Chapter Text
Fiyero wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take.
He grit his teeth, pacing behind a hedge, uncaring if he scuffed up the fine manicured grass of the courtyard gardens.
He craned his neck above the shrubbery—and yes. They were still there.
Elphaba was standing by the ivy-colored walls of the east wing, her arms crossed in that guarded, elbow-tucked way that usually meant she was humoring someone she wasn’t entirely sold on. Which was good. This was promising.
Except.
She was laughing.
Actually laughing.
And because of him.
The imposter—the bastard—was leaning one shoulder against the stone wall like he belonged in some kind of storybook illustration. All smooth, easy confidence, casual elegance, and that obnoxious lock of chestnut hair flopping down over his brow. Didn’t he know how to comb himself, for Oz’s sake?
Still, he was smiling, and gesturing toward Elphaba’s books with an expression of patient interest, like he genuinely cared about the binding on her annotated volume of Advanced Hexagonometry and Practical Ethics, Vol. II.
Fiyer’s eye twitched.
That was his look. His manouver. He was the one who fumbled for a compliment about her note margins and ended up comparing them to some inscrutable dead language. He was the one who asked questions he didn’t fully understand and listened, earnestly, as she lectured him about how trees talked to each other using earth and air.
Those were his magical moments. This other man had no right.
Elphaba tilted her head at him—just slightly. A little curious, surprised. Like she hadn’t expected him to say something so thoughtful.
Well, at least that’s what Fiyero told himself. He was too far away to make out what they were saying.
Fiyero seized on that, clung to it like a life raft. Yes, he told himself. She’s confused. That’s good. She’s suspicious. She knows something is wrong. She can feel it. She’s not laughing with him. Not really.
The thought came just as Elphaba let out a bright, delighted little cackle.
Okay, so maybe she was. But she was only being polite. Probably.
And then the bastard turned, holding out an arm like some courtly suitor, and when that failed, reached for her books instead.
Fiyero nearly choked. That is MY move, he thought, stomach twisting.
The gentle-book-carry-offer-followed-by-light-banter was his signature maneuver. It was the only one that had ever gotten even a half-smile out of the alluring green girl. It was elegant. It was subtle. And it was being used against him by this absolute traitor.
He had had enough.
He stomped forward—out of the hedges, out of hiding, out of any last shred of reason—and marched directly onto the garden path in their direction.
It wasn’t graceful.
It wasn’t remotely practical.
And it was absolutely not allowed, according to Shiz rules, and that was because—
“Hey!” a freshman girl called out, pointing at Fiyero, “What’s a Horse doing on school grounds?”
Elphaba and her companion turned, drawn by the commotion. She turned to her escort, frowning.
The man himself looked at Fiyero, smirking at him with Fiyero’s own face, the smug interloper, and shrugged.
“Feldspur,” he said, acting surprised. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay at the stables.”
If the man wasn’t sporting Fiyero’s own face, Fiyero would have stomped his hooves over the man, friend or not.
This was not how today was supposed to go.