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Fiyero jumped in the saddle the moment the broadcast ended and hasn’t stopped riding at breakneck speed since. He is vaguely aware that his mouth is dry, that his legs ache, and that Feldspar’s pants grow louder and louder. But they don’t stop - they can’t.
Wicked Witch. Madame Morrible’s voice echoes over and over in his mind. He isn’t stupid, much as he often wishes he was. He knows many judged Elphaba simply for the color of her skin, but Madame Morrible was never one of them. Sweet Oz, he can still picture Elphaba’s shy but pleased smile when she confided to them about her lessons! Madame Morrible was supposed to be on her side.
And where is Glinda in this whole misunderstanding?
He swallows through a parched throat and all but jumps from the saddle, stumbling at the landing. The last train to the Emerald City whistles - he was almost too late. But not yet.
“Go home my friend!” he shouts, running across the platform “And treat yourself to the largest apple you can find!”
The only answer he gets is a loud snort before he jumps across the gap, onboard the train. There are a few Munchkins that give him bewildered looks but Fiyero summons a charming smile and they look away, a small blush staining their cheeks.
Fiyero slips into the furthest empty seat he can find. Not that it matters - he can still hear the whispers. Green. Thief. Wicked. He screws his eyes shut.
What have you two gotten yourselves into?
***
It’s late when he arrives at the Emerald City, but he hardly cares for propriety when his… friends may be in trouble.
“I am a Winkie prince.” Fiyero tells the guard firmly, trying to emulate his mother’s stern expression. He danced through life relying on his charm - the air of cold authority feels foreign and wrong. But the guard doesn’t seem the type to be moved by pretty smiles. “You will let me pass.”
“Sorry sir, I must repeat myself: no visitors allowed, on orders of the Wizard himself. You have heard the broadcast sir, have you not?”
Fiyero grits his teeth. Losing his temper is not conducive to being either charming or respectable. “Yes,” he says slowly, like he is talking to a child “and I will repeat myself too, if I must. That broadcast is why I’m here. My girlfriend came to see the Wizard with,” his stomach sours but he pushes the words out, for the greater good “with the Wicked Witch. I need to know she’s safe.”
I need to know they’re both safe.
“And again good sir, I feel for you but - ” there’s a noise above them. The guard starts and whips his head up. Something moves in the dark and the man curses. “Blighted creatures. I swear I won’t get used to them.”
Fiyero squints against the dark and his eyes widen. He meets the unsettlingly steady gaze of a monkey with large wings twitching lazily in the wind. The monkey looks at him some more and then flies off.
The monkeys. The monkeys Elphaba supposedly mutilated.
This day is just getting madder and madder.
“Look.” Fiyero says, grinning despite his growing unease. “I am more than ready to camp out here until you let me in and let me tell you, I have been told I’m perfectly annoying more than once.”
“Sweet Oz, you’re so annoying.” Elphaba muttered, her book clutched protectively to her chest. As if that could stop Fiyero from snatching it if he truly wanted to. “I’ll finish this chapter and then I’ll go pick poppies or whatever. Happy?”
“Not quite. I resent the accusation that I’m annoying.”
Elphaba carefully put down her book again, adjusting her glasses. “Really? And what would you describe your behavior then? Delightful? Mature?”
“Most people would call me perfect, you know.”
“Perfectly annoying.” Elphaba mumbled under her breath, but her lips quirked in a small smile. Fiyero couldn’t help match it.
(He also couldn’t help trying to steal Elphaba’s book at least one more time, for the principle of it. Or more honestly, so he got to hear the fond exasperation in her voice as she called him perfectly annoying again.)
A muscle twitches in the guard’s jaw. “Good for you.”
Fiyero sidles up to him, batting his eyelashes. “I might even sing.”
“That does seem to be the national sport in Oz, sir.”
The door swings upon with a loud creak. The guard jumps up, posture straightening, whipping on his heel to face the palace. Fiyero looks past his shoulder and sees Madame Morrible herself walk out, perfectly put together despite the time and that just hours ago, she announced her pet student to be evil to all of Oz.
