If anyone is reading The Effects of Gravity, this is NOT related. It's a little outtake to what will be a trilogy of musicalverse, canon-compliant Glinda oneshots, two of which have been posted so far. Thanks for reading. :)
He'd never so much missed being human, exactly - or rather, never missed the feelings of being human. He'd figured out early on that it wasn't really possible to miss feelings that he was currently incapable of feeling. But he did manage to miss the pragmatic things about having a human body - not catching fire, that sort of thing. It struck him as hilariously ironic that of the two of them, he was the one who couldn't afford to get wet. Drying out could take days if the weather were humid.
And he'd missed Elphaba, terribly. Without being able to actually experience desire he could still miss what they'd been able to share so briefly, and to miss what it had brought to them, to their interaction. They could be as close as they liked now in technical proximity, but it wasn't nearly the same even on an emotional level - and though Elphaba would have died before admitting it, he could sense that she felt it, too.
She turned away from him, in those days, to dress and to bathe. He was never really sure whether it was to avoid tempting him, or out of belated modesty. Or current modesty; perhaps he was a different person to her now. Most times it did seem as though she still saw him, under the straw and canvas, as the man she'd given herself to, but every now and then her attitude wavered and she seemed shy and strange. At any rate he never minded looking, even if the curve of her shoulder in the moonlight evoked nothing more than a somewhat distant wistfulness.
But then - then. She'd made no secret of her hopes, her plans, and when she came back from the Palace with a frightened smile and a scroll tucked into her pocket he'd known that things were about to change. In response to his question she unrolled the scroll and asked, "What's the opposite of a recipe?"
"Nothing," he'd said after a moment. "You can't un-make a stew."
Elphaba had managed, as she so easily did, to laugh and grimace at the same time, and said, "Let's hope you can. Or I can. I'd better go away and work for a while, I think."
He'd hardly dared to hope, but he pointed one canvas finger at the scroll and said, "So she was lying?"
"Morrible?" Elphaba had looked down at the scroll for a moment and shrugged. "Well. Maybe not. She couldn't read the whole thing, maybe she never knew it was there. Maybe. Anyway." Her smile had been fond, a little sad, a look he was used to seeing on her face. "I'll be back soon."
Elphaba had always been excellent at disappearing. And she never wanted him to watch her try new spells.
When she came back, days later, she was crying a little and he immediately thought, Well, that's it. But she came and sat beside him and said, "I'd better send you to sleep, I think. I don't know what it feels like."
"You're going to try?"
"I'm going to try." She'd embraced him so tightly that he wondered for a moment what it felt like for her, pressing so hard against his body in this state - and then, tearing a bit again, she gently prodded him down into a reclining position. He remembered her soft chanting, words he didn't recognize, and then nothing.
The next thing had been a warm weight, only a very slight one, on his chest. He tried to move fingers and toes and found it took too much effort, so for a while he simply lay there, thinking that nothing felt different. Wondering if Elphaba was worrying, despairing. And then, the slow trickling realization that he could feel a weight on his chest. He could feel.
When he'd opened his eyes, he hadn't had to ask a single question. Elphaba was laughing through her tears, one hand over her mouth.
They've been in the grasslands for four months since that day. Four months for him to remember, and try his strength, and to make all sorts of by turns surprising, alarming, and wonderful discoveries. He suddenly can't stand the taste of any sort of fowl. He seems to have lost quite a lot of muscle, although days of walking and stretching are beginning to help, and Elphaba has finally begun to stop fretting that she did something wrong. And Elphaba. There are many things to discover about Elphaba. One night months ago did not remotely scratch the surface.
Finally, though, Elphaba is growing nervous and tired of trying to scry in ponds and wells and buckets, and he actually is beginning to feel guilty about his parents. As a concession to her obvious agitation he suggests she could try to check on Glinda again, in person, before they do anything else, but she resists the idea. "It's not the time," is all she will say. So, having convinced her that their son alive will seem more important in the first moment to his parents than having a presumably dead witch on their doorstep, he leads her, not without a sense of irony, further into the West.
Her powers allow them to fly straight to the family rooms and neatly avoid any mess with guards or servants. Elphaba cloaks herself heavily and hangs back in the shadows, which turns out to be unnecessary. His parents are unsurprised, practical, and logical. Whether they've angered the Wizard or not, princes don't simply disappear. They've assumed all along he was in hiding and have been waiting for word ("Did you lose the ability to write, Fiyero?" his mother asks, to which he can only say, "Well . . ." He and Elphaba have decided that his parents don't need the entire story).
His parents are, however, forthcoming with their own. Apparently the story spread through the Emerald City like wildfire after a few Guards let things slip. Although most of Oz does believe the Prince of the Vinkus died, most also know that he died having run away with the Wicked Witch.
"Which brings us to the final point," Fiyero's mother says, looking past him. "Elphaba, I assume? You look rather vigorous for someone who has been dead for the better part of a year."
It is exactly the right tone to use on Elphaba at this moment, and indeed at almost any moment. She is drawn from her place close to the wall, hood falling from her face and cloak parting down the front. "Can't believe most of what you hear," she says softly.
"Lucky for us that we don't," his mother replies, and he thinks the crisis is past. Elphaba is almost relaxing.
And yet. Deep into the absurd exercise, as Elphaba puts it, of planning a wedding ceremony for two people who are, for all intents and purposes, dead, the world turns itself upside down on him in a way that has been happening more and more frequently since Elphaba walked into his life.
His father is deep in the midst of creating their cover story, plotting to rename him a cousin of the family and send them deep into the far reaches of Ev, perhaps on some sort of diplomatic mission. His mother is considering the virtues of traveling at this time of year versus the midwinter, when she stops and asks, with arched eyebrow, "It may make a difference, I suppose - Elphaba, when do you expect the baby?"
Fiyero opens his mouth to laugh at her pretensions to grandmotherhood, but then he catches Elphaba's eye, and the ground trembles under his feet at her awkward shrug. He should have known there had to be a good reason for not going to see Glinda, but this, this he never would have thought of (nor would Elphaba, it seemed - her sole comment on the matter, later, is, "The things that happen when you forget to think of them." She's blushing furiously of course, but it's not as if he doesn't know how it happened).
When he does get her alone, Elphaba's reflection on the matter of Ev is, "Well. It's the best for now, isn't it?"
"You'll watch her," he says. "If she needs help -"
"If she needs help," Elphaba says, "she'll have to wait, and we'll have to hope she can." And there's not much else to be said, because it's true. If Nature wanted Elphaba to help put things right, it should have planned better.
"So," he says, one hand reaching nervously for the stomach that has not yet begun to round, "exile."
"Exile," she repeats. "Beats being dead."
"Yes," he replies. "We seem to be very definitely alive." And maybe that's the point after all - maybe the natural order of things has decided to wholeheartedly reject the idea of their deaths. If that's the case it's not very subtle.
So they are to leave, soon, and leave Oz to Glinda for good. Or at least for a good long time.