Rifiuto: Non Miriena

Written: 2005 Found: 2017- Licia

She stumbled through the streets, barefoot, uncertain of how she had gotten off the bridge or out of the water, for she was drenched. Unaware of nothing and no one, she wandered through the City of Emeralds, slowly making her way back to the hotel where she was staying, though she knew not the way. Her knees were scraped and bleeding, but she didn't notice. She noticed nothing but the eerie sensation that she had experienced this before.

He watched as her body was tossed onto the cart along with her sisters, and kept close by the cart as they moved through the woods, keeping an eye on the girl's chest. Occasionally, he would see it rise and fall, indicating that she was still alive. He hadn't struck her hard enough to kill her, just to knock her unconscious- and that was enough to convince the other soldiers that she was dead. He took a deep breath; when the timing was just right, he would strike.

She ignored the stares that followed her, was deaf to the questions the chased after her; she kept walking. Past the vendors on the street corners, past the patrons out at the restaurants, enjoying dinner under the stars, past the street urchins begging silently in their rags. She saw none of them as she continued to make her way towards the hotel at the heart of the city.

Fiyero sighed, taking a sip out of his glass as he stared out the window. His cheek still stung slightly from where she'd struck him, but it didn't matter now. None of it mattered, because he hadn't told her the most important thing.

That he knew how she'd survived.

He knew, because he'd been there, the night of the massacre.

And reluctantly, taken part in the slaughter of the royal family.

"Who are you, Fiyero?" He turned to find Glinda standing in the doorway of the hotel room, her fur shawl grasped tight around her shoulders. A moment passed before he nodded for her to enter and close the door. Once done, he finished the last of his drink and set it on the table, before turning back to the window. "I know you're the prince Fabala was betrothed to. I recognized you the day you both arrived to meet me. But what I want to know is..." She stopped, going to him. "Is who she really is and who you are. There's more to you than just a prince and just a con artist. Tell me, please."

He sighed. "Who I am doesn't concern you, Glinda. It's who she is that does."

"I don't understand."

"She is real. Glinda, Fae is Elphaba. She's the princess."

"So she says." The blonde replied, the first drops of bitterness coating her words. He shook his head.

"No, Glinda. She is. I know she is. I saw her that night, in the basement."

Glinda furrowed a brow, by now completely confused. "How could you have seen her in that basement that night? You were in the Vinkus-"

"No, I wasn't." He turned to her. "I ran off before I turned fourteen. I didn't want anything to do with the betrothal, and my parents were wavering on keeping it intact, and I was tired of being a pawn in their game, so I left. My father told me that the only way I would be allowed to remain a member of the family was if I married before my twenty-fifth birthday."

"So you fled the Vinkus because of that?"

He shrugged. "I didn't want to stay; I wanted to strike out on my own, and prove that I was more than just my royal blood. I ended up in Fliaan, recruited by this... Oscar Diggs, who said he was going to... dispose of the royal family."

Glinda lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, enraptured. "Oh Fiyero-"

He met her gaze, tears in his eyes. "I didn't know, Glinda. When he said dispose of, I thought he meant exile them to the Vinkus or Ev or Munchkinland. I didn't know he meant to kill them."

"What did you do?"

The young man took a deep breath. "I went along. Took the gun and knife he gave me and... kept my mouth shut. And that night, when we entered the basement, I couldn't believe we were about to execute the family I had grown up visiting."

He started, seeing her in the cluster of Fliaanian royals and their servants.

Her.

The girl he'd loved since childhood.

"We were each assigned a person to kill." He sniffled. "I was assigned to kill Elphaba. I had to pretend that I'd never seen her before, act as though I'd never known her."

"How could you? You'd grown up knowing you were going to most likely marry her, and then you turn around and pretend to have never seen her before? So you can kill her?"

"I played the part, Glinda. And while everyone else was shooting and killing, I followed her. I watched her crawl across the floor, over the bodies of the servants, and reach for the back door. I watched her desperately try to open it, only to realize it was locked. And when she turned around, I knew she'd recognized me. By then, we hadn't seen each other in years, I doubt she fully recognized me, but I knew that the memories she had of me were still there, and she matched them with me. I did everything I could to delay having to kill her, even going so far as to fire at her chest; the bullet bounced off and clattered to the floor. So I took the knife and slashed her nightgown and the corset she wore underneath. Jewels tumbled out, Glinda. The Fliaanian jewels. That's how she and her sisters had survived the firing squad- they'd sewn the jewels into their corsets and worn them under their nightgowns. They weren't protected by the Unnamed God like the other soldiers thought, they were protected by the family jewels."

Tears slid down Glinda's cheeks as she realized that what Fae had said all those weeks ago that day now made sense. "... they realized we hadn't died..."

But because the soldiers, like the family themselves, were religious, and so saw something so simple in understanding as being an act of God.

"Fiyero-"

The young man continued on, not having heard her. "She begged me not to kill her, promised she wouldn't tell..." He sniffled, swallowing thickly. "When I realized that was how she and her sisters had survived, I made a choice. I couldn't kill her, Glinda. She was the girl I loved. I couldn't murder the girl I loved in cold blood. I just couldn't."

"What did you do?"

He took a deep breath. "She screamed and I... I slammed the butt of my gun into the side of her head."