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“Don’t speak,” Fiyero warns him, and Feldspur knows deep in his bones that this is so much worse than he had anticipated when Fiyero had woken him up in the middle of the night to race toward the Emerald City, Madam Morrible’s announcement still ringing in their ears.
Never in twenty six years has Fiyero asked him to be silent, to pretend to be something he isn’t, to keep quiet for the sake and comfort of others.
But now, here, as he brushes his hand down Feldspur’s mane and whispers into his ear, his voice and hands alike trembling in the darkness of the once vibrant Emerald City, he knows that this is it.
This is what they’ve all feared, Animals from across all of Oz, from the corners of Munchkinland to the valleys of the Vinkus.
It’s here.
Feldspur swallows thickly and bows his head in understanding, for he knows his young master would not request such a thing from him if it weren’t deadly serious.
“I’ll be back,” Fiyero promises, and then he’s taking the stairs to the palace two at a time and Feldspur is left behind, his heart thundering in his chest as he, too, wonders and worries.
They hadn’t talked about it on the way here, their energy instead spent on the ride, on arriving in the city as quickly as possible, but he knows that Fiyero believes the same as he.
There’s no way that Miss Elphaba is wicked.
It simply cannot be true.
He’s seen the way the young girl fights for his kind, for animals and Animals alike. He’s heard the way she passionately rambles in defense of the Animals, of all creatures and humans no matter what they look like or where they come from. He’s witnessed what she suffers at the hands of others who believe she’s different, strange, and he knows that she could never hurt another the way she has been hurt.
Furthermore, however, he’s heard how Fiyero speaks of her, and he knows that while Fiyero is many, many things, including occasionally brainless and often really very stupid, he is not naive.
He would not let himself be taken in by a woman who was, at her core, evil.
He has spent nearly every moment since he was sentient enough to know he was alive trying to hide who he truly is. He’s hidden hurt and pain, excitement and love, for he learned early on that those true emotions were often preyed upon by those who simply wanted him for something and not for who he was. He pasted on a smile, danced through life, and only connected with people long enough to get what he wanted from them — answers to a test, a dance, a party long and exciting enough to keep the smile on his face for one more day, or a warm body to be with for the night.
He simply would not let that facade drop for just anyone, and so Feldspur knows, deep down, that Miss Elphaba is not evil.
How can she be, when she is the only person in Fiyero’s twenty six years of life to see who he truly is?
When she’s the only person in his life who he lets see who he is?
“She’s… different, Spur,” Fiyero lamented less than a week ago while visiting him in the stables, his head thrown back dramatically and his hands pressed over his eyes as he’d leaned dangerously backwards in the chair he’d hauled inside with him.
“How so?” Feldspar had asked in his deep, rumbling voice, chewing happily on the bag of apples Fiyero had brought him — a bribe if he’d ever seen one.
Fiyero sighs dramatically and throws both hands up in the air before they end up on his face again, covering his flushed cheeks.
“I don’t know! She just is!”
Feldspar chuckles and tosses an apple Fiyero’s way. He catches and bites into it a little glumly as Feldspur considers his next words.
“What of Miss Galinda?”
Fiyero chokes on his apple.
“Wh-what do you mean, exactly?” he asks, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth as he catches his breath.
“I mean, you have not spoken a single word of her since coming to see me. Normally it’s Miss Galinda this, Miss Galinda that. Now it’s all about Miss Elphaba.”
Fiyero’s face screws up in confusion as he watches the Horse carefully.
“I really don’t see what this has to do with how Elphaba is different, Spur. That’s what we were talking about, is it not?”
Feldspar ducks his head in agreement, but then stands tall and catches Fiyero’s eye once more.
“That is indeed what we were talking about, Yero, but… I think the answer to how Miss Elphaba is different lies in the answer to my previous question.”
Fiyero frowns and drops until all four legs of his chair are on the ground once more. He clasps his hands together on his knees and leans forward, hair falling into his eyes.
