Chapter Text
Fiyero came aware very slowly, which, considering that he was pretty sure he’d died, struck him as rather odd.
There was no pain, which was also very strange. He remembered that there had been quite a lot of it, before. Some two-hundred odd bones in the body, right? That sounded right, but he could never quite remember--but in any case, he was pretty sure that every one of them had at least cracked under the tender ministrations of his erstwhile subordinates.
Still, it was…fuzzy. Almost like a blanket had been pulled between him and his memories. They felt…far away. Like it had happened to someone else.
He reached back, trying to remember exactly how he’d ended up…here.
Watching Elphaba fly away, his heart hammering in his chest. She had to get away. She had to escape.
The punch to his gut as soon as he dropped the gun, making him double over and miss any chance of seeing her finally disappear. Glinda kneeling in front of him, her eyes wide and full of tears. Then, things shuddered and stuttered, and he remembered hearing her shouting, pleading with them to stop.
The smack to his temple had made things go a bit fuzzy for a while.
There’d been a cart, his hands bound loosely enough with the rope that his wrists were rubbed raw and bleeding by the time they arrived to the abandoned field they’d decided to…to…
Fiyero had felt sick. He’d hoped…he’d thought there would be a trial, at least, even if it was a sham. He’d expected to be carted back to the city, put in prison maybe, where at least there was some possibility of an escape.
When they’d shoved him out of the back of the cart, sending him sprawling to the ground in the middle of nowhere, it had suddenly struck him.
He was going to die. There would be no interrogation. No trial. No escape.
They were going to kill him. And, judging by at least one of the slightly blurred faces around him…they were going to enjoy it.
They tugged the rope off his wrists, three of them holding him down, face in the dirt so he couldn’t breathe, had wrenched his arms backwards, hard, and bound them first at the elbows, then at the wrists, to the shaft of one of their spears? He thought that’s what it was, anyway, when they pulled him back to a sitting position, his shoulders screaming. He was pretty sure he remembered hearing something tear.
He didn’t know what they’d used to break his ankles. Only pain.
He barely noticed when they turned him over to his back, held him down again. He was still just barely aware of what they’d done to his ankles when his kneecaps were shattered.
“Where is she going?” taunted one, his dagger hovering just above Fiyero’s ruined knee.
He couldn’t speak, could only sob.
“What is she planning?” The question was punctuated by a thrust of the knife into his leg, behind whatever remained of his knee and a twist that had him fully passing out again.
He hadn’t been allowed to remain unconscious for long. His hips were next, can’t risk you running they said. He wasn’t sure who they thought he was. Surely this was overkill…except that it wasn’t about the questions.
They wouldn’t get answers from him, and they weren’t really asking. This was about sending a message.
They taunted him all the same, taking turns with the bludgeon, with the questions, with slamming the butts of their spears into the ground in a horrible, constant rhythm. Not everyone had a weapon that they cared to use. Feet and fists worked well enough, though that might have been because his bruises had bruises by that point.
He was also pretty sure that at least one of his rib bones had pierced his lung.
It had gotten very hard to breathe after a while, at least. The one thing he’d say for it, was that since all of him was in pain, it became hard to tell if something new started hurting.
Until something had crashed into his head, and he felt his skull cave in. Like an egg? he’d thought, wildly, before he thought absolutely nothing.
The nothingness, actually, was odd too. He hadn’t…experienced it at the time, really, but now, thinking about it, he could just about remember it. There was an awareness, anyway, that time had passed.
And then something had shifted. It felt like his very blood was on fire, boiling away. Was that death? Unraveling to nothing? He could almost imagine himself burning away to dust, from the inside out.
But then…Elphaba. He’d felt her. Hadn’t he? Or maybe it was wishful thinking. There had been no more pain, though, after.
Sound was starting to creep in at the edges of his consciousness, and wasn’t it funny that he hadn’t noticed before that he hadn’t actually been hearing anything? Now that he was paying attention though, he could hear the wind whispering through the cornstalks, the far off cry of a bird…was that the rumble of a cart?
He tried to turn his head, to open his eyes, but neither attempt was successful. At least, he didn’t think so. He couldn’t see, couldn’t even tell what direction he would have been looking in anyway.
Time passed. Probably.
He was starting to be able to see smears of light anyway, cutting through the shadows. He was pretty sure that he was upright too. You’re an example he reminded himself. They’d probably hung him up on a pole, a macabre scarecrow of a sort, to warn passers by what happened when you went against the Wizard. Ha.
The light was fading away again, and that, more than anything else thus far, terrified him. He knew that he wasn’t the smartest man, but he knew that head wounds could definitely cause brain damage, as well as damage to the senses. If the light was going–would he live, but be blinded? He still couldn’t feel…anything.
Maybe this really was death. He’d never believed in an afterlife, much less one that would punish him, but…maybe that was real? He hadn’t been proactive, hadn’t listened to Elphaba sooner, hadn’t spoken out against what he knew to be wrong, even when he’d had the power to make people listen…and now he was just…aware, but unable to do anything at all?
No.
He wouldn’t allow that line of thinking. That way lay madness and it hadn’t been nearly long enough for that to set in.
(He had no idea how long it had been).
He needed to move forward.
