You have escaped the palace, fleeing into the night while the sounds of the struggle fade behind you. But there is no relief in your safety—only a crushing, suffocating panic. Fiyero is not with you. He stayed behind. He surrendered himself to the guards so you could fly free.
You know what they do to traitors in the Emerald City. The thought of him in pain, bleeding because of you, tears you apart. You cannot reach him physically, but you still have the one thing the Wizard wants: the Grimmerie.
You slam the ancient book open, your hands trembling violently as you scan the pages. You don't need a spell to fly or to fight; you need a spell to save him. You need to make him bulletproof. You need to make him unbreakable.
You begin to chant, your voice raw with desperation. You call upon the weather, the spirits, the very forces of Oz.
"Eleka nahmen nahmen, ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen..."
You cast your intention out into the ether, searching for him. You visualize the guards dragging him to the cornfield, raising their poles to beat him. You scream the command into the night: "Let his flesh not be torn! Let his blood leave no stain!"
You pour every ounce of your power into the wish. You demand that the spirits strip him of his ability to feel pain. If they are going to torture him, let him feel nothing. "Let him feel no pain!" The magic explodes from you, a shockwave of green energy that rattles the windows and shakes the ground. It is done. You feel the spell take hold, though you don't know exactly what form it has taken—only that he is now immune to physical hurt.
The silence that follows is deafening. You slump against the ground, clutching the book. And then, the doubt creeps in. Was that actually good? Or did you just twist his fate into something worse? Your mind races back through your life. Every time you tried to help—giving the Lion the bone, trying to work with the Wizard, loving Fiyero—it resulted in disaster. The Lion lost his courage. The Wizard became a tyrant. Fiyero is now lost to you.
A cold, hard realization settles over you like a shroud. "No good deed goes unpunished."
You are huddled in the darkness beneath the floorboards of Kiamo Ko. Above you, the world is quiet. The "melting" was a performance, a desperate gambit to end the hunt, but the silence is terrifying. You wait, heart pounding, wondering if he will come. Then, a rhythmic, shuffling sound approaches. Thump. Swish. Thump.
The hidden trapdoor creaks open. A silhouette stands against the dim light. It is not a man in a uniform, but a figure made of cloth and straw, moving with a strange, boneless grace. He reaches a hand down—a glove filled with hay. You take it, and he pulls you up from the depths of your "grave."
You stare at him, breathless. The spell you cast in the desert—let him feel no pain, let his flesh not be torn—has manifested in the most literal way. He is the Scarecrow. "Fiyero?" you whisper, your hand trembling as you reach out to touch the burlap of his face. You search for the eyes of the prince you loved. They are there, warm and familiar despite the new form.
"You did the best you could," he says softly. His voice is the same—gentle, wry, and filled with love. He doesn't blame you for his transformation; he accepts it as the price of survival.
"You're beautiful," you tell him, which was something he once told you a while ago when he caught you staring at yourself in the mirror after the town made you feel like a monstrosity.
"You don't need to lie to me," Fiyero smiles, repeating what you had said to him in response to the past conversation.