Chapter Text
Chapter 1
In Which Elphaba Agrees to Help a Friend, and Regrets It Almost Immediately
The sultry, humid haze of summer was slowly melting into the crisp golden air of autumn. The early morning sun hit the tips of the ancient oak trees in the Shiz courtyard and slowly turned them into glowing embers.
A thin mist crept on the cobbled path from Elphaba’s dorm as she left it to make her way for an early start at the library.
Elphaba savored the morning walk, enjoying the moody picture it made. Glinda might have appreciated the drama of the moment, if she could be bothered to get up before breakfast bells.
She gave a small wave to Darlene, the morning shift librarian, who was already sorting out the returns tray. She stepped into the small alcove behind the Ethics & Morality section that she had unofficially claimed for herself.
But someone was already there.
“Taven.”
“Dearest.”
“Whatever it is,” Elphaba said dryly, tossing her bag down the empty chair, “the answer is no.”
Taven, like Glinda, was not a morning person. His messy nest of brown hair looked even more rumpled than usual, crusty eyes barely staying open, even as he gave her his best approximation of royal puppy dog.
He was also holding a steaming mug of tea.
It wasn’t just any tea, either: it was the good kind, Taven’s secret stash, meticulously brewed in an incredibly expensive French press and hoarded like it contained liquid gold. Which, technically, it might have. No one could read the tiny Vinkun label. It was only very sparingly shared during minor existential crises, such as impending exams or Glinda’s particularly cutting remarks on his dress sense. And sometimes not even then.
Elphaba took it as an ominous sign.
“Taven,” she said warily, eyeing both the tea and Taven’s overly innocent face, “are you dying, or do you need to hide a dead body? Because I can’t help you with either.”
“Neither,” he said, simply, not even taking the bait. His expression grew even more pitiful, eyes widening, lower lip jutting out.
Which meant he was definitely about to ask her for something appalling.
“I need a favor,” he said, attempting a winning smile. Unfortunately, it landed somewhere between “strangled sheep” and “regretful ghost.”
She arched an eyebrow, but she took the mug all the same. “Have you accidentally bound yourself to another talking animal again? And how did you sneak a beverage in the library?”
“No! No. Nothing like that.” He paused. “Although now that you mention it, the alpaca thing technically wasn’t my fault. And Darlene adores me.”
“Taven.”
“Right, yes. Serious face.” He straightened his collar and took a deep breath. “So… you remember Adaria.”
Elphaba narrowed her eyes. “The girl who called you ‘emotionally exhausting’ in front of her entire theater group?”
“She was joking,” he mumbled.
“She was cruel,” Elphaba said flatly. “And pretentious.”
“I liked that she had opinions!”
“She also referred to your homeland as ‘culturally beige.’”
Taven’s ears turned pink. “Look, she wasn’t perfect. But I thought maybe—just maybe—we had something real. I was even so excited I broke my ban and actually started telling my family about my dating life again.”
He was getting side-tracked again, so Elphaba tried to steer the conversation forward, even as she accepted the tea and sat down, gesturing for Taven to do the same.
“I’m still not sure where this is going.”
“So. Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling a little, though it sounded more bitter than amused. “It’s the Ember Vigil soon, in the Vinkus?”
Elphaba nodded, organizing her notes in front of her. “Oh yes. Isn’t that the festival where you fling yourselves into open flames to please your ancestors?”
“Actually,” Taven said dryly, “we just step over a bonfire the size of a cabbage. Very dignified. No human sacrifices.”
“Am I about to regret agreeing to tea?”
He winced, then rushed his next words out. “I panicked. Okay? I panicked and I might have— sort of —told my family I was bringing my girlfriend with me for Ember Vigil. Next week.”
Elphaba stared at him, puzzle pieces were stacking together in her head but she was hoping her brain was steering her wrong this time.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
“Ask Adaria.”
“I can’t,” he muttered, rubbing both hands over his face. “She broke up with me. Last month.”
Elphaba blinked. “And you didn’t tell your family.”
“They were… excited,” he admitted. “I kept putting it off.”
“Taven.”
“They don’t even know her name,” he added quickly. “I was… sort of vague.”
She gave him a long look. “So what, you want my help to find you a girlfriend? Isn’t that usually easy enough for you?”
He groaned. “No. No, I don’t want a stranger. I’d rather go with someone I already trust. Someone who can hold her own with my family.”
Elphaba folded her arms. “You’re joking.”
“You’re the only person I trust to pull this off,” Taven said in a rush. “You’re brilliant, terrifying, and deeply unlikely to be charmed by anyone in my family, which makes you perfect . Just a week. Pretend to be my loving girlfriend. Smile vaguely. Wear something that won’t make my grandmother faint.”
“That narrows my wardrobe to three items,” Elphaba muttered.
“I’ll owe you forever.”
“Ask Glinda.”
Taven reddened—and he shook his head, shuddering slightly. “Glinda would eat me alive. Or take over the kingdom. You’re…safer.”
