Far off in Oz in the outlands of the Emerald City, Ozians gathered to see the brave hunters off. Villagers mostly, but a few people from the City itself had followed in worship of their heroes-to-be. A drum sounded with the intention of silencing the edgy crowd, but it only succeeded in stirring them up more.
"Go and hunt her!" They were shouting, demanding the deed be done. "And find her! And kill her!"
A frenzied woman cried out to the hunters: "Good fortune, Witch hunters!"
"Go and hunt her!" The call came again, the combined wills of the people was frightening, more powerful than any Witch or Wizard, a power they never knew they had. "And find her! And kill her! Wickedness must be punished!" They swarmed at the balcony of their town hall, the tallest building in the whole village at the towering height of two stories. Please go kill her! Go and do it! "Evil effectively eliminated!" Nobody came, and the people were beginning to grow desperate. Shovels and spades that wouldn't have been given a second glance were raised high, glinting iron heads turning into deadly weapons. "Wickedness must be punished!" More were drawn to the village square, holding torches aloft. "Kill the Witch!" Finally, something moved up on the balcony. A man appeared, looking much like he was wearing a suit of armor. But, the people closest to the balcony realized that he practically was a suit of armor; the tin exterior of his skin caught the light of the torches, reflecting back the enraged fire.
"And this is more than just a service to the Wizard," Boq shouted over the crowd, their shouts finally dying down to hear his words. Anger filled his voice, lifting him to a new experience of feeling he had never imagined since he lost his heart. Anger didn't need a heart. "I have a personal score to settle with Elph…with the Witch!" Boq felt himself getting carried away, reveling in the emotion that almost made him call Elphaba by her name. Subconsciously, he was listing all of the reasons Elphaba should be punished. It all came back to one thing, though: his tin body. No, not the body; the heart. The lack of emotion. He couldn't feel things he had taken for granted. He could recognize things that would make him happy, sad, but couldn't feel anything. No tender thoughts of Glinda could make a brief reprieve from this new torture. Every day was agony, trying anything to feel emotions again. Anger was the only one that came, that made him feel like a human again. Nobody ever needed a heart to be angry. He had spent a lot of time brooding over that feeling, and finally came to a conclusion: Elphaba did not deserve to die. No, far worse. She should be turned to tin. Made to experience the painful emptiness that nearly drove him insane with each new day. But that would mean he would have to be able to read that book of hers.
So he would have to settle for killing her.
"It's due to her I'm made of tin, her spell made this occur," The anger continued to grow, Boq drinking in the only emotion that was real to him now. "So for once I'm glad I'm heartless; I'll be heartless killing her!" The crowd screamed its approval. She had to be killed, punished for the terror she had inflicted upon innocent people! The people reinforced Boq's reasons, set them in stone in his mind. He remembered a night when that Scarecrow had tried to convince him otherwise, the brainless idiot.
Boq poked at the fire with his had, stirring up the flames that kept the little girl, his new friend, warm. The Scarecrow stared at him nervously; in awe that Boq could put his hand in the flames and come out unharmed.
"That's pretty gusty," He said simply, watching the crackling fire.
"I'm tin," Boq said shortly. "As long as I don't leave my finger in there too long, I'm fine."
"Oh," The Scarecrow looked from the fire to Boq, studying him. Boq met the Scarecrow's eyes challengingly, daring him to speak again. Finally, the Scarecrow broke the silence of night again.
"Why do you hate the Witch so much?" Boq stared at him puzzlingly. Who didn't hate the Witch? "...more than most people." The Scarecrow added, realizing the stupidity of his question. Boq tried to be sympathetic; the Scarecrow was only trying to make sense of the world around him, it wasn't his fault, but an impatient anger was all that would come. Sympathy needed a heart.
"It's her fault I'm like this," Boq felt his petty annoyance slip into the familiar hatred of Elphaba. "Her sister made my heart disappear, and then the Witch turned me to tin." The Scarecrow pondered that for a minute.
"Don't people die without a heart?" The stupid question came.
"Duh." Boq said, and poked the fire with his finger again.
"Then it sounds like she saved your life." Boq looked up. The Scarecrow appeared surprised as well, and proceeded to explain his sudden thought for fear it would go away. "Things without a heart die, but you're tin, so you're not dead. You're not dead because the Witch turned you to tin."
It made sense, but Boq's anger could not be quelled so easily.
"You forget that things without a heart don't feel." Boq said acidly. The Scarecrow seemed taken aback "I'd rather be dead and at peace than this." He gestured down at his tin body, joints clanking as tin scraped tin. The night silence continued.
"I don't know exactly what happened," The Scarecrow began slowly, piecing together muddled notions. "But she probably didn't have much time to decide what to do." Boq's eyes widened. Two semi-rational thoughts in as many minutes? The Scarecrow continued, oblivious to Boq's surprise. "She couldn't have planned it out before and thought about the consequences." He paused, and looked into Boq's metallic, cold eyes. "So you have to cut her some slack for good intentions." Boq's idea that he might have a partially intelligent traveling companion faded back into nothing.
