Note: Well I did have two parts to chapter 2 but then... I reread my second part and I didn't like it... at all it was just too... too out of character really so I had to change it... a lot I added a whole lot and lookie here its now over the size of a full chapter sooo I'm changing my part 1 of chap 2 tooo the whole chapter 2 and the previous part 2 to chapter 3... yuuup sooo here it is...

oh by the way if you think the end is a little too umm... radical... I just want to let you know it really isn't, it will be explained in later chapters so don't like think "Oh he's straying too far from the book!" well I'm not ok and besides... it's a fun idea... you'll see it develop in other chapters so don't worry now READ!

And Amy, my dear sweet wonderful editor... I so solemnly swear that if your eyes really do burn out of your sockets and crumble into tinie tiny little pieces because of corrected my mistakes caused by my love for commas and run on sentences I will take full credit for it

Chapter 3

Visions of a Gale Forcers in their brown uniforms with the green slash, wearing their helmets, and holding their deadly weapons flooded into her mind. The Gale Forcers were grabbing her and hauling her back to the prison where she would stay the rest of her life, taking away the freedom she had just earned. Taking away any hope or dream of having an actual life. In a fury she turned around and punched without looking. Her fist met a somewhat soft stomach, not a stomach that belonged to a Gale Forcer. She opened her eyes and stared in shock, "Liir!? What... Why... How?" Nor just stood there, staring in disbelief.

Liir was holding his stomach where Nor has punched him, his mouth was left open, gaping for air. "Geez, you never punched this hard before." Liir said once he was able to breathe. "Wow, Nor... you look awful!"

Nor hadn't seen how she looked, or cared for that matter, in so long that she had completely forgotten. She really must look awful, with her body newly drenched in sweat, not having a real shower in years, and all of her bruises and scars. She really must look like somebody that had been swallowed up and spit out. "I hadn't realized how bad I looked." Nor answered after she looked at her reflection in a nearby window.

She really did look horrible, her hair hadn't been shampooed in... in she didn't know how long and it was all over the place, tangled in large knots and sticking out at odd angles. Her face was completely covered in dirt, with sweat dripping down her face, absorbing some dirt with it, turning the sweat into mud, mud that was sticking to her face. To top it off there was a huge scar on the right side of her face. It came from below her cheekbone and ran up to end before reaching her eye. There was also large bruise the size of a horizontal pear underneath her left eye. As she traced the wounds on her face and all of the memories of being beaten returned to her

Liir came up behind her, "Are you ok Nor?"

Nor turned away from her reflection and glared at Liir, "I'm fine!" Nor said defensively, even though her entire body ached from running so hard, all she wanted to do was fall down and sleep, but she didn't mean he meant the question that way...

"No need to bite off my head, you look awful and I really don't think you are ok, so tell me whats wrong!"

Nor couldn't answer him, she hadn't really expected a fight from Liir. He had always been a push over and he had never stood up for himself. He really has changed, Nor thought. They were both standing in a small pool of moonlight between the shadows of all the towers of the Emerald City. With the light on him she was able to look at him closer. He really had changed, and not just in the inside, he wasn't chubby at all any more. True he wasn't all muscle, but he did have some and he had lost a lot of weight, he was average size now. He was more of a man then a boy now, it was a big difference then from the way Nor remembered him. But what had changed about the way he looked the most was his face. It wasn't a mellow face that looked like it just took whatever it got and didn't complain any more. Liir's face had hardened somewhat, he was still there, it was clear that it was still the old Liir, but there was a new sharpness to his features that told Nor he had experienced a lot since she last saw him.

Nor felt ashamed, after all these years she still treated Liir like a piece of dirt, she turned and walked away from him into the shadows. She couldn't stand to look at him, she couldn't stand for him to look at her. "I... I'm sorry Liir. I'm not fine... no... I'm not..." She turned towards him, only her face illuminated in the moonlight with her eyes sparkling with tears, "But its nothing you can fix or should care about... its something only I can fix ok?"

He eyed her worryingly "...Are you sure?"

She looked at him then, really looked at him, suddenly she remembered something that happened so many years ago in her childhood.

It was a few days after they found Liir in the well. After the adults found out that Liir didn't even have a bed to sleep in it pained Nor to know that she was the cause for his lack of a bed to sleep in. He had asked many times to sleep in her bed but if he did, there wouldn't be enough room for her, him, and all her dolls. The parents began to argue again, over what, Nor wasn't sure, she never really paid any attention to them, they always bickered. She looked at Liir and all of the sudden a rush of emotion came over her, she suddenly felt an overpowering sorrow for Liir. To be all- alone in the world like he was, to have no friends, no real family...

