A/N: Oh, my goodness, I am so sorry that it's taken me so long to update. Life's caught up with me. I promise it won't take so long next time. Thanks goes to Veronika Green, who I forgot to thank last chapter due to my sidetrackedness, for her help on dialogue in the last chapter. Thanks also goes to Kennedy Leigh Morgan, as always, for being awesome and putting up with me. ;) Also to elphabathedelirious(somethingsomethingnumbers) for being awesome and also for threatening me with a wicker chair. Also, the title of this story is subject to change by the next chapter, so don't be surprised, and be sure to put it on alert or something if it matters to you that it's lost into oblivion. ;)
Summary: Sometimes if it's been a while, I find that I've forgotten the previous parts of a story. So I'll summarize. Chapter 5 was Lirr's little adventure in Southstairs and his meeting with Shell, which just got him thrown back into his cell anyway. The last chapter was Glinda reuiniting with Boq, Molly, and Ean, and also had the introduction of a few characters near the end. (Raine, Merra, Binh.)
Diclaimer: It's not mine.
She tilted her head this way and that, assessing the sky. Behind her, dark clouds were gathering in a huge gray mass, and the wind was sending her hair out around her. She shook it from her eyes, pulled it back and tied it into place with a leather thong. She took a deep breath and hitched the cloak from her shoulders and slung it over her arm.
She'd had her doubts about leaving the mauntery and about leaving Kiamo Ko. Who did she think she was? What kind of decision did she think she was making? After all, she was only fourteen. She knew novices older than she that she was certain would forget to eat and pray and sleep if not instructed to do so.
But in this moment, with the sun shining meekly through the gray and white clouds tossed in among the happy blue and yellow sky beneath, she lost her worries. She felt a small drop of water on her face and her smile widened.
She loved the mauntery—it was her home. She loved Glinda, and Sister Apothecaire, and the others. But she'd been too still for too long, too coddled and too restricted. How she'd longed to be able to roam, to take a walk. To sit in the rain without the quick glances and the gentle voices that told her to get inside, accompanied by prodding hands.
The dark clouds came over her and pelted her with the occasional large drop. The coolness of the water felt good upon her cheeks, more pure than well water, more forgiving than tears.
The sky let loose and it began to pour. She ran, stumbled along the red dirt path that caked her black leather shoes and slopped at her ankles. She passed little cottages emitting the feeblest trails of smoke from chimneys on sinking rooftops, little lawns with upended tables and rusted red tricycles. The little cottages gave way to tinkling little shops and dirty motels and untended cafés.
Why, the buildings weren't green at all! Rather, they were gray and drab and blended in with the hopeless sky. An occasional person slinked by on the street ahead but none approached her.
She slid the cloak back on reluctantly and hid beneath its warm folds. A flash of lightning lit the sky as a squat little woman hidden behind a mass of crimson curls came waddling out of a little shop ahead. She passed by Lena without so much as a glance.
Lena needed to find a place to stay to get out of the storm, which was becoming progressively worse. Streaks of lightning were flashing through the city, illuminating the cold steel of the desolate warehouses around her. She stumbled into an overhang and pressed her face against the clouded glass. Inside she could see a set of stairs that turned and led out of sight along barren walls. She pulled open the heavy door and slid inside, pulling the cloak from her face. The room smelled faintly of bread and fires.
"Hello?" she called. The howling wind could be heard through the cracked windowpane. She approached the stairs and cautiously placed her foot upon the first step. It emitted a small cloud of a dust and a squeak of protest but was sturdy beneath her. She made her way up the stairs deliberately and slowly, using the wall for support should a stair decide to give. Though she doubted how much good the wall would do her if that did happen.
She came to a bend in the stairs and could have sworn that she saw a white cat on the step. She jumped. She'd only ever heard of cats in long-ago bedtime stories, or books of far-away fantasylands. Yet when she looked closer, there was no cat. She shook her head and reasoned that it had streaked away up the stairs.
She pushed open a door to find a fairly large room. Immediately to her right was a small, aluminum-framed bed, slid crookedly against the wall. Crates were littered about the floor with no particular regard to design or convenience, each one sporting a book or tin cup or stack of yellowed paper. The room was dim, lit only by the small amounts of light that managed to make it through the raging storms and into the skylights lining the slanted roof.
Too timid to explore the rest of the room with the thundering roar of the storm outside, she pulled herself onto the bed and collapsed onto its musty sheets, pulling the cloak up over her head.
• • • • •
Nor pushed a few dark strands of hair back from her eyes and looked up at the sky. The straggles of gray clouds that had been threatening rain all morning were now massing together in a promising way. Laela nudged Nor's hand and tugged at her reigns, protesting the storm.
"Shh, it's alright," Nor murmured. She kicked softly at the red earth of the path and muttered something to herself that sounded curiously like "Munchkins."
Laela tugged harder at her reigns when Nor made no attempt to move.
"Oh, all right!" Nor said. "I'm just having trouble… remembering…" She relented and allowed the mare to pull her along the path. After a few minutes it began to sprinkle.
A little cottage with sad-looking windows and a few missing shingles was nestled a little ways off the path. Nor stepped over the low stone wall and made her way across the lawn, sidestepping a pile of sticks, a sodden rag doll, a pitiful little tricycle.
