#i do understand the frustration because there has only ever been one black fiyero on broadway i believe

[chaossmagic]

Fiyero isn’t white. A white actor shouldn’t play him

Fiyero is blue in the book, but that has never translated to him being PoC on-stage. The concept of race in Wicked is slightly different to how it is in real life, because you don't have typical races/ethnicities. Elphaba's race is never stated, only that she's green. It's true that in the book, Fiyero is a different race within Oz because he's a Winkie, but that doesn't map on to modern, real-world race/ethnicity perfectly.

Would I like to see a black or brown Fiyero? Absolutely. But his character in the book is very different to the musical, rightly or wrongly, and unfortunately that's what they're going off of.

Johnny is a brilliant choice IMO, and he's gonna smash it.

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

The small lump in the corner that was Dorothy only seemed briefly startled when Glinda came to get her the following morning. However, she was far more surprised when instead, she went to the Tin Man's cell.

"So we're going to do a thing," the blonde witch began uneasily. "You… have to have figured out by now that we can't just let you run around willy nilly. You attacked Nessa more than once, and the threats you made were pretty graphictitious! So while I-"

"HMMHHPHH!" he growled through the makeshift gag.

"Enough of that, now," she warned in a sing-song, as if scolding a small child. "Anyway, you're going to be moved upstairs into one of the other rooms, and I'm going to try to tinker with you for a while. Maybe it'll do some good, maybe not. But all the same, I think we should give it the old Shiz try, don't you?"

Clearing her throat, Dorothy approached the bars and whispered meekly, "You aren't going to hurt him, are you? I kn- I know he hasn't been kind to you, but he's been most kind to me!"

"Don't you worry your pretty little head," she replied in a soft, consoling tone. "I can't promise what I do won't hurt, but I'm not going to do anything purely to hurt him. My hope is that I can help him some way or other. And if I can't… well, I guess we could just pop him right back into this cell afterward. No harm done."

Then Glinda unlocked the cell and went inside, securing manacles around his wrists and arms and legs — ones not bolted to the wall. Once he was secure enough that he could not escape or attack, she released him from the wall and stood back, raising her wand.

"Alright, let's try this one again… bubblitio!" Nothing. She took a deep, calming breath and attempted, "Bulbulious bubblissimo! Bumbulous bumbletonia! Spheroidimax voluminia!"

"Uhmmm," the Scarecrow that was Fiyero said as Glinda waved her wand frantically. "None of those sound like very magical words."

Her lips pouted at him and her brow furrowed. "And just whom amongst us is a witch? You? I don't believe so!"

"You're not much of one, either," the Lion grumbled lazily from atop his paws.

"Hey! That isn't very kind!"

"I'm not much of a Lion myself; no offense was intended."

Shrugging that off, she narrowed her eyes and tried the first word again, focusing hard. "BUBBLITIO!"

This time, an almost invisible pink film began to wrap itself around Boq. His metallic eyes went as wide as could be to see the magic actually taking shape this time, and he looked at Glinda with a mixture of anger and betrayal. But she did not acknowledge his gaze, and merely sighed.

"You brought this on yourself." When he didn't react, she shook her head sadly and began to back out of the cell, wand raised to direct the bubble she had formed. "A pity, a real pity, Biq."

He only began to struggle and grunt once the bubble began to move him, muffled though his cries were. Casting a semi-apologetic look over her shoulder at the others, she continued to bounce him up the stairs.

"You and I need to have some serious discussion, little boy of tin. And why don't we try out some things from the Grimmerie, too? That sounds like so much fun!"

                                               ~ o ~

Elphaba only waited a few minutes after Glinda left to slip down into the dungeons. Both the Lion and Dorothy recoiled to see her, tall and imposing, green and black, framed by the stone doorway. Fiyero, of course, merely watched all parties with curiosity.