"... but if there's none other for him he can come up to my room, and I'll sleep on the floor!" Nor looked up at these words from Nanny. Nor couldn't let such and old lady sleep on the floor.

"Of course not, the very idea," Nor heard her mother reply, as if a mimic of her thoughts.

"Barbarians, the lot of you!"

Nor could see the offensive expression that grew on all the faces of her family. She knew she should be offended took, and in a way she was, but she thought that what Nanny said was true. She knew it was true and she couldn't deny it, but she had to break away from the stereotype on her. "Liir can have my bed." Nor used a tone that made it clear it wasn't an offer, Liir would have her bed, end of story, no questions, and that's how it was.

Three days later Nor was in her closet, visiting her dolls, she had taken them off the bed so Liir could have all the room he needed. The closet door was open slightly, letting a sliver of light through from the bedroom. Nor heard the bedroom door open and two sets of foot steps come in. Nor turned around and looked through the opening between the wall and the door, for some reason she felt the urge to remain hidden. Only a few hours earlier Liir had begun to talk and move again, she knew that people would come sometime to question him about what happened, she just didn't think it would be so soon. The two people who entered were Auntie Witch and her mother, they moved over to the bed and sat down on two white chairs that had been brought in for people to monitor Liir. Nor watched silently and not moving, she took in everything that happened.

Her mother was the first to talk, "How are you dear? Are you ok? Are you comfortable?" It seemed to Nor that her mother's lack of attention to Liir had finally became apparent to her and she was trying to make up for it.

"Everything's fine." Liir responded groggily in a raspy voice. Nor didn't think that they came here just to ask if he was ok, she thought that there might be something more too it, soon Liir began to share her suspicions, "Why are you here?"

"Oh just to see if everything was ok." Responded Nor's mother in an all-too-caring voice, "You nearly died on us."

Liir raised an eyebrow, obviously seeing through Sarima's false caring. He turned toward Auntie and gave her a questioning look. She rolled her eyes, "All right, all right, we came here to just ask you what happened at the well, why did you even go in there in the first place?"

"The fish talked to me," Liir averted his gaze from the two adults and he began to twiddle his fingers, "she told me to come down." It was a clear lie, everyone knew by now, or suspected, that it was Manek who told him to go down there, but with the recent death of her brother nobody dared speak their suspicions lest they be attacked verbally, and possibly physically, by the entire family. Liir continued to speak, "The fish told me she was magic. She said that Fiyero was my father, and that Irji and Manek and Nor are my brothers and my sister."

When hearing these words Nor gaped in shock, she looked at the two adults and saw two very similar, very different expressions. They were the same as in, they were faces of shock, but two very different shock. Her mother was in a shock of how-dare-he-tell-such-lies and Auntie Witch... Auntie Witch. Nor's heart beat faster, she saw the look of a shock at having hearing someone tell her deepest darkest secret when she never told anyone in her life. Nor was pretty sure that Auntie Witch was Liir's mother, and now she was sure that Fiyero was Liir's father as well. Nor was so shocked she jumped away from the door as if it was made out of white hot burning coals, she turned back to her dolls and tried to forget what she just heard and saw. And forget she did, she made herself never think of it, ever, so that one day hopefully she would forget about it entirely. To begin to sidetrack her mind she left the closet and took Liir to go pet her mouse.

Nor smiled, tears streaming down her face, "Don't worry, I'll be ok... you just worry about taking care of yourself, bro."

Liir's eyes widened in shock, he blinked and tears streamed down his face. In the soft light of the full moon his tears looked like rivers of diamonds cascading down his face. He ran over to her and hugged her, she laughed and returned the hug. "Don't worry I am." He assured her.

After Nor hugged her brother for a few more minutes she pulled away and whipped the tears away from her face. She still had family! She wasn't alone anymore. She had never been and she didn't think she ever could be happier then she was right now. "So, why are you here in the Emerald City, and how did you even find me to follow?"

Liir followed Nor's lead and whipped the tears away from his face too, "Well, I'm here because of you..."

Nor looked puzzled, "Me... what do you mean you were here because of me? Do you mean that... that was you?!" Nor gasped, "You're the one who destroyed the prison?" Liir nodded, "But how?!"

"Well... it's a long story... there's a lot you don't know..."

"Then tell me... Start from... from what happened after... after we were taken."