“She’s… look, Spur, you should have seen her, okay? She … she got mad at how Dr. Dillamond and the lion cub were being treated and then enchanted an entire classroom into falling asleep! It was… it was amazing! And then, when we took the cub and ran, when she called me out—”
Feldspar notices the pause but doesn’t press on the obviously sensitive subject, for he knows that, as soon as he starts pressing, Fiyero will clam up.
Instead he waits.
Fiyero’s expression goes through a complicated set of emotions, but eventually he sighs and deflates, his head falling between his shoulders.
“She sees me, Spur,” he whispers, blue eyes sparkling when he finally raises his gaze to meet that of his Horse. “She… when we were out there, she told me that I am unhappy—”
“You are,” Feldspur agrees.
“ — and that I’m just pretending to be shallow and self absorbed —”
“Correct, once again.”
“ — and then she just… went about her day as if she hadn’t just upended my entire life?”
Feldspar chuckles and Fiyero glares at him.
“I like this girl,” Feldspur murmurs, despite Fiyero’s obvious indignation. “I should like to talk to her more.”
Fiyero kicks at his back foot but Feldspur quickly sidesteps his half assed attempt at brotherly affection.
“I just… I can’t stop thinking,” he laments, and Feldspur nods as he ducks down to grab another apple from the bag.
“So very unlike you, Sir,” he murmurs through bites of fruit. “Perhaps this girl is going to be good for you.”
He remembers the conversation and then, with a start, realizes that it was the last time he had spoken out loud.
Will he ever speak again?
Oz, he hopes so.
______________________
He’d never been granted the privilege to get to know Miss Elphaba in person, but over the next few months, he gets to know her through Fiyero’s stories, through his memories.
Terrified that Feldspur would lose the ability to speak, Fiyero had taken to riding him far away from the Palace walls, far away from the Gale Force and Madam Morrible and Miss Glinda, so that they could converse in peace.
On one of these afternoons they lay in a cornfield, the sun bright overhead as Fiyero lays in the grass and chews on a piece of straw, a moment of stolen peace amidst so much chaos.
“She was helping me with one of my assignments,” he murmurs, his eyes closed and his lips twitching into a smile as he remembers. “And she just fell asleep. Literally mid rant, fell asleep right on her book. I’d never seen her so still before, and I just… I just watched her, you know? And then an hour later she woke back up and just continued her rant on Animal history without missing a beat.”
Feldspur chuckles as he imagines the scene, his heavy heart lighter in that moment than it has been since they first came to the Emerald City.
“I passed that class, though,” Fiyero murmurs. “Because during the test all I could remember was her voice, how impassioned she was.”
“Your parents would be proud,” Feldspur deadpans, but his words have the unintended effect of causing the smile to slip off of Fiyero’s face.
“Sure they would,” he snorts, rolling over and gazing off into the distance as if he’ll somehow see her out there if he stares long enough. “They’d be proud of Prince Fiyero, Glinda’s boyfriend, a soldier in the Gale Force. But they wouldn’t be proud if they knew the real me. Not if they saw past the pretty lies that Morrible weaves. Not if they knew I’m just here for her, to find her. They wouldn’t be proud of me, then.”
“Hmm,” Feldspur agrees, humming as he munches on an ear of corn Fiyero hands him. “Then perhaps their praise is not something that we need to strive for.”
Fiyero lets out a huff of breath, and Feldspur, desperate to see that smile on his friend’s face again, requests, “Tell me another story of Miss Elphaba.”
______________________
As the months slowly pass, Fiyero … changes.
His eyes lose their sparkle.
His lips are constantly pressed into a thin line.
He grows more and more quiet when they talk, and so Feldspur takes it upon himself to fill the silence on their walks.
He updates Fiyero on what he’s seen and heard, for when everyone thinks you’re merely a horse and not a Horse, they let a lot slip.
