, not mine."

The two ladies continued to chat for a while and admired each other's engagement rings before Glinda excused themselves and they went back to their seats. Their food had turned cold and Glinda put down her cutlery after she had taken a bite, claiming that she was no longer hungry. They left the restaurant, but not before they congratulated the couple on their engagement again.

Fiyero looked at her when they were in the carriage. She was quiet again. She looked out of the window, her arms around her as if she was cold.

He wanted to ask Glinda about their days in Shiz, about a girl whom he believed was from that school. A girl with green skin, black hair and a stubborn personality. He wanted to know if Glinda knew who she was and if she had any friend in school, if anyone he knew was her friend.

He reached for her hand and Glinda gave him a wan smile, but she pulled her hand away.

They reached the palace at that moment and Fiyero helped her out of the carriage. She switched to her public persona the moment she got out of the carriage and greeted the guards on duty at the gate cheerfully. She was always so professional; she never let her own emotions affected the moods of those around her. The façade dropped once they had entered the gates and were alone again. Fiyero followed her as they went back to her apartment in the Palace. She was quiet, as if she was miles away instead of just next to him. It felt strange. Fiyero was usually the quiet one and she would talk enough for the two of them. But now even she was quiet, as if there was nothing more to say between them. He wondered if her female intuition had simply sensed the guilt that he felt.

They reached her room.

"Goodnight," Fiyero said and he kissed her on her cheek.

"Fiyero?"

"Yes?"

"I'm leaving for home the day after tomorrow. I will be away for a few weeks, maybe more. Momsie and Popiscle miss me."

"Of course," he said automatically.

"And…" she looked away. "They'll be introducing some people to me. Some young men, some older ones." She laughed nervously. "All supposedly very rich and handsome. Oh well, maybe the only the younger ones are handsome." She wrung her fingers and twisted the engagement ring on her finger. He knew what she was trying to say. Her parents wanted her to reconsider her choice of husband. Maybe she was expecting him to stop her from going, or to go with her to prove his sincerity. That was what he was considering earlier that day, to go on a short trip with her. But now it did not seem like a good idea after all. It was never a good idea.

"I'll see you off," he offered.

"No, it's alright." She shook her head. "Popsicle will be coming to fetch me."

"Let's meet for lunch tomorrow," he suggested.

She shook her head again.

"I have a lot of work to clear before I go."

Fiyero could only pretend to understand.


Fiyero spent the next morning clearing some of the work that had piled up when he was on leave. He dug through the mountain of paper, looking for a report that he knew would most probably be found between a notice on something like an upcoming inspection exercise and the monthly report on the number of boots and uniform outworn by his men. He found it, a replication of the telegram that had come through, briefly describing the attack and the number of fatalities. He looked at the date of the message and his eyebrows knitted together. He went through the stack again, but the detail report was not in. He cursed at the delay and crumpled up the flimsy first report before he hurled it at the wall. It bounced back and landed next to his feet. He stepped on the offensive piece of paper on his way out. There was somewhere he had to go.

The Public Building was a two-storey brick building outside the city center of the Emerald City. The building was old, the bricks faded to a mouldy grey and covered with soot from the neighbouring factories that had since closed down (because they were ran by Animals and hired Animal workers)

The building housed a few civil departments which tracked most of the public records – births and deaths, registrations of various skillsets, approval requests, records and so on. Despite its name, the place was not opened to the public, but Fiyero's emerald uniform opened doors.

While he was not a regular to this building, he was familiar with its layout, having visited it a few times before for work. He made his way to a small room on the second floor, with a door badly labelled as 'Rec ds (2)'. He went in and nodded to the only staff on duty, a small shriveled woman who was barely tall enough for the big table.

"Yes?" she asked in a raspy voice, as if she had no energy to say anything more than that.

"I am looking for the teaching registry, Madame," he said, trying not to let the frustration from the morning crept into his voice.

She took out a bunch of keys from the drawer. The keys were all identical, and she went through them slowly until she reached a key somewhere in the middle and took it out. She pointed at one of the many rows of cabinets and Fiyero wordlessly took over the tiny key. He went to the cabinet and managed to unlock it after a couple of tries; he had no idea when it was last opened. He went through the drawers, pulling cobwebs from the inside, trying not to sneeze at the yellowed files. It took him a while before he found what he was looking for - the teaching registry, which recorded all the teachers' qualifications and experience. A teacher had to pay an annual fee to renew his teaching license, without which he would not be allowed to teach in Oz. Not surprisingly, any teacher who wished to update his qualifications in the registry would have to pay an administrative fee too.

The files were, thankfully, filed in alphabetical order and Fiyero managed to find the one that he was looking for quite easily; there was only one file under the category 'Dg - Dm'.

His last record was from a few years ago, when he had taught in Shiz. His teaching license had not been renewed since then. It could mean a few things – that Doctor Dillamond was no longer teaching or he had gone into private teaching (which was based more on word-of-mouth) or he had simply left Oz.

Fiyero put the file back into the cabinet and approached the old woman again. "Excuse me, Madame?"

She reached out her hand for the key and it was a while before she realized that he was not there to return the key.

"Yes?" she asked grudgingly, rationing her words.

"The teaching registry. Do you have any information if a teacher has left for private teaching or is teaching outside Oz?"

"No."

"What about the latest residential address?"

"Do I look as if I have time for such trivial?" She stretched out her hand again. Well, actually Fiyero thought that she had all the time in the world. It seemed that the only outstanding task on her list was to die, and she was taking her own sweet time to reach that goal. But he kept his thoughts to himself and reluctantly handed over the key.

