Here's chapter 2.
Fiyero shivered slightly as Elphaba's broom rose ever higher at a dizzying speed. Being made of straw, he couldn't really feel varying temperatures, but he could feel the winds pulling at his body, threatening to yank him apart. Elphaba felt his body burrowing into her back and deftly rearranged her thick black cape to cover both of them. Smiling gratefully at her, Fiyero pulled himself upright to peer over her shoulder. The landscape looked generally the same, but they were so high up that everything seemed to be small specks of color. Or it would have, except that there was no color. Everything was a pure, glistening white. Elphaba and Fiyero noticed this at the same moment and Elphaba slowed the broom until they were hovering above what seemed to be the highest peak in the area. Elphaba turned around to face Fiyero, but at the very second that their eyes met, a strong gust of wind blew them and the broom, sending all three down a few hundred feet, only to crash into a layer of fresh snow.
The reason behind this sudden burst of wind was Elsa. After hours of creating ice sculptures, the small courtyard behind her palace held a veritable army of ice animals. This pastime had grown boring rather quickly, and, lacking other activities, Elsa had resorted to climbing the highest part of the palace to explore her powers, thinking that the first step was to know what she could do, no matter how it might scare her still. She'd seen something crash into her front courtyard and had run down the staircase.
Now, Elsa was peering out the front door at a mass of black cloth, green cloth, wood, and, strangely enough, straw. Stepping through the door, she took a breath to compose herself as the heap on the ground resolved itself into two people and a broom. On second glance, the man seemed to be made of straw and the woman to have green skin. Shaking her head to clear it and refocus, Elsa stepped forward as she cleared her throat.
Elphaba's head shot up at the slight sound. The woman she saw as soon as she turned was wearing a dress of material that appeared to be a very good imitation of ice. Her platinum blonde hair hung in a loose braid over her left shoulder and her ice-blue eyes took in the scene with a level of seriousness and clarity that betrayed her still-youthful body and face.
The questions on the tip of Elsa's tongue faded away as the other woman turned around. Her mouth dropped open as she took in the green woman and straw man. Both seemed young, no older than her own twenty-one years, but both exuded a feeling of haggardness and exhaustion that added years to their faces.
Taking a moment to regain her composure, Elsa stepped forward, hand extended, as she said, "My name is Elsa. The Snow Queen, or at least I suspect that's what they've begun to call me back home. I have ice powers..." Elsa trailed off, torn between wanting to be honest and not wanting to share too much too quickly. "And yes, I built the castle using my powers," she added as she followed the straw man's upward gaze.
Nudging Fiyero to get him to stop staring, Elphaba stretched her hand out, noticing as she did so that Elsa's hand had begun to tremble slightly. Upon contact, Elsa let out a small gasp and tried to pull away before giving one short shake. Frowning a bit, Elphaba began to introduce herself and Fiyero.
"I'm Elphaba. They call me the Wicked Witch of the West back home. I've got powers, too. That's Fiyero, my boyfriend, I suppose. Yes, I've always been green, and no, he hasn't always been a straw man," Elphaba said, taking care to answer the questions she could see Elsa had wanted to ask.
"Right. Well, how did you get here?" Elsa asked.
Raising her eyebrows slightly as the snow queen's lack of surprise at her story, Elphaba held up her beat-up broom.
"It- well it used to, before our crash- it defies gravity. Magic, and a spell from a book called the Grimmerie. Left it in Oz," Elphaba explained, trailing off as she finished. As confused as Elsa was about the magic book, spells and flying brooms, she decided that they had other priorities.
Turning around, Elsa looked at her ice palace and sighed. So much for isolation- it looked like she would have to at least offer these two a place to stay.
"Do you need a place to stay?" Elsa asked, turning to face Elphaba and Fiyero again. The two held a silent conversation before Elphaba shook her head at Fiyero in exasperation.
"Actually, we were going to go down to the village. If you don't mind," Elphaba said, almost apologetically.
"I don't mind, of course, but going into the kingdom with powers is a pretty bad idea right now. I'm only up here because I got accused of sorcery," Elsa said. Fiyero's face lit up at this news, and Elsa assumed that he didn't want to walk down the North Mountain- not that Elsa could blame him. Walking up had been positively awful.
Elphaba appeared to be thinking over the options before she sighed.
"Alright, if it's really no trouble, we'll stay until we figure something out. We have food, so we won't be a bother in that case. And, uh, I can charm our beds to stay warm, since your palace is probably all ice," Elphaba said.
Elsa nodded in agreement, then led the pair to the palace doors. As they stared at the opulence of the ice, Elsa found an empty room on the lower floors and created a pair of ice beds. Once she'd showed them in, Elsa left to go fix up a dining room, but she never quite made it.