“Some of the men have detailed quite… graphically, what they would do to her if they found her,” he says one day nearly six months after Fiyero has joined the Gale Force. He’s merely a foot soldier at this point, but neither of them believe that will last long. Fiyero has admitted that he thinks Madam Morrible is using him as a pawn, putting him in a position to be Glinda the Good’s pretty little boyfriend, and how best to do that than have him be rising the ranks in their little military?
“I’ve heard,” Fiyero snarls, kicking a rock across the ground as he paces. “I got yelled at by Glinda for telling them that if they dared to touch one hair on her head —”
“You cannot speak against them,” Feldspar hisses, eyes widening in shock. “Fiyero, if they discoverate that your intentions are not what they believe them to be, that I am a speaking Animal, then you know what they will do to you, to us.”
He wishes that he and Fiyero had just run in the very beginning.
For now they are in far too deep — the lies have gone on far too long, and the consequences grow with each day they both pretend.
Fiyero doesn’t respond, and Feldspur whinneys as he ducks his head and nudges the young man on the shoulder.
“Listen to me,” he says, eyes casting around to make sure they’re alone. “We are surrounded by enemies. Surrounded, Yero. Every person you speak to, every single day, with the exception of Miss Glinda, would have us murdered without a second thought if they knew we think Miss Elphaba innocent! We would be strung up, whipped —”
“I know!” Fiyero cries out, stopping mid-step to whirl around and glare at the Horse who has been like a brother to him all of these years. “Don’t you think I know, Spur? Don’t you think I realize that every word, every smile, every fucking thing I do is a lie that could be discoverated at any moment? But how can I stop? If I can find her, help her, it will all be worth it, so how can I stop?”
Feldspur falls silent as he watches Fiyero pace, his blue eyes sharp and filled with more emotion than he’s ever seen from the young master. He’s torn, Feldspur knows, because he’s spent the better part of the last several months trying to console Miss Glinda over the loss of her friend, trying to make her happy while still staying true to what he knows is right.
“I just wish…” Fiyero whispers, and when he looks back up there are tears in his eyes, a weakness that Feldspur is both privileged and devastated to be witness to. “I just wish Glinda … she knows Elphaba isn’t wicked! She knows! But she still speaks these lies, smiles at Morrible, and she… she doesn’t stop them. She’s so caught up in the fame and popularity that she doesn’t see.”
Feldspur ducks his head and presses his snout to Fiyero’s shoulder. The young man makes a deep, desperate noise and holds him close, burying his face in Feldspur’s mane to hide the emotion he’s gotten so good at burying deep, deep down — so deep that he almost doesn’t even feel it, sometimes.
“I just wish someone else believed,” he whispers, sighing deeply, his whole body shuddering. “I feel so alone, even when I’m surrounded by people.”
“I believe,” Feldspur whispers, leaning against his human and offering what little strength he can in that moment. “I believe in Miss Elphaba as you do, Yero.”
Fiyero makes a noise that Feldspur would never admit under threat of death was a sob, and holds him tighter.
______________________
Things eventually get easier for Fiyero, but they also get infinitely harder.
Pretending becomes easier.
Smiling in front of the crowds becomes easier.
Holding his hand out to Glinda, wrapping his arm around her waist, kissing her and escorting her to places becomes easier, but only because he stops feeling so much.
Feldspur watches this transformation, and he worries.
Fiyero stops bringing him out alone as often, and so Feldspur watches carefully while they train, when they’re on the hunt, when he’s observing events beside the other Gale Force members, always at the ready in case the Wicked Witch makes an appearance.
He watches the boy that he once knew, his friend, his brother, become a shell of his former self.
And the worst part is, no one else seems to notice at all.
“She’s so caught up in fame and popularity that she doesn’t see,” he’d lamented of Glinda, and though Feldspur is not an expert on human matters by any means, he can see what Fiyero had been talking about.
She’s blind with it, with the facade, the fame, the praise and adoration.
She’s blind not only to Miss Elphaba’s plight but to Fiyero’s, too.
His heart is broken, it’s plain as day, but Glinda doesn’t notice.
No one notices.