"H-Hello," Dorothy attempted in a nervous tone. "Is… is it alright if I ask-"

"Not yet," Elphaba said, dragging a simple wooden chair from the table by far wall over to the Lion's cell — a few inches out of reach of his claws should he suddenly decide to take an idle swipe at her. But she did not sit just yet. Instead, she opened Fiyero's cage, and simply stood back to let him exit.

"Much obliged," was all he said, cheerful as ever.

"What?!" Dorothy gasped in a hushed voice, watching him fetch two other chairs from the table. "Wh- but I… I thought you were going to let me out if I behaved, I didn't… you aren't even shackling him! I don't understand!"

"No, you don't," the witch said evenly, tossing the same old cuffs through for her to put onto herself. Her eyes were sad and wary, but she did as she was silently bade. As her captor unlocked the door, she went on, "But you will. If you listen, and try not to ask too many questions, I think you'll find you understand a great deal…"

                                              ~ o ~

Hours passed, and Glinda found herself flummoxed. She had paged through every single page of the Grimmerie, skimming the contents with her eyes, and she was no closer to finding anything that would make any difference as far as Boq was concerned. This was made all the more frustrating by the fact that she was not nearly so adept at Lurlinic as her chartreuse counterpart, and the meaning of certain phrases or passages eluded her. Still, she had been hoping that persistence would pay off where education failed.

"Fine," she finally sighed, drooping against the arm of the chair she had sank down into already, the book hanging limply from her hand. "I know a spell cannot be undone once it's cast, but there has to be a way to… to de-tinnify you! Something in here, not to undo the spell exactly, but that would still turn you into a normal Munchkin again!"

Of course, Tin Man had nothing to say. At no point had Glinda felt comfortable removing his restraints, so she hadn't. His large, sad eyes continued to follow her everywhere while she stood to replace the book on a table, as if pleading with her to see more than was visible.

"Enough, Biq. I don't care how long you give me the puppy dog eyes."

Still he stared. Bitter tears began to slide down his cheeks as he sat in the chair opposite her, unable to do anything else.

"You'll only rust if you keep that up." Throwing up her hands, she snapped, "What did you think would happen?! The moment Nessa lets you go, you start to run away? To what, find me?" She let out a blast of laughter. "Hate to break it to you, Munchkin Boy, but I've never even had the tiniest shred of interest in you! Just because you liked me doesn't mean I had to like you back!"

His face turned away. She wanted to feel less hatred, less annoyance at his attitude and more compassion toward his obvious grief, but it wasn't going to happen. Even though Nessa had done things to him that weren't fair, there were reasons for that. And she intended to set the record straight.

"I should have been this honest with you from the beginning," she confessed. "You… you really don't deserve it now, but you did then, and… and so did Nessa. That part is your fault; I know there had to have been a thousand times you could have told her you weren't interested, and all you did was go along for the ride. And then you complained too late, and… well…"

A muffled sob filled the room. To try and put some distance between herself and the source of her annoyance and grief, she crossed to the window, grasping the ledge and staring out over the jagged rocks of the Kells both near and distant, down at the village of Kiamo Ko.

"I know Nessa shouldn't have trapped you in Munchkinland or cast any spells on you that she didn't understand; nobody's saying any different. But does that really make it right for you to try to kill her? None of us is free from guilt for this, Tinny. I wasn't honest with you, and you weren't honest with Nessa. So easy to start out that way, huh? Best of intentions. And we really loused things up." Turning again, she fixed him with a curious gaze, wringing her wand in her nervous hands. "Isn't it funny how Nessa was the only one who was honest from the beginning? She may have failed in other areas, but by golly, she was always truthful about her feelings for you. Just… funny."

Then she strode closer and spat at him, "But all you know how to do is lie. You lied to Nessarose about your feelings for her, and you lied to Dorothy about Elphaba and I." When recognition sparked behind his eyes, she growled, "Yes, that's right! I know all about that! How could you tell her she and I are… that we would do things like that? To a girl barely old enough to start holding hands?! Shame on you! Makes me wonder if you ever did have a heart in the first place!"