“Gentlemen.” she says, her voice carrying menace despite its deceptive tenderness. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Ma’am this man insists upon being let in! And I told him, I told him real firm that the Wizard ordered the doors shut but he won’t leave!”
“Well of course he won’t!” Morrible chides him, and the guard swallows. “That is Prince Fiyero Tigelaar, the paramour of our very own darling Glinda! I would be very surprised if he would leave without making sure she is safe and sound. Wouldn’t you?”
“I, but ma’am… Yes, of course.”
Morrible smiles and beckons Fiyero forward. “Come, child. I have already sent for Glinda. She will be down shortly. After the ordeal she went through today, I’m sure her heart will be much eased to see you.”
The inside of the Wizard’s palace is empty and hollow like a tomb. From far off, he can make out footfalls, the calls of monkeys to one another, but he sees no one else. There’s nobody around. If this was a novel that Glinda favored instead of Elphaba, this would be the moment a bag was thrown over his face and a knife plunged into his gut.
Unlike the novels favored by Glinda however, he doesn’t think a dashing hero would suddenly appear to save him.
“Madame Morrible,” he starts, politeness a well-worn mask. “may I ask what happened?”
“Fiyero!” comes a breathless cry and then a smudge of pink barrels down the corridor, straight towards his chest. Fiyero catches her, because he will always catch Glinda. “Oh thank goodness you’re here!”
Glinda’s hands clench and unclench on his lapels, her eyes frantic and wild (and red. Her eyes are red) before something muffled and something desperate claws its way out of her throat - almost a sob, but not quite - and she dives in for a kiss. They’ve kissed so many times before. Fiyero knows when it’s playful, when to pepper kisses along her face to make her giggle, when it’s sweet enough to make her leg kick up girlishly, when it’s passionate and hungry, making them trip over clothes they were all too hasty to shed.
This kiss isn’t like that. It’s fierce, it’s bruising, like Glinda can only breathe the air that she steals from his lungs. It’s fear and it’s relief in a single, dizzying mix and when she breaks away, panting raggedly Fiyero just hugs her and pretends that he doesn’t notice that she’s shaking.
“What a touching display.” Madame Morrible remarks dryly. Glinda stiffens in his arms, but Fiyero continues petting her back. “To answer your question, it is a sorry tale. The Wizard, in his great benevolence, allowed the girls to practice with the Grimmerie. Glinda was a natural, so much so that our Wonderful Wizard wanted to appoint her Glinda the Good, his official witch. Sadly, her companion,” Elphaba, he screams internally. You know her name, it’s Elphaba. “could not contain her jealousy. In a fit of rage, she stole our Grimmerie and her inaptitude turned those poor monkeys into flying abominations.”
“What?” Fiyero asks. Glinda just burrows herself deeper into his arms. “That doesn’t make any sense. Elphaba would never - ”
“The Wicked Witch,” Madame Morrible corrects mercilessly “has fooled us all. Do not be so hard on yourself, Prince Fiyero. It shames me to admit, that even I did not see it sooner. It is a hard truth to bear, but bear it we must: your erstwhile friend has shown her true colors today.”
“No, that’s not - Glinda?”
Glinda looks up at him, red eyes panicked. She smiles, sweetly, softly - dishonestly. “Fiyero dearest. All this thinking business really doesn’t suit you. You were so good at not doing it before, I’m sure you could get the hang of it again, if you tried.”
Fiyero stares at her, gobsmacked. He opens his mouth to argue but Glinda just smiles wider, her grip on him tightening. Scared. She’s so scared. He smiles too, kindly, a smile meant just for her, even as his heart starts to race.
What in the name of Oz is going on?
“You’re right as ever, darling.” he drawls “There’s a reason why ‘painless’ rhymes with ‘brainless’.”
Glinda sighs and nods gratefully. Madame Morrible eyes him, writing him off as a moron with one barely disguised sneer. That suits him more than fine.
Morons are underestimated. Morons can do what he is planning to do, arousing much less suspicion.
