Chapter Text
It has been close to seven years since Oz last felt true terror, since the fateful (unfortunate) series of events that led to Glinda the Good losing the two most important people to her at the time.
But Elphaba and Fiyero did not die.
They might as well have.
For years they had wandered the Vinkus outskirts, after the Deadly Desert had come close to living up to its name and proved impenetrable. They drifted through the Vinkus like shadows, no destination beyond survival, never staying in one place more than a month or two lest people begin to question why a man of straw was bartering for food.
Their passionate love for each other; the kind of love that made you act before you think, made you leave behind the people who care about you, made you fake your own death —had cooled in the intervening years.
It had really only taken a few weeks.
A few weeks free from being hunted, a few weeks free from being surrounded by other people with agendas, a few weeks free to just be. And the bond that had been forged and fuelled by adrenaline and desperation settled into something quieter and… real.
Not romance. Not destiny.
Companionship.
They had felt seen—truly seen—for the first time in each other. But the fire of that revelation had ebbed into something steady and platonic rather than the epic romance they had expected, had sacrificed their lives for.
Elphaba was grateful to have him by her side, to not have to spend the rest of her days alone —she steadfastly refused to dwell on the small voice in the back of her head wishing it had been her other friend instead.
Fiyero—though he would never admit out loud to regret—found himself frequently haunted by memories of Glinda.
Of carefree times at Shiz; laughter and stolen kisses, breaking school rules for some more time alone together— when all they’d had to worry about was sneaking around to protect her reputation.
And even times in the Emerald City, few as those bright spots in the darkness had been. Dipping her suddenly in a dance to see her real smile during a ball they’d been forced to attend, fishing for compliments with a smirk and a wink to make her giggle as she withheld them, the few rare and precious times he got to glimpse Galinda once more, heartbreakingly young and earnest — so ready to give her whole heart away at a moments notice.
…Though truthfully he spends most of his days thinking about the times he should have treated her with more grace, more tenderness, should have reigned in his frustration knowing how brittle she was becoming and seeing how close she was to breaking.
He hadn’t been nearly as blind or ignorant as he’d pretended to be; the fingerprint bruises Morrible left behind after parading her around like a sparkly balloon, the way she seemed to shrink before his eyes both in both body and spirit.
The way she’d taken to winding her arms around herself in a terribly lonely hug because he’d been too distant or frustrated to offer her comfort.
In the moment, when the wedding had come literally crashing down around them— he had seen Elphaba as a beacon of escape, of freedom, of everything he had been wanting since they’d all left Shiz behind. And he had taken the opportunity without looking back, without acknowledging the damage he was leaving behind.
In his mind Elphaba represented escape, but he had wilfully ignored how Glinda represented home.
But now he was dead.
And Elphaba was dead.
Home was a fairytale he couldn’t return to.
The years have blurred together with only the seasons to help mark the passage of time, and although the Vinkus is the land of his birth; the constant motion their trekking had necessitated has left Fiyero lost in his own homeland, no markers of familiarity in sight.
Until today.
They were trekking over a hill they’d surely crossed a dozen times before when Fiyero froze.
In the distance, bathed in morning mist and hazy light, stood the Summer Castle of the Vinkus.
His childhood home.
His heart lurched painfully, an instinctive pull he couldn’t resist causing him to stumble slightly. Elphaba looked at him curiously, wordlessly asking him to explain.
“The Summer Castle…it’s where I grew up.” He jerkily answered the unspoken question, emotion sticking the words in his throat. “My family… I know we can’t see them —but do you think we could get a bit closer? I just want to see it, properly”
It was an odd and frankly dangerous request to get closer to a building they could see quite clearly from here, closer to a building that housed the Royal Family and definitely had guard patrols and more people than they had seen in Oz only knows how long.
But Elphaba, seeing the look in his strangely coloured eyes, sighed softly —seemingly knowing that this wasn’t going to be a battle she would win.
“It’s been years, all of Oz thinks we’re dead. No one is looking for us, not anymore,” she murmured lowly staring ahead at the beautiful imposing structure. “Just… don’t do anything foolish.”
He nodded, though his feet were already stumbling forward.
