Fiyero watched as Elphaba retreated into the corn field, soon rising above it to fly towards the sunset. The prickling on his neck made him uncomfortably aware of the spears looming him, but he held his ground until she was less than even a dot on the horizon.
It was like his whole world had paused with baited breath. How had it come to this? Standing in a corn field, aiming a musket at the girl he had thought he would marry, in order to protect himself from those whom yesterday he would have died for.
He was startled out of his thoughts by Glinda taking a few tentative steps forward. He jerked the weapon higher, feeling the guards tense and watching her eyes widen. Despite her obvious hesitancy, she continued on until she was standing just in front of him.
He couldn't take her broken expression any longer.
"I'm so sorry Galinda" he said, eyes glistening unashamedly. "For everything. You know I never meant to hurt you."
"Oh Fiyero. I know. You just…." she faltered "you just love her."
Glinda's words, and the openness in her eyes, had Fiyero's resolve leaving him all at once, his arms turning to lead. As soon as the gun began to drop the guards were on top of him. Two twisting his arms violently behind him, dragging him backwards in the process, one surging forward to retrieve his weapon. The other sharply jabbed the back of his legs with the butt of his spear.
The sudden impact had his knees crashing into the solid pavement, causing Fiyero to grunt out in pain. The sound triggered a loud scream from Glinda.
"STOP! STOP! IN THE NAME OF GOODNESS STOP!"
All movement halted and Fiyero winced slightly, but he gladly took the opportunity to regain his breath.
"Surely you can see that he was never going to hurt me!" Two guards moved from behind Glinda to hold her arms, though thankfully not as harshly as Fiyero was being held. He saw her frown as she tried to move towards him, but was held back.
"Maybe not." Fiyero froze. "But in saving the witch he has declared his allegiance to her, and therefore he is our enemy."
The owner of the voice moved into view from where he had been lurking in the tall grass, keeping watch.
"Oh noble Captain of the Guard. How the mighty have fallen."
The man was tall, with dark hair just long enough to frame his face. The shadows emphasised his already muscular jaw, giving his face a harsh quality. His sharp blue eyes seemed inviting, but his cruel smirk gave away his true nature.
"Gabriel" Fiyero spat through clenched teeth.
Fiyero had met Gabriel while in training for the palace guard. He was a year younger than Fiyero, but had advanced through his first year of training quickly. The man was almost as well liked as Fiyero had been, both by his peers and his tutors, however they had never gotten along. Despite his seeming amiable personality, Fiyero had always been wary about the other man. At the time he had shrugged it off as paranoia, however his intuition was unfortunately proven to be correct.
It had been a normal patrol night for Fiyero. He often took pleasure walking around the lesser occupied areas of the palace. It was a way for him to clear his mind. To get away from the busy city. To think – however much Elphaba would scoff at the idea. It had just been a routine perimeter check. That was until he had turned a corner only to find Gabriel with tongue shoved half way down Glinda's throat. This was made so much worse, however, by the fact that Glinda was obviously not consenting to the situation at all, if her struggles and flailing arms had been anything to go by.
Fiyero had been on top of the man before he even had a chance to see red.
From that day on, Fiyero had done all he could to get the other man kicked out of the guard. Unfortunately the man had too many friends in high places for Fiyero to do any real damage to the man's reputation, so he had been allowed to say, the situation being brushed off by the majority as a 'simple misunderstanding'.
Now, knees pressed into the hard brick and arms restrained, Fiyero began the fear the worst. He waited for the man to order his execution. He was at the man's mercy after all, and it was well known that the two harboured an intense hatred for one another. It never came.
Instead, the new captain of the guard got down on one kne, his face so close to Fiyero's that he could feel the other man's breathe ghost over his cheek.
"Now, I'm going to ask you nicely. Where. Is. She?"
"Where's who?"
Fiyero's neck whipped to the side sharply with the immense force of the slap. He thought that he could hear Glinda screaming at Gabriel from where she was restrained, but his ears were ringing too loudly for him to tell.
"You know exactly who. Don't get smart with me. I asked nicely once. Now I'm going to ask you not so nicely."
The heavy blow to his gut was at least expected this time, but it still had Fiyero coughing and gasping for breath.
"Where is the wicked witch?"
Glinda was definitely yelling now, Fiyero noted, and he felt an all-encompassing desire to go and comfort her. With effort he tilted his head up so that he could see past Gabriel, and locked eyes with Glinda He gave her a slight smile, before flicking his eyes back to the man in front of him.
"Even if I knew, I'd never tell someone like you."
He locked eyes with Glinda again, who was leaning forward as far as she could while still being restrained.
"I'll never give her away."
"You know," Gabriel said, finally standing up and taking a few steps backwards, "as much as you make my job a whole lot harder, I'll admit - I was rather hoping you'd say that."
OHHHHHHHHHHHH cliff-hanger! And yes, I got Gabriel from next to normal - b/c Aaron Tveit will always be my Fiyero.
I wrote this first chapter in about an hour, so I apologise if there's any bad grammar/spelling errors. I will be continuing this and hopefully making it pretty long, but I warn you now I'm planning on it getting pretty intense so if you have any triggers at all I seriously warn to leave this alone her, because I'm gonna rake Fiyero over the coals in this. I'm sorry!