***
“Goodness gracious! Have you lost what little remained of your sense?”
Fiyero raps on her window again, grinning shamelessly. Yes, he is very high up, yes, he does not want to look down, yes, he would very much like to be on solid ground. But if he lets Glinda see all that she is going to turn from adorably pouty in her indignation to adorably high and mighty in her indignation and he does not have the time for the speech that would ensue.
Glinda opens her window with a huff and Fiyero climbs in languidly, taking a stock of the room. It’s… green, which is to be expected, and utterly empty, save for a pile of unfamiliar clothes placed unceremoniously at the top of the wardrobe. Lent by the Wizard, just like her ill-fitting, too large pajamas are. Glinda’s pretty pink dress, the one she wore when she left, is a heap on the floor, which earns a small eyebrow raise from Fiyero.
“Fiyero!” Glinda hisses. “What are you doing here?”
“Enjoying the midnight breeze.”
“By climbing across the Wizard’s palace?”
“If I wanted to take a stroll, that guard might not have let me back in.”
“Fiyero.” Glinda pouts, arms crossed over her chest. “You did not scale walls just because the weather was nice!”
“No, I did not.” he admits, levity gone. “Glinda, I need you to tell me what really happened.”
Glinda’s pout disappears. Her lips tremble, her arms winding tighter around herself in a terribly lonely hug. Fiyero walks closer, pries the hands off to hold them in his own.
“Glinda, please.”
“If Madame Morrible finds you here - ”
“Madame Morrible thinks I’m a fool and she will assume I did what any fool in love would do. Brave death, just to steal a few moments with you.”
Glinda’s lips twitch in a small miserable smile, a brief glimpse of amusement not nearly sufficient enough to chase away the gloom. But then she says: “It’s a lie. All of it.”
It spills out from her, in bits and pieces, the Wizard’s machinations, his betrayal, the accident with the Grimmerie. Elphaba’s flight.
“The guards, they grabbed me.” Glinda says, glancing away suddenly. “I told Elphaba to leave me behind.”
Fiyero exhales. That choice must have weighed heavy on Elphaba. Elphaba, his stomach sinks. She’s out there, all on her own. He wants to fling himself from the window again to run after her, but where? Where would you go, if the whole world turned against you?
“What does Madame Morrible want with you?” Fiyero asks. “Why keep you… locked in a tower?”
“I,” Glinda bites her lip. “I don’t know.”
Glinda offered so many truths to the Wizard’s lies. But Fiyero is not blind, nor is he a fool. He knows with bone deep certainty that she offered many lies of her own too: and this is most certainly one of them.
***
They haven't kicked him out yet. The Wizard with a boisterous laugh declared how utterly wonderful it was that Miss Glinda had a companion now. With each day that passes, Fiyero is less certain Glinda will be allowed to return to Shiz. Some nights, he lies awake wondering whether he himself should return to Shiz, or better yet, to Winkie country. But to do what? What could his family, much less his classmates, do against the Wizard anyway? No. He can't get help, he can't find Elphaba. Glinda though, Glinda he can still protect.
They haunt the Emerald City like a pair of falsely cheerful ghosts. They’re happy to be here! So grateful, aren’t they dearest? He fakes a smile for the people coming to take pictures of them, their likeness plastered over the covers of the latest newspapers. Lovers, who are ‘supporting each other in the wake of the tragedy inflicted by the Wicked Witch’; Fiyero almost forgets himself and scowls when he reads that. He wasn’t even here for the so-called tragedy in the first place. How quickly the people of Oz forget; or perhaps they simply find no issue ignoring reality for a narrative that is more to their liking.
He tried correcting them once: Madame Morrible was quick to cut in, to steal the honesty from his lips. Glinda only nudged him then, reminding him to chin up, darling.
They’re out on their daily mandated walk (“it would help the people of Oz to see you well!” Morrible suggested, saccharine sweet) when Glinda stops suddenly, gaping.
“The audaciousness!” she says shrilly, pointing towards a lone tree. “Look! He's wearing my jacket! My jacket!”
