Melena breathed a deep sigh and slowly reclined onto the lumpy sofa, the large mass on her stomach making even the simple task of laying down a painful undertaking. Lightly leaning her head on the worn armrest, she brought the tips of her fingers to the hem of her maternity frock and hitched the shapeless skirt of it over her lower abdomen. She gently cupped her hands on the underside of her swelling belly and caressed herself, feeling the child respond to her touch with a series of firm, yet temperate kicks. Hello, little one, she smiled to herself as she grazed her protruding navel. Taking another deep sigh, she sank further into the cushions and closed her eyes, allowing the peaceful, glowing warmth of pregnancy finally come to her rather than the pain of chronic morning sickness and swollen ankles.
Her eyes fluttered open at the gentle patter of rain on the grimy windowpane. She wasn't sure how much time had lapsed during her slumber and the grey shadows accompanying the storm didn't help one bit. She brought herself to a sitting position (an even more difficult challenge than reclining) and adjusted her frock so that she was respectably covered once more. A distant roll of thunder sounded as she placed her hands on the small of her back and stretched wondering how her daughter might be fairing. My fearless little monster probably isn't even batting an eyelash at the weather, she thought, smirking and lifted herself to a wobbly standing position.
"Elphaba?" she called, returning her hands to her stomach's underside to help herself with the weight. "Elphaba, dear?" The house remained quiet and Melena felt her blood run cold. "Elphie?" she shouted, growing concern evident in her tone. She awkwardly shuffled around the sofa and made her way to the other side of the little house. A slight chill danced along her skin and it wasn't just because of the fear brought on by mother's intuition. The back door was wide open and standing in the archway was none other than her stout, green daughter. Melena's throat went dry, which didn't matter because she was terrified of making a sound; worried that startling her daughter would send her bolting out the door. Elphaba stiffly raised an arm outside of the range the protective wooden frame and a thin plume of purple smoke began to waft from her exposed arm accompanied by a dreadful hissing noise. The small child was trembling in pain but refused to withdraw her arm. Melena jolted into action and tore Elphaba from the door by the collar of her dress.
Clumsily, she flung her into the room and onto her bum. Large beads of emerald blood were forming along Elphaba's arm and dripping onto her royal blue dress.
"What in the name of Ozma were you doing?" Melena shrieked. Elphaba just looked up at her blankly. The large, cocoa eyes stared at Melena with all the innocence and ignorance of an animal being reprimanded for a reason it was unaware of. I'm sorry, was I doing something wrong? Melena felt her heart melt and her eyes glass over with tears. "Please. Please, Elphie," Melena said softly reaching out to help her daughter off the floor. "Please, don't do these things to Mommy."
Elphaba reached up with her good arm and lifted herself to her feet. Melena led her daughter back to the couch, grabbing a towel on her way over to use as makeshift gauze. They sat side by side and Melena wound the fabric over the heavily bleeding arm. Once the patchwork was done, she wrapped an arm around Elphaba; the burden of child making it complicated to bring the girl into a full hug. It was a maternal gesture that neither of them was familiar with, however Melena was now wary of letting the child escape her sight.
"Elphie, dearie, why in the world did you do that?" Melena repeated, not freeing the child from her grip. Elphaba looked down at her bandaged arm and pondered her answer before finally replying.
"I wanted to wash it off," she whispered so low that Melena almost didn't hear her. Melena couldn't respond. She hadn't even been sure that the child was aware that her condition was a de facto abnormality, never mind the fact that she had grown to dislike it enough to want to get rid of it. Elphaba clarified after a moment, not sure of her mother knew what she had meant. "The green."
"Why would you ever want to do that, Elphie?" She caught herself using the pet name that Frex had given her; if she recalled correctly, this was the first time she wasn't referring to her daughter formally as Elphaba or as the nickname she had come up with, "Little Frog".
"Because," Elphaba stated, her tone matter of fact. "It's unnatural." The way she spat out the word made it seem as if she was saying "hideous".
"Who told you that?" Melena said firmly, suspecting one of those little ragamuffin children from Rush Margins. Elphaba refused to make eye contact, as if Melena's angry tone had been accusing of her.
"Father did," she all but mouthed the words. Melena stiffened- at least, as much a large pregnant woman could. How could he say such a thing? This was his daughter, for Oz's sake. She caught her own thoughts. Wasn't she?Melena softened and placed a hand tenderly on Elphaba's shoulder. Elphaba, in turn, snapped her head up and looked at the hand, wondering what to make of such an action.
"Elphie," Melena was speaking in a light, smooth tone now, foreign to even herself. Elphaba turned her head slowly to face her mother. "Listen to me. You're beautiful. I could never ask for anything other than you." Did she mean it? She looked deep within herself and, perhaps it was the sentiment of the moment or just the hormonal imbalance of childbearing, but she felt that she could honestly answer yes; she meant every single word. "I love you, Little Frog." She chuckled and Elphaba broke into a very uncharacteristic giggle.
"Mama?" Elphie chirped after a moment.
"Yes, lovely?" Melena smiled. Elphaba had both her bony, emerald hands on the engorged stomach and was staring at it admiringly.
"What color is the new baby going to be?" she asked casually, not averting her gaze.
"Well," Melena said. "Your father believes that since I chew milk flowers- oh, you know those pale, tasteless little things? - that it'll turn out to be pale as paper." Elphaba's face twisted in disappointment.
"Oh."
"However," Melena continued, deciding to humor the child's imagination. "I have been eating tons of blueberries as of late, so who knows? Maybe it'll be polka-dotted." Elphaba giggled again and Melena noted how sweet the girl's laughter was.
"Oh! Mama, wait a clock-tick!" she squealed excitedly and bounded off the couch and into the other room.
"Elphie, darling, wait!" Melena struggled to lift herself and follow the child who, for all she knew, was going to make another attempt at indirect suicide. To her relief, the little green girl had burst back into the room with a semi-spherical ceramic bowl in her hands. She lifted it to her mother as an offering to eat. It was a bowl of strawberries.
"Only one color is boring, Mama," Elphaba nodded, knowingly. "Let's make pink polka dots, too." Melena lifted a strawberry and crammed it into her mouth to suppress a wail rising in her throat. Elphie climbed back onto the couch and made herself comfortable in the crook of her mother's arm.
And they sat there, mother and daughter, helping themselves to a bowl of berries and waited out the storm.
Elphaba sat in the Crage Hall library beside her sister who was hunched over, indulged in some sort of biblical, unionist compendium, no doubt. Instead of poking her own nose into a novel, Elphaba took this time to study her sister. The pale skin, the deep blue eyes and, most of all, the ever so light strawberry-pink blush in her cheeks.
"Elphaba," Nessarose said, not bothering to mask the irritation in her voice. "What in Oz are you staring at me for?"
"Sorry, Nessie. I just got this overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, is all," Elphaba replied, not at all taken aback by Nessa's sudden hostility towards her. The armless girl cocked her head; an action that threatened to make her lose her balance and fall off of the stool on which she was perched. Elphaba grabbed her sibling's back and steadied her. Then, an anomaly; Elphaba looked at Nessa and smiled.
"You reminded me of Mama."