Elphaba walked quietly beside him, her boots muffled by moss. She rarely walked quietly—Elphaba was many things, a subdued presence in the world was not usually one of them—but this morning her silence was its own language.
Fiyero caught her stealing a glance at him as they continued towards the castle. “What?” he asked.
She looked away. “Nothing.”
“Elphie.”
Her lips twitched with irritation. She didn’t like being called that, unless she allowed it. Today, she’d let it pass.
“You’re fidgeting,” she observed.
He exhaled. “I’m thinking.”
“Oh. That would explain the smoke.”
He rolled his eyes, though the joke loosened something tense in his chest. “What I’m thinking,” he said, “is that I may have no idea what I’m doing.”
Elphaba stopped. The movement was so sudden that he nearly walked into her. She stared up at him with dark, steady eyes—tired, but sharp as ever.
“You do know,” she said simply. “Or you wouldn’t be this scared.”
That startled a laugh out of him. “Very helpful.”
She looked towards the castle, they had already halved the distance and were still safely concealed by the trees, she could stop this now and she knew he would let her… but —“You’ve got an instinct about this, and I trust it. I’ll follow you Fiyero, I believe in you.”
He couldn’t cry, not since he had been turned to straw, but the earnestness that she had given him almost made him wish that he could.
Instead he took her hand and squeezed it, holding on while he led her further down towards the castle, following the pull of his heart and the faint whispers of home.
They crept quietly through the outer gardens, thankfully not meeting anyone out for a stroll in the early morning hours. Fiyero guiding them by memory through the hidden paths of his childhood. He doesn’t quite know what he is chasing —ghosts, perhaps —but he felt the undeniable need to be here, some cosmic force in his bones (straw?) pulling him closer like a magnet.
Turning the corner into a little used portion of the kitchen gardens their luck finally runs out.
There is a little boy playing among the flowering vines. He spins around guiltily when he hears their footsteps, staring at them with curious blue eyes, a tiny wooden sword hanging by his side.
“You’re green!” He exclaimed wide eyed at Elphaba.
She inhaled, mentally preparing a gentler version of her usual response when the little boy continued cheerfully:
“My Mama says all the best people in the world are green!”
Elphaba blinked.
Fiyero did too.
He recovered quicker and stepped forward catching the little boys attention away from Elphaba as she composed herself. “Who is your Mama? What’s her name?”
Could this be Benjen and Corissa’s child? His eldest brother and wife had been trying for a long time to have children, perhaps they had been blessed since he’d…left.
The little boy rolled his eyes in such a way that Fiyero knew, whoever he belonged to, he was most certainly a Tigelaar.
“Mama’s name is Mama, that’s a silly question.”
Elphaba, having recovered, tried another angle. “Well, what does your father call her? He wouldn’t call her Mama.”
“My Daddy is dead,” the boy said simply. “He was a hero.”
It was said so matter of factly;
The sky is blue.
Water is wet.
Daddy is dead.
Fiyero forgot how to breath as pain lanced through his heart, which of his older brothers had died? Who had sacrificed themselves for honour while he was traipsing around the Vinkus?
Benjen? Steady and solid, born to rule the Vinkus, never one to stand by and let others fight his battles.
Or Dameron; flighty and prone to mischief. Always itching to jump into a fight and defend those who couldn’t defend themselves.
Shame flushed through him as he thought of his family, his parents; lost to grief and mourning a son while he’d run from his problems.
“Which of—who’s your father? What was his name?” Fiyero asked shakily, terrified to find out but needing to know.
He felt rather than saw Elphaba’s sharp glance towards him, but he was so focused on hearing the little boy’s answer he couldn’t afford her any attention.
“Oh that’s easy! Everyone tells me stories about him all the time! Especially Mama. He’s Prince Fiyero, Captain of the Gale Force!” The little boy pronounced eagerly, flourishing his wooden sword with pride.
The world went silent.
Fiyero staggered. Elphaba caught his elbow, just barely holding him upright.
Before either could speak, a male voice echoed through the garden.
“Romeo?!”
The boy waved his sword again happily, although the speaker was not in sight, calling out brightly, “I’m here, Uncle Damie! I’m making friends!”