“Safer,” she repeated flatly.
“And you’re the only person I know who won’t burst into tears when my grandmother interrogates you.”
“Taven—”
“Please.” His voice softened. “Just for the Vigil. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
She looked at him, at the hopeful tilt of his eyebrows and the ridiculous cup of bribe-tea between them, and felt her resolve cracking.
“One week,” she said finally. “That’s it.”
His face lit up, then he looked sheepish. “Technically ten days? We leave Friday—but I'll have you back here by Sunday next! I promise!"
She sighed, gathering every last scrap of patience she possessed. “You will basically be buying me scones every day for the whole semester. And tea.”
Taven nearly squealed, then clapped his hands over his mouth, remembering where he was. He nodded vigorously, “For the whole year. ”
“Fine. But if I end up with a ring on my finger, I’m chucking you into the ceremonial fire pit.”
“Don’t worry,” he laughed, completely relieved now. “If that happens, I’d jump in there myself.”
It turned out agreeing to impersonate someone’s girlfriend for a week was only the beginning. There were clothes to consider. Etiquette to rehearse. And—apparently—accessories.
Which was how Elphaba found herself in the back corner of Glinda’s favorite secondhand shop, under a sign that read Treasure or Trash? You Decide.
Glinda was in her element, gliding between racks with terrifying purpose.
“Honestly,” she declared, “you need something that looks like you put in effort. You can’t look like the spirits they’re trying to chase away during Ember Vigil.”
“I have a perfectly suitable aesthetic,” Elphaba muttered, pawing through a bin of tarnished trinkets.
“You look like you’d hex their cattle,” Glinda countered sweetly, plucking a jewelry display from the wall.
Elphaba turned—and immediately recoiled.
“What is that?” She couldn’t help the horror that drenched every syllable.
Glinda held up an elaborate set of gold filigree dripping with what looked like a small chandelier’s worth of rhinestones.
“This is festive!” Glinda insisted. “And bold!”
“I refuse to wear something that jingle’s when I breathe,” Elphaba said flatly. “They’d hear it all the way to the Quadlings.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“That belongs in a ballroom ceiling. With candles.”
Glinda sighed, defeated, and set it down. “Fine. What do you suggest, then?”
Elphaba turned back to the bin, determined to find something less offensive to physics. Her hand closed around a small box wedged under a pile of costume pearls. She flipped it open.
Inside was a modest matching set: a thin gold necklace, a ring, and a pair of earrings, each set with oval blue stones that looked almost navy in the dim light.
“Better,” she declared, holding it up.
Glinda eyed it, unimpressed. “It’s… plain.”
“Exactly.”
The shopkeeper ambled over, peering into the box. A stooped old man with spectacles perched halfway down his nose, he gave a dismissive little sniff.
“Three marks,” he said, waving a hand. “Stones are too dull to be worth much.”
“Sold,” Elphaba said firmly, before Glinda could change her mind. She dug in her satchel for coins.
Glinda made a small, disappointed noise. “I still think the chandelier set had more flair.”
“If flair means going blind,” Elphaba muttered, “then yes.”
While Glinda pouted, Elphaba drifted to the rack of evening dresses—just in time for her friend to rally and start again.
“Oh,” Glinda breathed. “Look at this.”
She turned, holding up a deep blue gown with silver embroidery curling along the hem. The fabric shimmered in the low light, catching every speck of dust in the air.
“No,” Elphaba said immediately.
“You haven’t even tried it on.”
“I don’t need to. Absolutely not.”
“It’s dignified. Understated.”
“It is too form-fitting.”
“It’s an elegant silhouette.”
“It has sequins.”
“Crystal beads. And it’s only one or two!”
Elphaba closed her eyes, briefly reconsidering every life choice that had led her here.
“Fine,” she snapped, snatching the hanger from Glinda’s hands. “But I’m burning it after I come back.
Glinda just beamed with satisfaction.
“Oh, they’re going to fall in love with you.”
The long oak table was already in full uproar when Fiyero walked in.
Esme and Corin were elbow-deep in the jam pot, but for entirely different reasons: Esme was carefully spooning dollops onto toast with the solemnity of a priestess, while Corin was sneaking fingerfulls when she thought no one was looking. A footman had been inexplicably consigned to making them origami paper horses out of spare napkins.
Their mother looked up from the letter she was reading. Her whole face lit up when she spotted him.
“Fiyero! You’re just in time. Come sit. You’ll want to hear this.”
“Will I?” He eyed the vacant seat warily, but hung his cloak on the peg all the same.
“Taven wrote,” she announced, tapping the envelope as if it contained a royal decree. “He’s coming home for the Vigil.”
“Doesn’t he always?” Fiyero said, picking up a bread roll.
“Well, this time he’s coming with a guest,” she added, her smile turning almost secretive. “A young woman.”
The twins' heads whipped to their mother in unison.
“Taven’s bringing a girl?” Esme gasped, voice full of awed reverence.
