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The desert had taught Elphaba a new kind of silence.
Not the charged, listening quiet of forests at night, or the brittle stillness of laboratories and libraries, or even the heavy hush of Kiamo Ko when grief still clung to its stones. This silence was vast. It stretched. It breathed. It swallowed sound whole and gave nothing back but heat and sky.
They had been crossing it for just over a week when the oasis appeared — a soft, almost insulting miracle of green in a land that had offered them nothing but sand and sun and endurance. Palm trees bowed gently over water that caught the light like glass, and birds flitted in the distance. Life was present in the middle of nowhere, too, so stubborn and alive.
They had stopped there not because they were desperate — Elphaba had been meticulous about that — but because they could. And they were learning to accept small miracles that were given or simply decided to exist.
The bag at her side, small enough to be slung over her shoulder, held food for weeks. There were dried fruits, grains, preserved stews wrapped in careful spells, much like the bag itself, inside much bigger than the exterior. The tent, once unpacked, expanded into something sturdy and cool and merciful, woven with enchantments layered so carefully that even Elphaba sometimes forgot how much magic she had poured into it. It did not reflect light. It did not leave tracks. It did not announce itself to the world.
It existed only for them.
And still, silence was still noticeable, and sharp, and new.
Elphaba lay awake beside Fiyero, staring at the gentle curve of the tent’s ceiling as though it might fracture and spill some long-hidden truth upon her. The fabric glowed faintly with the residue of her magic — a soft, protective shimmer meant to keep the world out — and yet her mind refused to be contained by it.
Sleep would not come. It had circled her, hovered close, but never quite settled.
Her thoughts had been spiraling for hours, quiet at first, a distant hum beneath the rhythm of Fiyero’s breathing, then sharper, faster, looping back on themselves the way they always did when exhaustion met fear. Each worry fed the next, until they blurred into something vast and shapeless, impossible to escape.
What if the stories had traveled faster than they had?
Legends rarely moved at the speed of truth. They leapt ahead, unburdened by fact, carried by fear and fascination alike. She could already imagine them — whispered across borders, reshaped by unfamiliar mouths. The Wicked Witch of the West, no longer bound to Oz, no longer contained. A warning, an enemy, a threat and a name passed between strangers who had never seen her face but thought they knew her soul.
What if the desert wasn’t the hardest part?
The sand had been brutal, yes; endless and merciless, draining them day after day until even magic felt heavy in her veins. But sand was honest in its cruelty. It did not pretend. It did not judge. It simply existed, and demanded endurance. People were never so simple.
What if beyond it lay eyes already narrowed, hands already clenched, doors already closed?
What if there were towns where her skin would mark her before her voice ever could? Where children would be pulled closer, where silence would fall too fast, too complete. Where kindness would be offered carefully, like a test she was destined to fail.
Wicked Witch.
Monster.
Green-skinned bad, bad omen.
The words rose unbidden, unkind and familiar, echoing with voices she had tried and failed to forget. Professors. Citizens. Soldiers. Even those who had once smiled at her, before learning what she was supposed to be afraid of.
Her throat tightened.
What if the world beyond Oz hated her even more for having escaped it?
There was a special cruelty reserved for those who survived. For those who fled instead of breaking. She could imagine the accusations as easily as she imagined the fear: coward, traitor, unnatural thing that refused to die quietly where it belonged.
Beside her, Fiyero slept, warm and solid, one arm curved instinctively around her waist as though even in rest he knew she needed anchoring. His presence was a comfort she clung to — and, paradoxically, another source of fear.
What if she ruined this, too?
She hadn’t moved in a while, but Fiyero knew her well enough now to feel the tension humming beneath her skin. The way her breath shortened, or how her fingers curled into the fabric between them as though bracing for impact.
He didn’t interrupt her thoughts with words, for he knew she seemed to fear them when coming out of her own mouth already. Instead, while her mind wandered places he wasn’t sure even she was welcome into, the prince traced, softly and calmly and lovingly, the new patterns on her skin, bright against the green.
His fingertip followed the blue diamonds along her shoulder, slow and reverent, as if reading a sacred text written only for him. The markings had settled days ago — fully now, luminous in a quiet way that felt less like magic and more like truth. They mirrored his own diamonds perfectly, mapped to her body as if they had always belonged there.
