Thoughts of a Scarecrow
By Watson
Chapter 2:
The other day we picked up another traveler, after a moment of meeting with the witch again (not that it was a surprise that she was around). The Tin man seems nice but he keeps looking at me funny. He seems to know something I don't and it makes me nervous. He keeps asking me if I ever went to Shiz and I keep telling him that if I did I wouldn't be so brainless. When I say that he grows even more interested like the word 'brainless' is something that he has heard before.
To tell you the truth I can't stop thinking about the past myself, especially the talk I had with Elpha- I mean the wicked Witch. Although I promised I can't help but feel like the witch is now more than an enemy. If I can call her an enemy, it's hard now that I know that she really doesn't want to hurt us. Meanwhile it would seem that people are suggesting me and Dorothy are some kind of 'item'. The Tin man won't leave it alone and it seems to have caught on with the Munchkins. 'Oh what a lovely couple they would make!' 'He is a really nice guy!' 'Wonder what the children will be like…' What are these people thinking? I mean, Dorothy is a sweet girl but I'm like her father! Or at least I feel like her father. She is so innocent and so young; I can't talk to her about anything. I guess that's why I had to talk to the witch again, not that she was so far off. So while the Tin man wasn't paying attention and Dorothy was resting, I slipped off.
It was just as before, I saw her land and I approached slowly. This time she accepted me a little better. Not that it was like open arms but I was ready to spill to anyone. So we sat down, or rather she did, I kept pacing. "…And now they think that we are going to get married or something!" I said annoyed, "She is like a child! Not that she is a bad girl, just not the type of girl I would like to be with if you know what I mean!"
"It's not like scarecrows have ages," the witch told me, "Maybe you and her WOULD be a good couple…"
"Are you kidding me?!" I asked in shock, "I don't have any feelings for her other than a friend! If only that Tin man would leave me alone about it! He just knows how to push my buttons some times!"
"Did you say Tin man?" the witch asked softly.
"Yes, and it takes all my strength not to take his axe and just club him one in the head," I sighed as I finally sat, "And he has something personal against you, every time I bring up the subject, not talking about the other night of course, but he always gets this fire in his eyes like he knows something…actually he seems to know a lot."
"Actually he does," the witch said, "I know him; he was one of my former school mates. I'm…sort of the reason that he is like that…" At this point my eyes became wide as anything that is wide.
"You? What did you do that for?"
"It was to save his life!" she said in her defense, "My sister would have killed him accidentally, if I hadn't thought of something! I was thinking on my feet and the only thing I could think of was that! It's not like I meant it to happen, it was other let my friend die or turn him into something that would never let him die. It's not like I meant to make him hate me, he just seems to resent me for it."
"He never said anything about knowing you."
"Do you think he would admit once being friends with the Wicked Witch of the West before everyone knew about her?"
"I suppose not," I answered after a bit of thought (which isn't really thought, but who cares), "But why would he resent you for saving him?"
"Well he is heartless after all," the witch chuckled, "He no longer can see that I was trying to save him, he only sees that I turned him into tin! Now he can no longer love and he will never be able to be with anyone. Not really a winning combination if you're a young man looking for love." I nodded in agreement, since it was logical. But something had been bugging me since our last meeting.
"'Um, Elphaba, if you don't mind me calling you that-"
"Why?"
"Well I guess it's easier than calling you 'witch' or 'miss wicked witch of the west'."
"I guess so," she sighed, in semi-annoyance, "It's not like I get to hear it often anyway."
"Okay, Elphaba, would it be possible in anyway, for you to take off that hat?"
"What?! Why?"
"Well to tell you the truth, it's sort of makes your face hard to see. I like to look into the eyes of the person I'm talking to you know?" For a moment she was hesitant. I was actually expecting her not to do it. But she nodded and slowly, hesitantly, reached up and plucked the hat off her head. Curly black locks fell along her shoulders as they were released, shaping her emerald complexion into one even more feminine then I had seen before. "Wow…you look…"
"Don't lie," she snapped harshly, "I don't need lies!"
