Well hello there! I'm back! After awhile... Well this story came to me during Spanish class when we were studying. Good grades or FanFiction? Hopefully both. Any to the who, I'm hoping this will be a multi-chapter FanFiction, but I'll let you decide. Please let me know how you feel and enjoy!
The room was warm and bright, illuminated by the glowering coals of the fire in the far corner. Snow fell quietly outside; the summer grass which once grew was now trampled by the white blanket that dominated it. Under the window, on the carpeted floor of the family's living room, a mother and her child sat cross-legged, staring intently at the paper before them.
"Now, now, Liir; you need to keep the color inside these black lines." The hooked-nosed woman pointed a crooked finger at the bold lines of the snow man on the low-quality paper.
The child, called Liir, picked up the brown wax crayon once more and slowly shaded in the snow man's broom. He got distracted by the fire's ember glaze and the point slipped, the color drifting outside of the lines again. Liir's lip quivered, after he realized what had happened, and he looked up nervously into the pointed face of his mother.
"I'm sorry, mama," He whimpered, noticing the apparent disappointment in her cold dark eyes.
"You just can't learn, can you?" She shook her head, a sigh escaping her lips and the black tendrils of her hair hanging as a curtain around her narrow head.
"Elphaba, please, he's four." Her husband stood in the doorway, shucking his coat and draping it over the back of a nearby chair.
"He needs to learn."
"He's trying, Elphaba!"
"Not hard enough!"
Liir let out a cry in response to his parents' argument.
"Come here, love." Fiyero got to his knees and opened his arms to his son.
"Daddy!" The little boy ran to his father, collapsing into his strong arms.
"You baby him too much," scoffed Elphaba with her usual scowling expression planted on her face.
"You don't baby him enough," Fiyero shot back, kissing the top of his child's head with a sigh. He could sense that Liir was getting upset again and Elphaba was just being plain outrageous.
"Then he's your son for the rest of the night." Elphaba informed him, shutting the door with an aggravated huff.
"What's wrong with mama?" Liir questioned of his father, his blue eyes gazing searchingly at Fiyero.
The Arjiki prince sighed, knowing the answer but not quite sure if his son needed to know just yet. "Mama's under a lot of stress, sweetheart. She's tired."
"If mama's tired, she should sleep!" piped up the little boy, clapping his small hands together in victory.
"You inherited your mother's brains, Liir." Fiyero noted, nodding his head. "But yes, she should sleep." There were a couple of silent moments before Liir rushed back to the carpet.
"Color with me, Daddy!" squealed Liir, opening his box of crayons again.
Fiyero slowly got up, stretching his limbs as he got to his feet.
"You're old, Daddy." giggled the boy, putting his hands to his mouth in laughter and delight.
"Am not," grumbled Fiyero, laying on his stomach next to his son. "What are we coloring?"
Liir flipped open his coloring book and proudly showed his father the snow man that he had been coloring before.
"I tried to color in the lines, but it's hard!" complained Liir, crossing his arms in frustration. "Mama kept getting mad at me!"
Fiyero patted his son's head in comfort as he examined the paper. Liir had barely scribbled outside the line. Typical Elphaba, he thought with a snort. The only person in all of Oz that would get upset over something as silly as that.
"It looks great, Liir." Fiyero complemented after a moment or two.
"But Mama doesn't like it!" protested the boy, throwing down his crayons in desperation.
"Don't be so harsh with your things." Fiyero scolded, picking the crayons back up and gently placing them back into the box. "Of course your mama likes it." He picked up the discarded coloring book and fanned through its leafy pages. One dog-eared page caught his eye and he flipped to it. There was an outline of a family that was sitting by the Lurlinemas tree and Fiyero smiled endearingly at the fact that Liir had intricately drawn dark blue diamonds on the father and had colored the mother a light shade of forest green. The little boy had even attempted to give himself blue eyes that were so much like his own.
"Liir, I'll be right back." Fiyero promised, gently tearing the page from its perch in the book. He opened the door to his bedroom and closed it behind him quietly.
"Is Liir in bed?" came Elphaba's calm voice from behind the novel in front of her face.
"He's still coloring but he made something for us," The prince pulled out the page and handed it to her. He made sure to notice the slight happiness that graced her face as her eyes darted back and forth.
"Isn't that sweet?" She murmured, her green fingers curling around the edges of the paper.
"Liir thinks you don't like his coloring," Fiyero informed her, testing the waters with his wife's temper.
"I love it, but he doesn't listen when I try to help him." Elphaba gently laid the drawing on the nightstand next to her.
"Maybe he just wants you to compliment what he's done." Fiyero pointed out.
"But he doesn't want to improve!"
"He's four, Elphie! He doesn't want to improve! He wants you to be happy just having him as he is!" Fiyero's words had definitely hit home for Elphaba and he watched as her narrow head dropped in utter sadness. His words flashed her back to her lonely childhood and her abusive relationship with her father.
A young Elphaba cringed into the corner of the kitchen, her soft green hands held out in front of her. She vaguely remembered her father screaming at her more as he neared her.
"You wicked girl! You demon! Everything that happened: your mother, your sister. It's all your fault!" He shouted at her, grabbing her by the front of her dress and shaking her a bit before throwing her back to the linoleum floor.
"I'm sorry, Papa, I'm sorry," whimpered the little girl, cowering at his feet.
The man aimed a kick at her head before slamming the door behind him as he left her to her own devices.
"Elphie, Elphaba, snap out of it!"
Her dark eyes fluttered open and she vaguely could feel her husband's strong arms around her.
"It happened again, didn't it?" She nodded in a quick response.
"It's been happening so much. I keep getting these visions. Fiyero, I think they're coming."
And there was a knock at the door.