Things were going nowhere fast. Grunting in sheer annoyance, she made a couple of quick swishes with her wand and wrapped his chair with more ropes.

"Obviously, I can't do much for you right now. But I'll… I'll try again tomorrow, I guess. Sorry." The last word might have sounded insincere, but Glinda meant it deep down. She didn't even wait for a response before grabbing up the Grimmerie and heading for the door; even if he did respond, it wouldn't be anything worth hearing.

Within minutes, she was descending back to the dungeons again, having stashed the book somewhere safe. Though she had high hopes everything would have gone well with their other prisoners, she could not risk the Lion pouncing on her and stealing their most powerful artefact.

The scene laid out before her was an interesting one, to be sure. Fiyero was sitting lazily in a chair near Elphaba's, and the Lion was lying in the cage with his great, shaggy head on his paws. The manacled Dorothy, however, was cross-legged in her seat, leaned forward with rapt attention. This was obviously the greatest number of direct answers she had ever received from anyone since being tossed into Oz, and she was drinking them in like a parched wanderer of the Shifting Sands.

"Well, I think you're very brave to try and rescue them," she was assuring Elphaba. "What I don't understand is, why does the Wizard want them to be silent in the first place? Surely he can be the President without doing that, he already is one and they haven't bothered him so far!"

"President?" Fiyero asked, the word sounding as unfamiliar coming from him as it did in Glinda's ears. But Elphaba answered her question instead of focusing on Fiyero's remark.

"He needed a scapegoat — no offense to Dr. Dillamond. As I said, we've had a few droughts, and the Wizard hasn't handled the economic recession very well. It was either start squandering his treasury to balance things out, or find something to distract the citizens of Oz, to keep them from blaming him and rioting. It's a calculated diversionary tactic."

Dorothy bobbed her shoes-that-wouldn't-come-off up and down and frowned down toward the stone floor. "My Uncle Henry says we're just coming out of another one of those 'recessions', too. I don't know much about it, except that we haven't had much to eat, or money for new clothes. That's why..." She bit her bottom lip.

"Go on," Glinda said gently a moment later, startling her and the Lion very slightly. "That's why…?"

"Oh… hullo, Miss Glinda. W-well, I know it's silly, what with everything you're troubled with. But I should like to have my gingham dress back, if we c-can manage it. Aunt Em had to henpeck Uncle Henry for weeks to buy that, because she said a girl ought to have a proper dress for Easter Sunday! A-and the thought of going home without it..."

Once she had shaken off wondering what "gingham" and "Easter Sunday" might mean, Glinda was a little shocked to see that Dorothy looked ashamed. It spoke volumes about her family; she was less afraid of her their reaction and more worried about disappointing them, inconveniencing those she loved.

"There, there," she shushed her as she walked over to pet along her shoulders. The girl sighed despondently, but did at least seem calmed. "If the rest of our plans work out, I promise we'll search the palace. And if we can't turn it up, we'll make you two new dresses! The best Oz has to offer!"

Though she rolled her eyes, Elphaba refrained from commenting on whether or not she considered this important enough to discuss. Instead, she told the young lady, "For now, I'd like an answer."

"Answer? Oh…" She gulped, glancing over at Fiyero and back. "I'm just a girl, I can't fight, or use magic, or do anything useful. What difference does it make if I join you?"

"I'm not saying you have to face the Wizard head-on," Elphaba assured her. "Just don't get in our way. Your moral support is better than opposition."

Glaring at Elphaba for the callous way she had phrased things, Glinda added, "And you'll be plenty useful! Besides, we don't only want you around because of that — we like you! Don't we, Elphie?" No response. Glinda kicked her. "Don't we?"

"I don't dislike her," she offered more truthfully. "Other than that nasty business of trying to kill me."

