Chapter Text
“Will one of you tell Miss Galinda that she needs to stop raising such a fuss every time she misses a point?” Crope complained as they wandered closer to the picnic blanket the Thropp sisters and Tibbett were lounging on. Him, Boq, Galinda, and Fiyero had been playing a rousing game of lawn battledore, insisting on expending some energy to warm themselves up in the cool shade of this spring afternoon.
“I wasn’t watching,” Nessarose said, with a cheerful grin and gesturing with her sketchbook, “I was drawing.”
Elphaba rolled her shoulders and sighed. She’d been keeping some level of attention on the game, but had preferred to read this day. Naturally it couldn’t last. “What’s the point of contention now?”
“Miss Elphaba.” Galinda batted her eyes. Even though she was the furthest still from them her high voice rang clear across the clearing, “You simply must lend me your support before these bullies run roughshod over me.”
Fiyero’s hand went to his chest in mock indignation. “Miss Galinda, I would never.”
Galinda’s gaze narrowed, she could look surprisingly intimidating in the flounciest outfits. It was one of her best qualities, Elphaba couldn’t help but admit. If only to herself. No need to inflate her ego more than it already was. “So you agree with me,” Galinda proclaimed. “That was my point.”
“I’d love nothing more than to say so,” Fiyero hedged, twisting a bit as he took another step back toward the picnic. And away from Galinda.
“Then do so.”
“Well, it’s only that I’m not certain, that, in this specific case, the point would go to you exactly.”
Galinda huffed, crossing her arms and causing her racket to bobble about wildly. Elphaba fought to hide her grin as the two most ridiculous people she could now call friends argued. “You know that I deserve that point. Only it would put me in the lead over you and you can’t abide that. How fragile the male ego is these days.”
“Now now, Galinda,” Fiyero held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’d never let winning cloud my fair judgment. Can you say the same?”
“Fiyero!” Galinda swatted her racket at him and he feigned at being wounded even though she was several feet away.
“I think that’s a foul on the court,” he complained.
Crope rolled his eyes. “We’re in time-out until we resolve this dispute.”
“I still haven’t heard the nature of your dispute,” Elphaba said pointedly, knowing someone needed to keep them on track. “Fess up so I might return to my book.”
“Crope batted the shuttle out of bounds—out of my bounds,” Galinda clarified. “That means it's my point.”
“Nonsense, we said past the trees was out of bounds and it landed before them. That makes it your miss and my point,” Crope insisted.
“What a blatant and brazen lie,” Galinda protested. “To think you’d stoop so low.”
Before he could reply and the whole group got into another of their ridiculous bickering, Elphaba interrupted. “When you set the boundaries at the beginning, the east was aligned with our picnic blanket’s edge,” she tapped said edge with her book, “the west was the hill, the south was that line of pines, and the north was indeed those mulberry bushes.” She held up her hand when Fiyero opened his mouth and continued, “Fiyero suggested the trees, but Galinda insisted that she’d not stand her clothing getting torn on the branches of the bushes if the boundary was all the way back to the trees.”
“Wait, now that you say that…” Boq actually looked consideringly at the far side of the clearing while Galinda beamed at Elphaba, her radiance increasing somehow despite the tree cover they were all under.
“Fiyero tried to say that it wouldn’t matter, since he’d knock her out before it came to be her turn on that end,” Elphaba continued, the conversation vivid in her memory. “Which made Galinda declare she’d not play unless you kept the bushes as out of bounds.”
“I don’t remember this at all,” Crope said, hands on his hips.
“And yet it happened,” Elphaba said, fairly certain he’d wandered off at some point during the rules negotiations with Tibbett before wandering back. “It doesn’t matter what you remember—only what was agreed to.”
“Now hang on,” he protested. “I thought we agreed to the treeline. If I got that wrong, it was an honest mistake. At the very least it should be a null point.”
“You swore to the rules,” Elphaba insisted. “Your misunderstanding of them is your own fault.”
“Such a harsh judge,” Fiyero said with a teasing smirk. “I think Miss Elphaba has forgotten how to be objective.”
Crope laughed and Elphaba’s frown deepened. How unfair. She pointed a long finger at him, nail looking sharper than usual, and said heatedly, “Just because I’m in love with Galinda, it doesn’t mean I can’t be objective. The boundaries were sworn upon. Crope was the last one to touch the shuttle. That makes its Galinda’s point.”
Silence greeted her words, more than she expected, even if they did see sense in her judgment after all. Which, to be honest, she didn’t expect them to. Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, she looked at each of them in turn and was bewildered to see them all in some sort of state of shock. For his Ozness’s sake, what was it now? “What is the matter with you?”
They shared their own glances. “Apologies, Elphaba, but I think we all just had a sort of, shared mass auditory hallucination.”
Elphaba took an extra few seconds to process his words, but it didn’t help. She sighed and said flatly, “What.”
“Yes, odd thing that. I could have sworn I heard you say you were “in love with Galinda” but that’d be ridiculous.
Elphaba raised a brow, grateful for Galinda’s lessons for once, as Fiyero immediately faltered. “Oh, did I? I don’t see how that’s relevant to what’s out of bounds.”