The footfalls that had been steadily coming towards them sped up at this news. Fiyero was still stunned by the revelation dropped carelessly by the child and Elphaba knew she could not move him in time… there was no other option than to meet ‘Uncle Damie’ and hope he would give her the chance to explain they mean no harm.
Prince Dameron—the second Tigelaar son, grown broader and sterner since last Fiyero saw of him—strode purposefully into the garden.
He quickly pulled the little boy —Romeo— protectively to his side and just slightly behind him, eyes flicking from Elphaba, to Fiyero, and back again, narrowing with recognition that made Elphaba’s heart slam against her ribs.
“I mean you no harm,” she managed to say calmly despite the pounding of her heart, palms up in surrender. Fiyero followed her lead but kept his mouth firmly shut, whether it was a tactic decision or he had simply lost the ability, Elphaba wasn’t sure and didn’t have time to ponder while hostile eyes were focused solely on her and her telling green skin.
“If you are who I think you are,” Dameron said slowly, calmly, though never letting go of his grip on Romeo, “then I am well aware of that. You’d better come inside both of you, you’ll be safest there.”
He turned toward the castle without hesitation, gesturing for them to follow.
Elphaba stared after the two princes, baffled, before turning to her companion. “…Did you write to your family about me?”
Fiyero shook his head numbly. “No. No, I didn’t.”
So how did he know she wasn’t wicked?
Elphaba and Fiyero exchange a look —equal parts confusion, dread, and something dangerously close to hope. There was truly only one person in Oz who would tell people Elphaba wasn’t wicked —a decision is made, they are going inside.
Dameron doesn’t seem worried about them falling behind, gently scolding his nephew for disappearing and talking to strangers.
Romeo trotted happily beside his uncle not taking in a word of the scolding —chattering away instead about green being excellent camouflage for hide and seek.
Beside Elphaba, Fiyero lurched into movement to follow them, straw joints stiff, gait uneven. “Elphie…” he whispered when they were far enough behind that neither price would hear.
His twig-like fingers trembled as he spoke. “He’s my son?”
Elphaba didn’t answer at first. Her eyes remained fixed ahead, watching the little boy’s bouncing blond curls; just a few shades lighter than Fiyero’s hair had once been.
His joyful little laugh, when it came, tinkled like bells —a laugh so achingly familiar to Elphaba that she almost stumbled; caught on a memory of that same laugh in a different time, different place… coming from a girl who’s blonde hair use to bounce just like that.
Her voice, when it came back to her, was low but certain:
“Yes… he is.”
The garden path wound into a stone archway, cool and echoing, leading them into the inner courtyard. Elphaba distracted herself by cataloguing every detail—escape routes, guard positions, vantage points. Old habits from years on the run.
Fiyero watched the people; the guards and the servants they walked past as they entered the castle proper. Most stopped and stared, eyeing the green woman and the scarecrow following two princes into the castle, with curiosity…but no glimmer of recognition.
He had grown used to going unnoticed, truly, it hadn’t really bothered him at all since he was transformed. To be seen—to be expected—felt impossible. Was impossible.
He was supposed to be dead, as far as Oz was concerned. It was impractical and impossible for him to expect his brother to recognise him…
So why did it still hurt that he hadn’t?
There was something particularly crushing about being unknown in the place you were raised, around the people who grew alongside you, that caused Fiyero’s shoulders to hunch and his gaze to drop —unwilling to search for recognition any longer.
Dameron led them into the family receiving room, an intimate space usually reserved for visiting family and friends… not strangers or enemies.
Fiyero told Elphaba as much when Dameron left them to summon his parents, easing the tension in her own shoulders even if he couldn’t manage to let go of his own.
Instead he glanced about the room, and in spite of everything — in spite of death, resurrection, straw limbs, and the utter impossibility of being here at all — he ached with familiarity.
It looked exactly as he remembered.
It was all deep blues and warm golds, the colours of the Vinkus sky just before dusk. Rich tapestries lined the walls, woven with scenes of ancient Vinkun lore and star-watching festivals; the threads caught the early morning light and shimmered like constellations. A dark blue rug spread across the floor, its intricate gold pattern curling like wind-carved dunes, softening every footstep.
The heavy wooden furniture — polished so many times it practically reflected — had been carved generations ago by Yackle artisans.