"You know we're pals, Dorothy," Fiyero put in, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. "I owe you for rescuing me from that cornfield, at the very least! But I can't ignore how badly the Wizard's treated my old classmates. Ooh, it chafes my straw! So I'm sorry to say it, but if you keep supporting him…"

At that, Dorothy quickly shook her head and said, "No, no, I'd never dream of saying it's alright! What all he's done, and then lied about it all to me! I don't understand how he came to be in charge of Oz in the first place, an old humbug like him!"

The two witches shared a weary look. Never had they expected to be history teachers when they enrolled at Shiz, but that seemed to be their fate for the afternoon.

"Let's go upstairs to get something to eat," Elphaba recommended gruffly, pushing to stand. "Nessa should have one of her infernal stews ready to force down."

"Can you bring me back some infernal stew?" Lion asked as they stood. "I'm so hungry; milk only goes so far for a full-grown Lion, and I don't much care for vegetables. Even an old bone would be something."

"Of course," Glinda told him. "We'll bring it with us when we return Dorothy."

As they ascended the steps, Elphaba began, "The Wizard came to us… oh, a couple of decades ago. We were all too young to remember what the time before he ruled was like, I'm afraid — but we know from our studies that our previous queen, Ozma the Billious, had left behind a newborn when she was poisoned; we don't know the gender, there was no formal announcement — already unusual in and of itself. But it's assumed it was a succeeding princess, because that child vanished when the Wizard flew into our world in a foreign contraption the likes of which we had never seen before."

"Poisoned?!" Dorothy gasped.

"Yes," Glinda supplied. "A pretty unregal way to die, isn't it? Her husband was supposed to look after the heir, but… well, he died, too. Boating accident. Worse yet, nobody knows how it was done, or who's responsible for either deaths or the baby disappearing. Still a mystery."

"But… but that's how my parents died," Dorothy was breathing. "On a boat. Imagine that."

Elphaba was shaking her head. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn it was all the Wizard and Morrible's doing. True, he had not arrived yet when the Ozma line ended, but who's to say he hadn't arranged for it beforehand? Or his 'secretary' could have been laying the groundwork."

"Conspiracy theories are fun, aren't they?" Fiyero observed with a light chuckle. "But it might be smarter to stick to what we know, and what we have to do."

"Right. Go on, then."

Somehow, his painted-on eyebrows arched high. "Me? You know what kind of student I was!" But he shrugged and went on, anyway. "Simple, really. Everyone thought the old Wizard was magical because he flew into our world from another, and that made it pretty easy for him to claim the empty throne. Right place, right time."

Head shaking much like Elphaba's, which amused Glinda to notice, Dorothy said, "If he really did kill either of them… oh, even the baby… that's one of the most awful things I've ever heard! And he's never been thrown in jail?"

"How can we? He's the jailor." Elphaba huffed in annoyance as they came to the kitchen and pushed inside. "And there's nothing we can do to prove what he's done, either way. At least Glinda and I are witnesses to the way he tricked us into transforming the Monkeys. If there are any witnesses to his alleged murders, I haven't found them, and I doubt they'll come forward now."

"Such light conversation," Nessa observed as she toiled over the stove. "I was just standing here, lamenting that you two have taken the more interesting jobs and left me to be scullery maid, but perhaps I haven't missed anything, after all."

"You haven't," Glinda sighed, breathing in deeply. "Mmm, that smells good… I'm starvatiously hungry!"

Dorothy glanced down at the plates and silverware laid out for the four of them who actually owned stomachs, then back up to Elphaba. "Can you at least move my handcuffs in front of me so I don't need help to eat?"

As no one much wanted to spoonfeed her again, they relented, and Dorothy did her best not to drip on her dress as they discussed all that had transpired. Nessa looked morose when Glinda reported her failing at improving Boq's outlook on life or his physical condition, but did not say a word; she seemed entirely defeated in that area. Privately, Glinda thought that was for the best - the faster she moved on, the better. Even if she was somewhat spoiled, she deserved better than a man who wanted to chop her head off.