"I was just going to say you actually look more like a girl," I said, "I mean you could hardly tell with your hair up in that hat. When you let it down you can see that your face is actually more like a woman's."
"So you're suggesting that I look like a man with this thing on?" she asked with a small cackle.
"No!" I answered quickly, not wanting to insult someone who could instantly make me a bonfire, "I just mean that it makes you less menacing is all. You can see your eyes more, and I don't care if this sounds like a line but you do have beautiful eyes." This time I got a reaction that made me feel actually warm. She blushed, which made her cheeks a weird purple.
"Thanks," she muttered clutching the hat in her hands, "You have…good eyes as well…for a scarecrow…"
"I guess I should take that as a compliment," I chuckled, "Excuse me if I don't take my hat off but it's kind of attached to my head so to speak." She nodded as she looked away from me. "Can I ask you another thing?" I asked, after a moment's silence between us.
"You have a lot of questions for one who belongs on a pole!"
"Well I'm sort of brainless so I kind of need all the information I can get."
"But if you're brainless, what would be the point in me telling you anything if there is no where to store it in your head?" I opened my mouth to respond but found nothing. She was right, how in the world was I keeping all this information if I didn't have a brain. For that matter how did I know how to do anything without a brain? This conundrum made my head hurt once again.
"Maybe it will get caught in the straw where my brain should be," I answered, while still contemplating it in my head, "then when I get a brain from the wizard-"
"A brain? From the Wizard? Ha!" she laughed, "The guy doesn't have any brains himself little less any he could give you!"
"Well, I don't see much choice that I have," I said coolly, as like other people I don't like being mocked, "it's not like you could give me any!"
"And who says I couldn't?" she asked back, "I never said I couldn't now did I?"
"No, but will you?"
"No!"
"Now there is my point! Even if you are able to, you would never give me anything! The wizard on the other hand at least will be willing to try and give me something! At least I hope anyway."
"And what will happen if you don't get your brain from him." I paused for a moment; I hadn't thought that far a head as usual.
"I guess I'd have to just go back to my pole," I said, "Go back to being the guy that no one notices."
"You should be so lucky," she told me, "I would love to go back that way, the girl that no one notices. Just think, if nothing had happened, I would have most likely just graduated from the Shiz and maybe gotten a job as a librarian or something in a little farming town." I laughed a little and she looked at me strangely. "What?"
"I was just picturing you as a librarian. I mean it's kind of hard given everything."
"Yes well," she said, "I guess it is a little hard to see now. I'm sure everyone would never come to get a book because they would be afraid I'd turn them into frogs." At this point I saw something amazing. She smiled; I actually got a smile out of the witc- I mean Elphaba. Now I really think it's going to be hard to call her an enemy because how can you call someone your enemy when they have such a pretty smile. Why is my heart beating so fast?
"So Elphaba, can I tell you something without getting all huffity and suff?"
"I guess so. I mean as long as you don't start in on something that is going to make me want to burn you to the ground."
"Fair enough. Well I want to say that…really, I like talking with. I don't know what it is, but I do like talking with you. Sounds strange huh?"
"Well not as strange as what I am about to say. For some strange reason I feel comfortable with you. Now it's really weird."
"WELL I guess we aren't as different as we thought," I said with a smile, "Who knows maybe we could do some of those changes that you keep talking about."
"What changes?" she asked confused, and surprise.
"Well you know, we could talk maybe to the wizard and you could become one of the good guys aga-"
"What do you mean one of the good guys? You mean the side that everyone else is on! You mean the side that fallows one man into the oblivion like lemming to the ocean! I refuse to be a 'good guy' then because I refuse to be anyone's puppet! I am on the side of truth and freedom! And no man stuffed with straw is going to tell me otherwise! I shouldn't have even been talking to you as your just one…one…one of them!" At this point I had really hit a nerve and I was afraid that she would do something to me at that moment. A held up my arm to my face but she just stood and marched away, looking as if she was about to leave. Now I felt bad for thinking bad about her, I may not have brains but I do have a heart.
