U1unbeknownst to our friends, a dark cloud was rising above a small village in Quadling Country. The cloud looked like a thunderhead, and carried a terrible storm, which it unleashed along its long path. Under the cover of night, it sent thunder and lighting to the ground, causing no one who saw it to suspect anything. However, this cloud was sinister, and looked almost solid. It wasn't like a cloud that would bring rain to a dry field. This was one that brought devastation to each thing in its path. Inside the cloud was a stone, dark as the night, and as large as a quaxwood tree. The stone was cold to the touch, and had it contained life, would have been the most heartless and cruel being to have ever set foot on the land of Oz. As its shadow fell over the Emerald City palace, it came over it like a fog, and cover the green building with darkness.
As the week went by, Ali's condition improved. By the end of the week, she was able to walk around again, despite flashes of pain that would occasionally hit her. Everyone in the castle was relieved, except for one.
However, he missed them all. Fae and Amirio had been plotting with Ali since she first came out of unconsciousness.
However, he missed them all. Fae and Amirio had been plotting with Ali since she first came out of unconsciousness. At night, after the scarecrow had retired for the night, Fae would sneak into Ali's room to plan and scheme. Ali felt slightly guilty about leaving her father like she was going to have to, but there was no other choice.
"Well," Fae said finally on the sixth night, "I think tomorrow night is the night. Do or die."
"I guess. When shall we leave?" Ali asked, ready to get out of the castle, but still nervous.
"Right after Uncle Fiyero goes to bed. We'll have to cover a lot of ground before morning if we want to be able to get away without him finding us," she replied, feeling a rush of exhilaration as she planned this event. She did feel a bit bad about leaving without a word, but Uncle Fiyero would understand, wouldn't he?
"You're right," Ali said. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. "Who is it?" she yelled, wondering if whoever it was had been standing there listening.
"Who else?" Amirio asked as he quickly moved into the room and shut the door. He came up to Ali and gave her a peck on the cheek, and then sat down. "So, what's the full plan? And when are we leaving?"
"And what makes you think that we will tell you?" Fae said, thinking that this boy was quite easy to mess with in the head.
"Well, you two aren't the only ones laying down your lives for this. The three of us are in this together," he said, feeling slightly hurt that they would make so little of the sacrifice he was making.
"First off, there are four of us. You forget Blaise," Fae shot back, feeling that there had really be no need for that last insult to her boyfriend. "You two need to discuss this yourselves. I'm going to tell Blaise," and she headed out of the room silently.
"Fae! I thought we agreed to not tell him until tomorrow!" Ali knew that Blaise could ruin it all, much more quickly than any other person in their foursome.
Though Fae heard that last comment, she didn't care. If she had the right to tell her boyfriend, she had the right to tell hers. He was making the same sacrifice! Growing angry, she knew it would be best if she didn't turn back to make the hateful remark that rested on her tongue.
With a sigh, Ali outlined the plan for Amirio. "We leave tomorrow night, just as soon as my father goes to sleep. We plan to cover a lot of ground, and go into Quadling Country, considering that was the last location that we heard from either my mother or Fae's. Once we get there, we just go where we find a lead."
"Isn't that a little, well, unpredictable? And is Blaise really going with us?"
"We don't know much more, Amirio. That's as much that we can plan for. And yes, Blaise is coming. Despite his, well, brightness, he'll be a good asset."
"Oh yeah. If we need someone to lie our way out of a situation, he's our go to guy," Amirio spitefully replied.
"Amirio! He's not that bad. I just ask that you don't fight with him. Please," Ali begged Amirio. She knew the two could be vicious, especially when they were fighting. They didn't need that to worry about that.
"Fine, but if he accuses me of stealing one more time . . .."
"He won't. I promise. Now, we all need to go to bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
"You're right, as usual. Goodnight, Ali," Amirio said before he put her face in his hands and gave her a gentle kiss.
"Goodnight, Ami," Ali said after their lips parted. She had started calling him Ami occasionally as a pet name.
Fae, her path lit by the torch she had with revenge stolen from Amirio's room, headed to Blaise's chamber. She could feel her anger growing with every minute. Amirio was fine in small doses and when his ego wasn't taking over the whole room! She knew Blaise shared her dislike for him, but she had to support Ali's happiness. So she decided not to tell Blaise of the incident, lest that cause both of the girls more pain than was necessary.
"Blaise?" she said as she gently opened the door, hoping that he hadn't gone to sleep yet. "Blaise, are you awake?"
"Very much so. Why are you still awake?" Blaise asked.
"Blaise, we have to talk. Ali and I have decided when we are leaving," she said, once again cutting the frill from her talk with him.
"Well, when is it?"
"We decided that tomorrow night would be best." Fae went and sat on the bed, putting the torch in its holder.
