Title: One if by Land, Two if by Sky

Author: Aerohead

Email: in my profile

Website: In my profile

Pairing: Fiyero/Elphaba, Fiyero/Glinda, Glinda/OC, OC/OC

Rating: PG13

Disclaimer/Dedication: For L. Frank Baum, Gregory Maguire, Stephen Schwartz, and Winnie Holtzman who own this idea that I'm extending. Thank you for giving me the first part. This is also for everyone in the OibLTibS RPG, so Sheika belongs to F-kun, Destin belongs to Tori, Riley belongs to Nessy, and Kade and Noelani belong to Cree.

Warning: spoiler for the ending of the musical Wicked, but that's pretty much about it.

Genre: Romance, adventure (book/play amalgamation)

Summary: Seventeen years after the "death" of the Wicked Witch of the West, a group of Shiz students must come to terms with their differences in order to help inform Oz about the truth behind the lies. If they can work together.

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone's who's reviewed so far, and thanks to everyone who's read this story; if you've read and haven't reviewed yet, please do, I'd love to hear from you and know what you think! Anyway, happy reading and thank you again! Mostly talk in this chapter, sorry. But I really wanted a cute little conversation between Kade and, well, anyone. So, here it is. Teehee. A warning though, in this chapter, there is talk of homosexual relationships. If you don't like, you can skip this chapter. If not, enjoy.

Chapter Six: The Talk

One of Professor Timin's assignments for the weekend was to sit in a quiet space and meditate on one of the numerous deaths that had occurred in the past thirty years. Then, afterwards, they had to write a paper on what they had seen.

That was all well and good, but finding someplace quiet in a University was almost impossible. The libraries, although a place of sanctuary, were completely out of the question – most people went into the Crage Hall library to gossip, and girls were not permitted in the Briscoe Hall library. And getting into your dormitory without roommates was almost as absurd.

Unless, of course, you were in there in the middle of the day when everyone else was at lunch. Riley liked the school lunches because she could knick scraps and make her own treats later on, and Nissa loved going to lunch to visit with fellow Gillikinese to gossip and chatter away about nothing.

So there she was, eyes closed, sitting with her right legs tucked neatly under her and her left leg laid out and slightly bent so the old wound wouldn't force her knee to buckle. It was a hot day, and she wore a sleeveless white top and a skirt that came to slightly below her knees, to hide the scarring. It allowed a better look at her dark skin, and the blue tattoos that laced up her neck, down her shoulders, under the top, down her arms, and up her legs. Her hair was out of its normal uniform braid, and the curly dark hair hung onto her back, all the way down to her waist. She looked ethereal, almost like a statue of St. Aelphaba, though there was no one to comment on this strange beauty.

Concentrate. She ordered herself, keeping her eyes firmly closed. She had to imagine the person; have the experience be as first person as it could. She wasn't sure she could imagine someone she had never met, but she went by her mother's descriptions.

She had been a small woman, with a slightly severe face. She had chestnut hair...or had it been auburn? It was hair that, after childhood years had ended and reality had begun, had been pulled back into a tight, dictator-like style; a bun, hadn't it been? Yes, much like Dorothy's had been that fateful Sunday. She had...brown eyes, weren't they? Dark, like her mother's, but...not quite so. Lighter, yes, she remembered being told that they had been lighter. And her skin...her skin was pale. She had been called tragically beautiful. She really was tragic, perhaps, but only those who knew her well could say if she was beautiful or not.

What had it been like that day? Windy, no doubt. But was it nice? Possibly. Yes, a nice, but windy day. Nothing to be alarmed about. She had been able to walk - "there's an enchantment on those shoes", wasn't that what the girl had been told? – and she may have been taking a walk outside. A nice, cool day to take a walk.

And then the sky darkened, possibly. Or, did it get brighter before a tornado? No, it must have gotten darker, because everyone had run for cover. She should have too, but why hadn't she? Did pride get in the way? No. She had been in a wheelchair most of her life, hadn't she? She probably wasn't used to running for cover, and the muscles in her legs had refused to let her go; let her run.

And there had been nowhere else to go, had there? None of the Munchkins would have let her in – she was a dictator, and she had taken away their rights, getting caught in a storm would do her good. Had they known that she was going to die that day, would they have giving her amnesty in their homes? She had run to the fields, probably to escape the raging winds in the vacant streets. If it was dark, she wouldn't have noticed the shadow looming over her. But she probably had, since she had been facing the village in the end. At that was the end, because as she turned to look back at the village, a farmhouse, a wood structure approximately seven times her weight on one side, came crashing down...

...and something did come crashing down, too. Right onto the bed. Fabala's eyes popped open, and she jumped a foot.

"Calm down there, Fabala. Whoa, easy there, it's just me...nothing to be alarmed about...well, there could be something to be alarmed about, but that's on my side of this, remember? You wanted to talk with me, didn't you? I didn't see you at lunch so I figured you'd be here."

Kade had sat down on Fabala's bed. The girl coughed and sputtered, trying to regain her composure. Kade found the scene quite hilarious, but he didn't do anything. He rightly feared the wrath of a female, and he knew Fabala was a new sorcery student. He didn't want to risk it.

"Never do that to me again!" Fabala said.

"Note taken; I didn't know you were...what? You weren't actually meditating, were you?" He grabbed his tail absently and started playing with the black ends on the fur there, already chastised by his own imagination.

Fabala shook her head, moving closer to him. "No, I wasn't. I was doing that assignment for History, and..."

"And what, did a house fall on you in your imagination?" Kade asked. At Fabala's grimace, he winced. "Oh, one did. Sorry, I really didn't mean to interrupt. I can go, if you want..."

"No!" Fabala grabbed Kade's arm, before rolling over so she could reach under her pillow. She pulled a child's grammar book out from between the two pillows, and showed it to Kade.