Corin smirked and elbowed her. “Maybe she’s an assassin.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Esme said primly. “She’s probably a lovely poet.”
“Or a jewel thief,” Corin offered, grinning.
“Does she like horses?” Esme demanded.
“If she’s an assassin, she can definitely join us for the shadow hunt.”
“Children,” Fiyero said, holding up both hands, “please—let’s not ambush this poor woman, whoever she is, the moment she steps over the threshold.”
“But we have to!” Esme insisted, clutching her hands to her chest. “It’s tradition!”
“It’s not,” he said flatly.
Corin propped her chin in her jammy hand. “It should be.”
Their mother ignored him entirely, her gaze going soft and hopeful. “When we last spoke, he said she’s very dear to him.”
“Dear,” Fiyero repeated, deadpan. “He used that word, specifically?”
“He did,” she said primly.
He exhaled slowly. “Mother, has everyone forgotten the last person Taven called ‘dear’? The playwright? The one whose subversive one-woman project he’d funded and then who broke up with him on opening night?”
His mother waved this off with alarming cheer. “That was different.”
“And before her,” Fiyero pressed, “the one who—if you’ll recall—tried to ask him for one of the crown jewels?”
Corin perked up. “I liked her.”
“She was interesting,” Esme admitted, with a very serious nod.
“She was a criminal,” Fiyero said.
“She was interested in our culture,” his mother said firmly. “And he did decline.”
“Only after father threatened to disown him.”
Grandmother set down her cup with a decisive little click. “Well, perhaps one of you will finally get married before I’m too old to enjoy it.”
Fiyero gave her a long-suffering look. “Grandmother, you’re seventy-four.”
“Exactly. My patience is limited.”
Corin nudged Esme. “Maybe he’ll propose during the Vigil!”
Esme clasped her hands. “That would be so romantic.”
“It would be a catastrophe,” Fiyero muttered.
The Queen patted his hand, beaming serenely. “Darling, try to be happy for your brother. This is the first girl he’s ever brought home.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And that doesn’t concern anyone else?”
“It concerns me in the most delightful way,” she said, positively glowing.
The twins dissolved into giggles. Corin started whispering conspiratorially in Esme’s ears. Fiyero filed that away for later.
Grandmother fixed him with her shrewd, knowing stare. “And you,” she said, “might consider taking notes. You’re not getting any younger.”
“I’m twenty-six,” he protested.
“Exactly,” she said sweetly.
He sighed. He’d survived worse breakfasts. Probably.
The stables were quieter than the house, mercifully free of squealing twins and overexcited mothers. Fiyero walked past the tidy row of stalls, letting the familiar smells of hay and clean straw ease the strange tightness in his chest.
Feldspur lifted his elegant head over the door, ears flicking forward in greeting.
“Morning,” Fiyero muttered, reaching up to scratch along his jaw, then smoothing the sleek black-blue of his coat. “At least you don’t have opinions about my personal life.”
Feldspur nosed his sleeve expectantly.
“I didn’t bring an apple,” he sighed. “You’ll survive. Probably.”
He unlatched the door and stepped inside, leaning against the horse’s warm flank.
"She’s all anyone will talk about now,” he went on, voice low. “Just watch. Taven’s grand love affair. As if one girl is going to fix a lifetime of his questionable decisions.”
He shook his head, exasperation simmering under the tiredness.
"Here they go again. ‘She’s the one! This epic romance will absolutely redeem everything.’ And then six months later he’s crying into the breakfast rolls, swearing he never meant any of it.”
Feldspur blew out a long, unimpressed breath. Fiyero traced a line of old stitching along the saddle blanket.
"Do you think it’s me? Maybe I’m defective,” he said. “I’ve never understood how people… build a whole future out of a few compliments and some moonlit walks.”
His jaw tightened. He wished he sounded more amused and less… something else.
"He says this time is different,” he muttered, thumb drifting absently along Feldspur’s shoulder. “She’s probably just like all the others.”
He paused. “Well… I suppose there’s always the chance she isn’t.”
The thought should have annoyed him. Instead it lodged somewhere he couldn’t quite shake. Feldspur nudged his shoulder again, more insistent this time.
“All right,” he relented, managing the ghost of a smile. “I’ll get your apple. Tyrant.”
“Are you talking to your horse again?”
His cousin Zara was leaning against the stable door, one eyebrow arched almost to her hairline. He turned away and did not dignify her with a reply.
Zara smirked. “You know, if you’re so concerned about Taven’s romantic fiascos, you might consider having one of your own. Just a suggestion.”
“I’m perfectly content,” he said, not even trying to sound convincing.
She gave him a look that suggested she would be reporting this to everyone over dinner, then disappeared back toward the house, humming under her breath.
Fiyero closed his eyes.
“See,” he muttered to Feldspur, “this is why I prefer your company.”
Feldspur flicked his ears and nosed his sleeve again, as if to say apple first, existential complaints later.