Chapter Text
Elphaba Thropp was eight years old when she watched her five year old sister Nessarose be cared for in a way she never even dreamed possible for herself, when she realized that she got a special kind of treatment she never had.
Much like herself, Nessarose was an omega. She could still remember the scent of lavender, frankincense and passion fruit from the moment the baby first got home, along with the sad news that their mother had passed, thanks to the milk flowers that Melena had chewed on during her pregnancy. They also made Nessa’s little legs all tangled, meaning she wouldn’t be able to walk. Such factors mixed with her omega status were more than enough reason for Frex to instantly become very protective of her. And at first, Elphaba really thought that was the entire reason he clearly had so much preference over Nessa.
Until the day she watched Frex come home with many blankets and pillows.
Nessa was five and she and Elphaba were playing with their plushies, Nessa had a brand new one shaped like a cat, while Elphaba’s was a hand-me-down one that used to belong to Melena. It was shaped like a red macaw and there was a button you could press to make it sing for you. The button didn’t work anymore, though, but Elphaba still liked to pretend it did and so she would press that button and imagine the lovely song that was supposed to come out of it. It reminded her of her mother, and how Melena used to sing lullabies.
As they were playing, Frex approached Nessa calmly, his voice warm and gentle.
“My sunshine, daddy would like to show you something. Can you please stop playing for a bit?” Elphaba looked up as Nessa put a little smile in her lips and nodded, turning on her wheelchair which Frex soon pushed towards the bed in her room. They were there, of course, all of the toys would stay in Nessa’s room, except for that red macaw.
Carefully, Frex took Nessa out of her chair and sat her on the bed. He had bought her many things: pillows, sheets, blankets, even a new plush that looked like a monkey. Elphaba couldn't help the jealousy that seemed to install in her chest. She wished she could throw herself on top of those soft things. But she knew better of course.
“Daddy got you these today. I have something very important to show you… Are you paying attention?”
“Yes!”
“Okay. Here…” He got one of the new elastic blankets and turned it upside down, so he could start filling it up with pillows to make it firm. Then, he started filling the inside of that with the blankets, sheets and Nessa's plushies in the end. “When you grow older, as an omega, there will be certain times you’ll feel different… You should start getting those soon. You may really want to cry or need someone to take care of you and that is perfectly normal.”
Elphaba frowned at that. That happened with her, every three months or so, but she had always assumed it was just sadness that washed over her. It made sense that it was timed since usually she could just pretend she didn’t feel as lonely as she did.
“Oh… Okay.” Nessa agreed, a little confused.
“When you feel like this, it means you need to make yourself very comfortable and safe. Daddy will be there for you when needed, okay? But if I’m at work, you can ask Dulcibear or Elphaba to be with you. It is very important that you build your nest to keep yourself safe and warm.”
A nest? Elphaba blinked a couple of times. Was she supposed to be doing that? Was that why when she felt that need to have someone cuddling her when she felt oddly clingy, she would want to put her blankets in a circle around herself?! She never really told anyone about that, not even Dulcibear, since she didn't want to bother anyone.
Was she supposed to be doing that this whole time to feel safer?!
She swallowed hard, trying to keep herself from crying and she held her plushie close to her body, embracing it tight. In the background, she could hear Nessa’s laughter and the rustling sound of the fabric moving as Nessa rearranged her nest to suit however she wanted to look like. She could also hear soft words coming from Frex. And through her peripheral vision, she could see how he touched her hair, sweetly, softly. How he loved her so.
Maybe Elphaba just wasn’t worthy of that love, not when she had been responsible for what happened to Melena.
Her breath was hitching, but she had to swallow it up. She couldn’t cry in front of her father. Every time that happened, it didn’t end well for her.
However, her attention was caught up again, when she felt something up in the air.
Once Nessa finished rearranging the circle, Frex started teaching her something else. A language that Elphaba probably wasn't supposed to know, and yet somehow, she knew exactly what it meant.
An incantation. A protection spell.
A Lurlinist protection spell.
Odd, her father had always been an Unionist who rejected the pagan ways, and she could tell from the tone of his voice that he wasn't too happy about teaching that to Nessarose, but it sounded as if it was a need. Something omegas had to learn.
Well, but not Elphaba. Never Elphaba.
The nest was surrounded by a soft yellow glow now, and Elphaba could no longer feel Nessa’s scent as strongly as before, just a faint resemblance of it. She could see that she was inside the nest with their father, completely safe.