Feldspur almost doesn’t, either, at least not until it’s nearly too late.
After hours of searching on the first anniversary of the day Miss Elphaba had declared it her mission to fight against the Wizard, Feldspur finds Fiyero in the field that they’d spent so much time in when they’d first settled in the Emerald City.
The field where the Horse finally got to see the green girl through Fiyero’s eyes.
“Yero.”
Fiyero turns to stare at his Horse, his eyes glazed and his cheeks flushed.
He’s holding a bottle of whiskey, a second one beside him already empty.
His gun is not in its holster; instead, it’s on the ground next to him, and he keeps absently playing with it.
Feldspur settles beside his young friend with worry heavy in his heart.
“It’s been a year,” Fiyero whispers, his voice thick with alcohol and emotion. “A year, Spur, and all I’ve done is … is pretend. Pretend to hate her. Pretend to be in love with Glinda. Pretend that I’m happy. Oz, how did I do this before? How did I just… dance through life without caring? How!?”
Feldspur doesn’t answer for a long moment, because he knows that, despite Fiyero’s drunkenness, he won’t appreciate a placating answer.
Fiyero continues before Feldspur can find the words, his finger playing with the trigger of his weapon, caressing the smooth metal.
“I thought I’d have found her by now, Spur. I thought…”
But whatever he thought is lost in a wave of tears, and Feldspur sits, unmoving, for several long seconds.
He’s never seen young Yero like this…
Never.
“I love her,” he sobs, and Feldspur springs into action, wrapping his hooves around his brother as best as he can despite their obvious differences. “I love her, Ozdammit!”
“I know, Yero,” he murmurs, voice low and quiet lest they draw too much attention to themselves. “I know.”
______________________
By year two, Feldspur barely recognizes Fiyero.
He’s cold.
Distant.
Changed.
Completely married to the job and determined to rise in the ranks of the Gale Force, he barely spends any time with Feldspur anymore, or Miss Glinda for that matter.
“He’s going to be the youngest Captain in history!” people whisper, and Feldspur can see the small smile on Yero’s face when they do because that’s been his goal. Since that night in the corn field, empty whiskey bottle and gun at his side, he’s thrown himself into the singular goal of becoming Captain to aid in his search for Miss Elphaba.
He thinks, Feldspur knows, that becoming Captain means that he’ll find her.
Feldspur worries what will happen if he doesn’t.
And he’s not the only one who worries, as it turns out, though the Horse is beginning to think that he and Miss Glinda fundamentally worry about different things.
“You never spend time with me anymore,” Miss Glinda pouts, and Feldspur practically cringes as Yero sighs.
“Then what, exactly, are we doing right now, Glin?”
Feldspur wishes he could be anything except for the awkward third wheel of this little outing, but since he has no choice, he tries to busy himself with munching on some grass while Miss Glinda sighs dramatically.
“You know that I dislike the outdoors, Fiyero.”
“I couldn’t spend one more minute in that place, Glin. It was either this or me ‘running off to Oz knows where’ again.”
“One more minute — Fiyero, you basically live in the stables with your horse! You’re never in the palace, and certainly never with me!”
Fiyero pauses where he’s shaking out a blanket for the picnic he’d packed when Miss Glinda had practically begged to spend some time with him. He frowns at her, and Feldspur can see the guilt slowly taking over.
He’s riddled with guilt, these days.
Guilt over not being able to find and help Miss Elphaba.
Guilt over doing things he swore he’d never do, saying things he swore he’d never say.
Guilt over the endless, endless lies.
Guilt over whatever it is he’s doing with Miss Glinda.
“I’m sorry, Glin,” he whispers, falling heavily onto the blanket.
He’s not wearing his Gale Force uniform today, a rare sight, and Feldspur watches as he makes himself comfortable before holding out a hand. Miss Glinda takes it and sits primly beside him, still frowning even as he brushes a lock of hair from her face.
“Sorry for what?” she asks, pushing, always pushing.
Fiyero sighs and drops her hand, his eyes turning toward the sky.
