Chapter Nine
Unlikely Assassins
"Elphaba had a good voice. It was controlled and feeling, not histrionic. He listened through to the end, and the song faded into the hush of a respectful pub. … but nobody would sing again, because she had done so well."
--Wicked: The Life and Times by Gregory Maguire, page 151
The Quadling Mirror hung suspended above her, taunting her with its gleaming reflective surfaces—its illusion of clarity. The Witch did not like to look at it with too much concentration. She had not cared for it even after discovering the gateway nature of the special glass—the bridge that it formed between the world of Oz and that strange foreign land Glinda called ' the Earth.' For it showed her a good many things, besides the gateway, and very seldom her reflection. It had never shown her anything she particularly wanted to look at.
She studied the mirror for a long time. Careful to keep her eyes drifting around the circumference, never focusing too hard on the misty glass. How in all the worlds had Galinda of the Arduennas of the Uplands…no, Glinda of the Ruby Castle of Red Gloria…and her pompous idiot of a husband come across one?
The mirror…she carefully ran one green finger down the looking glass. The talent of the mysterious Quadling lover of both Melina and Frex, and debatably, the father of Nessarose. The magic to bridge the gateway between worlds had been a special gift, brought on by the power of their unique union.
Or so she had thought.
With a deep sigh, the Witch turned away from the strange glass, shuddering beneath her thick black shawls. An annoying voice tugged at the back of her mind, telling her that all the answers would probably be revealed to her if she looked through the glass again. But she was not certain she wanted to know.
"First things first," she told Chistery (since he was the only one with her in the old tower), "I have to get Dorian and Klaus back to that…Earth."
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the Wizard leering at her, and Nor's broken body. She heard his voice callously detailing the murders of Sarima and her sisters and poor Irji. She knew that the Wizard had sent assassins for her. It was clear that he could wait for the Grimmerie and the Mirror no longer. But it was not a battle the Earth people should be made to endure, she told herself, slightly regretting what would be the loss of Klaus' ability to make sense of the writing in the Grimmerie. This was her fight, and she'd long ago realized she probably would not be the one to win it.
I'm limited, she thought bitterly. My time is limited before the Wizard's forces come in earnest and the Winkies aren't able to hold them back. I have to get the others away from here before then, maybe they can take Nanny and Liir with them.
"Then it will be just you and me, Chistery, and the traitor, let her stay and see what her meddling has done. If she hadn't delivered the shoes right to him—!" Elphaba sighed, leaning back against the mirror inadvertently.
She jerked away from the mirror as though it were water, realizing even as she did that the glass had not melted, had not begun to give away. Confused, she reached towards the shimmering surface and pressed against it. Her hand felt only a solid glass.
The gateway was closed.
"Something's happening," Elphaba told Chistery, absently scratching the monkey's head. He squawked loudly and rustled his leathery wings, unfazed by her growing worry. "Something made the mirror in the Other world react, drawing all of us—except Klaus—forcibly here. Then, Klaus was able to come through, but now, they can't go back…" she was pacing now, and lifted a hand against the formerly magic mirror again in irritation. "Useless thing! I should never have gone through it in the first place! Never…"
She'd been too weak. Too stung by Fiyero's disappearance, and too hurt by Sarima's refusal to listen to her apology. She had thought of Glinda then, every day, despite what the other seemed to think. She had even considering writing to her old roommate. But she had not been able to decide, ultimately, if it was fair to disrupt the life of someone she had not seen in years. And she had always had the fear, deep down, that the blonde would revert to her old snobbish ways. Nanny had not come out to the Vinkus yet, and her experiments and research into the mirror and the Grimmerie were only frustrating her. So perhaps the loneliness and frustration were to blame…
Gently, the Witch raised her green hand and stroked the smooth glass surface one more time. She had not thought of Heinz in a long time. Partly do to her tireless efforts to find out what had happened to Sarima and her vanishing family. It had been a year spent spying and hunting fruitlessly. The other part of the reason was that she hadn't loved him, in the same way she hadn't really loved Fiyero. She had used him, in the same way she had used Fiyero, to assuage some of her own loneliness, some of her emptiness, and her grief.
