Elphaba was ashamed of herself. Seeing that young lion cub caged up, condemned to
never utter a word, had filled her with such a deep, burning anger that could only amount to one thing: her losing her temper. Beyond her control, she had once again flailed her arms in her ridiculous way in order to just make it all stop. Although the lion cub was no longer in danger of having that horrifying needle plunged into his side, she had still managed to create havoc. Again.
The students in the class and that repulsive replacement professor were being thrown about the room in blind terror. Elphaba's anger had cast a spell upon them all. Dodging between the wide-eyed, cursed beings, Fiyero lifted the lion cub's cage from the trolley, out of harm's way. He couldn't understand why the spell had seemed to surpass him. What made him different from the others? He shoved the thought out of his mind, for the main priority at the moment was to get himself, the cub, and Elphaba away from that room.
The green girl stood staring at her shaking hands, frowning in frustration and self-hatred. With a murmured, "No... no..." a tear trickled from her glinting dark eyes. Fiyero glanced at her with a feeling more than warmth before exclaiming, "Well, are you coming?" Elphaba ran after him, trying to fight back her tears.
The pair ran, and ran, and ran until they were well away from the school. They had made their way into the forest surrounding the grounds. Enveloped in the dark shroud which the gnarled trees conjured up, they came to a standstill in a clearing. During their escapade, Elphaba had fearfully scolded Fiyero for shaking the cage. These 'tellings-off' were indignantly received with a defensive "I'm not!"
"We can't just let him loose anywhere, you know! We have to find someplace safe!" Elphaba had been repeating this for practically the whole time,
"I realise that! You think I'm really stupid, don't you?"
"No! Not really stupid..."
With this sarcastic retort, Elphaba wrenched the cage from Fiyero's grasp as non-violently as she could, though she still heard the cub whimper in fear at the sudden jolt of movement. She carried him resignedly over to where a bed of poppies lay, thinking in a fleeting moment that they would soothe the cub in some way.
"Why is it that whenever I see you, you're always causing some sort of commotion?"
Responding in the only way she knew how to, Elphaba shouted, "I don't cause commotions; I am one!"
"That's for sure..."
Elphaba flew off into a shallow rage, "Oh, so you think I should just keep my mouth shut, is that what you're saying?"
Fiyero attempted to argue with this accusation, but he was almost instantly cut off,
"Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Do you think I don't realise how much easier my life would be if I didn't?"
"DO YOU EVER LET ANYONE ELSE TALK?" Fiyero shouted. Elphaba started, having never heard him raise his voice like that before,
"Oh... Sorry..." She scuffed her shoes on the dirt floor, hanging her head in embarrassment.
Fiyero began in a softer tone, "Good! Because every time-"
"Could I just say one more thing?" Once again, he was cut short by the green girl. He sighed in exasperation and folded his arms. She flinched at his annoyance. "You could have walked away back there..." she murmured shyly.
The boy was annoyed at the triviality of this statement, "So?" he spat.
"So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be-"
Fiyero drew the line at this criticism, "Excuse me! There is no pretense here! I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow..."
Elphaba let out a monotonous 'Ha' at what she supposed was meant to be dry humour in this announcement, before quietly saying, "No you're not. Or you wouldn't be so... unhappy."
There was a pause. Fiyero looked straight into Elphaba's eyes for a moment. The trees surrounding them both seemed to sigh in impatience,
"Fine. Look, if you don't want my help..."
Fiyero turned to leave the scene. His arms dropped to his sides sadly, and he walked stiffly, without his usual saunter. Elphaba stumbled after him, "No, I'm sorry, I do..."
She took his hand. The pair looked down at their entwined fingers. The green and peach of their skin tones contrasted in an unusual, but not unattractive manner. Slowly, their eyes moved up to meet each others. Fiyero took a good look at Elphaba. It was the first time he'd ever really looked at her.
The emerald sheen of her skin was somewhat exotic, and not the alien, freak of a characteristic he had first labelled it as. Her jet-black hair fell in loose ringlets about her thin shoulders, which were hunched with angst. Her brown eyes shone with tears.
A cry from the cub broke the unfathomable silence. Elphaba let go of Fiyero's hand, almost as if she had been burned by his grasp. She crouched down by the cage, and managed to poke her fingers through the cold steel bars to feel the baby's heart beat,
"Oh... his heart is pounding!" she exclaimed, wiping away a frustrated tear, "I didn't mean to frighten him..." Furious at herself, she attempted to soothe the cub, making quiet 'shh' sounds and stroking his tiny nose with one delicate finger.
Fiyero tentatively walked over to join the girl in her motherly treatment of the cub, and squeezed her shoulder so as to comfort her, "Well, what did you mean to do? And why was I the only one you didn't do it to?"
She turned to him again. There was a mutual change of feelings between the two at that moment.
Elphaba noticed a cut on his well-structured chin. She pointed this out concernedly, with a whispered, "You're bleeding,"
"I am?"
"It must've scratched you,"
Fiyero once again decided to inject his dry sense of humour here, "Yeah... yeah, or maybe it scratched me or something,"
Elphaba managed a wry smile, and reached out a nervous hand to wipe away the trickle of blood.
Her hand had barely touched his skin before he flinched and turned away, exclaiming, "Well, I'd better get to safety... I mean the cub! Get the cub to safety..."
His speech had stumbled out too fast, and he didn't know how to explain himself. Broken by the knowledge that he would have hurt Elphaba, he picked up the lion cub in his cage and briskly walked away, away from her, into the hostile darkness of the woods.
"Of course..." Elphaba whispered after him, feeling her eyes burn with yet another onset of tears. The thought that she might indeed have feelings for Fiyero, and the thought that there was absolutely no chance that there would ever be anything more than feelings, tore her apart.
Gazing up at the canopy of leaves above her head, and at the darkening sky beyond, she took a few shaking breaths so as to pull herself together.
Dragging her feet behind her, she made her way over to a nearby pond. The placid water to any other individual would have been calming. To her, it was just another reason for her to never be loved in life. Glaring at her hideous reflection, she kicked in a pebble. The glass-like surface of the water shattered into a myriad of ripples, distorting her green image.
At that moment, it began to rain. She could hear it stippling down through the leaves before it began to break the surface of the pond. Her tear-stained face felt refreshed by the drops, and she stood there, in the silent tranquillity of the forest, and closed her eyes for a moment in an attempt to shut all feelings of self-hate out.
"He could be that boy, but I'm not that girl."