Kade looked at the book, clearly puzzled. "This...eh, Fabia? I know how to read, I know you may not believe that, but it's true."

Fabala rolled her eyes and pulled herself back up. She stood and rotated her leg until her knee popped back into place. "It's not for you, Kade. It's to teach the monkey how to speak."

Kade just looked at her. "We're going to teach a monkey how to speak? If it's an animal, it probably won't learn language; if it's an Animal, it should already know it."

Fabala nodded, but cocked her head, letting her hair fall over her arm. "But, if an Animal is not taught to speak, and is either preverbal or has never been allowed around speaking creatures, how do we know if it has Life or simply life?"

Kade smirked. "Oooh, good question." He said, grabbing one of Fabala's pillows and clutching it to his chest. He looked down at it, then at Fabala. "Um. You don't mind getting fur on your pillow, do you?" he said sheepishly.

She shook her head. "Of course I don't mind; I have a cat at home." She quirked an eyebrow, looking at Kade. "You know, you're not quite like anyone I've ever met."

Kade nodded. "I get that a lot." He looked around the room. "So, where's this animal-slash-Animal or yours?"

Fabala blushed. "She's not here right now; her name's Valen and please don't freak out, but she's one of my...the...Wicked Witch's flying monkey's."

Kade raised an eyebrow. "Why would I freak out about that? A creature's just another creature. Just because of where it came from doesn't make it good or bad."

"But people – and Animals, don't give me that look – all have preconceived notions about others due to where they come from."

Kade nodded. "True, very true."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Kade flicking through the grammar book Fabala had shown him. Finally, Fabala got up her nerve, and looked at Kade. "How do you know if you...really love somebody?" She asked him quietly.

Kade looked up at her, and his tail swished idly. "Huh? Uh, how do you mean?" He asked, grabbing his tail to stop it from swishing. He played with it again, tugging at the dark follicles.

Fabala shrugged. "I mean, if someone liked someone else, how could they know if they really only liked them as a friend, or as something more?"

Kade made a noise as he involuntarily pulled a piece of hair out of his tail. "I don't know." He said shortly. He looked down at his wounded tail for a few moments, before looking up at Fabala worriedly. "You...aren't talking about me, are you? Because, well, I mean, I like you and all, Fabala, but...you're not my type. And it's not just because you're human, either. Mostly, it's because you're...well...not male."

Fabala stared at him for a few minutes, her brain not processing what Kade had just told her. Then, she smirked. The smirk became a smile, and then she started to laugh. Kade twirled the fur on the top of his tail around one digit of his paw, clearly embarrassed, but Fabala touched his arm, shaking her head. "No, no...I wasn't talking about you, Kade. I like you, but more as a friend and, well, to tell you the truth, you do get great gossip – don't you dare tell Nissa I said that – but I was talking about, well, Aran."

Kade looked relieved, and then promptly straightened, smiling. "Oh, Aran! That poor boy, we were studying – me, him, and Sheika – in my and Sheika's dormitory, and Riley came in and asked where you and Nissa were – this was Saturday night, and of course Aran's the only one you really ever talk to so she had every right to barge in and ask us, but she really should have knocked first, you know – and poor Aran, at the mention of your name, he turned bright red!" He smiled. "It was adorable!"

Fabala blinked, mouth hanging open in shock. "Really, he reacted like that...about me?"

Kade laughed. "Fabia, where have you been? You've known the boy for, what, seven years? The boy practically follows you like a, well, a pet. And he's overprotective. Have you seen the looks he gives that Nokomyu boy whenever you talk to him; I mean he's going to be your half-sister's step-brother anyway, but he is kind of cute in an 'I'm a rich snob' sort of way."

Fabala smiled and hugged Kade. The grammar book fell to the ground with a soft thud, and Kade had a hard time getting his tail out from between himself and Fabala. After that, though, he hugged her back. When she pulled away, he looked at her curiously. "What was that for?"

"For telling me what I needed to know!" she said.

"So, why did you go to the Emerald City?" Kade asked as Fabala reached for the door. She turned, and went to her small nightstand, grabbing the strands of rawhide. He watched her, and shook his head. "No, keep it down."

"But it's a hundred degrees out there." She complained. Kade gave her a pointed look, and she blushed. "Oh, right. Sorry." She put the pieces of rawhide down and picked up a comb, brushing out her hair. "I went to make sure my father was all right."

"And?" prompted Kade.

"Well, he wasn't there, and that's why the Tinman gave me Valen, but I got a letter from my mother last night via coach that my father had just made it home; he had to go through a longer route to get into the Vinkus, because of the Gale Force." She sighed. "Thank Oz."

Kade looked at her. "You know, I've never understood that phrase. Thank Oz for what? If you're talking about the Wizard, you're thanking him for destruction of thousands and their homes; if you're talking about our country, why must we thank ourselves?"

Fabala shrugged. "I only say it because I have no one else to thank; no god's shown their face into my life. If there was a god, it would have intervened when my brother was shot point-blank and killed by the Gale Force. All because he was gre...different."

Kade smirked. "He was green, wasn't he?"

"How did you..."

"Fabia, I'm not as stupid as I look. A Thropp, from the Vinkus, who's worried about the rights of Animals? That sounds vaguely familiar, and it came in a different colored package. If you're not the product of your family, then Nissa's definitely not the next Good Witch of the North."

"Oh, so are you saying I'm the next Wicked Witch of the West?" Fabala demanded.

Kade shook his head. "No. You're the next Good Witch of the West; it's just going to take the rest of Oz a hell of a lot longer than me to realize it." He shooed her away and began to cross to the door himself. "Now go find that boy of yours and at least talk with him. You two deserve each other, and I'm not going to play matchmaker."