The monkey sitting on a large tree branch, wearing a slightly dirtied pink jacket, doesn't respond to her accusation. That seems to incense Glinda more.
“Give it back you thief!” Glinda stomps. The monkey sniffs and pulls the jacket closer to his chest. “How rude! Fiyero! Do you have nothing to say?!”
“Other than that monkey has fabulous taste?”
“Fabulous… Oh you terrible, terrible man!”
It's not that funny, not really, but something in him snaps free. Fiyero's grin turns into a laugh and Glinda breaks too. Both of them succumb to absolutely helpless giggles, clinging to each other to remain upright. Some Ozians walk past them, eyeing them strangely, some fondly. The monkey makes a noise that sounds like a scoff and flies off. The absurdity of that just makes them giggle harder, a tear slipping from Glinda's eyes.
Fiyero wipes it off. The aftermath leaves him breathless, his sides aching, but as stupid as the situation is, for once his mirth is honest. He feels lighter than he has since he first hopped on the Emerald Express. Glinda beams, and some of her old spark reignites before his very eyes. Fiyero grabs her and squishes her to his side as they walk. She squawks at first, but stays there, pliant and warm and alive and close to his heart.
***
Glinda turns her head this way and that. Frowns. Plucks the tiara from her head and pushes it slightly back, then forward. Repeats the process.
Fiyero watches her from across her lavish new suite. It’s been weeks since Elphaba left, weeks in which she had to fend for herself out there while Glinda and Fiyero were offered a soft bed, soft pillows and an even softer death by suffocation. Or at least Fiyero has. Glinda seems to have found her footing once again, a lifelong lesson kicking in like an instinct: be pleasant, be liked, be popular. It’s her sword and it’s her shield and Fiyero doesn’t begrudge her for it, really he doesn’t. Except sometimes he has to make an effort not to.
By the time she turns around to ask for his opinion he is already there, adjusting the tiara then carefully fixing her mussed locks, abused by all the fretting.
“How do I look, do I look good?” she asks, nerves bubbling under the surface. This is what Madame Morrible wanted from the moment she trapped Glinda in a cozy room instead of a dusty dungeon. Glinda the Good. A beautiful, charismatic girl, shining so bright that she would cast the Wicked Witch of the West in more shadow.
Good. What a detestable word.
“You look beautiful.” he tells her because she does, and kisses her forehead. Glinda sighs softly. She does that often, quiet exhales like there’s a weight on her that only he can ease. Like he’s a shelter in a storm. (He can guess at that feeling well, only because he feels it too.)
“Will you stay with me?”
They’re going to lie and lie, spinning a tale of wickedness and cruelty about the most selfless girl he has ever known. He will have to stand there and smile and listen to the vitriol, listen to people who don’t know Elphaba sneer and cheer for her downfall. And he can’t help imagine what Elphaba would feel to see them on that stage (helpless, hopeless, betrayed, alone).
He doesn’t want to go up on that stage. He can’t do it.
“Always.” he says anyway.
***
Fiyero stares up at the fireworks, listlessly drumming on his thigh. This is the last stop in their tour around Oz. He should be used to this by now. The night sky is lit up in greens and pinks, the sparks weaving a tale of a fight between two witches. One ugly and wicked and green - one dressed in a beautiful pink gown, tiara glinting silver as the stars it outshines. The rhythm he taps speeds up: he’d clench his fist otherwise and he can’t do that, not with so many eyes on him.
“Miss Glinda?” a shy, youthful voice chimes up. A young girl, no more than eight or ten is gently nudged by her mother towards Glinda. She clutches a bouquet in her trembling hands. A bouquet of poppies.
Fiyero’s fingers still. He almost feels the phantom touch of Elphaba’s skin against his.
“Yes, tiny one?” Glinda asks, somewhat bewildered at being addressed so directly, but not unkind. She’s never not kind to the people of Oz. Especially not children. She peers at the flowers. “Is that for me?”
The girl smiles a gap-toothed smile and thrusts the bouquet towards her. “Yes miss! I picked the flowers myself.”
