Chapter Text
Setting down her Sorcery textbook, Elphaba Thropp gathered the plates in front of her carefully and placed them on the trays.
Eggs over easy, fresh sourdough toast, berries gathered from the garden, and tea perched precariously on fine china as she picked it up and nimbly walked down the hallway towards her sister’s room. Nessa had likely been awake for ten or fifteen minutes and their father got irritable if she was made to wait for longer than two minutes. Ironically, he didn’t seem to care if Elphaba was left waiting, but Nessarose waiting? It was practically a criminal offense. Others might have been jealous of Nessarose, but Elphaba couldn’t muster a wisp of jealousy against her tragically beautiful sister. It was, after all, her fault that Nessa was stuck in her chair- forced to live her life on the sidelines and unable to walk the path of her choosing.
Popping a berry in her mouth, she balanced the tray carefully and opened the door to Nessa’s room with an indulgent smile, “Good Morning, my Pretty.”
Smiling, Nessa greeted her, “Morning, Fabala. Are you ready to head back to Shiz this morning?”
“I’ve been packed for three weeks, Nessa. If I were anymore ready I would have started walking back on foot.”
Laughing lightly, Nessa leaned against the headboard while Elphaba settled the tray on her lap.
“Eat”, Elphaba encouraged, “I’ll be back in ten minutes to get you ready for our journey. Do you have any last-minute additions to your luggage?”
“I think what you’ve packed will be just fine- and I’ll just wear Mother’s shoes on our carriage ride to the boat. I can’t imagine I’ll need another party dress- though I did hear a few whispers about the Shiz Festivusal Ball making a grand return this year. Perhaps I should pack a-“
“Ballgown?” Elphaba mused, “the rose colored one makes you look especially luminous.”
“That’s the exact one I was thinking of”, Nessa agreed. She began to dig into her breakfast and gave Elphaba an appreciative look before opening the novel Elphaba had left on the tray.
“I’m on it”, Elphaba nodded, knowing when she had been dismissed. Making her way to Nessa’s closet, her mind drifted to what it might be like if she were to be invited to such an occasion. To feel the heavy weight of a ballgown swishing at her ankles while she danced amongst her friends. To have a friend eager to dance with her or a beau to share a quiet moment with in the corner. The thought was humorous on many levels- the first being that she had never and would never have friends to actually attend such an occasion with. While that particular pill was bitter, she couldn’t find it in her heart to feel too sad about it. She was getting the opportunity to go to Shiz- something that she had never imagined she would get to do. What she had once considered a curse had pried open doors for her, letting her escape the stifling household her father had intended to keep her caged in and allowing her the opportunity to be more. While the other students at Shiz might give her a wide berth and leave her to sit alone at every meal, she was learning. She had access to a gorgeous library and a mentor who believed she might someday accomplish something good with her power.
So no, she thought firmly to herself, she wouldn’t attend the ball, but she would squeeze every ounce of opportunity she was gifted with the same zealous fervor her Father used when preaching about the Unnamed God.
Still, her fingers skimmed across the top of the delicate lace adorning Nessarose’s dress longingly. It a vintage fashion that she had discoverated in her mother’s closet one afternoon several years ago before Father had caught her. Despite the fact that she’d developed a keen sense of her Father’s presence, he’d caught her quite off guard. She’d been lingering in the closet, examining her mother’s perfume bottles and dresses when he’d grabbed her, dragging her by her forearm into the hallway with a sneer. While it wasn’t the first time he’d been unnecessarily rough with her, it was the first time she’d been afraid more was coming. Shakily, she’d told him that Nessarose would look sublime in its luxurious silk and that she’d wanted to give her something to remember their mother by. Thankfully, he’d softened due to the fact that Nessa had been growing increasingly inquisitive about their mother, asking questions that Elphaba couldn’t answer, and had gifted her the dress gladly. He’d also told Nessa stories about their mother. Of course, Elphaba had had to listen from behind a closed door in the hallway, but she’d heard snippets. Melena had worn the dress to the Governor’s inauguration, earning no less than three front page articles in the Munchkinland Gazette declaring her a woman of style and class. Elphaba, for her troubles, had earned a palm shaped bruise on her forearm and a green bottle that she’d discoverated at the back of the closet and hidden carefully under a loose floorboard in her room. Sighing, she allowed herself just a moment longer to wonder what it would be like to wear her mother’s dress before firmly closing the door on that hope.
She was not and would never be that girl.