She led Laela around the house to a mid-sized barn behind it, gleaming with new paint, a bright white against the overcast sky. "Hello?" she called. There was no answer. She slid open the door of the barn with little difficulty. "Hello?" she called into the musty darkness. Laela let out a sound somewhat like a huff.
Nor turned to her. "Laela, dear, I need you to stay here. I'm certain Binh will be back soon enough."
The horse nuzzled its neck against Nor's hand and then trotted off to a removed corner of the barn. Nor left and made her way back along the edge of the house. Coming around to the front, she paused. There was a small figure hurrying along the path, skipping through the rain. Nor felt herself go faint and leaned heavily against the wall for a moment. She'd nearly thought that the figure was Elphaba. Nearly.
She waited for the figure to pass and then followed along behind it. She could see Lena as the Emerald City came up around them, pausing to gaze at a shop, jumping at loud noises. Lena disappeared behind her hood and nearly fell into something or another along the roadside when a rather stocky, suspicious-looking woman came bustling by. Nor smiled to herself and turned along St. Pertha's Avenue. The palace loomed ahead like a giant on its haunches. She lowered her eyes from the great obnoxious thing.
Making her way along a side alley, she came to a small, walled courtyard of soft stone and concrete. The rain was gathering in a pool along one side. All three doors leading from the courtyard were propped open despite the rain.
"I'm home!" she called.
She was nearly toppled off her feet when a small boy flung himself through a door and about her waist with a squeal.
She swooped the boy up into her arms and spun him around. "Binh, my love, how are you?"
"I missed you!" he said as a slender girl came bobbing through a doorway with a handful of some green vegetable.
Nor released Binh and pulled the girl into a small hug, despite the broccoli poking uncomfortably at her navel. "Hey, my little rebel, how've you been?"
"About as well as one can be doing under these corrupted powers," she replied, jerking her head at the house. "I mean, really, equal rights are slim to none…"
"Merra!" the boy said.
"I'm not joking!" she replied. "Reema, really, if you knew—"
"Hush, Merra." Nor looked serious. "What have I told you about that?"
"I'm sorry, I mean, Nor, I…"
"Why are we all standing out in the rain?" Raine was standing in the doorway, drying her hands on her frayed blue apron. "Get inside, dinner's ready."
Nor pulled Merra and Binh with her through the doorway.
"What a feast!" Nor exclaimed. "If I didn't know better I'd say I was expected."
Merra quickly busied herself with her napkin as Binh sat quietly across from her.
"Yes, well, these little ones spoke to Kass, apparently."
"The sly little devil!"
"The kids or Kass?"
"I meant Kass, but I've always known about the kids…"
"Hey!" Merra interjected. She paused as though searching for a suitable retort and settled on saying, "We got dinner for you," and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Pass the broccoli."
Nor shot Merra a playful smile and passed the broccoli down the table. "Binh, how likely is it that we'll be hearing from Kass tonight?"
He picked at the food on his plate carefully. "We won't. She's flown to Munchkinland."
Merra, who was apparently making a show at the other end of the table of disapproving of the bread, huffed. Raine was using exaggerated hand movements that were vaguely distracting to Nor from the corner of her eye.
"Can you, erm…" She trailed off, trying to catch the last bit of what Raine was mouthing to Merra, which resembled something like "angry goat." Nor burst out laughing.
Merra, who had been defiantly staring at her glass of milk, cracked a grin. Raine threw up her hands and said, "Sometimes I wonder why it is that I have kids."
"You love us." Merra smiled.
"Some days more than others."
"Where is everyone?" Nor jerked her head towards the door.
"Business," Raine said.
"I completely forgot. That's why I came. I mean," she added hastily at Raine's and Merra's indignant faces, "I missed you guys too. Binh, how about Kass? Can you send her to me over the next few days?"
Binh looked hurt. "Aren't you staying?"
"Afraid not, little one. I've got to be going soon."
He pushed his noodles about his plate. "Yeah, I can send her. Where to?"
Nor paused for a moment. "…Southstairs."
Raine shot her a look. "What?"
"Not to stay!" Nor protested.
"Not that you have a choice," Merra muttered.
Nor stood. "Has no one heard of the term 'rescue mission'?"
"Have you heard of the term 'suicide'?" Raine asked, now on her feet as well.
"I'm not going to get myself killed," Nor said.
"What if you do?" Binh asked quietly.
"Binh, hon, I won't. I'll come back. You're like my little brother. You know that."
"Then why would you go?" Merra asked. "What's so important?"
"Merra, I have got a brother. And he needs my help."
• • • • •
She was lying on the floor, covered by an abundance of scarves. She sat up and pulled one off her head. It was yellow, with tiny green petals and green trim. She flung it across the room and it fluttered slowly to the floor.
Suddenly the room was full of flickering shadows. They closed in on her. She hid beneath the scarves and bit her tongue and clenched her fists.
She waited, holding her breath. Five seconds passed, ten, twenty. Unable to wait any longer, she opened her eyes, unclenched her fingers, and popped her head up through a lavender scarf. There was a small girl in the corner, crying, covering her pale cheeks with soft little hands.
Lena rose from the pile of scarves to find that they were gone, there she was in the cemetery, and Elphaba was seated on her own headstone, staring blankly at something that Lena could not see.
Lena opened her mouth to speak when a rumble of thunder brought her back to the damp coolness of the rickety little room.
The walls were lit by a flash of lightning and she burrowed into the bed, hiding from the storm and the dream and the memories.