Looking, always looking.
For her.
“For not being around,” he murmurs, shaking his head as he tears his gaze from the clouds and returns to reality. “For being busy. For… fuck, I don’t know. Sorry for whatever it is that I should be sorry for.”
Miss Glinda hums and takes the apple he hands her, though she doesn’t bite into it.
“You’ve been distant,” she whispers, shrugging her shoulders and not looking at Fiyero as she adds, “Moodified.”
Fiyero frowns and opens his mouth, but before he can respond, she’s continuing.
“You don’t seem happy here.”
Fiyero’s mouth snaps closed, and Feldspur can see his jaw working as he clenches and unclenches his teeth.
“Don’t I?” he finally asks, and Feldspur would roll his eyes at the horrible acting if he weren’t trying to keep a low profile here.
Honestly, he doesn’t think Miss Glinda even remembers that he can speak, so its best not to stir the pot.
“No,” she whispers, shaking her head. “You… at first, I thought maybe you just needed some time to adjust. Being away from your family, from our friends at Shiz… after El… after she left us. It was hard. But… it’s been two years, Fiyero, and…”
She trails off, and Feldspur watches as a whole gamut of emotions crosses Fiyero’s face. Guilt and anger and sadness, grief and heartbreak, all wrapped up inside one complicated young man who, at his very core, just wants to find the girl he loves.
He finally settles on resigned, and the smile he offers is so painfully fake that Feldspur just wants to hit them both upside the head with his hooves.
“I’m sorry, Glin. I’ll do better,” he murmurs, his smile dropping the second she looks away, an expression of pure heartache taking over as soon as it does.
Feldspur watches, waiting for Miss Glinda to realize that he’s really, truly unhappy.
For her to do the right thing, and notice.
But instead she just nods and pats Fiyero’s hand.
“I just want you to be happy, dearest. I’m just looking out for you.”
Fiyero huffs a small laugh, sitting back on his haunches and biting into an apple as his eyes scan the horizon.
(Always, always, always looking for her).
“You know me,” he murmurs, his eyes fluttering closed against the feelings that the empty, calm horizon raise within him. “I’m always happy.”
______________________
Later that night, he’s back in the stables.
Maybe Miss Glinda does have a point about him practically living here.
Feldspur munches on the carrots he’s brought with him and listens. Here in the stables, it’s all he can do. He can’t risk speaking aloud — not when so many people come and go, even in the middle of the night like this.
“I couldn’t even apologize for what I truly needed to,” he whispers, sighing as he settles back into the hay that Feldspur sleeps on. He wiggles around to get more comfortable, sighing once he’s managed to nearly bury himself right in the middle of the large pile. He reminds Feldspur of the boy he used to be — hiding behind a mask, of course, always hiding even as a child — but more carefree, more willing to be himself out at the stables, alone with his animals and Animals.
And what is it that you need to apologize for? Feldspur wants to ask, though he thinks he knows what Yero would apologize for if given the chance.
“I’m basically using her,” he laments, his voice thick with self-hatred. “I know I am not in love with her, though I do love her. She’s a dear friend. She’s just… she’s just not…”
He doesn’t have to finish his sentence; after two and a half long years, Feldspur knows.
“And I have become frustrated with her, too,” he continues, throwing an arm over his face after stealing a piece of straw to chew absently on. “She’s so caught up in these lies, played by Morrible and the Wizard like an Ozdamn puppet. They know what she wants, her need for acceptance and praise, and they’re using that to turn her into their perfect little Witch, to make her good and-and to make Fae evil.”
In his weaker moments, Fiyero has started referring to Miss Elphaba as Fae, a name pulled from the depths of his heart, how he likely refers to her in his head in his more private thoughts.
She’s Fae to him, beloved and cherished, and the Wicked Witch to the rest of Oz, hated and scorned.
Feldspur’s heart aches for his brother.
