Post by Alastair on Nov 21, 2009 20:26:58 GMT
Whoo! First post on this board, let's get the ball rolling! 
So I wrote this a few years back. I'd just read Wicked by Gregory Maguire and always wondered about all the years Elphaba spent at the castle after she left the mauntery and before Dorothy showed up. They got sort of skipped with all the other important political stuff going on in central Oz. So I started writing a series of one shots about the lost years at Kiamo Ko. I didn't write them in order, but after a while I went back and I realized there definitely was an order there. So, here's the one that feels like it should be the first of the six.
Enjoy.
Twisted About The Heart
::Twisted. Twisted. Why do you call me wicked?::
The Witch stood on the parapet. Her lithe figure, typically so rigid, now arched back in a supple curve and bent into the breeze as she leaned against the battlements. Like a longbow swathed in black shrouds, the humming energy in her frame brimmed almost palpably from her form in the still of the Vinkus night.
::The quiver or the arrow? Perhaps the bow. Perhaps. Don’t give yourself too much credit in affairs.::
Sleeplessness was no stranger to The Witch. By now it was a frequent caller and when she had thoughts that harried her like a persistent jackal, she knew better than to press herself into sleeping. Which was why, when the memories had come creeping in tonight, she had not hesitated to seek refuge on the tower top.
She had let her hair down tonight and it whipped around her now, the raven locks that Glinda had loved to admire during their time at Shiz a purple black in the midsummer moonlight. Fiyero had loved it too, her hair. Perhaps that’s why she’d let it down tonight. When she’d done it, it had been on an impulse. On a whim, and she’d wondered why at first. It was not like her at all. Not the impulsiveness, that was common. But her hair she kept tamed and pinned. She liked to think it was to fool the world into seeing what she wanted: this façade of hardened, ill humored severity she’d fashioned for herself in her solitude. Or maybe out of her solitude. But perhaps it was more intended to fool herself into believing the illusion of tempered discipline she presented every morning to the mirror, which stared deaf and dumb and inescapably knowing, telling with its flaking gold leaf frame and scratched glass more than she ever wanted to hear from a mirror by its simply remaining silent.
Well, lies were lies and no escaping that. Especially not lies you told yourself. And if you didn’t call them out on your own, someone else would. She was bitterly reminded of this when Chistery had, for a moment, not even recognized the verdant Amazon queen that climbed to the tower room in the twilight. He had fled to the top of a dusty bookshelf where he’d crouched and shrieked agitatedly until, almost heartbroken by his lack of recognition for reasons she didn’t quite understand, Elphaba had lured him down with a scrap of old toast and a few placating words.
Fiyero. He had loved it when she wore her hair down. She closed her eyes to let herself remember, dark, thick eyelashes fluttering for a moment before settling completely. It somehow made the night lighter than before. The moonlight glowed soft and cool through her eyelids. He would run his strong fingers through her hair, brush it out of her eyes when it fell there. He told her once it looked beautiful spread in a halo about her head when she lay down. Then he had bent and lifted her body to his with one arm and held her close: she could still feel his warm heart beat. And for once, for a moment, she let the barriers fall and did not feel the need to be the strong one.
::But Fae, you need me. I have to protect you from the evil in the world.::
::I am the evil in the world.:: she’d replied dryly, and had been about to say more. Would have said more, if he had not shaken his head, smiled, and kissed her.
A night bird’s lute-like cry carried her back to the parapet on dark rustling wings from her reverie.
Had she been the sort to cry easily, she would have been shedding tears now. She almost wished she could. She wanted to let the tears course down her cheeks, a trickle of silent diamonds along a field of emeralds. To let it burn a little. What would it be like? To show how much she cared. To allow herself to admit she cared at all. To allow herself to admit…to admit how she missed him. It could be a welcome change. A warm spring after a lifetime’s bitter winter of denial. Of course, it would have its inevitable spring drizzles and drippings of ice and uncomfortable, unfamiliar thawings, but it could be worth it. Like he had been. Like he was.