He remembered tracing the little etchings as a boy, hunting for hidden buttons he was convinced led to secret passages and buried treasure, while his mother discussed politics with visiting leaders and his father laughed booming, generous laughs that shook the rafters.
Even now, the room smelled faintly of spiced cedar and the tea his mother favoured in winter. The scent wrapped around him like a memory he wasn’t prepared for.
There, by the west-facing window, stood the low table where he and Dameron once fought three-day strategy battles with carved wooden soldiers. A tiny scratch near the edge — one he’d made himself when he’d toppled it during a particularly dramatic cavalry charge — was still visible. No one had sanded it out. Someone had kept it.
The gold-stitched cushions beside the hearth had been plumped recently; Fiyero remembered falling asleep on them as a child, lulled by the fire and by his mother’s gentle voice reading heroic epics —where she would swap out the hero’s name for his own.
And above the mantle hung the same triptych painting he’d grown up staring at: the royal line of the Arjikis, each face stern and noble, their bright blue sashes glowing like captured sky.
He expected, ridiculously, to see his own painted likeness up there. But of course it never had been. He had vanished —first to Shiz and then to death— before they could ever commission it.
Elphaba shifted beside him. He realised she was watching him, not the room.
His voice came out rough. “I spent a lot of hours in here.” He gestured vaguely — at the table, the tapestries, the cushions, the painting. “Lessons. Arguments. Celebrations. Boredom. Everything.”
A pause. A brittle little laugh. “It feels… smaller, than I remember.”
But it wasn’t the room that had changed.
Footsteps approached beyond the heavy doors far before he was ready to face them — soft, measured, familiar.
The doors opened.
His mother entered first, regal but warm, her dark blue skirts whispering over the rug. His father followed — broad-shouldered, stern in posture but never in spirit — and just behind them, Corissa slipped in gracefully as Dameron shut the door, her dark hair braided in the Vinkun style of married women, her hands folded neatly at her waist.
Romeo did not return with them.
The absence hit Fiyero suddenly and sharply — like a hand closing around his hollow chest and squeezing. He’d thought Romeo would come back, hadn’t thought to take one more look to memorise the boy he had never known until now.
Dameron bowed lightly and pulled Fiyero away from his spiralling thoughts.
“Mother, Father, Corissa… may I present Elphaba Thropp and her scarecrow companion.”
Elphaba bowed her head. Fiyero did not — could not — move at all.
For a moment, the family simply stared.
Then his mother spoke, firm yet trembling, but not to him.
“Elphaba,” she breathed, voice thick with something like awe. “You… you’re exactly as Glinda described.”
King Marillot nodded solemnly. “The very first time she met us, she told us about you —the truth. That you were not the monster that Oz made you out to be.” His gaze softened, full of respect. “That our Fiyero died protecting you. That he…” A crack split his voice, sharp and unguarded. “…that he loved you.”
Elphaba stiffened, visibly taken aback by such welcome — such gentleness. No one had ever spoken to her this way. Not outside of Glinda. Not since Nessarose.
She cleared her throat. “Glinda… exaggerates.”
“No,” Baxiana said softly, deep blue eyes so like her youngest son’s. “I don’t believe she has.”
Then her gaze fell unknowingly to her son, standing behind Elphaba. Softened. Saddened. Kind.
“And you,” she said gently, her eyes sweeping over his stitched features without fear…without recognition. “We’re grateful you have travelled with her. Thank you for getting her safely here, Scarecrow.”
Fiyero felt something inside him fracture.
He drew in a breath but felt nothing fill him. His straw limbs wobbled.
He looked at them in turn — at the woman who’d kissed his forehead every night until he told her he was too old for it, at the man who had taught him to ride, at the brother who’d snuck him treats when he was in trouble, at the sister-in-law who had danced with him at her own wedding — and not one of them looked back with recognition.
Scarecrow.
Elphaba must have felt him crumble, because she shifted—just subtly—closer. “Your Majesties,” she began carefully, “this is… a difficult truth. But you have to believe me.”
Fiyero’s father frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Elphaba said. “And no.”
She looked at him once — asking permission, perhaps. He managed a jerk of his head that he hoped passed for a nod.
Elphaba inhaled. “Your son is not dead. I had to transform him to save his life.”
