In the vast land of Oz, color is something you'll notice about the land. Emerald City and it's entirely green contents. Then there's the Southside, when there's only limestone buildings with barely any color outside of its green skinned ruler.
The Wicked Witch of the West, they called the old crone. And our pea colored sorceress was surprised by what she was being told.
One of her loyal servants, a winged monkey was squatting before her. In his palms were a pair of red shoes.
"So the Tin Man just came up to you and handed over the silver shoes?" Squawked the witch with question, raising up her broom towards it.
If the servants were humoring her, she was not amused. She was prepared to beat him for such lolly gagging insolence. Like she didn't know what color her sister's shoes were. But he nodded erratically, hoping she would believe him. She sighed in irritation, not buying a word of it. She swung her broom.
"Then why are they red?!" She asked annoyed, preparing a second swing. But the monkey raised its palm at her, probably hoping to block the next swing.
Then she saw it. The congealed coloration had rubbed off on his hand, showing the revealation of a silver hide on the shoe. They were indeed her sister's shoes. And the red color wasn't natural.
(Meanwhile, down the Yellow Brick Road...)
The Tin Man and Scarecrow slowly trotted down the road from the castle. Tin Man's shoulder slumped, his head leaning. He dragged his axe against the road, grating as his walked.
As he did such, he left a trail from the axe's blade, speck by speck. Red blood staining the yellow bricks. Similar to how it was staining against the steel of his own torso.
Scarecrow seemed busy in his own right. He seemed to be taking a quill pen to the fabric of his shirt, jotting something down.
Tin Man couldn't help but turn and be intrigued. Curiosity was getting the better of him. Hmm, curiosity, a emotion for his record.
"What are you doing?" Tin Man asked.
"I'm trying to calculate how many bricks are part of this road." Scarecrow explained, jotting down some kind of equation. "Almost done and...damn."
Scarecrow had sworn as a drop of fluid leaked from his face, smearing the numbers. Or rather, what passed as his face. Which only brought the Tin Man's attention back to the Scarecrow's head.
The now malshapen form of it as it contained a foriegn object, literally bleeding through his fabrics. Originally beige, now stained with clear and red fluids.
Which only made Tin Man feel bad about the foreign object inside his chest. Feeling bad, that's another new one for him.
"Scarecrow, I don't feel great about what we did..." Tin said somberly, "To Lion and Dorothy."
"Dorothy had what we needed." Scarecrow stated matter of fact, "And Lion thought he had the nerve to stand between us and our needs."
"And Toto?" Tin Man asked, shedding tears and rusting while he was at it.
"Toto's being a good watch dog." Scarecrow said walking away, "Watching over Dorothy's spot in the Poppy field."
Tin Man definitely knew he had a heart now. Cause it was broken by those words and the memory of what they done. But he only wished it didn't belong to Dorothy in the first place.