I.
Drinks and conversation flowed with equal ease at the Peach and Kidneys, the only exceptions occurring whenever the subject turned to religion, especially when everyone had had at least two rounds of drinks too many.
"Well, I've been baptised," Nessarose shrilled, "and it's absolutely insulting that you could demean such a holy act of the Unnamed God…oh, Elphaba, help…"
She stopped short, voice breaking with helpless rage as her sister laid a placating hand on her shoulder. Elphaba glared across the table at Avaric, whose eloquent response consisted merely of a smirk and a rude hand gesture before turning back to Crope.
"What about you, Elphie?" Glinda whispered, scooting closer and nearly falling into her lap. She put a hand onto Elphaba's thigh to steady herself, giggling when the other girl flinched. "You ever been baptised?"
"You've had too much to drink, haven't you?"
"You're evading the question," Glinda retorted, picking up Crope's glass by mistake and draining it in a gulp. "And there's no need to be high and mighty just because you hold your alcohol better than the rest of us."
"It's a gift," Elphaba said, smoothly switching the glasses before Crope noticed and then topping up her own (after all, Avaric was paying). "Besides, I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to watch one of the mighty Arduenna clan lose her aristocratic crust," she teased, earning Glinda's best attempt at a scowl. "And if it'll make you stop asking, the answer is no."
"Why Nessa and not you?" Glinda probed insistently; even beneath the haze of the wine, she sensed something yet to be learned about her roomie.
"Nest Hardings nearly flooded when I was born, that's as good a baptism as any as far as I'm concerned," Elphaba replied, avoiding Glinda's slightly tipsy gaze. "And I think it's ridiculous that someone pouring water over your head is practically a binding contract to lifelong fear of the Unnamed God. I relish an allowance for sin and misdemeanour myself, even if I don't carry it as far as Avaric does. Enough to scandalise my saintly sister, at any rate; I'm positively wicked next to Nessarose."
"You're not wicked. You're good." When Elphaba raised a skeptical eyebrow, Glinda let out a hiccup and rested her head on her roommate's bony shoulder, shutting her eyes. "After all this time, I've decided I'd take you over silly Pfannee or Shenshen any day."
Elphaba stiffened at the unexpected grip of Glinda's fingers onto her own and opened her mouth to reply; but their attention was diverted by raucous shouts of laughter as Tibbett, affecting a saintly pose, doused poor Fiyero with another tumbler of dewberry ale.