The scarecrow ran as fast as a scarecrow possibly can in a rotting cornfield infested with sharp-beaked birds.

"Stay here," he muttered, kicking a shriveled brown stalk out of his way. The crows noticed this, and honed in on him. "Stay here and I'll go get our bearings. If anybody comes along, act . . . uh, natural." He snorted, a dusty, hazy snort only accomplished by talking scarecrows. "Act natural," he repeated aloud, and the birds had another clue as to where he was. "What a load of –"

They descended upon him, attacking from all sides. The scarecrow had a sudden, small, and short-lasting epiphany, for a second knowing what it was like to be a dissident – like a scarecrow, attacked suddenly from all sides.

A particularly nasty-looking crow whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to make other life-forms' existences miserable dove, its beak aimed straight for the scarecrow's right eye. The scarecrow swatted it away, but it only took a second or so for it to rally again.

Act natural, she had told him, and whatever you do, don't speak. I have a feeling that here, scarecrows aren't supposed to talk.

He snorted again. He loved her, but he didn't have to do everything she said. It wasn't as if she returned the favor.

So he opened his mouth and screamed at the top of his lungs for help.

He could only get half of the word out, because an opportunistic bird saw the opening and zinged towards it, making contact with such speed that it flew right through the scarecrow's head, its long beak visible though the back of his neck.

The scarecrow had braced himself for horrible, excruciating, fatal pain. He had bent his knees, expecting them to buckle, and he had tensed his muscles, with the assumption that he needed all of them to produce a scream pitiful enough to accompany a painful death.

The bird lodged in his throat, but the scarecrow felt nothing.

As he coughed in surprise, faint, beautiful words echoed in his head: Let his flesh not be torn, let his blood leave no stain. If they beat him, let him feel no pain.

Thank you, he thought to his lover, and yanked the struggling crow out of his mouth. It shook stray bits of straw off its night-dark feathers as the scarecrow hurled it to the ground.

Having dispatched one of their comrades, the scarecrow expected the attack to intensify, but almost immediately every single one of the birds had taken flight, fearful of the same fate. The scarecrow collapsed into a stalk of corn, head in hands.

He took a moment to retreat inside himself. When he emerged, he examined his body. Bits of straw and fluff and bird feathers fell from his body like blood, but he felt nothing, no pain at all. The scarecrow used extra bits of his skin-like outer shell to cover up the rips as best he could. He ran a scratchy hand over the back of his neck. His fingers entered the hole the crow's beak had made, and he shuddered.

If I weren't like I am . . .

Once, he thought, he had been like those crows. Seeking out the dissidents, the troublemakers (one of them his own life's purpose, who was now out getting their bearings), he had sent out his soldiers to surround the hunted, so that they didn't stand a chance.

Who had he been to cause that sort of fear and hopelessness?

He lay among the corn, his eyes wide, staring at the sky. They had fallen off a cloud, it felt like, fallen miles and miles until they landed softly and unharmed on the corn below. He regretted it.

We can't go back, he'd told her. She had wanted to stay, to tell her friend, whom the scarecrow had once loved (and still did, in a way), but the scarecrow had insisted. It was all for the best, he thought now, but when had anybody ever done anything for the best? He had never done anything for the best, only what he thought was the best for himself. He was different now, but still . . . he would have to live a lot more years to balance out those he had lived in shallow frivolity.

Sitting up, he realized that she had been gone for awhile now. He couldn't stay here forever, he knew (oh, yes, he knew.)

It was quiet. The only noise was the soft rustling of the cornstalks, and his own shuffling about.

The scarecrow stood up, cupped his hands to his mouth, and called:

"Elphaba?"

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