"I'm not sure what I can do for you," Dorothy finally told them as Glinda and Elphaba were washing the dishes and Nessa was disposing of the scraps. "But if you'll just… help me with two things, I'll do whatever I can, anything at all!"

"The shoes and the dress?" Elphaba guessed.

"Oh… three things." When the green lips pursed, she rushed ahead, "I forgot about the dress already! The other thing was to help me get home, if you can. Of c-course, I'm only asking you to try your best, you know. If you can't, well… then I guess I'll live here forever with these heavy shoes weighing me down."

"That, we will promise," Glinda said for all of them. Elphaba shot her a look, but she ignored it. "We'll do what we can, and if we can't, then we'll figure out somewhere for you to stay in Oz. Deal?"

"Deal." She held out her manacles to be unlocked, and they blinked at her. Slowly, an inch at a time, she lowered them as she whispered, "Oh… am… I still… going back to the dungeons?"

Glancing at the other two briefly to gauge their responses, Glinda then walked over and freed her. Dorothy turned a smiling face up toward her that was so earnest she couldn't help but grin back. "Good. I'll just take you to get washed up again — even if you'll have to hang your feet out of the tub."

As they walked down the hallway, Dorothy slipped her hand into Glinda's, which surprised her very slightly. But she squeezed it in comfort; she could only assume the girl was still scared of the big, drafty castle, and the less alone she felt, the better.

"Miss Glinda… thank you so much. I know we've only just met, but I… feel like you're how I'd like my mother to have been, if I could remember her."

"M-mother?!" Glinda burst out in mild surprise.

"OH! Oh, is that not alright?" she breathed. "Of c-course, I didn't mean to say you're old enough to be my mother! Not a w-woman so young and lovely as you, not at all! But only… you're so kind, and thoughtful, and I'm sure it's because of you that I'm not a prisoner anymore. I can't believe I was ever afraid of you, or thought you were a deviant!"

Entirely mollified, the Witch of the North had to chuckle — mostly in chagrin at her own overreaction. "Fine, fine, I'm glad to have helped how I could. You are a sweet little thing, all in all, aren't you?" As they came again to the bath, she said, "Of course, I can't promise you anything… certainly not that we'll live to see the end of this fight with the Wizard, or that we'll find a way to send you back to Amerikansas, but…"

"You'll do your best," Dorothy finished for her, squeezing her hand again before she began to help heating the water. "That's all a girl can ask."

                                              ~ o ~

"...and that was the last spell I tried," Glinda was telling Elphaba as they fell to the task that they had both been putting off for far too long: unpacking. It had taken some careful plotting to retrieve their few effects from the cave behind Wicca Falls, and since then too much had been transpiring to worry about opening the pair of disparate trunks and making a good run at their contents. Presently, half of what they owned was strewn across the bed, the rest either hung up properly in one of the wardrobes or stacked on the vanity. Privately, Glinda lamented not being able to use said vanity for its intended purposes, but there was no place for that type of "vanity" in their current lives.

"I can't say I'm surprised, Glinda. You know that spells can't be undone, and it's slippery work even changing them somewhat the way we already have with Boq. Tampering further… if we do succeed, he'll either wind up dead, or completely unrecognisable."

A sigh welled up powerfully from the pit of her stomach, but ended up sounding pathetic and soft when it came forth. "You're probably right, but I'd still appreciate it if you could take a look for yourself. I mean, you're clearly the better witch between us, right?"

"Only through study," she hedged. Then she stood a little straighter, shooting over her shoulder, "At what point did we start embracing the word 'witch' instead of hating it? When did that happen?"

"Search me, Elphie; I just work here."

Tutting briefly, Elphaba laid out a few of her older school effects from within her travelling cloak. A sniffle threatened to break free from Glinda when she recognised the Shiz guidebook, small bound leather tome that it was, lying next to the green bottle and a few spare coins that weren't even accepted outside the Emerald City as valid currency. Much though she protested, her Elphie truly was a sentimental creature.