“But… I suppose, when it’s all said and done, I am using Glinda too, because if I were to leave her, to tell her I am not in love with her, I would lose all of this. The Gale Force. My one opportunity to save her, and… and I cannot do it, Spur. I know it makes me no better than Morrible and the Wizard, but I cannot walk away from that, from the chance to find her, to save her. I can’t.”
Feldspur sighs as he trots over to where Fiyero is settled in and nudges him over so that he, too, can lay down.
He cannot solve any of Yero’s problems tonight, but he can be a solid presence, an ear to listen (the only ear to listen, for Yero has no one else in all of Oz he can speak this plainly to) and a shoulder to lean on.
He curls up next to his brother, and together, they rest.
______________________
Feldspur thinks that, if it has just been one thing, the day might not have ended so spectacularly badly.
If it had been just the engagement.
Or just Miss Elphaba.
But Feldspur had seen it in his eyes when Fiyero had first walked onto the platform to await the arrival of Miss Glinda; he was a man who was barely holding himself together. It had been a tough week; first, Fiyero’s promotion to Captain of the Guard, and then, only two days later, the third anniversary of Miss Elphaba’s disappearance.
Feldspur knows that no one else notices the cracks, of course — Fiyero has, if nothing else, perfected his facade over the past three years.
A smile and then, when faces turn, utter devastation.
A laugh, and then a clench of his jaw.
Dark, endless pools of devastated blue casting two and fro, always looking for an escape, always looking for her.
The eyes truly are a window to the soul, Feldspur thinks, and his own heart aches as he sees Fiyero welcome Glinda from her bubble, as he walks her toward the microphone, as Morrible asks How does it feel? and he loses himself briefly, spitting into the microphone with frustration.
And then, “No! I mean, how does it feel to be engaged?”
And something inside of Fiyero just… extinguishes.
He turns to Glinda.
“We’re engaged?”
His voice is quiet, and, to an outsider, simply bemused and surprised.
But Feldspur sees the frustration of it all, can tell from his body language as Glinda hauls him behind a wall of flowers to hiss at him in private, from the way he stalks off stage as she says something about him getting her a refreshment.
He’s defeated.
And then —
Then.
“Mount up!”
They’re running through the fields, through the forest, chasing her.
The first sighting in over a year, the first time they’ve been so close, though if he’s being honest, Feldspur doesn’t know what Fiyero will do if he actually catches her.
He holds his breath as they come to a stop in the forest, as Fiyero climbs off his back, gun raised as he looks around the crooked, gnarled branches of the trees that seem to come to life around them.
His gaze is smooth as it passes over the trees, his hand never wavering on his weapon, but Feldspur notices the tightening of his lips right before he turns back to his men.
“Come on, men. She’s not here, but we must not rest until we capture that Wicked Witch!”
He mounts up once more and off they ride, and Feldspur is left with only his curiosity until much, much later that night when Fiyero grabs him from the stables and runs him farther and faster than he’s ridden him since the night they first came to the Emerald City.
When he dismounts he’s angry, pacing like a caged animal in the darkness lit only by the few stars that dance overhead, his hands shaking as he speaks.
“She was there, Spur, I know she was!”
“Did you see her?” the Horse asks, genuinely curious because he’d wondered for a moment there.
But Fiyero shakes his head.
“No, no, I didn’t see her, but… I felt her, Spur. I felt her! I know she was there, close by, listening to the words we said, watching us. I could feel it.”
Feldspur whinneys and reaches out to lay a hoof on Fiyero’s shoulder, pausing his manic pacing.
“Fiyero,” he murmurs, his voice deadly serious, and it’s that more than anything that gets Fiyero’s attention. “You called off the search today because you were afraid they’d find her, yes?”
Fiyero hesitates, but eventually nods. It’s a short, jerky movement, his eyes hard as he regards his Horse carefully. “Yes.”
“You and I both know that you aren’t always going to be able to protect her like that. So I must ask you this: one day, and probably one day soon, she’s going to be standing in front of you, in front of them, and you will have to make a decision.”
