A/N: Special update today, because It's My Birthday!
Disclaimer: Look at another chapter, seriously.
"Should we kill him, Madame?" One guard asked, gruffly, throwing Fiyero face first onto the floor at Madame Morrible's feet. He groaned and tried to push himself up, only to have the guard shove him back down with a foot to his lower back. He could feel the rest of the guards watching him with amusement.
"No, he is still useful to us," Morrible said, slowly.
"Useful? How? He's a traitor! He should be-"
"Patience, Biduur, he will be dead in a matter of days." Fiyero swallowed hard. "But for now we need him alive and here."
"Why?" Biduur asked.
"Bait," Madame Morrible said with a cackle that made the hair on the back of Fiyero's neck stand up.
"Bait?" Fiyero asked. "For what?" The whole group burst into laughter.
"So he is a brainless as people say!" One of them said, doubling over. Fiyero thought hard. Who would they want that he had to do with?
Then it clicked. Oz, he was so stupid sometimes. "You're not touching her!" He screamed, struggling under the guard's foot, but it was of no use. Fiyero breathed hard, trying to think of something.
The guards grabbed him by the arms, dragging him to his feet. "Should we take him to the dungeons?" One asked, the same one that Morrible had called "Biduur."
"The torture room would be more appropriate," Morrible said slowly. A memory stirred in the back of Fiyero's mind.
"Wait, do you hear that?"
"What?"
"It sounds like… someone in pain."
Without a second thought, Fiyero leaped forward in a desperate attempt at releasing himself. An arm caught him in the stomach, forcing him backwards. The wind was knocked out of him.
"What, princy-boy, scared of getting hurt, now are we?" Biduur sneered, covering his mouth so he couldn't speak.
Not even two seconds later, he leaped back, forgetting all about the job at hand.
"He bit me! He actually bit me!" He exclaimed, waving his hand around frantically. Fiyero had already dashed out the door of the great hall and down the hallway.
He rounded the corner and up a long flight of stairs, feeling like the running and hiding from guards had become strangely déjà vu in the past few days.
Up and up and up a million spiral stairs he went, passing a few landings leading to hallways on floors that he had never been in. Did the people who built this palace have any sense? He wondered as he passed a window and saw that he was level with the treetops.
"There he is!" the guard he had bitten yelled, leading the mass of Gale Force men up the stairs. Acting on instinct, Fiyero swore softly and raced up to the next landing, dashing into the hallway.
With the guards on his tail, Fiyero sprinted down the long corridor lined with multiple conference rooms and offices, not daring to look behind him to see if he had lost them. He could hear the sounds of their footfalls getting more and more distant as he reached the end of the hallway.
He took a right where the path forked and ran into the closest room, praying to the Unnamed God that there wasn't anyone waiting there to shoot him down. He slammed the door and collapsed on the ground, extremely relieved to see that the room was empty. He could hear the guards' footfalls fading away.
"Thank Oz, that must have been the luckiest thing that's happened to me in a week," he muttered, running his fingers through his hair and looking around. It wasn't really a room, more of an extension of the hall on the other side of the door. It was a gallery of some sort, with portraits of past rulers hung on the walls.
Led purely by curiosity - history was his favorite subject in school, even if he still failed the class - and the knowledge that the farther he was from the entrance, the better, he briskly walked down the hallway, examining the paintings as he did so.
After passing one image, he did a double take. Ayann Phillips. A Tiger.
Surprised, Fiyero racked his brain for a history lesson in which Doctor Dillamond had mentioned an Animal ruler of Oz. Of course, Fiyero couldn't think of anything, but they had gone through all the leaders of Oz and he knew that if they had covered it he would have probably heard an hour long lecture on the subject from Elphaba.
"I have to ask Fae about that later," Fiyero mumbled, before continuing on. He had barely taken a step before he felt a pull on his arms and went tumbling back into the mob behind him. In a blur, he was pushed into the wall in front of him. There was a burst of pain in his forehead that caused him to let out a scream.
He wasn't able to recall much after that. He vaguely sensed himself being dragged down the spiral stairs… pushed into a room… a jolt of pain down his leg… nothing after that.
"Well, well, well, three fugitives in one day! How delightful!" Madame Morrible jeered, circling the two woman. "It feels like my birthday!" Glinda just stood, gently tugging at the handcuffs that held her by the wrists, looking utterly defeated. Elphaba, in comparison, was pulling and tugging at the chains with such violence that she resembled a lion put on a leach. She was noticeably paler than before. The venomous glare she sent the fish woman could have cooked her insides, but Morrible didn't seem even a little disturbed by it. The men holding the other end of their chains however, were eying the green witch warily. Bright green electric sparks were buzzing around her fingertips, which obviously itched to fire a spell and Morrible.
"So I see that we didn't need the bait after all," She said, stopping in front of Elphaba and eying her from head to toe. Bait. Elphaba's mind buzzed with possibilities. Her body, however, responded by an attempt to kick Morrible in the stomach. Morrible jumped out of reach with ease, and the guards behind her yanked at the chains in warning. The older woman waved a finger at her.
"Uh-uh-uh, don't get feisty now, dearie, or things with have to get messy," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice. Elphaba just scowled, wisely keeping her mouth shut. Her head pounded, she could barely think straight.
"Take them to the dungeons, max security," Morrible said, striding away. Confused, the guards hesitated.
"But, Madame, shouldn't we interrogate them first?" The guard holding Glinda's chains asked.
"We will, of course. I just have something… special planned for her and I need a little more time to set it up. It should be ready by tomorrow morning." Elphaba's eyes widened briefly, then she resumed her dominant composure, determined not to show and weakness. Glinda however, looked as terrified as she felt. Elphaba managed to shoot her a mildly comforting look as the two Gale Force members pushed them along.
"Come on, move it," the one holding Elphaba said gruffly, kicking her in the back.
"What, are they paying you for how fast I move?" Elphaba shot back, rewarded with another boot in her backside, harder this time.
Once they reached the floor right below the ground, they were shoved into their cells, Glinda noticeably less roughly than Elphaba, who was nothing less than thrown in. After both cell doors were locked, they looked over the ladies.
"We've got our eyes on you two," Elphaba's captor growled, "If you try anything…" He left it at that, walking away with the other guard on his heels.
Once they were out of sight, Elphaba flopped down at the bottom of the cell, staring up at the ceiling with a blank look. There was a moment of silence except for a faint dripping of water in the distance, amplified by the stone walls.
"Elphie?" Glinda asked, tentatively. Her voice echoed off the walls. Elphie… Elphie… Elphie…
"Yeah?"
"Now what?" Elphaba turned her head to face Glinda. She looked like a lost puppy with nowhere to go and no one to depend on. Elphaba looked down at the handcuffs that still gripped her wrists, restraining any forms of magic. She felt drained. Her head throbbed harder than ever.
"I don't know," she confessed.
A/N #2: The girls and Fiyero will meet up soon, don't worry!
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