She had been in the chapel, thinking of Glinda, when Fiyero had found her, and forced himself stubbornly into her life. She smiled bitterly at the thought of him demanding entrance to her humble apartment, and demanding for her to tell him what was happening in her life. And he had cared—he really had, or he had tried too—and she had cared for him, too, because he was her one remaining link to the world outside of the resistance, the world of her so-called friends from her days at Shiz. He was a glimpse at the life she had left behind when she had deserted Glinda in the Emerald City.
And then the Wizard's soldiers had come for him, and it had been entirely her fault. With Sarima dead, she had no one left she could apologize to. "I am married, but not to a man," she had told him. He had seen her in Saint Glinda's chapel that evening. And he never said a word.
With a groan, the Witch sank to her knees. Chistery, whom she had forgotten about, rubbed against her side, whimpering at the sight of his master so distressed. She raised a hand absently to comfort him.
"This has all gotten too complicated, Chistery. Glinda, her son…Heinz' son…none of them should be here. But I can't send them back. I can't do anything. I should have joined Nessarose when I had the chance, raised an army against the Wizard. Now what can I do? Sit here and wait for the soldiers at Red Windmill to come and kill me? Watch the last few people who mean anything to me die like everyone else already has?"
Chistery did not understand her distress. The monkey rubbed his head affectionately against her shoulder making mangled, clumsy words.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Dorian groaned and tried to move his head—futilely, tried, since it seemed to weigh ten thousand pounds—and groaned again. Why did it feel like he was severely hung over?
"Stop trying to move, you idiot," a familiar voice reprimanded him sharply.
He cracked one eye open and saw the blurry face of the Major swimming over him. The whole room seemed to be swaying. "Oooh my head!"
"Stop whining! You're lucky to alive!" the Major snapped.
"Why? What happened?" he groaned, taking a cup of water the Major thrust at him and wishing the light coming through the window wasn't quite so painfully bright.
"You were poisoned. Do to your own carelessness, of course. Why did you just let that thug cut you?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," he replied sarcastically, wincing even as he spoke. "Seriously, darling, I have no idea what you're shouting about. I don't remember anything…um….I ruined your wedding…went to another world…there were those strange foreign soldiers…OH CRAP! The soldiers did we get away from them?"
"Obviously," the Major said dryly.
"Ha. Y—es, quite," Dorian continued. "So that's when I was….what? Poisoned?"
"Poisoned," the Major replied.
"Ah. I see. I see…. So, why are you the one watching over me? Not to sound ungrateful, Major, but concern is slightly uncharacteristic of you."
The Major snorted, sitting in the chair beside the bed with his arms folded crossly over his chest. "Idiot. I can't exactly dump you at the hospital and be on my way now, can I?"
"Oh. We're still in the mirror world, then, I take it?" he said after a moment.
"Yes," said the Major, clearly irritated. "And I have no idea when we'll get out. The Witch seems to think we're stuck here."
"The Witch—you're mother the Witch, or my mother the Witch?"
"Fool…" he opened his eyes a sliver, even though the light still hurt his head, and watched the conflicting emotions crossing the German's face with interest. He had almost expected the Major to explode and start ranting that the green-skinned woman was in no way his mother, but instead there were alarmingly pained expressions flickering over the pale visage.
"Major…"
"You should eat something," he said brusquely, standing. "I'll find the old hag."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Is your Ama with Dorian now?" Glinda asked the Witch, her blue eyes darting worriedly towards the stairs. "Feeding him that awful stew of hers?"
"It's not awful, it's efficient," the Witch replied, not looking up at her from the heavy tombs she was studying. "You just don't like it because it's ugly. That's your problem, Glinda, you've always been a snob."
The Major stood a few feet away from them, in the castle's spacious drawing room. He'd caught himself pacing, and was irritated at the universe in general. He would have also murdered for a cigarette. The women's banter didn't really interest him, but a moment later, the blonde Witch departed for the stairs, clearly concerned about the affect "Nanny's miracle stew" would have on her son. It seemed strange to think of the petite blonde, who looked not so much older than Eroica, as the Earl's mother. Of course, considerably less strange than thinking of the green-skinned woman, now the soul occupant of the room besides himself, as his…
The Major swallowed. He had tried not to think about it, but his father's words kept playing in his mind, over and over again, on and endless loop. And he saw the old man's sad, tired eyes, that were nevertheless the eyes of the strong tank commander father that he remembered from his childhood. "Then one night, she came out of the mirror…Elphaba…she was so different…like a mourner…I have been lying to you…for thirty-three years now…Henrietta was not your mother…"
He sighed deeply, crossed the room, and sat in the ancient, dust-covered chair across from her. No one appeared to have cleaned Kiamo Ko in years. Probably not since the castle's original inhabitants had died. Elphaba Thropp did not look up at him, but merely turned another page in her book.