Romance and balls were never going to be meant for someone like her. The most she could hope for is an invitation to meet the Wizard and experience seeing the Emerald City with her own eyes before she was forced to service her sister when she ascended to the role of Governor. Expertly packing the dress in a Nessa’s spare trunk, she nodded to herself and dragged it towards the door so she could load everything quickly when the carriage arrived.
—-
Shiz in the fall was a gorgeous sight to behold. The campus seemed to gleam in the sun as boats arrived with students and parents seeking to find their dormitories and unload their cargo. Shouts of familiarity and joyous reunions could be seen in almost every corner of the dock and courtyard- with students eagerly regaling each other about their summer adventures.
Carriages and wagons were being carefully unpacked, bags tossed into the hands of unsuspecting siblings, and eyes scanning eagerly for the couples that would set tongues throughout campus wagging.
Fiyero leaned against the stone column in front of the girl’s dormitory with a bored expression, cerulean eyes scanning the incoming arrivals. After he’d secured Feldspur in the Shiz stables, offered him two apples in thanks for agreeing to make the long journey from the Vinkus to Shiz, and changed out of his traveling clothes, he’d wandered down the halls and decided he’d wait for his girlfriend.
The summer apart had been curious- with Sarima cancelling her plans to leave the Emerald City and vacation in the Vinkus with him for the two weeks before school started. It had left him annoyed and a bit confusified- he wasn’t hurt, because he’d long since stopped having romantic feelings for Sarima, but Galinda had insisted that he had given off “a faint sense of bitterness” every time they’d crossed paths. Her last letter had been apologetic and had promised they would talk when they reunited at Shiz. He hasn’t thought anything of it. If he was truly honest, he hadn’t thought about much else than the fact that the hot and heavy reunion he had imagined would be much harder to orchestrate at Shiz.
Oz, he needed to get laid. He and Sarima weren’t good for open and honest communication, but they were good for sex that had, on occasion, been so incredible it made him swear he saw Lurline. Or maybe that Unnamed God the Unionist ministers were always prattling on about.
Grinning at the thought of Sarima’s plush lips wrapping themselves around his cock, he finally spotted her. Auburn hair styled flawlessly, he watched as she gestured with annoyance at the luggage her feet to her parent’s butler. He could almost hear her perturbed foot stomp over the din of other families saying their goodbyes and promising to write each other. Pushing off of the column, he approached her, eyes taking in her exquisitely tailored uniform.
His fingers skimmed her shoulder, grinning at the audible sigh of several girls near them. Being popular was like currency, Galinda had harped to him on multiple occasions, and at Shiz, he had it in spades.
“Welcome back, Rima. I’ve missed you”, the words were perfunctory and said with a smile that would make even the most hardened woman blush. He’d perfected this part of their routine despite the emptiness of every ardent sentiment that fell from his lips. Still, he’d promised he would give fidelity his best shot with her and had thus far been successful. Bored and unfulfilled. But successful. He cheekily stepped forward and kissed her, expecting her tongue to tangle with his, despite the audience. Instead, Sarima’s lips felt cold and unyielding against his own, which caused him to instantly pull back.
“Rima? What’s-“
“Fi, I told you we needed to talk”, she pouted, “you can’t just go around kissing people without talking first.”
Tossing her auburn hair, Sarima leveled him with an incredulous glare.
Everything about her was near perfection, Fiyero thought. Her skin was free from blemishes, her blue eyes were clear and captivating, her hair smooth and thick. She was his perfect physical match in every way. When he’d first stumbled into her on his first day at Shiz, he couldn’t believe his good luck. A high-ranking woman who was gorgeous and could play the social game with expert precision. A woman his parents would be pleased to see him bring home. Over the years, he’d come to see her for what she was. Artificial, vapid, and empty.
He’d taken extra steps to ignore the way she toyed with the other girls at Shiz, he’d looked the other way when she’d flirted with other guys, and had ignored that she didn’t stir at his soul. After all, he’d flirted, hadn’t he? He’d ignored her in favor of parties and had never truly let her in.
With her at his side, he expected his life to unfold predictably. He’d marry Sarima, they’d have a dull marriage where they would produce the expected heir, and he would rule the Vinkus when his father died. It was all laid out in front of him- predictable, constricting, suffocating. He would never have a say, just a path he was expected to follow with nothing to look forward to. Now, here he was, with a girlfriend who seemed like she was deviating from the path.
Bewildered, Fiyero jerked a hand through his hair and raised his eyebrow, “What in Oz’s name is going on, Sarima?”