Glinda turns around theatrically, raising her voice so she is heard over the soft crackle of the fireworks. “Bless your sweet heart! Isn’t she positively adorable?”
There are coos and murmurs of agreement as usual. The little girl perks up, encouraged. “It’s the least I could do! You’ll save us from her, won’t you, Miss Glinda? The Wicked Witch of the West?”
The fireworks show is winding down, the Wicked Witch flashing one last time before disintegrating across the night sky, leaving behind only Glinda the Good, bowing humbly. Fiyero notices the real Glinda’s expression freeze for a moment. It doesn’t contort, doesn’t fall: she’s too talented for that. But for a single heartbeat it’s as if she forgets to breathe.
“Yes,” Glinda says brightly “of course I’ll protect you.”
There are cheers then and the people break out into loud song, dancing with each other in joy. Glinda looks back to him, catches his eyes and only once he looks back does she find it in herself to breathe again. She doesn’t look at the merrymaking around her. She looks only at him.
Later, when they get back to the Wizard’s palace Glinda reaches for him, tugs him towards her bedroom rather than his. She says nothing, just sits on the bed, her stare alarmingly vacant. Fiyero kneels before her, trying to guess at her thoughts. There are dried tears sticking to her eyelashes.
“Could you,” she swallows thickly “could you get me out of this?”
Fiyero’s heart trembles in his chest. Oh. Oh.
“Of course.” he murmurs gently, like he’s trying to soothe a wounded animal. He reaches for the tiara first, putting it on the bedside table, instead of figuring out where Glinda normally keeps it. He goes for the dress next, a beautiful pink gown reminiscent of flower petals - and it reminds him so much of her dress at the Ozdust in the worst ways - and undoes the zip at the back. He pulls it off her and Glinda mutely shifts this way or that to help him. The stockings go too, until Glinda sits on the bed in only her pale yellow lingerie and shivers.
The layers of Glinda the Good are peeled back one by one, until only Glinda Upland remains.
Fiyero cups her cheek and Glinda nuzzles into his touch immediately. There is something terribly tender and terribly sad about this moment. He could almost believe they’re back in his dorm at Shiz at a time when their worst fear was Elphaba dragging them to the library. But they’re not at Shiz and they’re not those people anymore, no matter how much he wants to turn back the clock. But, he thinks, eyes darting to Glinda’s lips, he could forget.
They pretend and they pretend so much. Why not pretend something kind, just this once? He leans in and Glinda meets him halfway and perhaps this is exactly what they both need.
If the Wizard or Madame Morrible notice that Fiyero doesn’t spend much, if any, of his nights in his own room, they choose not to comment on it.
***
“Fiyero.” Glinda whispers in the dark, her arms locked around his bare torso like she’s afraid if she lets go, he will disappear too. “I lied.”
Fiyero smothers a bitter laugh. They keep lying, every day. About Elphaba, about the Wizard, even about themselves. Every word from their lips is a lie. Every time they lie beside each other, they lie. Still, his heart is ever the traitor, because he reacts instinctively to that miserable tone in Glinda’s voice: he grabs her hand to press a tender kiss to her knuckles.
“About what?”
“Elphie. She asked me to go with her before the guards got to me. I could have left with her. I didn’t.”
Fiyero inhales sharply but says nothing. Would he have gone, in Glinda’s place? Given up everything? Yes. Yes, he would have, without a heartbeat of hesitation. Perhaps that certainty should frighten him. It does not.
“What makes you so sure I’d even ask?” Elphaba’s voice pipes up in his head.
“You’d miss me too much to leave me behind.” he shoots back and can almost imagine the eyeroll that would have followed, with that sweet half-smile that he adores. (Does she, he asks himself in the deepest most buried recesses of his mind, does she miss me?)
“Glinda I - I understand.”
Another lie to add to the pile.
***
“This is just a formality, see.” Glinda explains, eyes bright, as she paces around his room (one that he rarely uses). She looks happier and healthier than she has in a good long while and Fiyero makes an effort to stop and well and truly listen, even if he is still sour from the events of the morning. “In a few months you’ll most certainly get the promotion to captain of the gale force! But appearances and all that, you have to start out at the bottom, like everyone.”
