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Fiyero watches the green girl stalk off through the tall grass, mouth open in shock after telling him to get stuffed.
Wow.
“I think I’m in love,” he breathes as the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen walks away from him, and despite her pretty clear dismissal of both him and Feldspur, he finds himself itching to follow after her.
“Well, you do always enjoy it when the ladies are a little bit mean to you,” his Horse teases, and Fiyero nods as he licks his lips, his eyes searching the forest for any sign of her enchanting green skin.
Yes, green.
Oz, but she was beautiful.
He should follow her.
Find her.
Try again.
“I’m gonna—”
Feldspar’s laugh follows him through the foliage (which in retrospect isn’t nearly as pretty a color as she), but Fiyero doesn’t care. He just wants to—
“Are you following me?”
Fiyero skids to a stop as the woman turns around, her eyes merely slits as she glares at him in the darkness.
“Uh—”
She sighs and folds her arms across her chest, and Fiyero feels his heartbeat quicken as she takes a step closer to her.
“Yes? No, wait, uh, I wasn’t following you, I just wanted to — look, I … I have a proposition. One that would benefit us both.”
He doesn’t have a proposition, really, but he doesn’t want her to walk away from him again and besides, he’s always been a quick thinker.
He’ll come up with something.
The green woman regards him for a long moment, her eyes searching his, carefully watching the way he raises a hand and drags his fingers through his hair nervously. A few strands break free of the carefully coiffed style, and he grimaces as they fall into his vision, obscuring his view of her.
“Yes?” she ventures after a long moment.
Fiyero cocks his head to the side, confused.
“Yes, what?”
The woman sighs so deeply that Fiyero feels it in his bones.
“You said you had a proposition? Mutually beneficial?”
Fiyero clears his throat and darts his eyes around the darkened forest frantically.
Feldspar, thank Oz, comes to his rescue.
(Carrots. The Horse deserves so many of his favorite carrots).
“Your majesty often seeks out a beautiful woman upon arriving at a new school,” he offers, and Fiyero metaphorically grabs onto the offered idea with both hands.
“Yes! Yes, I do! Look, Miss…?”
“Elphaba,” she offers with another sigh, and Fiyero pauses for a moment, whispering the name and feeling the shape of it on his tongue.
El-pha-ba.
Huh.
He likes it.
“Miss Elphaba, then,” he continues, grinning in a way that usually has the ladies falling at his feet. “Look, as a prince of the Vinkus, it’s… difficult each time I start at a new school —”
“My sincerest condolences,” Elphaba deadpans, her voice not sounding sincere in the slightest.
Fiyero continues as if she has not spoken, his pride only very slightly wounded.
“The girls… well, they all want my attention and it’s really very tiring —”
“ — I can only imagine being loved and doted upon is exhausting —”
“ — and usually I spend the first day finding someone to be my girlfriend so that I can nip that in the bud, as it were, because it’s just easier that way —”
“ — I fail to see how this is relevant or beneficial to me in any way —”
“ — so I was thinking, you could pretend to be my girlfriend,” Fiyero finishes, grinning proudly as he rocks back and forth on the heels of his feet.
Elphaba raises one eyebrow.
“And what does this plan do for me other than make me even more of a social outcast?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest and staring Fiyero down in a way that no one, not even his many, many nannies and tutors over the years, have dared to.
“It actually makes you the opposite of a social outcast,” Fiyero points out, clasping his hands behind his back as his master plan becomes more and more clear in his head. “From your… spiel earlier, it’s clear to me that you’re not exactly… popular.”
Elphaba huffs and rolls her eyes. “I prefer it that way.”
“No you don’t, you just pretend that you do so that you can protect yourself from the fact that their words cut you very deeply,” Fiyero says, shaking his head and continuing on as if he hasn’t just torn her open and laid her darkest secret bare before them.
He blinks, his smile still easy and his blue eyes sparkling in the moonlight, and Elpaba is about to tell him in detail exactly how he can get stuffed when he adds, easy as anything, “It’s okay. I do the same thing. If you pretend not to care, each barb hurts a little bit less. It’s … safer if people think you don’t care.”
And huh.
Huh.
She simply cannot imagine what a prince of his status would be protecting himself against, but there’s no doubt from the way he speaks the words that he understands them.
Maybe he’s not just a pretty face, after all.
Maybe…
“What exactly would this… arrangement entail?” she asks carefully, biting the inside of her cheek as she watches the prince’s eyes light up in excitement.
“Oh, not much, and it would all be for show. I’d show up to school tomorrow, take notice of you, ask you out publicly. We’d have to sell it for a while, but it doesn’t have to be anything big. I always set up some kind of dance or debauchery on the first night I’m at a new school. You come with me, and then afterward, we walk to classes together, I kiss you on the cheek and hold your hand… Just enough to convince people. That way I am free to spend the few months I’m here in relative peace, and you gain some popularity because you’re dating a prince.”
“I cannot imagine that taking you out of the dating pool will make me more popular,” Elphaba murmurs, considering his offer.
“No,” Fiyero agrees, laughing.
He has a nice laugh, and realizing as much makes her stomach do something funny.
“But it will provide you status, hopefully enough that they just… leave you alone. And if they don’t, we can stage a whole scene where I threaten anyone who talks badly of you, or something. Could be fun.”
He winks, and Elphaba presses her lips together with a hum.
“Can it actually make things worse?” he ventures, and that…
Well, he’s not wrong.
“No. I cannot imagine anything could be worse than it currently is. My roommate in particular —”
And oh.
Oh.
Galinda.
One of the best perks of this arrangement, she thinks, will be getting to watch Galinda’s expression when she finds out. It shouldn’t factor into her consideration at all, probably, but Elphaba cannot help imagining the look on Galinda’s face when she hears that her roommate, the reviled artichoke, is dating Prince Fiyero Tigelar.
But Elphaba never claimed to be a good person, and it’s with a small smile tugging at her lips that she finally relents and holds out a hand.
Fiyero takes it, bewildered but grinning, and they shake.
“Deal.”
What could possibly go wrong?