Chapter Text
February at Shiz came much faster than any of the students had anticipated. Except for Elphaba who couldn't wait for the second semester to start.
The light snow was falling over the campus, submerging it under its white veil. Elphaba absent-mindedly pulled the collar of her coat up as a few snowflakes fell on the back of her neck, tingling her skin with their cold touch. Her hand instinctively reached out for the hood of Nessa's jacket, but her sister swatted her fingers away with a soft smile.
"I'm fine, Fabala," she said, grasping Elphaba's hand in understanding - she knew her older sister couldn't wait to step on Shiz's ground again after a month at home.
Elphaba had spent January at Munchkinland being oddly distracted and rather distanced from her family, at least emotionally speaking. Yes, she did all of her chores as she usually had to but halfheartedly. Almost all of her energy and undivided attention was reserved for her pens and papers as she sat down almost daily and wrote a letter for a few of the people at Shiz that were close to her heart. She always wrote one to Galinda who in turn sent Elphaba not one but usually two letters and an envelope with polaroids once every few days. Her packages were easily recognizable among the other mail the Thropp house received because of the strong fruity smell coming from them and the usually bright pink envelopes they arrived in. Governor Thropp always sneered at those letters, throwing them on the desk in the foaye for Elphaba to gather, with obvious annoyance.
"You tell your friends at Shiz to stop sending those ridiculous letters in our mail at once!" he would say, stressing the word 'friends' as if he didn't believe Elphaba could actually have any "Do you know how embarrassing it is for me to have to receive that?"
Eventually, the bring color turned to a duller shade of baby pink which her father also loathed but at least could partially tolerate.
After her daily letter to Galinda, Elphaba would occasionally - usually weekly, write a short letter to Boq. The munchkin boy had grown quite close to the Thropp sisters and Galinda during their last couple of months at university but it still shocked Elphaba when she received a letter from him during their first week of the break after their finals. She had expected him to only write to Nessa, which he did, but he obviously felt it was wrong to leave Elphaba out of this. So the three of them fell into a friendly routine of sending each other a letter, sharing their experiences and stories from the past week or so. Sometimes Nessa even decided not to write Boq anything because she knew how diligently Elphaba wrote her letters - she felt it was pointless to write the almost same thing all over again and send it to him to read. Afterward, the two sisters would sit in the living room and read the letters together, laughing and commenting on the stories their friend was writing about.
"Elphaba, stop slothing around the house." Frex would barge into the living room and shout when the two sisters' laughter would get loud "And stop bothering your sister with those stupid letters of yours."
He had grown to hate the mailman who seemed to stop by their house daily in recent times, always with a letter for his older daughter. He didn't particularly hate the letters but the fact they were consuming Elphaba's time and energy bothered him beyond imaginable. Ever since she got back from Shiz she would carry herself much more freely than before and Frex could see she didn't feel as obliged to follow his orders as before. What he dreaded the most was the fact that she dared to say 'no' to him much more often. The previous guilt that used to torment her was seemingly less effective to Frex's wishes and she stood up straighter, with less burden on her shoulders - she was happier. And the Governor found she was less obedient when she was happy. He found himself with the unspeakable desire to stop her from going to this damned university which had given her the illusion that she could do whatever she wanted with her life but he knew he couldn't. He realized that Nessarose needed her older sister at campus with her for support - both moral and physical, and he knew that his younger daughter would never speak to him again if he was to deprive Elphaba of her right to study. So he bit his tongue on one too many occasions even if his actions reeked of spite and hatred which even if Elphaba noticed, didn't seem to be bothered by. Nessa noticed that even after being scolded by their father, Elphaba would still appear much more lively than she did mere months before. Her eyes would shine with a spark, unknown until now, which made Nessa genuinely happy for her sister. She would often come by her room, which she realized she didn't do often before Shiz, and quietly stay with her as Elphaba enthusiastically told her about the newest book she read or the latest letter her roommate had sent her from the Uplands.