“Hold on, dear.” Fiyero frowns. “Why would I want to be captain of the gale force?”
“Well,” Glinda says slowly, her cheer undimmed “I thought it might make you happier, if you got to go out more! And honestly, this way you could keep an eye on Elphie and even lose track of a few Animal fugitives if you want.”
There's a dull, muted roar building inside his head, the anger in him rekindling.
“What?”
Glinda hasn't caught on to the shift in his mood yet. Or perhaps she has and she's blithely ignoring it. So much of her work as Glinda the Good is about ignoring everything she doesn't want to see. If anyone, she has perfected selective blindness to an artform.
“I know how much it would mean for you to be able to help her, even in a small way.”
“You're making it sound like it's a pleasant pastime for me to occupy myself with! We're talking about lives here, real actual lives!”
“I know!” Glinda retorts, expression pinched in annoyance. “That's why I thought you would be pleased!”
Fiyero stares at her, frustration mounting. Scraps, he's being offered scraps. And he's expected to feel grateful. He's not angry with Glinda, he tells himself. He's just angry and Glinda happens to be there.
Glinda puts her hands on her hips. “This is still about Pfannee and ShenShen, isn’t it. Admit it!”
“Admit what? That I’m not overjoyed that your friends walked in here, spewed all that drivel about how they always knew Elphaba couldn’t be trusted and you stood there and listened?”
He’s not angry at Glinda, he reminds himself forcefully. He’s not.
Glinda throws her hands in the air. “And what was I supposed to do, Fiyero? I already apologized anyway! You can’t be cross with me for this!”
“You apologized to me!” he snaps back. “This whole gale force farce is an apology to me!”
“Well, yes! Obviously! And I’d like you to appreciate the lengths I went to to convince the Wizard!”
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to Glinda! It’s Elphaba you wrong, every single time you refuse to speak up!”
“If you want me to apologize to her,” Glinda bites back “then accept the damn position and find her!”
They stare at each other, chests heaving, both of them dancing on the brink of true anger. But beneath that anger lurks something worse, something that makes Glinda’s voice wobble as she calls out after his retreating form: fear.
Fiyero doesn’t look back. He mumbles an excuse and hurries out of his own room down the steps, into the streets. He walks around the Emerald City, eyes peeled for any sign of soldiers of the gale force.
He finds two of them on a break, uniforms slightly askew, watching a pair of workers struggle to hang another crude poster of Elphaba. One of them spits on the ground, the other flashes an ugly grin his way.
“Spit all you like, mate.” he says “I know she was your neighbor.”
The other man tenses. “She was not my neighbor! She lived at least 3 houses down the street.”
“Close enough.”
“But I knew she was rotten! I always said that she was ugly and that she smelled! Even as a child, yeah? I’m not a blockheaded fool now, am I?”
“Sure, sure you thought she ‘smelled’. Astute observation.”
Fiyero pushes through between them, ignoring their shouts of disapproval at him quite accidentally and none too gently knocking shoulders with both of them. It's not the most direct route to take, but it made him feel marginally better to be a bother.
He finds the current captain of the gale force and tells him he'd like to enlist. The man stares, wide-eyed, recognizing him either as a prince or Glinda's accessory. Still gaping, he nods.
Glinda watches him put the uniform on from her (their) bedroom door far too quiet and solemn, her shine muted. Fiyero asks her to help with the buttons and she moves, grateful to be useful.
She peers up at him from lowered lashes, smoothing out his jacket. “You look dashing. See, I can be very agreeable. I didn't even make you fish for that compliment.”
A small laugh slips out of Fiyero. Fond. Despite everything, he is so fond of this woman. The only person who makes him remember he is still capable of joy that isn’t fabricated. “Very agreeable. Very generous.”
Glinda tilts her head up like a sunflower towards the sun at his laugh, and studies his face with more concentration than she ever bestowed her schoolwork. She’s so close he can’t help inhale the familiar scent of her perfume. Like a blooming rose in the rain; that’s the kind of flowery compliment he knows she would appreciate.