He had fallen in love with them instantly.
Not because they marked her as his — that thought had never once crossed his mind until she brought it up as being something she adored, and who was Fiyero to argue with the most intelligent woman to ever breathe? — but because they marked her as chosen. As someone who had been seen by ancient magic and deemed worthy of gentleness.
He traced one diamond, then the next, then let his hand drift to the line along her spine. His thumb brushed warm circles into her skin, grounding, steady.
“Fae,” he murmured softly, not a question, just her name.
She exhaled, long and shaky, and finally turned her head to look at him. Even in the low light, he could see it in her eyes: the way her thoughts were running too far ahead of her heart.
“I’m sorry. I’m thinking too much,” she admitted quietly, as if confessing a flaw more than just a simple happening.
He smiled, a grin small, fond, unsurprised.
“I know,” he said. “You always do. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
She huffed a weak laugh, then fell quiet again, and Fiyero didn’t push. He simply kept tracing her skin with kind fingers, following the patterns, anchoring her back into her body. He didn’t press, even if she knew he wanted to ask, and learn, and fix whatever it was that troubled her so, so much; but he didn’t, because he knew she needed a moment to make sense of herself.
And so, they remained like that for a while, in tangled limbs, shared warmth, the distant sound of water at the oasis reminding them that rest was allowed.
The journey had been hard in ways neither of them had fully anticipated.
The desert demanded humility, for it stripped them down to necessity. They walked only in the early mornings and late afternoons, resting through the worst of the heat beneath the tent’s cooling spells. Their skin burned despite precautions and their muscles ached constantly. Sleep came heavy and dreamless, then fled too quickly.
And, somehow, it was not unbearable.
They had learned the rhythm of each other again while walking.
Fiyero adjusted his pace instinctively to hers, matching her stride without thinking. Elphaba rationed her magic carefully, choosing when to ease the heat, when to let the desert remind them they were still mortal and when she couldn’t use much of her force at all, allowing her body not to be as battered as it had become in the lands they had left behind to never once come back again. They spoke little during the hardest stretches, but never felt lonely.
At night, when the cold came and things were just a bit more difficult, they told stories.
Sometimes of Shiz, half-laughed and half-mourned. Sometimes of nothing at all, just observations about the stars, about the way the desert seemed to hum if they listened long enough. Fiyero spoke of the Vinkus with a softness he hadn’t realized he carried but she had fallen in love with so long before; Elphaba listened like someone learning a language she had always wanted to speak.
And every morning, without fail, they woke touching — hands tangled, legs pressed together, as if some part of them still feared waking alone.
Now, at the oasis, with a moment of safety carved out of the endless sand, Elphaba’s fear had finally caught up with her.
“What if they know?” she asked suddenly, voice barely above a whisper while she rested her head over his clotheless chest. “What if the stories reach everywhere? What if there is nowhere I can go without being that— that thing?”
Fiyero’s hand stilled.
He lifted himself slightly so he could see her properly, really see her. Her face was drawn with fatigue, yes — but also with something sharper, more fragile.
He cupped her cheek gently, thumb brushing beneath her eye.
“Then we will leave again,” he said simply.
She frowned, caught off guard.
“You wouldn’t—?”
“I would,” he said without hesitation. “Every time. As many times as it takes for you to feel safe, Fae.”
Her eyes searched his, as if looking for the crack, the condition, the place where he might falter.
There was none.
“You are not something to be endured,” he continued softly. “You are not a burden people get to weigh and measure. You are Elphaba. Brilliant, gorgeous, loving Elphaba. And if someone cannot see past the stories, then they don’t get you. They don’t get us.”
Her throat tightened.
“And if they see me and decide I am dangerous?” she whispered.
Fiyero smiled then — not amused, but fierce in a quiet way.
“Well, they will be right,” he said. “But not for the reasons they think.”
That finally pulled a real laugh from her, startled and warm.
She shifted closer, pressing her forehead to his chest, breathing him in like she needed proof he was real and so completely hers. His arms wrapped around her without thought, holding her firmly, securely.
He felt, then, the way her body tightened against his, the subtle tremor that had nothing to do with the desert night cooling around them. Fiyero’s hand paused at the small of her back, fingers splayed as if to anchor her there, and he tilted his head just enough to rest his cheek against her hair.