Fiyero swallows thickly as he stands there, frozen now, unable to move a single part of his body save for his lips.
“That’s not a question, Feldspur,” he murmurs.
The Horse sighs and drops his hoof from Fiyero’s shoulder.
“What are you going to do, my dear Prince, when that day comes?”
Fiyero’s eyes burn with determination and resolution for one long moment before he drops them from Feldspur’s gaze.
“I don’t know, Spur,” he whispers, but as he begins to watch Fiyero pace again, Feldspur knows that, deep down, his decision is already made.
It has been made for a long time.
______________________
He’d known the day was coming of course; he’d seen Fiyero grow more and more restless, more and more unhappy with the way things were, with his part in the way things were.
But when it finally happens, Feldspur is completely unprepared.
“He’s a traitor!” someone hisses, complete and utter scandal dripping from their words.
“I heard he ran off with the Wicked Witch!”
“I heard she’s enchanted him!”
Well, Feldspur thinks.
He was under her spell, but not in the way they mean.
“He left poor Glinda the Good at the altar, and all for… for her!”
“Poor Glinda!”
“What a scoundrel.”
“Betrayer!”
“He’s wicked, just like her!”
Feldspur wishes he were not locked in the stables with the other horses, though he doesn’t know what he would do even if he had his freedom.
Run after them?
No.
He doesn’t know where they’ve gone.
Hopefully… hopefully far away from this place, far away from their vile words and thirst for blood.
Hopefully.
______________________
He doesn’t see it happen, but he hears about it afterward.
The men all come to stable their horses, to brush them out, feed them, and settle them in for the night.
Feldspur hasn’t left since the last time Fiyero rode him, and he listens, his heart breaking, tears streaming through his blue fur as they describe the horrendible things they’d done to him.
“I can’t believe it… our own Captain. A traitor!”
“And to point a gun at Miss Glinda! How could he?!”
“All for the Wicked Witch.”
There’s an echo of agreement, disgust lacing their voices.
“The way he screamed gave me chills.”
“I kept expecting him to give in, to give her up, but he never broke.”
“Loyal to the end, like the dog he was.”
There’s the sound of men spitting, thumping each other on the back, celebrating.
Feldspur listens and wonders, for the first time in his life, if it would really be that bad to slowly slip away and not be able to Speak or Hear their words.
______________________
“I need your help.”
Feldspur is in a daze when Miss Glinda throws open his stable door and climbs into his saddle, and then they’re running through crisp, cool air, his thoughts and emotions becoming clearer with each step he takes.
He’d tried to become nothing more than a horse in the few days after finding out that his best friend, his only friend, was dead. But he hadn’t been able to completely disappear, hadn’t been able to forget.
“Miss Glinda.”
She doesn’t flinch, and Feldspur wonders if she’d known all along he was a Horse and not just a horse.
He has so many questions for her.
A million.
More.
But he settles on one, the most important —
“Where are we going?”
“To warn Elphaba.”
And, well.
What better way to honor his brother’s memory than to save the woman he loved?
“They’re coming for her,” Glinda whispers, and the fear in her voice makes Feldspur run faster, his hooves beating into the ground rhythmically as he runs, runs, runs.
They make good time but of course Glinda dismounts and leaves him at the door of the castle, alone, to wait, to hope, to wish.
Oh how he wishes he could have done more for Fiyero, to keep him out of harm's way, to protect him from the cruelty to come.
But of course the only way to truly protect him would have been to encourage him to turn against his love, to truly become one of the people who are now hunting her down, her blood singing to them.
Go hunt her
And find her
And kill her
Kill the witch!
No, Feldspur thinks.
Fiyero would rather die a million deaths than hurt Miss Elphaba.
He would never have turned against her, no matter the cost.
No matter if —
“Spur?”
The voice — that oft dreamed of, beloved voice — stops Feldspur mid thought, and he turns with tears in his eyes to see…
Well, he’s not sure exactly what he’s seeing.
