(AN: This story will go down in the history of the Ozian Adventures series [what it is] as a 'middle story', if anyone even gives it the time of day anymore. Well, I'm still here and I've got several plot-bunnies to explicate a little bit more on, as well as setting the stage for the next story, Witch's Soul. Yes, I've been promising that for a long while, now it's gonna get published. It's in the same series as this, but, obviously, a cross-over, and will feature only two characters from the Ozian Adventures series. All these others are getting hard to stay on top of!)
(So bear with me, please.)
Bigger Problems
A strange kind of miasma hovered over the group as they sat in the hot, stuffy garage of their mutual acquaintance Oppman. They were now one person short, and baby Liir was not doing any better for her absence. Fiyero never went to sleep, instead pacing the floor all day and night. Boq kept to himself, or sometimes shared whispered words with Evemar Kloxolk. He, on the other hand, also stayed much to himself, sharpening his sword or taking care of his clock-work parts.
The two women were kept quite busy. The tonic Dr. Menmam gave them tasted horrible, but allowed them to nurse Liir. But even that was easier said than done. Neither of them had eaten much in a long while, and the small portions of food that Oppman brought them periodically were hardly enough. As their luck would have it, the uncomfortable task of nursing baby Liir often fell to Nessarose. Though, by reason of their lack of nourishment, both women were weary and the feeding made them weak, Glinda was even weaker than usual and slept most of the day, or laid on her make-shift bed, crying herself to sleep.
Thus they spent the majority of their days here at Meraburg, all the while hoping that, one of these days, or perhaps in the dead of the night, Elphaba would come walking back into their lives and the last few days would have been nothing more than a bad dream. Day after day, with Oppman's garage un-darkened by the sight of her shadow, the painful truth slowly dawned upon them: Elphaba was not coming back.
One day they were once more together, minus Oppman and Elphaba, in a place of the garage that Fiyero and Evemar Kloxolk had cleaned up for this purpose. They sat in a loose circle, with Fiyero in the middle and Boq and Kloxolk on opposite sides. Glinda sat off by herself, and Nessa cradled baby Liir in her arms.
"I never thought I'd find myself in this situation," Fiyero began. "I mean, the last time I was doing something, trying to be the head of more than just attention, I was searching for Elphaba." Glinda's tiny hand raised up from where she sat. "You don't have to raise your hand, Glinda, we're not at Shiz anymore."
"Shouldn't we be searching for her?"
"Normally I agree with you," he replied. "But I don't know where to start. Oppman's told us the people of the village, Meraburg, I guess it's called, don't like outsiders. He's asked around about Elphaba, but not many people have been willing to offer him any information."
"Where does that leave us?" Kloxolk asked.
"I think we should go home," Boq said. "I mean, come on, I'm no adventurer, I get scared going through the Pine Barrens in broad daylight!"
"I agree," Fiyero said. "We've been too long away from home, it's time we go back."
"Are we even sure we can make it back?" Kloxolk asked.
"What do you mean?" Fiyero queried.
"I came here on the back of a Roc, as you recall. I definitely remembered spending a whole night flying over nothing but ocean before we set down on this place. He called it Maaptia, whatever that means."
"Wait, ocean?" Nessa asked. "You've seen the ocean?"
"Of course," Kloxolk replied, as if it were no thing. "Why?"
"Why?" she returned. "Well, nobody in Oz has ever heard of the ocean. Most people don't even believe it exists, especially..." She stopped herself in mid-sentence, knowing of whom she was talking about and how sore the subject of her still was among those here present.
"Pretty much what I'm saying," Kloxolk picked up in the midst of the awkward silence that followed Nessarose's hastily ended sentence. "Is that we have no guarantee that we could find another Roc to take us back across the sea. I'm probably the only one of you who's been to sea."
"Oh," Fiyero interjected. "We've been at sea before."
"Do you know how to sail?" Fiyero made a face similar to his usual expressions of complete bewilderment that were all too familiar in his days at dear old Shiz.
"I don't even think we can swim," Nessa stated. "I sure can't."
Kloxolk sighed, resting his face in the palm of his flesh hand.
"So we have no way of getting back to where we come from," Fiyero said. "Almost no idea where we are." He exclaimed. "We're sure as Oz lost, that's for sure."
"So what good was this meeting anywho?" Glinda sorrowfully asked.
"Come on, we can't just stay here forever," Fiyero interjected. "We have to go somewhere."
"Go where, Fiyero?" she bemoaned. "I'm tired, I'm sick of running here and there, never staying in one place."
"We're all tired, Glinda." Nessa stated.
"Not as much as I am," she retorted, then turned back to Fiyero. "I didn't want to get involved in this adventure, I was just...well, called here. Now, I just wanna go home."
"We'd all love to go home, Glinda," Fiyero replied. "But we can't get home, can we?"
With a defeated huff, Glinda walked out on their little meeting.
"I agree with Glinda!" Boq stated. "I never wanted to get involved in this situation."
"Do you think any of us wanted to be in this situation?" Kloxolk asked. "We should make the best of it."
"And just how do we do that?" Fiyero asked, a little jaded at his 'authority' being usurped.
"Well," Kloxolk began. "If Oppman is our only connection to the outside, maybe he can help us."
"How?" Nessa asked.
"Ask him to buy us maps, ask around. Who knows, we might find passage to the coast, people more open to speaking with us. From there, we can charter a ship back to Nonestica."
"What's 'Nonestica'?" Boq asked.
"It's what outsiders call our world."
"I thought we were called Oz," Nessa queried.
"Your land is called Oz, but Ev is just beyond the Deadly Desert: both of our countries are on the same continent, which is called Nonestica, or Nonestia."
"I like your plan," Boq said. "At least someone makes sense around here."
Fiyero huffed angrily, then slumped back onto the floor, face covered by his palm.
"So," Boq began. "I guess the meeting's adjourned?"
Glinda spent every night crying herself to sleep. It seemed she didn't have enough tears to bring life to the sorrow, the worry, the fear in her heart. Sorrow because Elphaba was gone, worry for what might happen to her, and fear that something might have already happened to her as she thought thusly.
"I want Elphie back!" she cried to herself, ever since the green woman disappeared.
Her dreams did not get any better either. In them, she relived the most horrible events of her life: Fiyero leaving with Elphaba, that evening at Kiamo Ko when she thought Elphaba was dead, her second visit to Center Munch, when she learned at last how she had destroyed Boq and Nessa, the horrible visions in the Elf-lady's mirror, the pain she felt in that moment when she touched the Stone, the horrors of the siege, the darkness of the Land of Shadow, and all the terrible things that happened in Midgard. In the center of all these things, she saw, was Elphaba Thropp. But what did it mean? Was she the cause of all these terrible things, or was she, in some way, part of the solution?
Glinda...
She was in a dark room, the only light coming from a figure before her. Was it Elphie, holding out the broom, urging her to come with her?
Glinda...
She was in a forest glade, flooded with moon-light. The choice remained before her, just as it had before: fly to safety, or go forward into darkness and uncertainty.
Glinda...
All the while, a voice was calling out to her from the darkness. It was not Elphaba's voice, nor was it Fiyero's voice.
Glinda...
There was something familiar about that voice, however...
"Glinda!"
She jumped up from her sleep, her mouth hanging open as she saw the speaker standing at the foot of where she had fallen asleep.
(AN: Guess what, witches? I'm back! [lol])
(A story for Witch's Soul is formulating: yes, what you have heard advertised is finally going to come out! Let me finish this story up in ten chapters, and I'll weave you a tale you might actually enjoy and find interesting.)
(Meanwhile, mystery and questions are to be answered in the coming chapter.)