"I tried to go through the Mirror earlier," she said all of a sudden, without so much as a glance up from the ancient text. "It wouldn't work. I think it's safe to say you and goldilocks are stuck here."
A door slammed loudly somewhere before he could respond, and Liir entered the drawing room, rain running down his face and drenching his clothes. He was breathing heavily, obviously excited about something.
"You've been down to Red Windmill, haven't you?" Elphaba asked, only glancing up at him.
"The town with the soldiers?" Klaus asked. "Isn't that dangerous?"
The Witch shrugged. "They don't mind."
He frowned, restraining from shouting. Was everyone in this world an idiot as well as insane? "I mean for the boy! It's a stupid risk! They could kidnap him and hold him to use against you." And if anyone in this world had any brains they probably would have.
"I told him that," the Witch replied, glaring at him, and finally closed the book. "But you try dealing with a fourteen year old boy. I should have pickled him before he got this old."
"Auntie!" Liir cried, tired of being ignored.
"Don't call me that, you know it makes me sick," she frowned. "What is it? What new nonsense has got you excited now?"
"It's more news about the—the girl Dorothy and her friends!" he said excitedly. "The soldiers have been getting reports on her progress as she makes her way here."
"Oh how wonderful," the Witch replied sarcastically. Then more seriously she added, "They're still weeks away, Liir. No cause for excitement yet."
"Only a fortnight, according to the report Commander Cherrystone received," Liir said excitedly. "I can't believe they actually got to meet the Wizard! They must be incredible. And that girl, do you think she's really from another world?"
Elphaba put a hand to her forehead tiredly. "Liir. We've been over this before—"
"I just thought you'd like to know they were making progress, that's all," the boy replied, though he clearly felt hurt.
The Witch stared at him for a moment, and sighed wearily. "Yes. You're right. Thank you for that news, Liir."
"I mean, since they are coming to—to—you know," the boy stammered, suddenly staring at the floor.
She sighed. "I know. You told me before. And what have I told you about that stuttering?"
"Sorry," he grumbled.
"My, an actual apology," she said, clearly surprised, one black eyebrow arching on her green face. "What a surprise."
Klaus watched the awkward exchange in silent confusion. He could not be sure of the boy's exact relationship with Elphaba. He called her 'auntie.' Yet what was that she had said when he and Glinda had first stepped inside Kiamo Ko's walls and she had learned he was a military officer?
"Out of two sons…"
Did that mean the boy was not her nephew, but in fact her son, and his half-brother? The Major's frown deepened at the thought.
"Major," Elphaba said. It was strange for her to call him that, he had even prepared himself to not snap at her for using his first name, if what his father had told him was true… But she didn't. And, oblivious to his confused thoughts, continued. "I suppose I should tell you this. You and Glinda's son are not the only visitors in our world. A few weeks ago another stranger—a young farm girl—quite literally dropped in after her house was carried into Oz by a tornado. Her name is Dorothy and she's been traveling around Munchkinland with her dog and three strange characters—a woodman who lost all of his limbs and had them replaced with tin, a Lion, and some sort of scarecrow."
The Major frowned. "I see. And they are coming here."
She nodded, but her face was grim. "Liir can tell you the details. I'm going to go back to my tower and see if I can't find out anything more about our Mirror-related difficulties."
She stood slowly, straightening the heavy black scarves that she wore even within the fortress' walls, and looked slowly from Liir to Klaus before picking up her books. She slipped out of the room as silently as the shadows. The Major felt a regret he could not name, and turned to Liir so that he would not have to think about it.
The boy seemed nervous, but grateful for the attention, and took a deep breath. "Dorothy and her friends went to the Emerald City to see the Wizard," he said excitedly.
"And this Wizard is so important here?" the Major asked.
Liir's eyes grew wide and exited as he spoke. "Oh yes—YES! He's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. How can you NOT have heard of him? Why, he's the one who ordered the construction of the Emerald City and the Yellow Brick Road that connects all of Oz. He over through the Ozma—"
So he's their ruler, the Major reasoned, wishing he had a cigarette, but nodded for the boy to go on.