“Fae,” he murmured, low and careful. “What’s going on, really?”
For a moment, the witch didn’t answer. Her breath hitched once, twice, like she was testing whether it was safe to let the truth out without it breaking something fragile between them. Then her fingers curled into his shirt, gripping him with quiet desperation.
“I’m scared,” she said finally, and the words came out small, stripped of all their usual sharpness. “I don’t think I can do it again.”
He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t rush to soothe it away. He simply held her tighter, one arm firm around her shoulders, the other pressed warm and steady at her waist.
“I can’t be that person again,” she went on, voice trembling now. “I can’t be the villain. I can’t be the monster people decide I am before I even speak.” Her breath stuttered, and she shook her head against his chest. “I survived it once because I had to. Because there was no other choice. But I don’t think I’m strong enough to survive it again.”
Her words spilled faster now, fear unraveling the careful control she had held for days.
“And you shouldn’t have to,” she added, tears finally breaking free. “You shouldn’t have to stand next to someone everyone hates. You shouldn’t have to fight the world just because you love me. I don’t want your life to be smaller because of me.”
Her body curled inward as she spoke, folding into him like she was trying to disappear into the space his arms made. She trembled openly now, silent sobs shaking her frame, years of being braced for cruelty crashing down all at once.
Fiyero’s heart ached so sharply it stole his breath.
He wrapped himself fully around her, pulling her closer until there was no space left for doubt between them. One hand slid up to cradle the back of her head, fingers threading gently through her hair, while the other pressed firmly between her shoulder blades — solid, unyielding, there.
“Hey,” he whispered, voice thick but steady. “Hey. Look at me, my love.”
She didn’t lift her head, but she stilled just enough to listen.
“You are not weak for being afraid,” he said quietly. “You are tired. And anyone who lived what you lived would be,” his thumb brushed slow, grounding circles into her skin. “You were strong because you had no choice. That doesn’t mean you’re meant to keep bleeding for it.”
Her sob broke a little louder at that, and she clutched him harder.
“And listen to me,” he continued, pressing his forehead to hers now, their breaths mingling. “You are not ruining my life by loving me. You are not dragging me into something I don’t choose,” his voice softened, fierce and gentle all at once. “I am here because I want to be. Every step, every mile and every consequence. Nothing in my life is bigger than loving you, Elphaba.”
She shook her head faintly, disbelief still clinging to her.
“I know the world can be cruel,” he went on. “I know it might see you through stories and lies before it ever sees you. And I won’t pretend that it doesn't scare me too,” he exhaled slowly. “But I would rather face a hard world with you than live an easy one without you. I’ve done the pretending. I’ve done the cowardice. I won’t do it again.”
Her breathing began to slow, just a little, as his words settled around her like a shield.
“You are not a monster,” he said firmly. “You are a woman who survived being made one.”
Elphaba finally lifted her face then, tear-streaked and vulnerable, eyes shining with fear and something dangerously close to hope. She stayed like that for a long moment — forehead pressed to his chest, breath uneven, fingers still curled into the fabric of his shirt as if letting go might mean falling apart again. The desert was silent beyond the tent walls, the oasis breathing softly in the distance, but inside her head the noise still rang.
“I just…” Her voice broke before the sentence could finish. She swallowed and tried again. “I just want a life, Yero.”
He felt, then, the way her words weren’t dramatic or grand more than they were tired, earnest and so awfully, rawly human.
“A quiet one,” she went on, barely above a whisper. “A long one. I want mornings that don’t feel borrowed, nights where I don’t listen for footsteps or spells or shouting crowds,” her fingers loosened slightly, resting flat against his chest now, right over his heart. “I want a life with you. I want to grow old beside you. I want peace to last longer than a moment.”
Fiyero’s breath left him in a soft, unguarded exhale.
She tilted her head just enough to look at him, eyes glassy and earnest and aching.
“I want it to end,” she confessed, tears slipping free again. “The fear, the running away, the— the desert. The voices in my head telling me it won’t last. I want them to be wrong.”
His smile came slowly not sharp or triumphant but wide and luminous, like something inside him had finally been allowed to unfold. He cupped her face gently, thumbs brushing away tears as if they were nothing more than passing rain.