The young girl had to leave the room, to keep her family from seeing her tears.
As she grew up, she watched that happen every three months when Nessa started feeling especially clingy which she soon learned meant she was about to go into “proto-heat”. Elphaba’s own proto-heats seemed to sync up with her sister’s, and thankfully, she could at least stay inside Nessa’s nest with her. She had unofficially become Nessa’s protector and caretaker when the adults weren’t nearby which meant she was the one who had to be with her sister during her proto-heats, despite the symptoms Elphaba herself would have. There was no resting because she had a fever if her sister was feverish. There was no crying from all those feelings inside her if her sister was crying.
There was no building up a nest for herself if she needed to stay inside Nessa’s.
The other thing Elphaba learned about nests as she grew up was that they were very particular to each person. At school, she would hear the other omega children speaking about how each of them would make their own, with their favorite toys and plushies. With blankets of their favorite colors and little things that would have their parents’ scents such as clothes or even bed sheets from their beds. Children whose entire personalities were made out of love. They were all so incredibly bright, their personalities so cheery, even the most shy ones.
Elphaba didn’t feel like she fit. Partially because no one wanted to keep close to her thanks to her green skin. Or the fact she smelled like some sort of forest, like musk and mint and wood; a scent that was mostly unusual compared to the sweet or fruity smells that would come from other omegas. Or how she would always bring the same toy on Fridays, when children were allowed to take their toys to school.
No, she didn’t fit in that school. And even then, she was bound to be Nessa’s caretaker, because should her younger sister need anything, anything at all, she would turn to Elphaba who never had the courage to tell her no.
Most school years went like that. And despite her intelligence, Elphaba was forced to be a few grades below where she should be. Nessa didn’t even need that much care anymore as she grew up, she was very capable of doing things on her own. Of making friends on her own.The more friends she made, the more she seemed to start actively just avoiding Elphaba altogether, as if she was embarrassed of her somehow.
The only one who actually seemed to care about Elphaba, to give her attention, even love was Dulcibear. When the entire world seemed to be too loud, too hurtful, she was the anchor that would make the young omega feel like she finally landed somewhere warm, her bear hugs keeping Elphaba grounded when she needed to.
But even she couldn’t help her with the nest. Because every time she even dared to try to help Elphaba with it, there was some sort of scolding coming from Frex, about how the young girl was supposed to be taking care of Nessa and there was no time for her to build a nest.
And just like that, they grew up. It couldn’t get worse than that, could it?
Elphaba was 15 the first time she had an actual heat. She woke up in a morning where she was already expecting the proto-heat to happen. She knew she would probably want to cry and have to hold those feelings inside, that she would have to lay with Nessa in her beautiful maroon nest and wonder what it would be like to have one of her own. She was used to it at this point.
What she was not ready for, was to wake up with an awful cramp that seemed to spread from her ovaries to her lower back, making her twist in bed, letting out a moan of pain as she hugged the red macaw close to herself, shivering a little.
What was that? Was she dying?! Maybe she was. And if she did, well… At least the Thropps wouldn’t have any reason to be embarrassed anymore.
Her entire body was also so warm. So incredibly hot. She wanted to take off all of her clothes and just lay completely naked in there, just so she could get some relief from that, but if anyone entered her room, it would just be embarrassing, so she just laid in there, feeling as if she was melting.
There was something weird about her private parts as well. As if they were also quite warm. And it felt kind of wet? Was she actually dying through there?! Was that what was happening? That was such an embarrassing way to die.
Heats usually happened around Elphaba’s age. Perhaps, she would know that if she had started school at the same time as everyone else and was in the proper school year for it, because she would have learned about it a year ago.Being in Sixth Grade along with Nessa… She had no idea what was happening to her.
All she knew was that she really wanted a nest around her. That was a need she didn’t think she had ever felt before. To have the pillow and cushions surrounding her. To say the damn incantation. To feel safe inside the place that was just natural for omegas to build. Her instincts, her body, her heart craved it intensely. She craved it so much it was embarrassing, especially because she couldn’t stop crying and she couldn’t say if it was the pain or just her never ending need for a nest.
It had been about ten minutes post her usual waking up hour when Frex entered her room, already mad.
“Elphaba Thropp! It’s your sister’s first day of–” He froze once he realized what was happening, finding his daughter squirming, hands over her belly as she moaned in pain. He didn’t move, unsure of what to do. But soon, Dulcibear was inside the room, gently brushing a paw through her hair.