::Yero my hero.::
She’d called him. Because he had melted her heart.
So I wrote this a few years back. I'd just read Wicked by Gregory Maguire and always wondered about all the years Elphaba spent at the castle after she left the mauntery and before Dorothy showed up. They got sort of skipped with all the other important political stuff going on in central Oz. So I started writing a series of one shots about the lost years at Kiamo Ko. I didn't write them in order, but after a while I went back and I realized there definitely was an order there. So, here's the one that feels like it should be the first of the six.
Enjoy.Twisted About The Heart
::Twisted. Twisted. Why do you call me wicked?::
The Witch stood on the parapet. Her lithe figure, typically so rigid, now arched back in a supple curve and bent into the breeze as she leaned against the battlements. Like a longbow swathed in black shrouds, the humming energy in her frame brimmed almost palpably from her form in the still of the Vinkus night.
::The quiver or the arrow? Perhaps the bow. Perhaps. Don’t give yourself too much credit in affairs.::
Sleeplessness was no stranger to The Witch. By now it was a frequent caller and when she had thoughts that harried her like a persistent jackal, she knew better than to press herself into sleeping. Which was why, when the memories had come creeping in tonight, she had not hesitated to seek refuge on the tower top.
She had let her hair down tonight and it whipped around her now, the raven locks that Glinda had loved to admire during their time at Shiz a purple black in the midsummer moonlight. Fiyero had loved it too, her hair. Perhaps that’s why she’d let it down tonight. When she’d done it, it had been on an impulse. On a whim, and she’d wondered why at first. It was not like her at all. Not the impulsiveness, that was common. But her hair she kept tamed and pinned. She liked to think it was to fool the world into seeing what she wanted: this façade of hardened, ill humored severity she’d fashioned for herself in her solitude. Or maybe out of her solitude. But perhaps it was more intended to fool herself into believing the illusion of tempered discipline she presented every morning to the mirror, which stared deaf and dumb and inescapably knowing, telling with its flaking gold leaf frame and scratched glass more than she ever wanted to hear from a mirror by its simply remaining silent.
Well, lies were lies and no escaping that. Especially not lies you told yourself. And if you didn’t call them out on your own, someone else would. She was bitterly reminded of this when Chistery had, for a moment, not even recognized the verdant Amazon queen that climbed to the tower room in the twilight. He had fled to the top of a dusty bookshelf where he’d crouched and shrieked agitatedly until, almost heartbroken by his lack of recognition for reasons she didn’t quite understand, Elphaba had lured him down with a scrap of old toast and a few placating words.
Fiyero. He had loved it when she wore her hair down. She closed her eyes to let herself remember, dark, thick eyelashes fluttering for a moment before settling completely. It somehow made the night lighter than before. The moonlight glowed soft and cool through her eyelids. He would run his strong fingers through her hair, brush it out of her eyes when it fell there. He told her once it looked beautiful spread in a halo about her head when she lay down. Then he had bent and lifted her body to his with one arm and held her close: she could still feel his warm heart beat. And for once, for a moment, she let the barriers fall and did not feel the need to be the strong one.
::But Fae, you need me. I have to protect you from the evil in the world.::
::I am the evil in the world.:: she’d replied dryly, and had been about to say more. Would have said more, if he had not shaken his head, smiled, and kissed her.
A night bird’s lute-like cry carried her back to the parapet on dark rustling wings from her reverie.
Had she been the sort to cry easily, she would have been shedding tears now. She almost wished she could. She wanted to let the tears course down her cheeks, a trickle of silent diamonds along a field of emeralds. To let it burn a little. What would it be like? To show how much she cared. To allow herself to admit she cared at all. To allow herself to admit…to admit how she missed him. It could be a welcome change. A warm spring after a lifetime’s bitter winter of denial. Of course, it would have its inevitable spring drizzles and drippings of ice and uncomfortable, unfamiliar thawings, but it could be worth it. Like he had been. Like he was.
::Yero my hero.::
She’d called him. Because he had melted her heart.