"Well no one gets to just see the Wizard. Especially not strange nobody's like the girl and her friends," Liir told him. "But they got in to see him! And they asked for the strangest things you'd ever heard of. The Tin Woodman asked for a heart, the Lion for courage, and the Scarecrow asked for brains."
The Major rubbed his forehead. It felt as though his life was getting stupider by the minute.
"Auntie made a joke that Dorothy should have asked for a shoe-horn," he continued soberly, "But she really asked to go home, 'cause she's a stranger here, like the Witch said."
If Liir was Elphaba's son they certainly didn't seem to be close.
"Anyways, the Wizard refused to grant their requests. Auntie Witch wasn't surprised. But he said that he WOULD grant them, on one condition, and that's why they're coming out here to the Vinkus."
"Why? What was the condition?" the Major asked. But to his surprise, the boy didn't seem to want to say. His eyes darted to the floor and he shifted from foot to foot uneasily, mumbling.
The Major rose from his chair, frowning. "What is it? What did the Wizard send this 'Dorothy' and her freakish friends here to do?"
By now Liir actually looked as though he might burst into tears at any second. The Major was torn between a certain degree of pity and annoyance. "I can't help you if you don't tell me what the problem is," he tried, fighting to keep his voice calm.
Liir looked up at him in surprise. "Y—You mean you're actually going to stay and help us?" he asked.
The Major sighed. "It's not like I have a choice. It doesn't look as though I'll be going back to Germany any time soon."
A brief look of confusion crossed the boy's face, but he shook it off, clearly growing more confident. "Well, the Wizard said he would grant Dorothy and her friends all their bizarre requests if they came out here to Kiamo Ko and…" here he paused again and Klaus fought to keep his temper under control. When the boy finally finished his sentence, it was in a much smaller voice. "…to come out here and kill her."
"Her? Her who?"
"…Auntie Witch."
"Elphaba?" he blinked, and took a step back. "You're saying the Wizard sent a little girl, a mutilated woodman, an animal, and a scarecrow to assassinate the Witch? How is this 'Dorothy' even going to get through the soldiers stationed everywhere?"
"Oh, they won't hurt her," Liir said, shaking his head. "Dorothy's under protection ordered by the most powerful officers in the military. It's because of her name, you see, even more than the Wizard's orders. Dorothy is called Dorothy Gale and the Wizard's soldiers are called the Gale Force. They already believe she's a bit holy. And they're far too…what's the word Auntie uses? Superstitious to attack her. A few of them joked about it and…well…their bodies are on display around Red Windmill now."
"I…see," the Major stared in surprise. This insane world was by turns stupid and extremely dangerous. It was difficult to say if the girl and her friends were actually a threat to the Witch or not. Liir seemed upset over it, but he was just a child. Klaus would have thought the growing army of soldiers stationed in the town below them would have been a far greater cause for concern, but evidently the boy went there and cavorted with them without fear. Though they had tried to kill Eroica.
He really wanted a cigarette.
"Mostly," Liir continued, "I want to meet Dorothy. She's all they talk about in town nowadays. I mean, I've never really met anyone. She doesn't let me go anywhere, you know. Dorothy sounds really wonderful. Auntie saw her on one of her trips, or she says she did. She didn't let me come along. She never lets me go anywhere."
"No…" said Klaus, who was slightly annoyed by this, but also thankful that it didn't seem as though he would have to worry about any perverted behavior from Liir"But you should stay away from Red Windmill for a while, just in case."
"Auntie said that too," the boy said with a sigh. "But okay, I guess."
"Why do you call her that?" the Major asked after a minute. "Is she your aunt?"
"No…It's just what Manek, Irji, and Nor called her," the boy replied. "Sarima's children."
The people who lived here before, the ones whom the soldiers killed, Klaus vaguely remembered the Witch mentioning them.
"Anyways, I don't know what else to call her. She says she doesn't like it when I call her 'Auntie' but I don't know what else to call her. Manek and Irji said she was my mother," he continued, quieter, staring at the ground again. "But I don't know. She never told me."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The Mirror had stubbornly cut off the gateway and refused to open. Instead, images and shapes swirled in its foggy surface. She saw the girl, Dorothy, in her blue and white checkered dress, her annoying little dog clasped in her arms. The Witch could not look at the girl's open, innocent face. It was too painfully familiar. An image of someone she had been, long ago. So she turned her gaze to the three odd companions.