“Oh, Fae,” he murmured, voice warm with wonder. He rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed, smiling like a man who had just been handed the future he never let himself believe in. “I want all of that, too.”
He opened his eyes then, and the fire in them had softened into something steadier, deeper — devotion stripped of bravado. His hands slid up her arms, slow and grounding, thumbs tracing comfort into her skin as if memorizing her in this moment of truth.
“I want the mornings,” he said quietly. “The ordinary ones. The ones where the sun rises and nothing terrible follows it.” A breathy, almost disbelieving laugh left him. “I want to argue over nothing, and laugh about it later. I want to know what your hair looks like when time is kind to it. I want to be there when peace finally stops feeling like a borrowed thing.”
His smile lingered — and then, slowly, it faltered.
Because he felt it. The tension still living beneath her ribs. The way her body held itself as though braced for impact, even in his arms.
“But I know you’re hurting,” he went on, voice lowering, roughened by restraint. His hands tightened just a little, not to trap her but as if holding her together. “I know you carry it with you. Every mile of it. Every name you lost, every night you survived.”
He pulled back enough to look at her fully, reverently, like a truth he would never look away from.
“And if I could,” he confessed, something dark and fierce threading through his words, “I would take it from you. I would burn it down to nothing. The fear, the memories that still claw at you when you close your eyes. I would turn your past to ash so it could never hurt you again.”
His jaw tightened.
“I would scorch the desert itself if it meant you could sleep without listening for ghosts.”
Silence followed his words, thick, tender, dangerous in its honesty and, when Fiyero finally stilled, when the fire in him quieted into watchfulness, she moved.
Elphaba lifted her head from his chest and looked at him, really looked — at the love written into his every line, at the ache that mirrored her own. Slowly, deliberately, she reached for his hand.
“No,” she said softly.
She guided his hand downward, pressing his palm against her chest — right where the diamonds arched beneath her clavicle, catching the low light, curving with her breath. His fingers stilled there, reverent, startled.
“I don’t want it gone,” she said. Her voice trembled, but it did not break. “Not my past. Not the pain.”
His brows drew together, confused, wounded.
“Fae—”
“That is where you come from,” she interrupted gently, her hand still holding his, keeping him there. “That is where we come from,” her thumb brushed over his knuckles. “If I forget what came before the desert… I forget the friends I once had. The hands that held mine. The people who taught me how to love before I knew what it cost.”
Her eyes softened, shining, and Fiyero’s thumb caressed the underside of her eye softly, a touch meant simply to ground the woman in that moment, in the two of them.
“Forgetting it all would mean forgetting you. Forgetting how I learned your name. Forgetting how I learned to survive long enough to meet you.”
She leaned closer, pressing her forehead to his, their breaths mingling. Fiyero felt dizzy, much like he always did — her effect over his being would never cease to amaze him, to enchant him, to make him thank all the gods and saints and devils for allowing such a world to exist and such a woman to be somewhere within his reach.
“I don’t want a life without scars,” she whispered, and Fiyero swore he did his best to resgister every single one of her words regardless of the spinning of his head and the hammering of his heart. “I want a life where they finally stop hurting. And where I get to remember every reason I made it here. To you.”
He kissed her.
Because what else could he do, really?
He kissed her slowly, this time — like a promise rather than a plea. His arms came around her with quiet certainty, pulling her in until there was no space left for doubt, until her chest rested over his heart again and the steady thrum of it soothed something raw inside her. She kissed him back with the same gentleness, the same reverence, hands sliding up his back as if memorizing the shape of him all over again.
For a while, they said nothing, and their mouths spoke in pauses and breaths, in the way he lingered just a second longer before pulling away, in the way she followed him without thinking, like her body already knew where it belonged.
When they finally parted, it was only by inches. His forehead rested against hers, their breaths mingling, shared and uneven.
“I once read something,” he murmured, voice low and a little breathless, as if the thought itself still startled him.
She tilted her head, lifting one eyebrow with faint, teasing humor.
“You? Reading?” she teased softly. “This I must hear.”
A quiet laugh left him, warm and fond.
“I was young,” he admitted. “Still foolish enough to believe I knew better than the world.”
Her thumb traced a slow line along his jaw.