He left the building brooding. He had thought that he would be able to find the information easily. To prove to himself, to her, that Doctor Dillamond was somewhere, safe and alive, spending his days marking badly-written papers and being terrorised by unappreciative students like who he used to be. To convince himself that she was just rambling, paranoia and no one was being prosecuted for speaking out. The last time he saw Doctor Dillamond was when the Goat was being led away by the campus security. He remembered that the Goat had shouted to his students, asking them to, what, work hard? Keep their eyes open? Not to trust the Wizard administration? He had thought of the professor a few times since then but had never really thought of where he had gone. Afterall, he was just one of the many professors that he had met in his colourful school life. But now a few words from a girl had sent his mind into overdrive.

Fiyero made his way back to his office, deep in thoughts, trying to work out his next step.

He turned a corner and looked up to see the tall spires of the palace before him, and he remembered.


He went to the Wizard Palace the next morning. Glinda had said that her father would be picking her up, but he knew her well enough to know that she would not embark on a journey without a proper breakfast. He suspected that her father would be there as well. He joined them for breakfast in her apartment. Highmuster Arduenna was sober, charming but the conversation was strained. Even Glinda was subdued. He wondered if it was due to the presence of her father or the awkward dinner that they had two nights ago.

Fiyero went back to the palace when their carriage had disappeared from sight. It was still early, and the staff on day shift had not reported to work. He walked along the corridors, nodding to anyone who saw him. They would think that he was on his way to see Glinda or on business, as he had done so many times before.

He stopped by the key room which stored the keys to most of the rooms in the palace. There was always a guard on duty, and anyone who wished to sign out a key would have to present an appropriate authorisation letter. Fiyero inspected the place and the guard, checking for dust on the furniture and creases on the guard's uniform. He asked the guard about his background, browsed the logs and took a look at the key box. One of the advantages about being captain was that hardly anyone would question him what he was doing, even when he was doing something that was not within his jobscope. This guard was no exception. He looked at the Arjiki captain with awe, perhaps wondering what it would take for him to rise up the ranks. Fiyero gave a few encouraging words and complimented him for keeping the key room and his uniform neat and clean. He dropped a piece of paper on the floor, out of sight, so that he had a reason to return to the room later. When that was done, he made his way to the upper floors of the palace. There was no delegate visiting that day and no meeting scheduled, and so the upper floors (besides the topmost floor which housed the Wizard's personal quarters) were deserted.

He went to the Throne Room. The room was not booked the next few days and so the locked room was unguarded. After double checking that the corridor was empty, he took out the key that he had taken from the key box while pretending to inspect the keys earlier. He unlocked the door and slipped into the room before he locked the door behind him. He did not dare to turn on the lights, not knowing if the light from under the door would attract anyone's attention. He opened one of the windows slightly, letting the morning sunlight shone on the bronze head and the curtain behind it.

He remembered that the curtain was opened partially the last time. He jerked at it, but the fabric was pulled taut and secured with iron rings both at the top and on the rail on the floor, stretching from one end of the room to the other. There was only the slightest gap between the curtain and the wall; it was impossible for him to squeeze through. He tried to peek inside, but could not see anything beyond a few inches. Fiyero scanned the wall in the dim light. There must be something used to operate the curtain. He had seen it drawn back before. And then he spotted it.

It was on the wall behind the curtain, in the shadows, a thin lever with an incomplete ring that looked as if it was a hook for securing the fabric when it was drawn back. Fiyero looked at it, wondering if it would operate the curtain or if it would reveal a trap under his feet. He pulled the lever, and was unable to hide his relief when the curtain moved away from him.

There was a large cage quite a distance behind the curtain, shrouded in darkness. That would explain why he did not notice it the last time. The cage was made of copper. Part of it had oxidized, turning the cage verdigris. The cage was empty. Well, almost empty. There was a lump in the cage, covered by a plain blanket. It was not moving.

"Hello?" Fiyero whispered.

The blanket shivered.

He rattled the cage, feeling slightly juvenile, like a child who was trying to disturb a helpless young cub held captive in a cage. He stopped when the lump started to move. It moved around aimlessly, from left to right, in a zigzag manner, slowly moving towards Fiyero. The lump changed its mind and moved to another direction, away from him. Fiyero swore, and then stopped when it turned and came towards him again. It seemed to be attracted to sounds. He called to it softly, saying one meaningless word after another. The thing moved slowly, but soon it was within his reach. Fiyero reached for the edge of the blanket with his fingers and jerked it away, revealing an old, familiar figure. A goat, no, a Goat, on all fours, his clothes tattered and dirty. His features were older and definitely more unkempt, the awareness and the intelligence behind the eyes no longer there. The Animal in front of him looked and acted more like an animal than an Animal, but Fiyero recognized him nonetheless.

"Doctor Dillamond?" he whispered.

The Goat baaed at him, once, twice, as if he recognized his own name, and sniffed at the hand that was wrapped around the bar of the cage. He baaed with disappointment when he realized that the prince did not bring any food.

"Good Oz," Fiyero swore. She was right after all.

As he watched, the Goat poked his muzzle under the fallen blanket that was in the cage. Within seconds, he managed to burrow himself under the sheet. Secured with the feeling of the heavy fabric around him, he continued to move around the cage aimlessly, before he stopped somewhere in the middle and sat down and slept.

He never acknowledged his ex-student.

AN : I am so tired editing this lengthy chapter that I almost split it into two!

AN : I am back on twitter again, this time at YeroTigelaar . Yes, I know that it is totally different from my fanfiction name (talk about lack of consistency) but I found this combination of Fiyero's name that is not taken and I just have to use it! ;) Nothing much there, just random thoughts and ramblings.