The Lion, she recognized, from her days at Shiz. Could it be the tiny cub, shivering and scared, separated from his family by the uncaring professors that she had tried to defend? The tin woodman was also familiar. She vaguely recalled her sister, Nessarose, in her role as tyrannical dictator-ess, leaning over the old woman's axe, giving it an enchantment to slice off the arms and legs of an annoying suitor or some-such.
But the Scarecrow…he was the truly different one.
"Elphaba? Elphie?" the voice called to her, jarring her from her trance and shattering the vision into a blur of mist, and then nothing at all. "Elphie? It's me, Glin—"
"I know it's you, Glinda," she said, I would recognize that annoying voice of yours anywhere! "What do you want?"
The blonde sorceress was staring at her with wide eyes. She smoothed the folds of her gown, now pink (had she magicked it up somehow?) and lowered her gaze. "Elphie, I just…I wanted to see you. I know something's wrong, but Liir won't talk to me, and you keep cloistering yourself away up in this tower."
"I have nothing to say to you."
"Elphie…" the blonde's head dipped, and she wrung her hands delicately. "You said, before, that people were coming to kill you."
She stood, pushed away from the now-useless looking-glass and regarded Glinda with a blank expression. "I have nothing more to say to you Glinda," she said, brushing passed her, and heading towards the darkened doorway. She heard the blonde's choked gasp of breath, and out of the corner of her eye, saw Glinda raise hands gloved in pink satin, to wipe away tears. But she told herself she didn't care, and kept walking.
It was Nanny who met her in the hallway, wandering lost, and for a moment Elphaba felt a pang of worry that the old woman had forgotten where she was again. But no, Nanny regarded her with the sort of questioning, probing gaze, that made the Witch uncomfortable. "Galinda went in there to speak with you," she said.
"She calls her self Glinda now, Nanny, and I know that,"
"Why won't you talk to her? Galinda or Glinda, she's still the same girl you went to school with,"
"That was nearly twenty years ago, and she's not the same girl," the Witch replied, knowing she would not be able to explain the gravity of everything to the doddering old woman.
"Come now, dear, you were devoted to Glinda at Shiz, everyone knew it," Nanny said kindly, placing one weak and weathered hand on Elphaba's bony shoulder.
The Witch nearly choked. The words tugged at a painful ache deep and dark within her, and reminded her of ghosts of days—of herself, Glinda, and Nessarose sitting, talking, laughing, young and so much more innocent then she was now. Days that could never be brought back. People and ideas that could never be returned to.
"Well, no more," she said in a coarse voice, stepping out of the old woman's reach. "No more, Nanny, she's a traitor. She's a traitor, so I'll have no more talk of this, do you understand me?"
But she could not face Nanny as she spoke, and the hands clenched into fists at her sides trembled of their own accord.
"You know…" Nanny continued, coming close to her again, not giving her a moment's reprieve. "We Amas would talk, dear. We always thought it would be you and Glinda who would stay together until the end."
"What? Nanny, what are you implying!" she shouted, then immediately quieted her voice, looking down the dark passageway to make sure no one else was about.
"Oh, for goodness sake, girl, I'm eight-five years old, I do know about such things! Your father, after all, poor old Frex, had a male lover. Granted, Turtle Heart was sleeping with your mother too, but…"
"I don't want to hear about this, I feel ill,"
"I'm just saying," the old woman sighed, "You and Glinda… Don't think we Amas didn't know about you two sneaking off to the Philosophy Club more than once after lights-out. And even we old biddies knew what went on there."
"You old thing, you don't even know what you're talking about!" Elphaba retorted.
"Like figs I don't!" the old woman huffed. "We knew you loved her. You took her with you to the Emerald City when you went to see the Wizard for the first time, on that quest of yours to save the Animals, didn't you? You didn't have to. You were nearly obsessed with her by then. And Glinda, the poor thing, was never the same after she came back alone. She locked herself in her room for weeks, wouldn't speak, wouldn't eat. I'm no fool, Elphaba Thropp, I can imagine what happened between you in that city."
"Alright," Elphaba sighed, pressing her forehead tiredly against the old lady's "But whatever I felt for Glinda back then, it's gone now. I told you: she betrayed me. She betrayed all of us, for the Wizard."