"Elphaba, wait, please!" I said quickly, jumping to my feet and grabbing her arm.
"Let go of me!"
"Please, I want to apologize! I didn't mean what I said! I was being stupid!"
"Well that's no big surprise! Now let me go!" she ordered. She ripped her arm from my hand and began to march again. I just stood there watching. For some reason I couldn't let her go away, not angry like that!
"Elphaba! Please!" I begged, "Elphaba! Elphaba! ELPHIE WAIT!" As my cry echoed through the forest, everything stopped. She stopped midstep as I paused in breathing. Time had paused for that one moment just for us. She turned slowly, her hand clutching her hat and her body turning towards me. The look in her eyes was something I had never seen, it was mix of a couple of the feeling I was feeling myself.
"What did you call me?" she asked, in a voice that carried slightly over a whisper. I myself was speechless. The name had just so easily carried out of my mouth that I hardly knew where it had come from. But the instant that I had spoken it I felt as if my heart was about to burst. "I ask you a question! What did you call me?"
"I…I…I don't know…"
"I don't believe that you could have just spoken something and not know it!" she screeched as she quickly returned to in front of me, "No one has ever called me that name but two people and one of them is dead! Now what did you call me?!"
"I called you…I called you…"
"WHAT?!" she ordered pushing her face up into my own as if to frighten me.
"I called you Elphie!" I stated in a serious tone, "I called you Elphie! I called you Elphie and it felt good! For some reason it seems so easy to let that out than calling you even Elphaba! It felt good to call you, that name!"
"WHAT NAME?!"
"ELPHIE!" I roared at the top of my voice and like it wasn't me, I did something I thought I would never do. I leaned forward and instantly I was kissing the witch. Never had I ever felt the power I felt at that moment, that moment that I kissed Elphie. Her lips so soft and gentle, much more than a scarecrow's lips made of straw and cloth. Not that it was hard, for a moment she was shocked, gripping my arms with her hands with a grip that if I was human would have really hurt. But then she relaxed and her body pressed against mine as the kiss continued. Her little one pressed against mine as we did the thing that no one would believe. The scarecrow and the witch of the west, a moment where the world was filled with impossible things and neither of us were who we were before. As the moment ended she pulled back, still in my arms. How right that felt, to have her there in my arms like she had never left…but wait had she been there before.
She looked up into my eyes and I back into hers. Her eyes were green but there were soft and gentle, like I had cracked something within her. Had I finally hit something so hidden deep inside her? Not to mention something hidden deep within me, something that had been lost. "That was amazing," I breathed out in a whisper, "Elphie, that was something I've never felt before."
"I have," she answered just as breathlessly, "But I only felt it when I was with…Fiyero…" Elphaba looked as if she had been hit by a cart of something heavy. Her eyes grew wide and she covered her mouth. "Oh Fiyero, what have I done?"
"Elphie, I don't understand," I said confused, "I thought it was good."
"I can't believe…not after…I have to go now!" She once again clutched her hat and started towards the woods. I tried to grab her arm once again but one look from her and I stopped. "I'm sorry, it's to soon…he just died…and I…I can't betray him like that…" It was liked something broke with in me as she disappeared. I once again was nothing, and what I had just found was gone again. I sat on the ground, defeated, and confused. How could something so right have gone so wrong so fast? And how come I hurt SO much?
The Tin man and Dorothy found me a little while later, they said I didn't look so good and then they asked me if maybe I had seen the witch. I said I did, it technically was the truth. But I hadn't seen her in the way they were thinking.
Author Notes: Well we finally get to see some love. I don't know if I like this one but what can I say, I'm a semi hopeless romantic and a believer in the idea that anything can happen in a fit of extreme passion. Maybe a turning point? Well anyway, I saw the movie in the other day and I think it's kinda funny, because I can never look at the movie the same way again. I also don't hate the Tin man, he just isn't my favorite character. He may get a little bit of hard treatment from this but don't worry. I may write a sequel or a prequel for the story, so Boq may get some better rep. in one of those stories.
-Watson