Silence.
His mother blinked, confused, polite. “My dear, I don’t quite understand, Fiyero—”
“He’s alive,” Fiyero whispered hoarsely, his voice brittle straw scraping against itself. “I’m alive.”
All four Tigelaar’s turned sharply toward him.
Elphaba stepped back, letting the truth be seen. “The guards —they were going to kill him. I had no choice but to transform him into something that couldn’t die…”
Fiyero raised his trembling hands. “It’s me.”
His father’s brow furrowed — confusion first, then disbelief, then something dangerously close to anger. “It can’t be possible, it simply—”
“Father,” Fiyero interrupted.
The word came out cracked and thin, but unmistakably his voice.
His father froze.
Corissa’s hand flew to her heart as Dameron steadied his swaying mother.
His father’s face broke first — utterly, completely — the way stone breaks when pressure finds a fault line.
“Fiyero…?” he whispered, voice destroyed.
Fiyero’s mother reached him in two uneven steps, her hands rising, hovering, trembling like she feared the spell might shatter if she touched him. “My boy,” she choked. “My darling little boy.”
“Mother,” he breathed — a sob more than a word.
And that was enough.
She folded around him, arms sliding over straw shoulders as though they were flesh, pulling him in with a grief so raw it nearly toppled them both.
His father came next, one hand on his back, the other over his wife’s shoulder, pulling them together in a circle that once would have felt normal, effortless.
Now it felt like a miracle.
Elphaba looked away — giving them privacy — but her jaw trembled with relief.
Fiyero hid his face in the crook of his mother’s neck, straw or not, and for the first time in years felt something almost like home settle in the hollow spaces of him.
The door clicked open and little Romeo came bursting in, completely oblivious to the emotional scene, he made a beeline to Elphaba tugging insistently on her hand.
“Oh good, you’re still here! Are you staying for supper? Mama says it’s rude not to. Oh! And I have toys in my room, or we can play hide and seek but not outside because that would be unfair—”
“Romeo,” Dameron said quietly, his voice thick with emotion “give our guests some space. Go play in your room.”
Romeo obeyed, but with a huff and a pout that was so completely Galinda, Elphaba had to stifle a slightly strangled laugh —and a few tears, as he flounced out of the room as quickly as he came.
It breaks the oppressive emotion in the room, Fiyero removing himself from his parent’s embrace to stare after the little boy who looked so much like him.
His father of course, catches where his eyes linger.
“Glinda brings him to us during the parliamentary seasons when she is required to officiate,” Marillot explained with a soft sort of pride. “She wants him to grow up knowing his father’s people. His heritage.”
His voice thickened.
“Glinda has worked tirelessly for years to make Oz a better, safer place to live. To the public she’s Glinda the Good, but to us… she is our daughter, same as Corissa. No matter how hard she works, she always puts this family first, and never lets a day go by without making sure Romeo knows how much he is loved.”
Glinda.
Her name strikes Fiyero like lightning—warmth, ache, home, regret, memory all collapsing inward.
It was all too much for him to handle, his parents, his family, his son…
Elphaba felt Fiyero sway. She steadied him with a hand at his elbow but Baxiana caught the movement too.
She straightened slightly, regaining her composure. “You both must be exhausted, when was the last time you had a proper bed and meal?”
She wiped her eyes of remaining tears before leading them out of the room, the rest of the family trailing in a dazed procession that would be funny in any other circumstance.
“Benjen is with Glinda in the Emerald City for the Winter Parliament, we’ll send a falcon now asking them to return home immediately.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Elphaba interjected, “if they’re busy we don’t want to interrupt something important.”
“Nonsense, they will both want to be here.” Fiyero’s mother waved away her concern as she led them into the family wing.
“The season was due to finish tomorrow anyway. We’ll send word now and they could be here as early as nightfall or perhaps tomorrow morning…” She paused briefly, glancing at Fiyero, “…I think it best they be here for any big discussions, especially Glinda.”
Explaining to Romeo who he really was went unsaid but Fiyero understood regardless.
He had been gone seven years, it wasn’t his place to make decisions about a son he had only just met, and it wasn’t his parent’s place either… that power rested with the one person Fiyero was both terrified and desperate to see again.