“Well, Fi, when my parents took me to the Emerald City this summer, I met someone.”
Fiyero stepped back as if the world was suddenly unsteady, “Sarima, you can’t possibly be serious. We’ve been together for four years. My parents are expecting an engagement soon-“
“Sometimes love is love. I can’t help who I fell in love with, Fiyero. I think you’d like him. Handsome, rich as sin, incredible lover, knows where all the best parties are-“
As she simpered on, Fiyero realized that this was likely the final nail in his coffin. Socially, being dumped would hurt his reputation. Royally, though, his parents would desire to marry him off in a politically advantageous pairing.
His skin prickled in awareness as the courtyard grew quiet. They’d drawn a crowd- one that had no doubt already set the grapevines ablaze with news that the most swankified prince in all of Oz had just been dumped by a Sarima of Quadling County. He also knew that if he played it just right, he could be expelled and at another school in three clock turns.
Except, something was niggling at brain.
“Who?”
She stopped short, “What?”
Who is it?
Sarima’s eyes narrowed, “Lord Chuffrey. His father died recently and he inherited the title-“
Fiyero’s brain recalled him instantly. A sharp jawline, beady eyes, and an insipid moron. He was a few years older than them, the eldest son of the previous Lord Chuffrey who was the fourth in his line. They’d made their money in the emerald mines. Word around Oz was also that he had an eye for gambling, not that Sarima seemed to have heard that. Irritation coursed through him, clear and strong. Sarima was dumping him for Lord Chuffrey.
“And the fact that you would have been a Queen? You’d throw that away for a Lord?” Fiyero could practically see Galinda rolling her eyes at his question, knowing that his sister would likely encourage him to not look the gift horse in the mouth and accept the break up with dignity.
“Oh, Fi, a girl like me? I was never going to settle for being the Queen of a place like the Vinkus. You were fun to hang around with. We were good together but I deserve more than being some Winkie princess, don’t I?”
Fiyero stumbled back, flinching in surprise. In all of the time he’d spent with Sarima, he’d never imagined this. He’d never seen this lurking behind her shrewd eyes. Vapid, shallow, and empty but never a prejudiced ghoul.
“Oh, you did? Fi, that’s just so sweet. I never-“
“The Arjiki people will be blessed to not suffer such a pathetic and weak-willed Queen”, he gritted out. Turning on his heels, he left her in the courtyard, mouth agape and stuttering. Hushed whispers trailed after him, with students giving him a wide-eyed berth, until he made it to the stables and stomped into Feldspur’s stall.
With one look at him, Feldspur immediately trotted forward, nosing Fiyero’s shoulder with sympathy, “I just heard. I expected you sooner, to be honest. Screaming in the courtyard? An illegitimate baby? It sounded quite dramatic.”
“How on Earth did you just hear? It just happened! Besides, it was nothing like that”, Fiyero’s eyes narrowed and he sank on the bale of hay in the corner with a huff.
“Word travels fast, apparently”, Feldspur mused.
He swished his tail and shook his head at the whispers filling the stable, eyeing Fiyero critically. He’d hated Sarima since their first meeting when she’d worn impractical heels to the stables to meet him. Things had worsened over the years, with her refusing to acknowledge him as an Animal who spoke or merited respect. He’d made his dislike known but had known that Fiyero was between a rock and a hard place in terms of courting someone his parents would approve of. Sarima, for all of her faults, was of good breeding. Which, Feldspur had mused, made her good for breeding. After countless discussions, that had seemed like the most important thing. Now, watching his young friend pace back and forth irritably, he wished he had been more forceful in proclaiming his dislike.
“I need to-“
“Ride? And here I thought you were just here to talk.”
“I’m sorry, Feldspur. I can’t-“
“Let’s go," the Horse interrupted, “a good hard ride will clear your mind.”
“Can you manage it, old friend? Our trip from the Vinkus wasn’t exactly a stroll in the countryside.”
“I’d bite you for that insult if I didn’t think your pride was already wounded. I’m practically a filly.”
Fiyero laughed and grabbed his saddle off of the shelf, “Thank you, Old Friend.”
“Think nothing of it, Fiyero. I’m glad you came here instead of doing something stupid.”
As Fiyero mounted, he grinned, “Don’t worry Feldspur, the day is still young and I fully plan to get rip-roaring drunk tonight.”
With a groan, Feldspur bolted out of the stables, knowing a long night was ahead of him.