Title: The Mind Plays Tricks

Author: Utenakun

Book/Musical: Wicked

Summary: In the scene where he and Dorothy first meet, the Scarecrow goes through some mental processes that anyone would think of as weird. Except he can't.

Rating: G

Disclaimer: Like Maguire, I am paying homage to a story I truly loved. Unlike him, I haven't a legal ownership leg to stand on.

Notes: Very, very based on the Broadway musical Wicked, and certain parts veer from the book that was based on (Wicked, by Gregory Maguire). In other words, if you haven't seen the show, it's got quite glaring spoilers. And, of course, you can't read this on The Wizard of Oz knowledge alone. Yes, Wicked is 'just' a retelling, but I assume knowledge of Fiyero and Elphaba's histories that you wouldn't know from only reading L. Frank Baum.

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Is he ever relieved to get down from there! Boy, he thought he'd never--

His chin is forced up with the point of a spear. "Better tell us where she is, boy, if you ever expect to feel the ground under your feet again."

He shakes with anger, with exhausted pain, the ache in his arms somehow tightening in a band around his lungs-- he doesn't have too much longer, maybe the night through if he's lucky. It's a wonder he can reply at all. "Never."

A snort. "Then that's it. We'll see you in the morning." A knowing smirk, a scornful turning away, and then the last person who could have granted him life is striding down the road, trying to beat the sunset to his ale and meat.

He wasn't expecting to be cut down. He would never trade her life for his.

--get down from there. The Scarecrow does a graceful tumble of thanks, causing the girl who rescued him to shriek in alarm. "Oh! Does that hurt you?"

"Oh no," he quickly reassures her, cheerfully stuffing spilled straw back inside the clothing holding him together. "I just keep picking it up and putting it back in again. You can kick me, you can punch me, but y'can't hurt me!"--

His agonized screams echo across the deserted cornfield at night, causing birds to flap up out of their roosting spots in alarm. He twists up there on the poles, writhing as slashes reopen and broken bones grind horribly against one another. His blood is liquid fire in his veins and he knows what is happening, knows she is hunched over that ancient, dusty book and frantically whispering…

"Let his flesh not be torn

Let his blood leave no stain

Though they beat him, let him feel no pain

Let his bones never break

And however they try to destroy him

Let him never die…"

He screams again, loud and long, feeling magic rush through him in a blistering wave, feeling it force his lungs to function even as they threaten to collapse, feeling it work his flesh into something less fragile, less destructible.

She is saving him.

--"D'you think if I went with you this Wizard would give me some brains?" He gasps to Dorothy, sudden hope flooding through him. His explanation of why he wants a brain is barely coherent, but perhaps that's to be expected. Thoughts pass through him like the breeze, there and gone without a mark and he can't remember the memories of last second, can't remember except that he should remember.

This strange double-life would give him fearsome nightmares, except that he hasn't the mind to recall them.