"She's a wicked witch, brainless." Boq said, letting his annoyance show. "She doesn't have good intentions." He remembered the Elphaba he saw back in the apple orchard, perfectly willing to kill them all for Nessa's shoes. If he hadn't hated her before, he would have after that whole debacle.
"I'm just saying," The Scarecrow fell silent for the final time, and the matter dropped.
Back in the present, Boq continued to stoke the people's anger.
"And I am not the only one!" He turned back into the room from the balcony, beckoning someone else forward. He spoke quietly, but the eager crowd could hear his every word.
"Oh, come on, you!" He was saying, growing exasperated at whoever he wanted to speak next. "Come out and tell them what she did to you in class that day." He grabbed a thick tail, a tuft of brown hair on the end proving it was a Lion's. "How you were just a cub, and she cubnapped you!" He tugged on the tail a few times, bracing a metal leg against the wall in a vain attempt to pull the Lion out into the open. With an anticlimactic roar petering out into a catlike whine, he finally let the tail go. He turned back to the crowd, adding the Lion's fear and hatred to his own.
"You see?" He said forcefully, imagining his companion's negative opinion of the Witch and multiplying it tenfold in his mind. "You see the Lion also has a grievance to repay!" The crowd's eyes widened. They were always suckers for poor-little-Animal stories. "If she'd let him fight his own battles when he was young, he wouldn't be a coward today!" The crowd stirred again, this abomination against Animals the final straw! Boq left the balcony, taking some sort of satisfaction in knowing he had all of Oz's support in his quest against Elphaba.
Well, not all of Oz.
"No! That's not the way that happened!" Glinda watched from a window, far away from the crowd. She tugged on Madame Morrible's sleeve like a six-year-old begging for attention. "Madame, you have to stop this! It's gone too far!" Madame Morrible gritted her teeth and put up with the indignity of being treated like a servant.
"Oh," She said indifferently. "I think Elphaba can take care of herself. She sent those horrid followers of hers away, so she must be doing splendidly." Glinda felt disturbed by the almost-subtle sarcasm in Madame Morrible's manner. And how dare she call her Elphaba?! All those horrible lies she told to build her up into a monster. Madame Morrible wasn't talking about Elphaba anymore. It was the Wicked Witch of the West whenever Madame Morrible spoke of her. The West and the East. But the East was dead…a cyclone…
"Madame, something's been troubling me," Glinda tore herself away from the terrible scene of rabid anger to try and catch Madame Morrible's eye. "About Nessarose and that cyclone!"
"Oh, yes…" Madame Morrible seemed far away, as if the death- actual death- of a person wasn't important. "Well, I guess it was just her time…"
"Was it?" Glinda challenged, bringing Elphaba's suspicions to the light. "Or did you?" Madame Morrible's eyes sharpened, all of a sudden painfully aware of everything around her. She met Glinda's eyes, stormy gray punishing blue.
"Now, you listen to me, Missy," she began, her voice a low hiss. "You may have fooled the rest of Oz with this "aren't I good" routine, but I know better. You've wanted this since the beginning..." She suddenly let up, her voice high and sarcastic. "and now you're getting what you wanted! So just smile" She demonstrated a painfully forced smile that sent shivers down Glinda's spine. "and wave," she pushed Glinda's hand, trying to make her wave. "and shut up!" She said finally. The Witch hunters were passing the little cottage. Glinda watched in horror as the people of the village tried to press ancient swords and rusty daggers into the hands of the odd hunters; a large Lion, a little girl, a Scarecrow -of all things- and the Tin Man, hoping that it could be the tool to claim the Witch's life. Dorothy stared at the cruel metal blades, wide eyed at the prospect that someone might be killed, but was hurried on by the Scarecrow, his eyes staring at the ground and completely ignoring the array of weaponry presented to him. He seemed oddly quiet; probably because he couldn't make up his mind what to think about the scenario. Glinda knew what she wanted to do, though; she had to go warn Elphaba, make sure she knew what was coming before it was too late. Maybe even talk some sense back into her. All recent sightings of the Witch described her as wild and insane, definitely not the calmly calculating Elphaba she had known at Shiz. Madame Morrible opened the window, her voice one of many as she called out:
"Good fortune! Good fortune, Witch hunters!" They passed by the window without so much as a glance.
"Wickedness must be punished!" The crowd continued, keeping pace with the hunters for as long as possible. "Brave witch-hunters, I would join if I could…" The crowd began to fall back, not wanting to approach the Witch in her castle themselves, but perfectly happy to let a band of misfits go and do the deed. "Because wickedness must be punished!" They reached the edge of the village, the castle barely visible in the distance as a great, looming structure against the oncoming gloom. "Punished!" The crowd finally stopped, brandishing the family sword or shovel high, hoping with all their might that the hunters' attempt would be successful. "PUNISHED!" They called after them, deluding themselves into thinking that if the hunters succeeded, it was a success to them as well. "By good!"
And the battle horn and roll of drums faded as the crusaders continued their advance on the castle.