A/N: Ok, here we get to where Nor's supposed to be. Now, some of this is taken almost directly from Son of A Witch, so, not mine. Obviously, nothing Fiyero or Elphaba says, or much of Shell either, since he wasn't actually in this part of the book, but since they have two fugitive prisoners with them, he and Liir couldn't quite go grab the Undermayor or whoever to be their guide.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Sadly.
Within the cell, a female Pig and her Piglets huddled together. Most of the Piglets looked to be dead, and only the tiniest appeared alive.
"Hey, Pig," said Shell. Elphaba winced.
"Ask her name," she hissed.
"Why?" asked Shell loudly.
"Oh, for Oz' sake!" exclaimed Elphaba. "What's your name?"
"I'm not going to tell you," said the Sow, "Or him, at any rate," she amended, throwing her head in Shell's direction.
"I understand that," Elphaba said, rather kindly. "Anyway, we're here looking for a human girl, Nor. My bastard of a brother tells me she's supposed to be here. Can you tell us where she is?"
"What do you want with her?" the Sow asked warily.
"I'm her father," said Fiyero, stepping forward. "I've been at Southstairs for- in the name of the Unnamed God, how long has it been, Elphie?"
"Nearly fifteen years," answered Elphaba quietly. "And I've been here about- oh, I don't know, a week or so, perhaps- and my- that is, Liir, and my brother, have rescued us- sort of- and now we're looking for his daughter."
"Your daughter, too, is it?" asked the Sow.
"No, for Oz' sake, how many times am I to be asked that today?" cried Elphaba.
"Why was my daughter here, anyhow?" asked Fiyero, changing the subject. Elphaba shot him as close as she'd come to a grateful look.
"She had some developmental problems, I think," said the Sow. "And someone figured she'd be less offensive among, well, among Pigs, although we're as clean as it's apparently permissible to get here." Elphaba glared at Shell and muttered something about shameless exploitation to give some modicum of ill-gained truth to propaganda.
"Can you please tell us where she is?" Fiyero cried, almost begging.
"All right, all right," said the Sow. "'Do you remember when the butchers came through a week or ten days ago to cull the crop because a roast of loin was required? Some celebration Upside. It was the Wizard's deposal, wasn't it?'"
Shell looked at the seething Elphaba. "'We don't sacrifice Animals for ceremonial meals, don't be silly," he said. "You're talking through your post-delivery deliriums, Sow.'
'Whatever,' she said. 'My deliriums remind me about a couple of Horned Hogs, long in the tooth if they'd still had teeth, who were going to make better rump roasts this year than next, I'll tell you. They knew their days were numbered. One of them had broken off a horn trying to escape, and the bone spur was sharp and useful. The Hogs entered a kind of suicide pact, and the bull killed the bitch and then himself. They arranged it to be done on the same slab of old door on which they'd have been carried out for slaughtering anyway. A kind of final commentary on the quality of life at Southstairs. So they let themselves putrefy, and we neighbors left them to it for as long as we could stand it. It bought us all some time. But you know as well as I that the entrails of Horned Hogs breed a kind of maggot that likes to burrow into human orifices, especially the airless ones-'"
"Stop," said Shell.
"And there's little less airless than Southstairs-"
"I don't want to hear about it-"
"So your colleagues had to cart the carcasses Upside. They had no choice. I had no way of suspecting that the poor suckling Nor had a functioning brain left in her skull-"
Fiyero looked pained, and so did Elphaba, Liir knew no doubt for differing reasons.
"But apparently she did. She climbed onto the door-slab and pulled the Hog carcasses over her. I certainly hope for her sake she plugged all her valves. I saw her chewing candlewax once, so maybe she was softening it for just such a purpose. Anyway, hidden by corpses, she was carried away a few days ago, though what happened to her once she left our happy home I can't say." (Gregory Maguire, Son of A Witch, 2005)
"So- she's out of here, of Southstairs? And she was all right the last you saw of her," said Fiyero, grasping at straws.
"She's better off than she'd have been down here, that's for sure," said the Sow. "Especially since in a few years she'd have been getting visits from that one there. Oh, don't think I don't know at least some of what goes on up there."
Elphaba and Fiyero both sent furious glares at Shell.
"Are you going to hurt me?" asked Shell. Elphaba kicked him in the groin.
"Sweet Oz!" he yelled, bent over in pain.
"Told you I wasn't done," said Elphaba. "For once, I get to be the one ashamed to be related to you."
Shell pulled himself up to a standing position. Fiyero punched him in the nose. Blood poured down Shell's face.
"Damn, I think I hurt my hand," observed Fiyero, examining it.
"All right, now, let's see. How to get Upside…Liir, did you by chance decide to be useful for once and bring my broom?" asked Elphaba. Liir grinned.
"Yeah, I did," he said, pulling it out.
"Good timing, for once," said Elphaba, taking the broom. "Now…out we go!"