“Oh, little one… You’re a big girl now.” She said sweetly. Elphaba trembled.
“I… I think I’m d-dying, actually.” Dulcibear shook her head.
“No, honey… It’s just heat. Your very first one.” She learned in to place a soft kiss to her head, before turning to Frex. “Frex… The girl needs a nest. Please… You can’t just leave the poor thing like this.”
“Don’t all omegas go through it? I’m sure she can take care of herself. Nessarose is having her proto-heat right now and she really needs company.”
“Excuse me?! Frex, please… Proto-heat is… Nothing like actual heat. Elphaba is in pain. She needs either a nest or…” Dulcibear looked at him seriously and he let out a long sigh.
In her hazy state, the words barely made sense to Elphaba, but she could remember how Dulcibear had told her something about heats. Yes, she remembered now. School never did. And of course, Dulcibear had been very nice and sweet about it when she explained. Perhaps even too sweet, because Elphaba didn’t remember being ready for it to hurt this much.
“Alpha pheromones…” He rolled his eyes. “Why wasn’t she on suppressants, Dulcibear?”
“I… Told you she should be ever since last year. But you didn’t listen to me.”
“Well, put her on suppressants now… Her sister needs her.”
“There is no way I am putting her on suppressants now! You know it’s dangerous to do it after heat has already started!”
“Dangerous…?”
“Yes. To her health. She could develop some sort of disease…” Dulcibear says worriedly, once again caressing Elphaba sweetly. “Please… It’s just five days, I can stay with her.”
“D-Dulcibear…” Elphaba moaned. “It’s fine. I’m… I can handle this. D-don’t leave Nessa on her…” She breathed hard, squirming. “Own. P-please.”
“See, she can take care of herself.” Frex emphasized and Dulcibear looked from him to Elphaba and then back to him. For a brief moment, she didn’t look like the sweet docile Bear who took care of that family, but more like an actual wild bear ready to tear someone in half, gazing at Frex like some sort of predator. He trembled. “But. I guess we can give her some things to build a nest.”
The things Elphaba got were, of course, hand-me-downs. A few gray-colored blankets, old, flattened pillows and some rough, white sheets. Staring at them, she wasn’t sure if it would have been better to just stay nest-less, but those terrible cramps that insisted on stinging her with pain seemed to tell her otherwise. Elphaba sighed heavily and took the materials, starting to try and fill in the elastic sheet with the pillow and to make it as comfortable as possible.
It wasn't pretty, of course. There was no personality to her nest when it was all just… Gray and white, but at least her red macaw plush was inside of it.
Now, there was the incantation… She had seen Nessa doing it a couple of times, but she never truly memorized the words. Still, she knew it, somehow. Magic was something that seemed to come easily to Elphaba, even if often unprompted. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too hard for her to properly close that nest with the needed barrier. She closed her eyes and breathed in, the words leaving her mouth in a chant.
She could feel something, energy circling around her, but it was so weak, barely a spark. It didn’t make sense. She had been able to make things levitate before! So why? Was it because the cramps were making her body incredibly exhausted? Or. Or was it because that nest of hers didn’t look like anything, there was no personality to it. The only thing that Elphaba actually recognized and loved there was her plushie.
Still, having a nest as broken as it was helped a little bit. The cramps were still eating at her and everything hurt and felt wrong and weird. But at least she felt as if she could finally start to calm down a little.
“Go be with your sister when you’re feeling better.” Were Frex’ last words before he left the room.
“Little One, do you need anything?” Dulcibear asked gently, running a paw through her hair. Those rare moments where Elphaba could be alone with her had always been her favorite, the few moments she actually felt loved. Cared for.
“I… I just want this to stop. Is it gonna be like this every time now?!” She asked, trembling and squirming a little.
“It… It won’t be like this when you have it next, okay? The suppressants, they should help. You're still too young for them to kep you from having a heat completely, but the pain won’t be there. At least not like this. And… Well, you'll probably still get the side effects. For a while.”
“So I’d get less intense cramps?” Elphaba asked with a hopeful smile, because truly, that was the worst part of it. She could barely feel anything else.
Dulcibear nodded, smiling back at her.
“And… And what… Side effects?”
Dulcibear sighed, sitting beside Elphaba on the bed. A Bear shouldn’t be giving a human sex education, their anatomies were completely different as well as everything else, but Elphaba didn’t truly have anyone else to tell her about that. And since she had been those two girls’ caretaker for so long, she had studied a lot about how Human anatomy, second genders and sex worked.