A grinning scarecrow runs over to him, his gait clumsy, straw trailing behind him. He’s dripping from his arms and his legs alike, his straw hair a mockery of the way Fiyero had liked to keep his styled before his death.
“Spur, it’s me,” he whispers, voice low but intense as he approaches the Horse slowly. He holds out one hand and presses the other over his heart. “It’s me, Yero.”
“It cannot be,” Feldspur whinneys, taking a step back, the crumbling stone of the castle causing him to slip as the scarecrow dances ever closer.
“Fae saved me,” he whispers, and his smile turns a little lovesick, and oh, oh, maybe it is Fiyero!
He would know that besotted smile anywhere.
And he’d called her Fae.
“Yero?” he whispers, butting his nose up against the chest of the scarecrow. He goes tumbling to the ground, unbalanced, but he’s laughing the whole way down, eyes crinkled with happiness despite everything.
“Yes! It’s me!” he whispers excitedly as he clambers back to his feet and wraps his straw arms around Feldspur’s muzzle. “Oh, Feldspur, I felt so terrible knowing that you’d have no idea what truly happened. Listen to me okay? I have to be fast, Fae is in danger, but… but it’s all going to be okay, all right? No matter what you hear. No matter what they say. It’s going to be fine, I promise. We’re going to be fine. I need you to trust me.”
“What do you mean?” Feldspur asks, voice thick as he carefully wraps one hoof around the scarecrow’s fragile body. “Why are you like this? What happened?”
“They tried to kill me,” he says, so plainly as if he’s simply talking about the weather. “And Fae saved me as best as she could. And now… Feldspur, promise me. Promise me you won’t believe anything they say? I swear on my life — on Fae’s life — that it’s going to be okay.”
Feldspur nods and then steps back as the scarecrow — as Fiyero — turns and begins dancing backward.
“I love you, brother,” he whispers, and then he’s gone, followed quickly by a tin man, a lion, and a young girl.
Everything happens quickly after that, and then Glinda is on his back, sobbing, her tears soaking into his mane as he runs, once more, through the darkness.
Promise me, Fiyero had said. Everything is going to be okay.
And so Feldspur believes in Fiyero despite the whispers, despite the tears, as he’d believed in Miss Elphaba all of those years.
______________________
Years pass.
Glinda becomes a steady, good ruler for Oz, and Animals are welcomed back after some initial hesitation.
Things… flourish.
It’s as close to perfect as Feldspur could have ever imagined during those dark days after Fiyero had whispered don’t speak.
But it doesn’t feel right, because…
Well.
No use dwelling.
He keeps busy, as a Palace Horse. He’d worked only for Glinda at first, the only one he’d allow to ride him, but eventually, after a few years, he’d begrudgingly allowed her husband on his back as well. And then, much more enthusiastically, her daughter.
They have a beautiful family, and he knows that Glinda is happy.
But they still ride sometimes, just the two of them, to talk of … not better, but different days.
“I miss them,” Feldspur confides, and Glinda hums in agreement as they walk slowly through the poppy fields, her husband and daughter walking ahead of them, laughing and talking in low tones, the sun shining on their silhouettes in such a way that Feldspur can almost imagine, for a moment, that it’s Fiyero up ahead.
He doesn’t think that he and Glinda would have been happy if they’d actually wed, but sometimes Feldspur is just selfish enough to want him here, anyway.
“I do, too,” she whispers, her fingers stroking gently through his mane. “I miss them… more than I could have ever imagined was possible.”
Everything will be okay, Fiyero had promised, and Feldspur tries with all his might to hold onto that.
And as they walk, as Glinda dismounts to join her husband and daughter, each adult taking one of her small hands and swinging her in the air between them, he lets his mind wander.
He wonders if, wherever they are, Fiyero and his Fae are happy. If they, too, got their happily ever after. If they have a little one to swing between them, to smother in kisses, to shower in love the way they had not been as children.
He smiles and turns his muzzle to the sky as the happy shrieks of Glinda’s daughter fill the air.
He likes to think
that they did.
fin.