With that, she pulled away from the old woman. She had no desire to continue the discussion further. Liir would be moping about the dungeons with Chistery, and she would go and tell him to help Nanny back to her bedroom. She could not look at the old woman any longer.
The Witch slipped quickly through the shadows of the hallway, dipping down the stairs so fast she nearly flew, her heart pounding in her chest. When she reached the bottom, she leant against the stone wall and shut her eyes tightly for several minutes so that she would not weep.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It was several long minutes before Glinda collected herself enough to leave the deserted room. She blinked the tears from her eyes and straightened the tiara perched in her curls. Her voluminous pink gowns, actually the blue gowns she had merely cast a quick bit of sorcery on them, rustled beneath her as she took shaky steps towards the door. Elphaba's words, spoken with such passion the green woman didn't seem to realize, could still hurt her deeply.
Still feeling hurt, the blonde witch wandered the castle's halls until she came to Dorian's room. The door was half-open, so she walked in. The room was quiet and empty, except of course for her son, who appeared to be asleep. Grey light filled the room in these uncomfortable hours of twilight. She leaned against the back of the door for a moment, and Dorian opened his eyes.
"What are you doing here?"
"Wha—what?" she asked. "I just came to see you."
He blinked, and looked around the small room, silent for a moment. "Where's the Major?"
"I wouldn't know. He wasn't here when I came in."
Dorian's gaze came back to her, colder. "Well, in any case I don't want you here."
"What? But why?"
"I haven't forgiven you," he said simply. "Besides, it's your fault all of this happened."
"You can hardly blame this on me!" she cried. "That's not fair!"
"Not fair?" he laughed bitterly, and tried to sit up a ways, but was evidently still too weak. He fell back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling, resolutely not looking at her. "You're a fine one to talk about 'not fair.'"
Glinda clasped her hands. She could not look at her son, either. "I…I'm sorry. I watched over you when you were sick, I—"
"And you think that makes up for abandoning me for sixteen years? Sixteen years and not once did you ever try to contact me… Don't think I forgot about those times you locked me alone in the tower!"
"I'm sorry," she said, "I've already tried to explain, but—"
She stopped as the door creaked opened behind her and she jumped out of the way. The Major regarded her with his usual inscrutable, hard, expression. "Well, what a surprise, Major Eberbach, I rather remembered that you weren't overly fond of my son."
His glare did not change. "Someone has to be responsible for ensuring our company doesn't die in this god-forsaken world, and since I'm the only one who isn't mad—"
"Alright, alright, I give up," she shook her head and stepped towards the door, turning to look at Dorian one last time before she left. He refused to meet her gaze. "I hope, one day, though, that you'll be able to forgive me…" But she felt too much like an intruder in something she did not understand, in that room. So she finally conceded defeat, and left.
Outside, the door shut firmly behind her. Glinda felt the cold dank draftiness of the old castle-fortress and fell back against the cold stone wall. Her head was aching as she rubbed the tears out of her eyes.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Dorian looked up as the Major crossed the small room. "I really just came to make sure…the old hag thought there was a chance you might slip into another coma, so I came to check."
"But you came yourself instead of sending someone else. Darling, I'm touched,"
The Major gave him a long-suffering look. "Are you trying to get me to yell at you?"
"Well, it would be nice to have a little normality…" to his surprise the smallest of smiles twitched at the corners of the Major's mouth, but the German turned away.
"It would be nice to have some cigarettes…"
"Oh? You're out?" Dorian asked, genuinely concerned. He didn't like the idea of a nicotine-deprived Major. Didn't like it at all. "Then…I shall be extra careful to be on my best behavior for the remainder of our stay here."
The Major turned back to him, a rather bemused expression on his face. "And what is Eroica's 'best behavior' exactly?"
Oh my God. He's baiting me so that I'll say something perverted, so that he'll have an excuse to take out all of his cigarette-craving frustration and rage on me
"Well?" the Major asked, now actually leaning over him!
Dorian's heart almost stopped—God, but that man was gorgeous when he was intimidating! He offered a not-entirely genuine smile and declined to respond. The Major sighed and turned away. "Well, you're alive. I'm leaving—"
"Wait, Major!"
Fuck. Why did I say that? Dorian thought as the Major actually did stop and turn his head towards him.
"What?" he asked over his shoulder. "What is it?" he was clearly irritated. As always.