She loved those girls and she would do her best to play the role she had to play for them.
"Well, when an omega starts having a heat…"
Galinda Upland grew up filled with love.
As soon as she presented as an alpha at the age of three, her parents were extremely proud. Surely this would take the family’s status up, since the Uplands had been mostly betas for generations, while most families around them had many alphas. But Galinda would be special, she would be important. Not just some beta. She would take the Uplands way up in the social scale.
From that age up, Galinda was taught everything she could to be a perfect proper lady. A respectful alpha. She learned ballet, how to play the piano and the violin, singing, pottery, art. And she devoured each of those lessons. She was creative and artistic, she learned things easily and quickly.
There was just one small problem.
Her proto-ruts made her unbearable.
Even if her parents had not noticed that she had presented when they were bathing her, her first rut would make it obvious. Usually, it wasn’t very noticeable for kids that young; they would just become a little more aggressive, brattier but those were also very normal behaviors for any three-year old. Besides, it was rare for an alpha to present that young, the normal age was five or six, but Galinda was an early bloomer.
As soon as it hit her, the very first thing she did was crawl on her bed and gather all of her favorite toys right underneath her, standing on all fours on the bed around them protectively. And as soon as Ama Clutch - her personal maid - went to wake her up, Galinda started growling at her, getting louder if she moved closer. .
“Galinda… Honey… It’s just me…” She dared to approach more and raised her hand to gently touch the girl’s head.
She came out of the room with a bleeding finger, a sharp bite in it.
It took a while for the Uplands to figure out how to control Galinda’s proto-ruts. When their daughter presented as an alpha, they were certainly not expecting a primal alpha, whose behavior reversed completely to those of the first alphas. More than that, as far as most of Oz knew, primal alphas were old Lurlinist legends, not something that was still present today. But the Uplands weren't that surprised, there had been cases of primal alphas in their family tree, many generations ago. They knew there was a chance of a rare child like that. A blessing, as Larena's mother Liezel — who happened to be a Priestess for a Lurlinist coven — would say.
But Larena was never that religious. She was more concerned about something else.
Proper ladies weren’t supposed to growl and behave like a rabid animal. That behavior would have to be controlled somehow.
Physical aggression wasn’t an option. The Uplands would never actively hurt Galinda like that. As desperate as they were about the situation, Galinda was still their precious little girl and they did love her grandly. They did. They just needed her to be perfect so everybody else would love her, too.
Approaching her was too hard, and someone could end up hurt.
They looked for a consultant, a Unionist priest from a church close to their home — much to Liezel's disagreement. But he was the only person in the region who had worked with primal alphas before. And while Liezel thought that Galind should learn how to control her behavior rather than contain it, her parents disagreed.
So, next time Galinda had a proto-heat, they locked her up in her room on her own. And while she didn’t need diapers anymore, but she was starting to get hungry. Very hungry. The rut seemed to make her appetite even bigger than usual and it felt like there was a big hole in her stomach. So why was nobody taking care of it?! Galinda always had everything she wanted right as she wanted!
That’s what the human in her was saying, the frustration making her want to cry. Meanwhile, the alpha really wanted something, anything. The alpha was so, so hungry. Thus, that hunger did the only thing it knew how.
She sat close to the door to her room and started sobbing, it sounded human at first, but soon it started evolving into whines and soon it sounded something like a howl. Not fully formed yet, barely there. But clearly, she was attempting to howl.
Highmusters’ face broke at the sound and his heart sank. He stared at his wife, because the sound, as bad as it was, still seemed to be a cry. Like Galinda was suffering somehow.
“She must be hungry…”
“She’s gonna get fed when she stops acting like that. Primal behaviors aren’t supposed to last too much.” Larena explained.
“Mrs Upland… I don’t mean to pry but. Wouldn’t an alpha needing something make them more agitated, instead of the opposite?” Ama Clutch asked and Larena seemed to consider for a moment.
“If we give her what she wants, we’re simply reinforcing the behavior… Ignoring and giving them positive rewards is the best way to train an animal.”
“Sweetheart… You’re not calling our daughter an animal, are you?” Highmuster asked, shock in his face.
“Oh, no, deary. Of course not. Galinda is a perfectly proper little girl. She’s our sweet princess… The alpha inside her, well… Is way wilder than I expected it would be. But I’m sure it can be domesticated.”