He sat at his desk in an attitude of exhaustion and despair, his hands cradling his face, his fingers at the place where his dark beard met his hairline. The footsteps were almost imperceptible; it was more the whisper of nightgown against small calf that drew his attention to the door of the dark room. Her large eyes gleamed luminously at him, hazel like neither his nor Melena's. She came forward hesitantly into the small circle of light cast by his desk lamp, the light catching first her pointed little nose, her face with its childish roundness, her spectacles magnifying those eyes with their catlike stillness. She wore one of Nessa's nightgowns, the faded pink ribbon ornamenting the top adding to the pitiful picture yet another touch of innocent tenderness.
"Father?" she said cautiously.
"What is it, Elphaba?" his voice was brusque but not cruel. She took a meager sort of encouragement from this, and stepped forward again. He was hypnotized by the child's strangeness, despite himself.
"Why- why do you
hate me?" The small voice trembled on the brink of tears. He closed
his eyes. With just the echo of her reed-thin, plaintive plea, she
could be any child. She could be his own dear Nessarose.
With a
pang, his eyes flew open. She was his own, like it or not,
raven hair, hazel eyes, green skin and all.
Any other day, he would have told her harshly that it was because she had killed her mother and crippled her sister, told her she was deformed, ignored her slight form shrinking back into the shadows. The other daughter. The unwanted one. But tonight, the air heavy with magic emanating, it seemed, from the little girl's eyes, he could not.
He met the enchanting orbs with his own brown eyes.
"I- I don't-." His voice broke with the truth of the admittance; that he had hated her because he had hurt her, and he couldn't bear to look at her unless he could blame her for what he had done. She seemed to understand this, to take this from his simple shattered words. She nodded unblinkingly.
"Thank you," she said softly, with the voice of one many years older than she, and disappeared back into the shadows.