Blaise sat up a little farther and rubbed his eyes. "That soon?" It didn't seem like just yesterday that they had gotten there, and now they were leaving. He wasn't scared. He just . . . he feared for the girls. Would they be strong enough to handle all the trials of this?
"I know. But we have to. We have had to wait to long already. I mean, our mothers might be . . . oh Blaise!" She finally let go of all the emotion she had penned up inside, and burst into tears. She buried her head into his chest and continued the shrill cry.
If Blaise had been a much less caring boyfriend, he might have wanted his girlfriend to quit the soprano shriek of hers. But luckily for Fae, he isn't. He sat there patiently (one of the first things he had done patiently in his life) and let her pour out her fears and worries to him.
"Most of all," she said, beginning to calm down, "I am afraid that we are too late."
"You don't know that. Fae, trust me, we are going to make it in time. We are going to save Oz. I promise."
Blaise looked at his girlfriend, and for the first time saw a side of her he had rarely ever seen. The weak Fae. Not the confident, poised college student, but the scared young woman.
They sat for a long time like that, Her gently crying, and him stroking the golden curls. And to think, Fiyero slept in the room across the hall, unconscious of all the commotion under the castle roof.
The next day dragged by slowly. The four of them walked around on pins and needles. One false word and all their plans could shatter. Later in the afternoon, Blaise took Fiyero hunting so the girls could get everyone packed.
Fae pouted as she looked at the various clothes that she had laying out on the bed. Even in the midst of their escape, she had managed before hand to gather a few (okay, seven) dresses together. Now she was going to have to leave behind five! That was like asking her to cut off her hair. It seemed impossible. Ali sat in the corner, sewing some last minute adjustments to her simple black traveling dress. She only was taking on, besides the one she would wear. There was no need to take more than they had to. It would only weigh them down.
"How are you ever going to move in those things, Fae? I mean the green one, possibly. But the rest?" she shook her head as she looked from poofy skirt to lace frills and back again.
Fae just sighed. "As much as I hate it, I think you might be right. I will have to cut the skirts down on . . . these two," as she pulled out a pink dress and a green dress. Both were done in the latest fashion, which was hard enough to move in on a regular day, and it would only be intensified when they were out on their own. She was already planning on wearing her white traveling dress when they left, for it was the most practical thing she had. "Do you want to help me make some adjustments to them?" Ali could sew and make things look beautiful and as if they had been made that way. Fae just made messes.
"Fine, fine. I'll help," Ali said with a giggle. "But first, you must promise me you'll leave the room and won't come back until I'm finished.
"But, just promise me to keep some of my style with them. Please? And no black. You know it does nothing for my complexion," she begged, scared at what she had just agreed to.
"I'm not going to dye them, Fae. But I won't promise anything else. Now, go away!" Ali said as she pushed Fae out of the room. Once that was done, she smiled a wicked smile. "This is going to be fun,"" she thought to herself. She took the first dress, and within five minutes, any frill that had been on it was gone. All that was left was the embroidered under layer. "Perfect," she thought to herself as she trimmed the bottom to make it uneven, a beautiful touch. She also cut down the straps, and resewed the buttons, hooks and eyes, and snaps that crisscrossed across the back to make them much simpler to fasten. When she was finished with the first dress, she took a good look at it. "Understated beauty," she thought to herself as she surveyed her handiwork. She then picked up the pink dress. It had a skirt full of tulle and fluff, which would make anyone look like a frosted cupcake. The skirt was cut down to leave two under layers of silk, which would blow in the wind or swish with any movement. The top was more difficult. It was beaded with an elaborate design, and that simply wouldn't work. With a snip of the scissors, beads quickly covered the floor as the thread the strung them together was taken from them. Ali fixed the neckline to scallop and gently go across the freckle that rested below her collarbone's dip. Finally, she was done
"You can come back, Fae!" she called.
Fae walked in, and with one look she gave a shriek. "You, you, how could you? The beadwork, the frills! All gone!" she sank into a chair and felt the life almost go out of her. "Couldn't you have left one?"
"I just, I just, oh my dresses! My beautiful dresses!" Fae knew that in the long run, and they WERE in an understated way beautiful, but they were beautiful before. That, and she wasn't about to admit it to Ali.
"We have to be ready to go, Fae, There's no time to worry about your dresses. Come on, get packed. We don't have much longer."
"I know," the tiny blond replied, looking over her dresses with a wary eye. She would later come to thank Ali for those adjustments, but at the moment she felt an almost hilarious sadness as she saw the beads lying on the floor. They began to pack up the boys, and prayed to that Unnamed God that they would be successful as they broke into the night.