A high pitch “epp” emitted from Galinda, who’s hands quickly clasped over her mouth. Eyes wide like a scared animal. A small bolt of unease rippled through Elphaba at the expression on Galinda’s face. Elphaba’s brow furrowed in confusion, had a bee flown into her hair again? Whatever was the matter with her?
Crope took another step closer to say, “So we did hear you right?”
“Yes,” Elphaba reluctantly looked away from Galinda to her other friend. “But as I was explaining, that has no bearing on my determining in Galinda’s favor. It’s simply a function of the truth of the rules of the game that were agreed upon.”
“Elphaba, dear, forget the game,” Crope seemed torn between wanting to laugh hysterically and genuine shock. He kept glancing at Galinda as if expecting the same from her.
“What are you talking about?” Elphaba pulled her head back to better look at him. “That’s what we’re discussing, isn’t it?”
“Um, not anymore, it's not,” Tibbett sounded lost as well.
“If we’re not going to talk about the game, then why are you interrupting me still?” Elphaba asked, exasperated. She started to open her book again, wondering why they even bothered to ask—Nessarose’s hand landed on her own, halting her movements. Elphaba looked up at her sister with a curious frown. “Yes?”
“Was this how you planned on telling Galinda your feelings?” Nessarose ventured, a very peculiar look in her eyes. Maybe Elphaba did need further lessons in reading others’ expressions. She hadn’t the faintest idea about what any of them were feeling or why they seemed so fixated on her feelings for Galinda. Galinda would be delighted to teach her once more about the nuances of eyebrows at least.
“Planned?” Elphaba asked, not following the question at all. Why did they want to discuss pointless trivialities that didn’t even concern them? “Why would I plan to tell her anything? My feelings are my business.”
There was a desperate choking sound from somewhere nearby—Galinda, Boq, or a dying squirrel. It was hard to guess. She was too determined to get back to her reading to look and find out.
“If you never planned on revealing yourself—“ Crope coughed at Tibbett’s phrasing and he hastily clarified, “I mean, your feelings—are you perhaps endeavoring to move on from such tender hearted affections with time and indifference?”
His voice sped up as he spoke for reasons Elphaba didn’t care enough to decipher. “Hm?” Defiantly, she opened her book once more. This chapter had a fascinating rebuttal to the previous one, which she had disagreed with most vehemently. The second author was bringing up points even she hadn’t thought of. She wanted to get back into the flow of their debate. “No, why would I do that? She’s the love of my life.”
An abrupt crashing sound brought even Elphaba’s head up and around to find Galinda on the ground having tripped over a large stump. Elphaba narrowed her eyes at Galinda’s crumpled form and the ground. Once she spotted the dirt that had indeed been kicked up, she turned away to place her bookmark into her tome.
There was not even the smallest chance Galinda wouldn’t wish to return to their rooms and change. Why Elphaba would have to come along she’ll never understand, but undoubtedly she will be coerced into it all the same. By this point in their time together she’d all but given up trying to resist.
Putting her book down, she spotted Galinda finally rousing herself from her faint to bat Boq’s hands away with shrill impatience. Hm, perhaps it was graver than Elphaba thought—she’d been rather sharper in her movements than usual. Boq had taken three full steps back at her vehemence.
Sure enough, only a few seconds later saw Galinda, pink color high in her cheeks and dirt streaks on her pastel pink dress, marching up to the picnic blanket. “Miss Elphaba, we must return to our room at once.”
“Must we? Surely no one will give the slightest notice to your dress.”
“My dre—“ Galinda looked down at herself as if just noticing the condition of her clothing and pinked even further. Snapping brown eyes were back on Elphaba’s face in an instant. “Oh, you wicked thing, look at the state you’ve put me in. I’ll have none of your nonsense this time.” She gave a little one-two clap of impatience. “We are leaving.”
Elphaba shook her head, unsure how she could be the cause of Galinda’s clumsy fall when she was yards away. She’d learned by now when Galinda was in a tolerant mood and when she could not be reasoned with. This was one of the later times. “Very well, let me gather my things.”
It had been a good afternoon, and she was loath to leave such times behind, but at least it would be more comfortable to read in their room. Sliding her books into her bag, she glanced at Galinda to see her shoving her racket into Fiyero’s unresisting hands as she headed back the way they came. Therefore, Elphaba also grabbed Galinda’s cardigan-cape-blanket nonsense that she’d not deigned to pick up herself.
“Nessa, you’ll have one of the boys get you over that one spot with all the roots, won’t you?”
Nessarose shook her head at Elphaba but a grin was creeping over her face. Elphaba felt, with sisterly intuition, that she was being laughed at. “Sure, Fabala.”
“And do drop off the blanket at our room, Galinda will—“
“Elphaba!” Galinda was stopped at the edge of her sight line, somehow with eyes on the back of her head to know Elphaba was dallying.
Elphaba heaved a sigh and pulled the strap of her bag over her head. The rest gathered around to put up a pathetic send-off of half-hearted waves. Elphaba didn’t know what they were so dreary about, she was the one who was going to have to deal with Galinda when she was in some sort of mood.
“Good luck!” Fiyero called after her.
Without turning around, Elphaba raised a hand an acknowledgment. She’d no idea what he was alluding to, but given how her life usually went, she could always use some good luck.
“What just happened?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Is Galinda going to kill her?”
“Or marry her?”
“Or both? I’ll collect the bets, but someone else can ask them.”