The last person Elphaba wrote was Doctor Dillamond, who had given her his address before their mid-term break. Once every two weeks she would sit down and carefully write down all of her thoughts on different books he had recommended her or she had found herself in the local library. He then sent her a very long letter in return, in handwriting only she could decipher properly. Nessa sometimes found it entertaining to try and read his letters by herself with Elphaba chuckling lightly at her attempts.
Even now, looking up at her sister's expression, Nessa could only smile at the obvious giddy anticipation on Elphaba's face. She could swear her sister was ready to jump in the water and swim the rest of the distance between their boat and the campus if it meant she'd reach it faster. Her eyes yet again shone with the same glimmer little kids had on Lurlinemas morning and Nessa squeezed her hand gently which caused Elphaba to turn to her and smile in return as the sisters held a quiet conversation with their eyes. Nessa knew how much Elphaba needed to get away from Munchkinland and their father and Elphaba appreciated how much Nessa supported her need for that. Which was what the two sisters needed to know in this moment as they began to reach the shore.
Elphaba was thinking about those letters as well, putting her other palm on top of the bag next to her, where all of them lay, tied with a white ribbon to keep them from scattering. She wondered if she had missed writing to her friends about anything else that happened to her in the last month but nothing came to her mind - not much was occurring in Munchkinland anyway. She patted the bag absent-mindedly as she counted how many letters she had written in the past January. Probably more than the ones she had written during the rest of her life. She recalled the one time she sat down at her desk, after finishing writing to Galinda, Boq, and Dr Dillamond, and pulled out one more empty piece of paper reluctantly. She lifted her pen which hovered over the paper and she frightfully took a breath in. She wrote the name 'Fiyero' on it so lightly that it was barely visible on the white of the sheet.
In the past few months, Fiyero had become a part of Elphaba's small friend group. Even he and Galinda had managed to stay friends even after their break-up which Elphaba and all of their other friends found inevitable - yes, they were both perfect but it was all nearly too perfect. They soon grew bored of each other and simultaneously decided they were better off as friends. Ever since then, it was the five of them together - Elphaba, Nessa, Galinda, Boq, and Fiyero, almost all of the time even if Elphaba would narrow down the group to only four people if it depended solemnly on her. Yes, she tolerated Fiyero because the others liked him, but she never found herself willingly holding a conversation with him if it was just the two of them. Which was why she found herself so shocked when Nessa received the first letter from him. Not because he wrote to Nessa - the two of them got along pretty well, but because of what the letter was accompanied by. In the small collet, Fieyro had put not one but two packs of Vinkun chocolate. Nessa had handed Elphaba one of them with a snort as she read out loud to her sister. :
I am also sending you some Vinkun chocolate since you said you really wanted to try some. I picked the one with hazelnuts because I think you said you liked them. Pardon me if I don't remember correctly. I'm also sending one for your sister. I wasn't sure which one she liked so I just got her a plain one, I hope it's okay. I would've sent it to her personally but I'm afraid she might just burn down the package before even opening it when she sees my name on it.
Elphaba had spent that evening in front of the empty sheet of paper wondering what to write to him. And if she should even do so. She thought she might come off as rude if she didn't write to him at all after he had been so thoughtful as to send her a gift but something in the idea of sending him a letter didn't seem at all compelling to her. So she ended up crumbling that piece of paper and throwing it in the trash before telling Nessa to thank him on her behalf in her next letter to him. And so, Elphaba ended up not writing to Fiyero at all during their break. Now, sitting mere inches from Shiz she contemplated whether that was the best thing to do. After all, they were considered friends. Or at least, part of the same friend group. No, he was just a friend of her friends, Elphaba finally concluded with certainty. They were never close and she doubted they were ever going to be so it was completely normal for her to not seek any interaction with him. That's what she reminded herself once again as she and Nessa got off the boat and approached the campus of the Dear Old Shiz.