I wish that I could say that Blaise was having a better time with Fiyero. But he wasn't. 'Amirio, as always, got off easy,' he grumbled to himself as the thought of the other young man lounging in the library came to his mind. But he was the only one with any kind of skills of this sort (he had heckled Amirio to no end over this). His bones ached, his head hurt, and he was out of breath from keeping up with Fiyero.
As a scarecrow, Fiyero had no bones. Therefore he could go for miles and miles without even breaking a sweat- literally! Finally the thought occurred to him that the boy might need some rest. "Do you want to stop for a while?" he asked Blaise, looking over his shoulder.
"Yes! I am about to pass out!" Blaise sunk into the grass and leaned back on one of the trees.
Fiyero pulled out the canteen that was slung over his shoulder and handed it to Blaise. His companion gratefully took a swing and offered it back to Fiyero. Fiyero felt a sting inside. It still hurt to think about him going from human to straw. "I can't. I'm straw, so it wouldn't do any good."
Blaise instantly felt like an idiot. But there was nothing he could do now. He sat staring up at limbs in the trees. The silence was weird for him. He had been spending almost all of his time with Fae lately, and his ears became used to hearing her constant chatter. He tried to create conversation with Fiyero, praying that the girls would send Amirio with the signal to come back soon.
"So, um, how is life out here? I mean, don't you miss human contact?"
"I have my wife..." Fiyero said automatically. He then bit his lip remembering that he may not have her anymore. "Well, sort of. But, I get to live with those I love. That's all the human contact I need."
"But I mean, from what Fae said, you were the socialite as Shiz. What made you give it all up for one woman?" Blaise asked. He was beginning to see a lot of himself in this guy.
"I... I don't know. I guess it was love. I was captain of the guard, and engaged to her mother at one point. I remember that day. I saw her, and I don't know. I just knew that I loved her," Fiyero really didn't like discussing his wife when she was in danger.
Blaise wisely put two and two together and changed the subject. "So, you were Mr. Popular at Shiz from what I hear."
Fiyero gave a small smile at the memory of his past. "Yes. My reputation was scandalous, or 'scandalicious' as all the girls said. I was kicked out of countless colleges before I was brought to Shiz. I don't know what made me want to be so brainless, but that was me."
"Sounds like me. I think Shiz was only my third college, but still. I am just glad I am a junior. One more year and then I am out of there," Blaise said, building his castle in the air.
Suddenly he heard Amirio ran up behind them. Blaise chuckled to himself, for one thing Amirio couldn't do was run. "Guys! The girls have supper on the table, so its time to come back."
Blaise and Fiyero got their weapons together and followed the out of breath Amirio back to the castle. All three wondered what the girls had done to the kitchen, because neither could cook.
They walked in, and surprisingly found out that the kitchen wasn't in flames or covered in flour and various things. Instead there was a delicious meal laid out on the castle's dining room table. "How in Oz? Fae, Ali, how did you do it?" Fiyero asked, totally confused.
"Oh, it was easy!" Ali exclaimed as she hid the Grimmerie behind her back.
Blaise saw it in a flash. He yanked it out from behind her back. "I can only imagine how long this took!" he said to the two of them with a laugh.
"Well, what can we say? We didn't want to kill anyone!" Fae exclaimed, admitting that she was an awful cook.
They ate in silence, four of them waiting in anticipation for the night to come. Fiyero sensed tension in the room, but he couldn't figure out why it was there. After what seemed like a month (when it was actually only a few hours), Fiyero retired.
"Well, I think it's time for me to go to bed. Thanks for the hunt, Blaise. I had a good time," he said as he stood up from his chair in the library.
"Good night, Dad," Ali said as she got up and hugged her father, trying to keep the tears back.
"Night Uncle Fiyero," said Fae from the corner of the living room, trying to pretend to read a book. Amirio glanced over her way, looked at the book, and flipped it right side up.
"Oh!" she said with an exclamation. "That's why I couldn't read it!" She inwardly groaned at herself for her stupidity and even trying to pretend to be preoccupied.
Fiyero headed toward the door, and before opening it, looked back at the four kids (well, they were kids to him) in the room. He didn't dream that it would be the last time he would see them for a long time.
As they heard the door shut to his room, they all stood up. "I guess we're all ready?" Ali asked, trying to hold back all her emotion.
Fae slipped her hand into Blaise's, his almost swallowing hers whole. "We are," she said, hoping that the next time they were at this castle, their mothers would be with them.
"Well, then... let's go," Amirio said as he opened the door and held it for the girls.
They all walked out, and gathered their various packs, none carrying more than a backpack. Ali tossed the Grimmerie into her pack, and grabbed the broom. They walked out onto the tower's balcony, and Fae conjured up the bubble. Ali said the words, and the broom started to float. They all boarded their various transportations, and left without a look back.