Chapter One: A midwife on the run

A complete sonnet
Yet a shattered glass.
The noisiest and busiest town
Yet I can feel solemnity.

Behind blue eyes
Outgrown a green rose.
I thought in heaven only
Will it live and nourish

But who are you
Most rare of all diamonds.
Am I to keep this?
Or rather keep you?

Poem by: Jake Tadla

Border of Munchkinland and The Vinkus , May 1570

The middle aged woman stopped running and looked around her indecisive. Her feet were trembling from exhaustion and her breath was coming out heavy and whistling. Her body was burning as if she had fever, after so many hours of unstoppable running, and her heart was pounding in her chest, that was rising and falling rapidly. Her lungs were about to burst.

She was sweaty from top to bottom and somewhere in her crazy running, she had lost her cap. She barely remembered that it had been caught in a branch of a tree and she hadn't bothered to stop and pick it up. Her long grey hair were falling loose, messy and dirty down her back and a few strands of hair had been stuck on her flaming, sweaty face. Her gaze wandered in her surroundings, hazy and wild, like the gaze of a trapped animal ready to be slaughtered by his predator.

The soft blowing breeze coming from the mountains made her shiver and she thought that she would need to find a place to spend the night. It was getting dark and tonight would be a very dark night since the moon was nowhere to be seen. It would be foolish of her if she continued running in the wilderness, in a land that was unknown to her. Danger would be just around the next tree.

Suddenly, her eyes shone triumphantly and a groan of satisfaction escaped her threat. What was in front of her made her extremely happy, because in front of her, there was the dark opening of a cave. It seemed to her like as opening was a mouth that was calling her to step in. A mouth that said words of comfort and friendship.

She tightened her grip on the bundle she was holding and with quick steps she decided to enter the cave. Once she was inside, she checked her surroundings with her judgmental eyes and considered that it was a safe enough place to settle for the night without any unpleasant surprises or an unexpected animal attack. It was a good shelter at least for tonight!

The woman left the bundle on the cold floor as carefully as she could and walked outside again. She gathered as much wood as her hands could carry and tried to place them as a makeshift door, in an attempt to hind the cave from prying eyes. She soon thought though that it was an unnecessary precaution since the men that were after her would also have to stop for the night.

Noticeably calmer now, she walked toward the precious cargo she had been carrying and put aside a broken of the blanket to reveal her treasure. Her eyes held a sweetness and affection now, on contrast to the fear and the pain she had been feeling all day. Thank goodness, the baby was still fast asleep but soon it would wake up, demanding its next meal.

She emerged a bottle from her handwoven bag and her spirit was once again filled with desperation. The bottle was almost empty; come tomorrow she would need to find fresh milk for her little baby girl.

Completely and utterly exhausted she rested her back on the chilly wall of the cave and swept her sweat away with the sleeve of her blouse. She had no idea where she had ended up after her wild running. The next village would probably be miles away. In her panic state, she hadn't seen where she was going. All she had cared about was to run as far away from her village as possible; away from the soldiers who were chasing her like a prey. Only now did she regretted not following any well known paths, but it was too late.

She emerged a cold piece of meat from her pocket and started chewing it slowly. It was necessary that she regained her strength if she wished to run like that the next day.

When she had sworn to the dying mother of the child that she would protect its life, she absolutely meant it. Now she wasn't too far from that moment, but what would her self sacrifice mean? A dead woman cannot offer many things.

Her mind wandered to that day, a few months ago, when she took hold of the baby for the very first time. She was present to the miracle that was her birth since she was the midwife that brought the child to life. Her mother, a poor peasant girl at the age of twenty, that had the fortune or the misfortune to brink her to life- depending on someone's point of view- hadn't been strong enough. She hadn't survive the birth and had died right after. It was then that the midwife took hold of the orphaned baby girl and run away, looking for someplace safe to hide her treasure.

She found a small, unimportant village, hidden somewhere in the vast mountains, and the fool believed that she would forever be protected by her anonymity. That was exactly what she had thought up until that morning. Maybe that was the reason why she had been so surprised and had reacted spasmodically.

During the first months of her stay in the village, she was always stand-by. She stretched her ears at every suspicious sound and she had made a very well organized escape plan, in case they uncovered her hiding place. Many times she stood up on the hill and her eyes were scanning the area for any sight of danger. But as nothing ever happened, her caution loosened. She started enjoying the peacefulness her new life offered her and she got into a wonderful everyday life.

Her whole world was her little Elphaba, who was beautifully growing up day by day. She became even stronger and even more beautiful than what the poor midwife could anticipate. And she loved the child. She loved her little girl as if it was her own and even more. Her soul was devoted to her, always. Not even once had she left her alone. Little Elphaba was always in her point of vision; even when she was working in the fields to make a living. She would tie Elphaba in her back as if the child was a part of her own body. Then she would work for hours to fend for her little treasure.