“Go on, then.”
“It was about soulmates,” he said. The word sounded almost reverent on his tongue now. “Old writing, ancient, even then. It spoke of souls not bound by time, not by body. Souls that recognize one another no matter the form, the lifetime, the distance.”
Her teasing softened into something attentive, something tender.
“I thought it was nonsense,” he continued. “A pretty story for those afraid of being alone. I remember scoffing, thinking love was coincidence, or convenience, or hunger.”
His hand slid to her back, holding her closer as if the thought of ever letting her go now felt unbearable.
“But standing here,” he said quietly, eyes searching hers, “I know better.”
She inhaled softly.
“My soul would find yours anyway,” he said. “Anywhere. Anywhen. Mortal or immortal, prince or monster, witch or woman, Fae; it would not matter. I was made to hold you,” his thumb brushed along her spine, grounding and sure. “And you were made to be found.”
Emotion shimmered in her eyes, but she smiled something small, brave, achingly real.
“If souls can cross lifetimes,” he went on, voice steadier now, imbued with conviction, “then we can cross the desert. We can cross fear, and prophecy, and every cruel thing that ever tried to keep us small.”
She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his again.
“The future,” he whispered, “will be beautiful. Not because it will be easy — but because it will be built with love. Ours. Stone by stone. Day by day.”
Her hand guided his to her chest then, placing his palm over the diamonds beneath her clavicle, guiding him into the familiar arch there, her breath hitching softly at the contact.
Her breath caught beneath his hand, a soft, fragile sound, as if something inside her had finally loosened its grip.
For a moment, she could only feel him — the steady warmth of his palm over her heart, the quiet rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek, the way the world seemed to narrow until there was nothing beyond the circle of his arms. The desert, the fear, the endless questions of what waited for them beyond the horizon all dimmed, like stars paling before dawn.
“I’m tired,” she whispered at last. It wasn’t a physical exhaustion of walking or running, but of holding herself together. “I’m tired of being afraid.”
“I know,” he murmured instantly, without judgment, without trying to fix it. His arms tightened around her, solid and sure, a promise made of flesh and bone. “You don’t have to be strong tonight.”
She swallowed, pressing closer, her forehead sliding down until her nose brushed his collarbone. His skin was warm, familiar, grounding. She kissed him there, softly at first, reverently as always, as if memorizing the simple truth of him. Another kiss followed, and another, scattered along his chest, over his heart, each one a quiet vow of its own.
“I don’t want legends,” she said, voice trembling but honest. “I don’t want prophecies or songs or to be remembered at all, not even as a hero or as someone good,” her lips brushed his skin again, lingered there. “I just want a life. A quiet one. A long one.”
His breath stuttered.
“With me?” he asked, even if he knew the answer.
“With you,” she added, finally lifting her gaze to his, a smile so wide on her own lips.
The smile that broke across his face was wide and unguarded, almost boyish in its joy — as if she had handed him the sun without realizing it. His hand slid up her back, cradling her gently, thumb stroking slow circles that soothed more than any spell.
“Then that’s what we’ll have,” he said, with a certainty that felt unshakable. “A life. Mornings that come no matter what the world thinks of us. Nights like this,” his forehead rested against hers again. “And time. As much of it as this world will allow.”
Her eyes stung, but this time the tears didn’t fall. She leaned in, closing the last inch between them, and kissed him — slow, deep, unhurried. It wasn’t desperate or fearful like the feelings hidden and hanging in her chest. It was a kiss full of waiting, of choosing, of the quiet awe of realizing she was no longer alone in her wanting.
He kissed her back just as tenderly, holding her as though she were something precious, something earned. When they finally parted, it was only so he could guide her gently down, pulling the blankets around them, enclosing her against his chest.
“Sleep,” Fiyero whispered into her hair, pressing a kiss there. “Morning will come. And when it does, we’ll be even closer to our future, my love.”
Elphaba nodded, already drifting, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as if afraid he might vanish if she let go. He wrapped himself around her completely, a shield against every voice that had ever called her wicked, monstrous, wrong.
She fit there. Perfectly.
Fiyero’s breaths were steady, his heart was strong and so entirely hers, and the night was still cold, still long, still dark.
But, somehow, the silence wasn’t as terrifying anymore.