Well. First things first–he needed to move. At all.
He concentrated on the feeling of being upright. See? That was a feeling. When he’d first…woken up…he hadn’t even been able to tell that much. But if he knew which way he was oriented, then surely he’d start feeling his extremities sooner or later. Hopefully without the debilitating pain, but if that was the cost, he’d take it. He’d deal with any amount of discomfort if it meant he could get back to Elphaba.
(Was she okay? She had to be okay. She was Elphaba. She was magic. Of course she’d be okay. And then…then she could help him too. It would be fine)
He just had to concentrate. Upright. That’s a start. His feet were not touching the ground. He was…dangling? He tried moving his foot, and he thought he could hear the sound of a boot knocking against wood. Had he actually moved anything? He pictured it again, imagined himself moving his leg, and again, he heard the sound of a boot on wood.
So…so…something was happening there. It could just be coincidence.
He could move his head a little, from side to side, and he was pretty sure he could hear…fabric, maybe, brushing against…something. His face? He didn’t really feel it, but he could hear it, and he definitely couldn’t move his arms which meant…what did it mean?
His thoughts still felt slow. Unwieldy. Like he was pulling them through mud.
It meant….that his arms were high, stretched out on either side of him, if his interpretation of the shushing sounds when he brushed his head against them were accurate.
The fear of blindness though, was fading a bit. He could see. A bit. It was impossibly dark, but it seemed to be more the darkness of night in the country. He could hear an owl, somewhere.
He concentrated on his arms. If he focused, he could just barely see them, yes, stretched out on either side of him. They were…oddly lumpy. Or…hmm. That wasn’t quite it, but something about them seemed wrong.
(Of course it did. They’d been broken. Shattered, really, at least his right arm. Each finger, all the way up to his shoulder. He remembered it now, more vividly than he would ever have wanted to. Something in his mind twisted. It should make you feel sick. Why doesn’t it?)
The problem of his shoulders then. He’d focus on the details later. They looked wrong. But, he could move them. He could wiggle them a little, anyway. They were likely still tied to that…spear or whatever. Or maybe they’d tied him to something else after he’d gone unconscious. This crossbeam seemed a bit larger than the other pole had been.
He wiggled his fingers. He could just barely see something…whitish, move. Hopefully that was just his eyesight in the dark though, because something was weird about his hands too. Not just the shape. The color was…off.
Okay. Assess.
He could move his arms. If he looked down, he could prove that the knocking sound was his boot against a wooden pole. Though his boots looked weird too. Different, somehow, to what he’d been wearing…ah.
Of course. They’d dressed him up then, a jester or something. Another humiliation. That would explain his hands too. There was relief, then, though he didn’t dare dwell on it too long.
He wiggled his fingers again. Left. Right.
It seemed to be a good thing. But he’d been up here for hours at the very least. Even if he’d been in perfect physical health, and his shoulders hadn’t been dislocated, this position, held for so long, should have had him in agony.
But…he’d felt Elphaba, right? He’d been sure of it. So maybe…maybe she actually had done something?
So where is she then?
Maybe she’d done something from afar. Used her magic somehow to take away his pain, so he’d be able to escape, if she couldn’t come for him herself. That made…sense.
Hopefully he’d get some kind of sensation back eventually. In the meantime though, he’d take the positives that he could get. He didn’t hurt, he could move, his mind was clear. (Such as it is a mean voice whispered in his mind If you weren’t such an idiot, you wouldn’t be in this mess. Going in with no plan? No exit strategy? How were you planning on helping Elphaba as a prisoner anyway?)
The self-deprecating thoughts had to stop, he decided. It wasn’t helpful. And besides. The point was to help her in the moment, to ensure she got away. That WAS the plan, and it had worked beautifully. He’d take a dozen beatings if it meant that she walked away safe and free.
As dawn began to creep more fully over the horizon, Fiyero was able to take slightly better stock of his situation. His arms were bound, outstretched, at the wrists and above the elbows, to a thick wooden beam. The ropes pressed oddly against them though. The indents the ropes left were…deep. There should have been blood.
Even if they’d dressed him in new clothes (and it looked like they had, the shirt was homespun, and a dull green, not the vibrant emerald of his Guardsman's coat), there still should have been blood from his injuries, if not how deeply the ropes were cutting into him.
But when he wiggled his arm again, something under the shirt moved in a way that had him wishing he actually had gone blind in the night.
That was just…it was wrong. Flesh didn’t move like that. He slowly strained against the rope again. Flesh didn’t crackle like that either. A few bits of straw floated out of a hole somewhere in the sleeve and drifted to the ground.
He wiggled his fingers again, and bit back a scream. That odd, slightly bulbous white hand…that glove…was definitely his hand.
It flexed its fingers, rotated slightly on the pole when he pictured himself doing it. More straw fell to the ground below. He could see it more clearly now, poking out of holes in his pants, out of the top of his boots, pressing against the thin fabric of his shirt. A low groan escaped his mouth.
He was deflecting again. He knew it. Mostly because he absolutely did not want to focus in on the truth that was thundering towards him.
Aw fuck, he thought, a little wildly, suddenly recalling his flippant pondering earlier in the night. I am a scarecrow.