"Uh…This is going to sound quite daft…" he managed to say after a moment.
The Major merely rolled his eyes. "Everything you says sounds bloody stupid, so just shut up and say it already!"
"Shut up and…Major, how am I supposed to do that?"
"You're fine. I'm leaving," he turned back to the door.
"No—uh, I, bollocks, Major I don't want to be…alone."
"Too bad," his hand grasped the door knob. Despite himself, the Earl felt a knot of panic tighten in his chest. But the Major paused and turned around again. "I'll put out the candle for you," he said, crossing the room in quick strides. The candle was set on a small wooden table a few feet from Dorian's bed. He probably wouldn't have had the strength to get up and blow it out had he wanted to…but he most certainly did not want to—and he was willing to bet the arrogant German knew it, too!
"That's not necessary!" he shouted, wincing as his voice rose sharply higher then he had intended.
"What?" the Major asked, looking at him in genuine surprise for a minute. Then, slowly, a very evil smirk crossed the German's face. "Oh, I see…you're afraid the castle's gargoyles are going to come to life and accost you in your sleep, is that it?"
"That's simply terrible of you, and you know it!" he pouted, still watching the Major nervously. "It's a serious problem!"
"You have a lot of serious problems," the Major replied. "What sort of thief is afraid of the dark, anyways?" the Major demanded, swiping the brass candleholder off the desk in one swift movement so quickly Dorian was certain the flame would go out—and gripped the sheets. "I thought you got over that bit of stupidity after—"
"Something as traumatic as, oh, I don't know…NEARLY DYING could possibly re-instate it!" the Earl squeaked.
The Major wore a surprised (and not a little disturbed) expression on his face after hearing the outburst.
"Don't you dare blow out at that candle, Major!"
"If you close your eyes and go to sleep it'll be the same!"
"You sadist!"
"You idiot!"
"It's bad enough you left me tied up in a room full of haunted statues—"
"They weren't haunted, you're just a moron!"
"—but how can you torment me like this now, after I nearly died! You really are a despicable man!"
"I'm despicable?" the Major asked. "If you just stayed out of my life—and out of my missions—"
"You can't say that! You're the one who sent me after that cursed statue in the first place!"
"Only an idiot or a child would have been scared by that stupid story!"
"Only a real bastard would keep tormenting someone who was!"
"Fine!" the Major growled, exasperated. "I won't blow out the stupid—"
The candle, possible annoyed by all the fighting, chose that moment to wink itself out of existence. The room was instantly plunged into black darkness and Dorian was ashamed at himself for the terrible cry of surprise and genuine horror that erupted from his throat. He hunched over, shivering.
Damn that Major! And…me…I really thought that I was finally over this. How am I supposed to be Eroica when I can't even handle the dark?
"…I didn't put it out," the Major's voice said after a minute, startling him so much that he shuddered.
"Yeah right, I know you're enjoying this!" he said, finally summoning the courage to look up. The darkness of the room was deep and terrifying. Faint moonlight came in through the tiny window, but it wasn't enough—not nearly enough! If anything, it made everything eerier, creating murky shadows that moved wraithlike across the walls and floor. He almost thought he would be sick.
"Damn, you weren't lying…" the Major continued. "What an idiot, but still…"
Unable to look at the ghost-like world of darkness anymore, Dorian had buried his face in his arms and so didn't know what sort of expression the Major had, not that he really cared at the moment. He heard footsteps crossing the stone floor and had to fight back against his racing heart. It's just the Major.
The door creaked just a bit. "If it bothers you that much I can light it again, but I left my lighter in my room, since I didn't have any cigarettes anyways."
"No!" he shouted, then tried to will himself to be calm. It wasn't happening. "No. Don't. Don't leave—" God, that sounded pitiful. "Don't you dare leave me here, you bastard! Not after what you did." There, that was a bit better.
The Major paused, anyways. For a moment, the Earl almost relaxed. Then the sound of a wooden chair screeching as it was dragged across the stone floor shocked him so badly he nearly leapt right out of the bed. Something heavy was pressing against his shoulder. He panicked, clawing at it madly—
"It's just me. Shit," the Major's voice, rough as usual, but the tone was also different, in a way Dorian didn't find immediately familiar. He was sitting in the chair now, so it seemed he really wasn't going to leave. And the Major's arm had reached out to steady him, and was still pressed against his shoulder, but the poor thief was in no state to enjoy it. Instead he cringed back against the mattress and drew the covers up over his head in shame. "You're drenched in sweat!" the Major's voice continued, sounding predictably angry and accusatory. "What brought this on?" The Earl cowered and was silently grateful the German hadn't stormed off, leaving him alone in this horrible darkness!