“Do you still love me?” she asks, quiet, like she suspects the answer and dreads it. Her hands are fisted in his jacket and he puts a hand over hers, guiding it back to the buttons. An unspoken permission to undo her work, if she wants to. They can always count on each other to remove their masks.
“Of course I do.” he says and that's the truth. Glinda's eyes shine a little and she nods and nods, until the motion does nothing to soothe or convince her anymore and she searches for answers from his lips instead.
He does love her, loves her so much every moment where he resents her aches. Glinda is his best friend. She is everything he has.
It's just that she's not her.
***
“Come on you two!” Galinda cried. “Keep up!”
Elphaba and Fiyero exchanged a look, the motion so natural by now that it had to be followed by a private grin. They trudged dutifully behind an overeager Galinda who, thus far, had not deemed it necessary to tell them why they were traipsing around the woods.
“Galinda dear, why exactly are we here?”
“To find the perfect tree!”
Fiyero frowned and looked to Elphaba. Elphaba only sighed. “The perfect tree for what, Galinda?”
Galinda whirled around, fixing them with an incredulous look. “Is it not obvious?”
“No.” Elphaba and Fiyero said in unison, only Elphaba’s tone was dry as crackling logs and Fiyero’s had a question mark buried inside it. Galinda let out a loud and dramatic ‘ugh’ to make sure they couldn’t miss her disbelieving displeasure.
“Nessa took Biq out to the woods to carve their initials into a tree! I can’t be outdone by Nessa and Biq!”
“Boq.”
Galinda waved his correction off. She would, Fiyero knew, get that name wrong until the end of time. Quite likely, on purpose. “We need to find a better tree, immediately! Ohhh,” she said, eyes widening in delight. “that… oak, looks magnificent!”
She ran to the tree, slipping out a knife from her bag and stared first at it, then the tree. Elphaba leaned closer to Fiyero. Their shoulders brushed. Not that Fiyero noticed such things.
“You know, I think that’s an ash tree.” she said in a low voice. Fiyero grinned even though he could not tell the difference either and they both knew it.
“It’s the enthusiasm that matters.” he replied, watching Galinda lift the knife hesitantly to the bark, clearly unsure how to even hold the thing but too stubborn to ask for help. “It’s endearing.”
Elphaba smothered a laugh. “First it’s initials in trees, then she’ll whip out a ring. Mark my words, Fiyero Tigelaar, she’ll make an Upland of you before you know it.”
Fiyero clutched at his chest in mock shock. “The horror.”
This time Elphaba did laugh and Fiyero felt… proud. Proud and delighted that he could bring joy to someone who knew so little of it before.
Fiyero stares at the small, unsuspecting box in his hand. Inside it, is a ring. It’s not a ring he would have picked. Fitting then, perhaps, that it wouldn’t adorn the finger of the witch he would have picked either.
He feels sick, all of the sudden, and none too carefully puts the box down the table. He’s shaken by the small glimpse of Elphaba he caught in the foliage, that’s all. That is all there is to it. (If she’d ask him to fly away with her, away from this maddening place of smoke and mirrors he would go. But she doesn’t ask and he cannot find her and so he cannot leave.)
He presses the back of his hand to his mouth, eying the box like it would grow teeth and lunge at his throat. He wishes they at least told him beforehand, but why would they have? His life isn’t his own. He’s a pawn, a pretty doll in the Wizard’s hand. And if they want to play at a fairytale wedding, he better be ready to wait at the altar.
Fiyero gathers himself and opens up the box. He slips the ring out, watching as it reflects the light with a silver sparkle. Could he even do it? Does he want to marry Glinda?
I don’t want to lose her, he thinks, and a voice hauntingly similar to Elphaba’s points out that those two are not the same things. Fiyero clasps his hand around the ring. A ghostly echo of Elphaba is hardly enough to sway him. If she wants him to listen to her, she should be here.
Isn’t that what they say? Speak now, or forever hold your peace.