Liir looked around, as if realizing for the first time where they were. "In a bit, lets go somewhere we can talk safely." Liir gestured to Nor and she followed him into a side alley.

Nor had so many questions, what had happened at Kiamo Ko while she was away? She needed to know and she couldn't wait" Liir, can we at least walk and talk, I really I want to know what happened."

Liir sighed, "Ok."

They walked a bit more, the only sound being that of their footsteps walking down the silent, lifeless alleyways. Liir looked like he was getting his thoughts together, after a few more seconds he spoke, "I'll try and be brief. After you and everyone else were taken, Auntie Witch tried to find you and get you back for a year. Obviously she wasn't successful. If she was then we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Obviously," Nor sarcastically agreed, "Go on."

"After that, for the most part, all we did was live, nothing really happened at all, the days went by, one by one, each the same as the one that came before. But then something happened. Auntie Witch's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, was killed, I think Nanny said her name was Nessarose." Liir stopped in the middle of an alley. He tilted his head to the side. He looked like he remembered something, a memory that was triggered by his words. He shook away whatever recovered memory had come to him.

He returned to what he was saying when he was done leading her through a complicated series of alleys that branched off of one another, each alley as dirty and silent as the next. "Anyway Auntie went out to go see what happened, I don't know what happened when she went out, she didn't tell me, but something happened. She came back going on about some shoes. It turned out that the person who killed her sister was Dorothy," He said the name in a way of familiarity, familiarity with a hint of something more to it.

"Dorothy... Dorothy Gale?" Nor asked, remembering hearing something in one of the Gale Forcer encampments.

"Yes, Dorothy Gale... you heard then?"

"That's it the Gale Forcers talked about when the learned her last name... I didn't know if the Gale Forcers were making it up and it was just a rumor... Anyway, what happened?" Nor wanted to know so badly, she had heard some of what Liir was telling her from the Gale Forcers, she had also heard some very different things, but most of it was new to her.

"Well, when Dorothy arrived at Kiamo Ko we welcomed her, but when Auntie Witch came down from her tower all she wanted were the shoes. They were really red, really shiny shoes, I didn't really get a close look at them so I don't know if they were actually made of rubies or not but they were called the ruby slippers.

"When Auntie asked for the slippers Dorothy told her she couldn't take them off, so Auntie threatened to her. Then... then..." Liir stopped, "Well... umm... t... to put it short, Dorothy didn't want to kill Auntie Witch but somehow she accidentally did. I never actually saw myself if she was dead or not, Dorothy just said when the water touched her she was gone. All that was left of her was her clothes and her hat. Nobody knows what really happened to her so we all just agreed that Dorothy had melted her. It was the only explanation we could think of. After that there was no reason to stay in Kiamo Ko anymore. We were going to stay there because Nanny couldn't travel but then all of the sudden Nanny died not a day after Auntie did."

"Poor Nanny, I liked her, she was nice."

Liir stopped and turned around, "Yea, she was."

"How'd she die? Old age?" Nor asked.

"Yea, she was really old... I can't believe she lasted so long."

"Me too." They reminisced in the memory of Nanny for a minute and then Liir led Nor through a dank, moist stone tunnel.

He continued to tell the story of his past after waiting a few more minutes. "I decided to go back to the Emerald City with Dorothy and everyone that she came with. When we got back and told the Wizard that the Witch was dead he gave everybody what they had asked for. Turns out that Dorothy and everyone she came with was promised something if they killed the Witch. But he promised Dorothy a way to go home. So he and Dorothy were going to go to her home but she never actually got on the balloon to go away. Everyone thought she left with him and with Dorothy presumed to be gone, nobody believed her when she said that she was still there. All of Dorothy's friends left her after they got what they wanted we had to leave the Emerald Palace and we've been living in the streets ever since. We decided to try and find what was left of your family, to see if any of you escaped so we could maybe live with you. Then a month after the Wizard left we found out that you were taken to that prison. We've been trying to find a way to get you out since then and then here we are now." Liir fell silent. Nor followed him around a crumbling, ancient stone building that had what looked like a fungus growing all over it.

Nor stopped, "There's only one thing I really want to know, how exactly did you destroy the building? I know you didn't really destroy it but how did you do... what you did?" Nor asked, "I mean the only explanation would be- "

"Magic." Liir finished the sentence for her.

"Magic?" Nor puzzled, "But you can't do magic... can you?"

"No, it wasn't me, I can't do magic." Liir assured her.

"Then who?"

"Well, it was... well... it was Dorothy."

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