The citizens of the Emerald City, clad in their customary odious fashion, poured into the square, chattering away and filling the peaceful summer day with noise. A young woman seated on a bench accompanied by only a large broadside and a book, peered over the top of the sheet in annoyance. Her intelligent eyes flicked over the scene with feline vigilance, their intensity forcing anyone who accidentally caught them to turn away, half-horrified, half-hypnotized. The woman sighed, yanked down the brim of her hat, and hid once again before the large folio of the broadside. Irony: her face, or a meager approximation of it, decorated the front page. But the green tint of the light reflecting off the pond before her and the emerald buildings around her made her safe, as did the portrait on the front page itself, meant to show everyone what she looked like so that she couldn't venture out without being caught. But the fact was that the picture looked nothing like her. It depicted an old hag, not a young girl who would have, if she had stayed, graduated from university only a few months before. She was fierce and firm, certainly, but no expression of hers could mimic the monstrous snarl of the portrait. And she did not have a wart on her nose, either. She had had a pimple next to her nose the week before, but it was gone now, anyway. She didn't care, either, it just annoyed her that she should get the negative side of her age and not the benefits.
Speaking of which, the purpose of the gathering in the square now came to light. As the City's denizens whispered among themselves about the terror of the Wicked Witch, who was even now suppressing laughter behind her newspaper, another young woman ascended to the podium in the square's center, accompanied by a young man in the uniform of a guardsman, the sun glinting off the gold decorating his shoulders and chest, and an older woman gotten up nearly obscenely in bustles and lime green. Glinda the Good. Fiyero- no, Captain Tiggular of the Gale Force- and Madame Morrible. How charming.
She forced herself to be dispassionate as she listened to them speak. But what was that note in Fiyero's voice? Not hatred. What, then?
But Morrible interrupted. He and Glinda were to be engaged. Elphaba forced the emotion from her face and twisted on her bench, recklessly, to look. Fiyero was as shocked as she, she could tell. Clearly he had not been informed that he had proposed to Glinda yet. Despite the pain ripping at her heartstrings- it was never going to happen, Elphaba- she couldn't help the slight amusement creeping along the horizons of her brain- just as Glinda said it would be, she's been planning this since the day they met, the silly girl!- She noticed one of the observers casting an apprehensive look at her and buried her face in her newspaper again, muttering almost inaudibly to herself.
"Deterreo suspicio," she whispered, one of the short spells she had found it necessary to memorize. Deter suspicion. It was the one she used most often, despite the inaccurate portrait and the pervasive greenness of the City. It was this that led Elphaba to suspect that even if she had not been born green, she still would have been recognized as different, for which she was at least somewhat thankful. At least it was not purely an accident of birth that had made her who she was. At least it wasn't just her skin, it was something innate in her character. She listened to the cheers of the crowd. She listened to Morrible lie about her shamelessly. Bitch. She had been her teacher. Supposed to guide her, supposed to encourage her to think for herself, supposed to help her. And instead she spread lies about her. In Elphaba's opinion, not even the Wizard himself was more evil. And he was evil.
Fiyero whispered something heated to Glinda. Elphaba watched out of the corner of her eye, riveted. He stalked off the stage, followed by Glinda. Elphaba yanked the paper higher over her face, they were right in front of her, close enough for her to reach out and touch.
"That is not what happened," Fiyero muttered furiously under his breath before Glinda rushed up and caught his arm. "Well, I can't just stand here grinning and going along with all this!" he hissed at her. Elphaba's breath caught. Oh, please- does he believe in me, still?
"Fiyero, do you think I like hearing them say those awful things about her? I hate it!" Glinda exclaimed, and Elphaba could breathe again.
"Then what are we doing here, let's go, let's get out of here-!" And I'll stand up and show myself, and we can go, all three of us- and I won't be alone anymore!
"I can't; I can't leave now, not when people are looking to me to raise their spirits!" Glinda cried.
Fiyero's words echoed Elphaba's thoughts, but his, though not cruel, were more malicious than hers. She had long ago accepted this attribute of Glinda's as a fact of her upbringing and personality, not her fault at all.
"You can't leave because you can't resist this. That's the truth."
"Well, maybe I can't. Is that so wrong? Who could?"
"You know who could. And who has."
Elation soared through her- he did believe, he didn't hate her!
Glinda stood silent for a moment.
"Fiyero," she murmured, "I miss her too. But- we can't just stop living! No one has searched harder for her than you! But don't you see, she doesn't want to be found. You have to face it."
No, no no no, I do, I do, now that I know- now that I'm sure- of what you both feel! Elphaba used all her strength just to keep herself from leaping at them, embracing them. Her broadside had fallen from her face and she sat there, open and undisguised, but neither of them turned to look at her.
"You're right," he said suddenly, heavily, and Elphaba's heart sank and shattered at once. "And if it'll make you happy, of course I'll marry you."
The resignation- could it truly mean what she thought?
"But- it'll make you happy too, right?" Glinda's face lay vulnerably open, her emotion clear in her plaintive, childish tone.
"Well, you know me," said Fiyero in a tone that so plainly belied it, "I'm always happy." He turned on his heel and stalked away, and Elphaba's plea echoed Glinda's.
"Fiyero?"
But then Glinda turned and called something inane as she hurried back to the safety of the podium, and she didn't see him stop. Didn't see him turn. Didn't see him lock eyes with the young woman on the bench, who then grabbed her broadside and dashed off hurriedly, hat clutched over her face, leaving her book.
Fiyero strode back and picked it up. It was a text he recognized, one they'd read at Shiz. He leafed through it. Half-familiar spidery handwriting covered the margins with deep thoughts and exclamations he would have never thought of if he'd studied the book for a century.
E. Thropp, was marked in firm inky strokes on the inside cover. Stay away- or else! He stared after the girl in wonder, clutched the book to his chest, and dashed back into the palace to renew his search.