Her neighbors had offered to assist her many times, by baby sitting the child, so that she could easily do her job, but she constantly declined their help. At the end of the day, they left her in peace. The good women around the village, as well as the entire village population, believed that Elphaba was her granddaughter and they found the grandmother's affection for the child, a bit excessive.

If only they knew the truth... If they knew the events that had lead to the girl's birth, then maybe they would justify her overprotective ways.

But they didn't know... And they never would...

Munchkinland, many years ago

Cattery Spunge, as the midwife was named, was completely alone in life until the day her path crossed with Elphaba.

Once upon a time she had fallen in love with all the passion of her youthful heart, but her love was not meant to blossom. The wandering troubadour who had captured her heart with his soothing voice and his sweet songs, wasn't part of the plans of her father, who wanted to marry his only daughter to someone wealthy. That was why the two of them had decided to elope in the middle of the night, with their hopes and dreams as their only luggage.

Once her father found out what had happened, his stubbornness and pride made him follow their trails, along with five or six men, who were thirsty for adventure and bloodshed. They had found the pair and had killed the troubadour, after they tortured him and disgraced him in front of Cattery's horrified eyes. The young girl was forced to return to her paternal home but she felt more like a dead woman than alive.

However, things didn't just stop there. Her troubadour and she had consummated their relationship and love in a more intimate way and soon the signs of pregnancy were visible. Her father had been beyond furious and had beaten her to the point that she lost her baby and almost her life. Due to her mother's care she managed to stand at her own feet again, only a month later.

One day, taking advantage of her father's absence from the house, she did the only thing that was left for her to do. She gathered her clothes in knapsack and left the house. Her mother didn't bother to stop her. She only stared at her as she walked away and only when her daughter was lost in the distance, did she felt a pang of fear in her heart. She wasn't sure though if she was worried of never seeing her daughter again or if she was just scared of her husband, who would be furious at finding a family member missing.

As for Cattery, her heart never healed. She spend her days in a monotonous way and watched as her life walked in a lonely path in front of her very eyes. Before she knew it, her time of youth had passed and her beauty had been lost. When she saw the first wrinkle on her face, something changed within her though and she decided - even after such a long time- that it was time to get out of the shell she had been trapped in with her endless mourning.

She showed an interest for what was happening in the village she had resided in, somewhere in Munchkinland, and she helped her neighbors in any way she could. The once isolated old maid , now sook the company of the other women and through their conversations, she got an idea of what her life would have been had she not locked herself away from the rest of the world.

She started realizing that she had overrated love, without thinking of the monotonous routine of fending for a family. For the first time, she wondered if her troubadour would still be the sweet and caring man she had loved, if he saw her with her hair messy and tired from the work of the day and with five or six children running around her legs. With her imagination she could see delicate white hands caressing almost lovingly the chords of a guitar and she smiled bitterly as she compared these hands with those of the village men. Those were tired, calloused and rough hands from working all day to take care of their family.

Maybe her tender lover wouldn't be able to take care of his responsibilities, to the point of running away from her and the prison of their family. He had admitted that stability scared him and he couldn't stay in one place for a long time. He wanted to fly free like a bird, following the blowing wind.

At one point, Cattery became interested in pregnancies and after a while she became the best midwife of the area. It was a way to fulfill a missing part of herself after her miscarriage. She would devote herself into helping young women taste the wonder of motherhood- something that had violently been ripped away from her.

There were many a times when they would wake her up in the middle of the night and Cattery would run to help whoever needed her. And it was then, between the sweating bodies, the pain of labor, the blood and the crying that follows the coming of a new life, that she heard about the prophecy for the first time.

At first, the women who had come to support to the newly made mother, wouldn't open up easily in front of the midwife. They talked in whispers and their words held no meaning as they examined each newborn baby. It didn't take long for Cattery to notice that they were mostly interested in the female babies. It was also obvious that even the men knew of that secret shared between their wives. She could see it in their disappointed faces every time a woman signed negatively.

It took a long time for people to trust her with their precious secret.

Thus, she learned that it had come the time when a very special girl would be born; a charismatic child that would bare an indelible mark on her body, showing her uniqueness. The problem was that they didn't known where or when exactly this miracle would happen and that was why they checked all the newborn females. According to tradition, every eight generations, a girl would be born from a strong family line and that girl would have a special power, wondrous enough to change the lives of many. But because the constant migration of the people and the depths of time, it was difficult to identify the mother.

Cattery hadn't given much thought to those rumors, until the day Elphaba was born.

I have no idea what came over me and inspired me to write this story but I suddenly had this idea and couldn't get it out of my mind. I just started writing and I couldn't stop and suddenly I had two chapters almost ready.

A few words about this story... It's obviously gonna be Fiyeraba but it is totally AU, so I hope you don't mind that. If you like this and want me to continue please leave a review. It will be much appreciated and cherished.

Also, the character of Cattery Spunge is Nanny from The Wicked Years of Gregory Maguire. However, she won't be like the Nanny from the book.

Thank you for reading!

Disclaimer: I don't own wicked neither it's characters. I also down own the poem used at the beginning of the chapter. It belongs to Jake Tadla.