Chapter Text
“We should cut him down.”
“No. Just let the crows get him.” The green-clad guard is more voice than body by now. It is funny how death can blind a man.
Another compatriot barks a laugh. “Suits an Animal sympathizer to die by animal, don’t it?”
The world tilts as they walk away, and the sun grows hotter.
The prince hangs, scarecrow-like, on the cross they’ve bound him to, and bleeds. His skin has been cracked open by blows, whips and bats in turn. His vision is blurred. He feels the full weight of torture and death pressing down upon him with no release.
He is so far from home.
A terrible cry tears from his body. His head tips back, his neck exposed to the birds above him, the sky turns dark, and…
He is beneath the stars in Vinkus, feet bare against the grass of the palace courtyard. There is a cool breeze.
Was. Is.
He can never tell.
“Yero!”
The voice of his nanny.
He crashes down to his knees, heaving more than breathing, clutching at the fabric of his shirt. It is still hole, untorn. Was. Is.
Is he going to die that horrible death?
It is not a question. He has already. Just now he felt every…every piece of pain like it were real.
It is real. Was. Will be.
He presses his hands to either side of his head, screaming.
Leona’s paw reaches out and pulls him closer to her. “Fiyero,” she hisses. “You cannot keep doing this. What happens when you sleepwalk straight into a wasp’s nest?”
It is not sleepwalking. He was never asleep. Merely walking through a memory not yet made. “Nanny Leona…I…I was killed. They hung me up high a long way from home, and left me to the crows.”
The face of the lioness scrunches up, making her whiskers twitch. “You had a nightmare, that is all.” Her head shakes, though he barely sees it. His vision has a way of blurring when he’s between-times. “Come along. You’d best get inside before Their Majesties have a fit.”
Fiyero shakes his head, too. “Did you not hear? I died! I died tonight—”
“No, Yero. Let’s go.”
He allows himself to be guided from the courtyard, though with every step closer to the palace, he feels a little more on fire.
He blinks, and there is a green girl walking beside him. She looks around eight, just like him. Which makes sense. She looked three when he was three, and five when he was five, and so on. They have walked together full grown and they will toddle together young.
Wait, should that be reversed?
Oh, he can never tell.
He does not look at the green girl. There’s not much point; she’ll only run away. He doesn’t really understand why…yet? Anymore?
“Nessa,” she says, half-sing-song. “Nessarose...”
Her voice fades, and then she does. Fiyero feels ten times as alone without her. He can practically hear his father’s gruff voice, raised in anger: She’s a phantom, boy! There are no green girls in Vinkus, or anywhere else in the world! She is another piece…
“…of your mad imaginings!”
Fiyero winces, a whole head shorter now. Then. Now.
He’s only six, which seems a very young age to be screamed at by one’s father—but in fairness, it must be very frustrating to a king, to have a mad son. He may have to take the throne if his parents can’t make a better baby soon.
They will. He’s spoken to his sister already. But his mother slapped him clear across the face when he said so. “Don’t use your crazed ramblings to give false hope! They’ve done enough damage already…”
“I spoke to her in a forest, far away from everyone. She had lovely tiny braids in her hair, and I wound my fingers through them and kissed her head,” he said in his muse-ish way, “and she fell asleep on my shoulder. We were older then.”
His parents gape at him. “He’s mad,” says his mother. She strides to the back of the room, pressing the heel of her palm to the space between her eyebrows. “What are we going to do with him, Marilott? We are no longer in an age where Vinkus tolerates madness in its rulers!”
Marilott leans back in his great chair, the details of his office flickering in and out of place around him. Fiyero’s brows furrow; flickering means…this is was.
“Listen here,” Marilott says. “Your mother and I only want to see you succeed. Please just try and do that for us. Just try and be a little less…you.”
Fiyero feels a lump in his throat. “But what is wrong with me? I am not mad. It’s all real. It’s all happened.”
“Oh—!” His mother stalks over and grips his chin in her long fingers. “Shut up! You will ruin us!”
She starts to flicker with a version of herself two years older…
…because she is. And she is three paces away from him, sitting at her vanity. Nanny Leona is talking. Explaining.
“He was in an utter panic, saying he died tonight. Your Majesty, I must confess that even I am growing worried…”
The lioness trails off, words arrested by the stunned look on Baxiana’s face. Her long dark hair, the same shade and texture as his, is left abandoned in the middle of a braid. Her eyes move in horror to her son. “You cannot be serious. The green girl and the fictional sister were bad enough, but this? Death? You cannot be so much the imbecile as to believe you died tonight and yet stand here now.”
Fiyero starts to protest, but is interrupted by a sharp, “No. I will not tolerate this anymore. I am calling a physician, and this will finally be dealt with.”
The physician will be the opposite of kind. He knows this. He has done this already. He will do this again.
He is still afraid.
The physician arrives in a green carriage, all the way from the Emerald City.
The Emerald City, home to the green uniforms that left Fiyero to the crows. That will walk away laughing while he bleeds to death.
Emerald is also the color of the girl who walks beside him.
The thought of her makes death feel closer, and the world look clearer. It is quite an odd juxtaposition.
Standing between his parents, with one of their hands on either shoulder, and his nanny standing just off to the side, he watches the physician step ever-closer. Every footfall like a blade coming down.
His eyes swivel over, to the space left between horse and carriage, and he sees the girl.
Only this time…he is sure she is seeing him back. They have looked each other in the eyes a handful of times over the years, but this is different. She is not a piece of another time now, but looking across the untold miles between them just as he is doing.
Her curls blow gently in the wind, brushing the lenses of her round glasses. She is not like him. She is somber, and grounded. Not flighty, not floating.
She peers at him until the physician crosses into her path, and she is gone.
Fiyero thinks, I know you.
He hears her voice as if from nowhere. Yero, it’s your Fae…
Her fingers rest against the side of his face. They are older now. Will be, then. “They were wrong, Fiyero! Can you not see that they were wrong? You were never crazy! You were their child, and they tortured you because they couldn’t be bothered to understand you—”
The physician’s curling smile is inches from him. “Hello, there, Prince Fiyero. My name is Maxwell.” He places one finger under Fiyero’s chin, and lifts it just slightly. “I am here to help you.”
“Listen to me. It’s too dangerous—”
“I don’t believe you,” Fiyero says, pulling back.
Maxwell frowns. “Why not?”
“Fae warned me.”
“Who is Fae?”
Marilott answers first. “There is no Fae. He’s never even mentioned that name before.”
“I see.” Maxwell peers at Fiyero. “This will be a challenge, indeed.” His lips purse unpleasantly. “I hope you will let me help you.”
Fiyero lets a giggle escape him. “Oh. But where would be the fun in that?”