"I don't want to talk about it," he said, not liking how choked his voice sounded, but still shivering anyways. He figured he might as well just give up on salvaging his pride. Besides, if I never get over this fear it's not like Eroica has much of a future…
"Well I do! This is serious. We need to be at our sharpest in this foreign place and you're hardly any use when you're scared of your own shadow!"
"I don't know, alright?" he sighed, pressing his palms against his eyes. "Are people in comas supposed to dream, Major?"
"How the hell should I know a stupid thing like that?"
"Well I did. Horrible—horrible visions. One after another, without end, and every time I thought I'd escaped them and woken up, it was only to fall into another even darker and more violent then the last…"
"I can't believe a couple of bad dreams caused this," the Major snorted, and Dorian didn't say anymore, until several long minutes passed and the officer fidgeted and spoke again. "Are you asleep? Because if you're asleep, I'm going…"
"I'm not asleep! Don't leave!" he shouted, reaching out a hand to reassure himself that the Major was still really there, that the disembodied voice floating through the perfect darkness was not just a figment of his imagination. His hand clenched the sleeve of the Major's uniform, and to his surprise the other man did not pull away.
He did sigh heavily. "I can't leave you here like this. You might bolt out into the hallway in blind panic and break your neck falling down the stairs."
"Yeah, I'm sure you'd really hate that," he said sarcastically ignoring the tears that stung in the corners of his eyes even as he said it, and thankful that in the dark the Major would not be able to see them. So it is just your sense of duty keeping you here. Well that makes sense, of course...if only I was in proper state to take advantage of it!
"Hey, Major…" he said quietly, feeling the inevitable exhaustion of all his panic clutching at him with long dark claws and being unable to resist it, yet terrified of it at the same time. "Sing to me…?"
"WHAT?"
"You have a really nice voice, remember…in the tank...when we first met? Anyways…I could probably fall asleep…and then you could go…"
"I don't know any lullabies," the Major said sarcastically. And not entirely truthfully, since the Earl seemed to remember him singing himself to sleep with 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' if his suspicions about what had happened aboard the Russian submarine way back during the Alaska fiasco were true.
But he was too exhausted to argue. He could feel the sharp fear of the encroaching nightmares gathering even beneath the crippling fatigue… "Please…just sing the German tank-song, then… You did before…"
He wasn't sure if his words were audible anymore. In any case, he felt himself slipping into the dark horrible place trapped between wakefulness and sleep. Silence stretched out in the endless black for several long minutes.
And then he heard the familiar, powerful voice singing deeply and in German. Slowly, the horrible fear of the darkness ebbed away and he began to relax.
By the end of the first verse, he was asleep.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Outside the small room, Glinda caught her breath and strained to listen through the shut doorway. Her heart beat loudly in her chest and she clutched her forearms haggardly as the memory from nearly twenty years ago was drudged up by the powerful tone that was, though different, still so sharply familiar.
The memory of lifetimes ago, when she had sat together with Nessarose and Elphaba, and Fiyero, Avaric, Nanny, and Boq. The friends had broken curfew, sitting together in the dark tavern, they'd had a bit too much wine, even Nanny, which was probably why she hadn't made any fuss. They had been eighteen then. Nessa had just gotten the shoes from her father. She had just changed her name to Glinda. It was on the cusp of everything, just before everything went all wrong. Sitting on the hard floor, with her back pressed against the cold stone wall, Glinda pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her arms, listening to the singing that brought back memories of Elphaba singing to them, back then.
Singing. Elphie. Who would have thought it? It seemed such a bizarre talent for someone so cold and dispassionate…no, not dispassionate, Elphaba had always been extremely passionate, just not about the things Glinda could understand. And that voice—so rich, so powerful, so…
Passionate. And it was the same in the Major's voice. Even though he was singing in German and she did not know the words. Any last lingering doubts she may have had about Klaus being Elphaba's son were obliterated. She wasn't sure why that made her as sad as it did.
To be Continued in Chapter Ten: Deep Waters