Something stirred in the back of her mind. It took her a long second or two for it to bob its meandering way along to the front, and until that point, she hadn't even been sure what the stirring was in relation to.

"Nessarose isn't much of a witch at all," her roommate was saying as she put away a few of her dresses, more neatly into one of their closets than previously. Plenty of room to work with in there, now that they had cleared away some of the decrepit old junk. "However, I think she might have an aptitude for magic if she works on it as hard as she's worked at making her awful stew into tolerable stew. Just needs a swift kick in the-"

"That bottle."

"Hm?" Glancing down, she picked the bottle back up, then stared over its mouth at Glinda. "What about this bottle?"

"Didn't you tell me once before that it was… important to you, for some reason?" Even now, Glinda was still barely aware of why this mattered, but the threads were beginning to weave themselves together now.

"I did. It was my mother's. Father would often tell me that it was a prized possession, and she never wanted to be apart from it. When he would ask, she would simply state that it reminded her of her firstborn, but…" One shoulder rose and fell. "I got the feeling that wasn't the full story. Or at least, old Frex didn't believe it was."

"Hm."

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing." Keeping her tone carefully distant, aloof, she went on, "Just that… it looks conveniently similarly to the bottle the Wizard was drinking from when we dropped in on him."

Elphaba started, glancing between her and the bottle. "Really? Well, it's just a green bottle… no label to say what's in it. Could have been just a similar shape."

"No, not similar. The same. I'm telling you, whatever's in his, or used to be in yours, it's the exact same type of bottle, shape and colour."

This silence was a bit longer and quieter than the previous one. Glinda wouldn't have guessed that silences could be quieter or louder; they were either silent or they weren't. Until now.

"No. Well, I mean… maybe she visited the Emerald City. Could have been anything."

"Could have."

"Then why are you bringing this up? We have a lot to do."

"Elphie…"

Exasperated, she threw up both hands. "What am I supposed to do? How do you want me to react to this news? So my mother and the Wizard both have identical vessels for holding liquor. Big twigging deal. Dorothy and Nessa both have shiny shoes; maybe they're related."

"They are. The shoes, not Dorothy and Nessa," she snapped when Elphaba raised her eyebrows at her. "Both are because of our spells! So they are connected! And it might be the same with the Wiz-"

"I don't believe you really believe this, this… what was it Fiyero said? 'Conspiracy theories'. That's what you're spinning. Wilder and more fanciful by the minute, if you think I'm going to follow your logic to where it's leading."

Glinda's hands went to her waist, impatient at the attitude she was receiving. "I'm not outright saying anything! Just bringing up possibilities! What you do with them is up to you!" When she got no answer right away, she approached Elphaba, grasping her forearms to stop her from continuing to dig in her closet. "Elphaba, please? Just… doesn't it sound like something we ought to try figuring out?"

"Maybe. Another time."

"But we don't have-"

"I need to finish this. Either with your help, or without. But for now, I can't…" A slight flicker of pain showed in her eyes before she mastered it, suppressed it and returned her features to their quickly-becoming-normal steely resolve. "We need to worry about how we're going to depose the Wizard and bring peace to the Animals. That's first. Secondarily, we have to keep an eye on Dorothy, and look through the Grimmerie for the sake of a stupid, ungrateful wretch of a tin can."

Feeling stupid for having brought the whole thing up, Glinda strode for the door. "Fine, Elphie. I can tell when I'm not wanted around. I'll see you at supper."

As she slipped out of the room, she just scarcely caught Elphaba's sigh. She probably felt bad for being unpleasant just then, but couldn't quite find the humility to chase after her. Maybe that was for the best; this way, they could both have a few minutes with their own thoughts to ponder the situation and to let their tempers settle.

But she certainly wasn't going to let the matter drop. Not if it meant what she thought it might.

                                              To Be Continued…