Elphaba and Fiyero had been laying out the things they'd need for the next few days when they heard another new voice. Elsa had made it quite clear that she was alone up here, so they assumed it was an unexpected visitor. As Fiyero made for the door, Elphaba shook her head- she didn't want to interfere with Elsa's life too much. A few minutes later, however, both felt a surge of magic from Elsa, heard the outside doors slam, and saw the castle walls turn a dangerous shade of red. Elphaba took this as a cue to go and try to help Elsa, but shot Fiyero a look that clearly told him to stay put.
Running up the stairs, Elphaba cursed as she almost fell. Upon reaching the top, she looked into a large room that seemed as if it could be a ballroom, especially with the huge chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Scanning the room, Elphaba found Elsa quickly- she was pacing in a circle in the center of the room, right under the chandelier.
"Elsa, calm down. Tell me what happened," Elphaba urged. Elsa seemed not to hear and kept pacing as she muttered "Conceal, don't feel." Elphaba grabbed Elsa's shoulders and looked into her eyes until Elsa snapped back to reality.
"I...I hurt my sister. She said we could fix everything...that she could clear my name in the kingdom, but I'm too dangerous. I accidentally struck out with my magic and hit her with ice," Elsa said, her eyes bright with tears she didn't seem to want to let herself shed. Elphaba's heart ached for Elsa- their stories were so similar; it was truly remarkable that they should meet. All of a sudden, both girls heard a loud crash and a deep scream. Elsa's head shot up and she pushed Elphaba out of the ballroom. Deciding to take the hint, Elphaba sprinted back to where Fiyero was hiding, joining him in the gap between their ice beds.
Elsa, meanwhile, was fighting the Duke of Weselton's men. As she almost killed both, Hans came rushing in, begging her to spare them. Elsa did so reluctantly, and only because she believed Hans would have news of Anna. As she turned away, however, she saw from the corner of her eye an arrow strike the chandelier. The last thing she saw before blacking out was Hans holding back the Duke's men and ordering his own men to pull out a set of handcuffs- or hand cages, really- that Elsa knew all too well.
Fiyero clambered onto the closer of the two beds as they heard clanking followed by grunts and scraping ice. As he turned to find Elphaba, he saw her already at the room's door, gently opening it with magic. Gesturing at him to follow, she ran up the stairs, skipping every other one in her haste. Shaking his head in confusion about Elphaba's sudden and huge concern for this girl, Fiyero followed her as fast as he could.
When he finally caught up, forced to slide to a halt in the doorway of the ballroom, Fiyero surveyed the damage. Chandelier down, inexplicable piles of ice and snow, multiple arrow shots that seemed to have taken down the chandelier. Scanning the room, he found Elphaba crouched on the floor, holding something small tightly in her fist. As he walked over, she raised her head to meet his eyes and opened her hand to show him what she had found. He looked down to see a small green glass bottle, similar to those in which he had seen Vinkun wine samples distributed. Frowning in confusion, Fiyero took the bottle from her to inspect it further. Feeling scratch marks against his fingers, he turned it over and saw a coating of ice and dirt. As Elphaba watched, Fiyero pulled out a piece of cloth and began to try to clean it. Upon noticing that he wasn't making much progress, Elphaba took the bottle and used the last of the water in their supply to make short work of the residual dirt.
And then Elphaba dropped the bottle.
Luckily, it fell onto Fiyero's straw foot and didn't break. Bending over to pick it up, Fiyero understood immediately why she'd dropped it. The glasswork of the bottle itself was highly impressive, a cylindrical shape with a swan's neck and with a glass-topped cork. The craftsmanship wasn't the first thing either noticed. Nor was the color of the bottle, though both would soon take note of the fact that it matched Elphaba's skin exactly- a bright emerald color. No, what both the Prince of the Vinkus and the Wicked Witch of the West noticed first was the engraved seal on the bottle.
It was the letter Z inside of an O.
"I…I don't know, Fiyero. I don't know what this means. Clearly, this is from Oz. But how did it get here? How could it have gotten here? Does this mean Oz and Arendelle trade with one another?" she asked him, raising her eyes from the bottle in his hand to meet his eyes.
"They don't trade, or I would have known about it. My father handled all the trade Oz did with other countries, and he training me take over, so I'd have known," Fiyero said as the feeling came simultaneously over himself and Elphaba that their planned escape from anything and everything Oz wasn't going very well so far.
"What do we do, Fiyero? She- Elsa- said not to go down into the villages or towns since they aren't friendly to sorcery, but I can't just let them take her away. You saw this room. They didn't come to get her out of the goodness of their hearts!" Elphaba's voice had begun questioningly and quiet but had risen to a shout.
"Hey, calm down, Fae. We'll figure it out. I agree that we can't go down into the village but maybe we can fly above it and find out something that will help us know what's happening. How about you go grab the broomstick while I put some snow in the water bottles to melt? I'll meet you at the doors in ten minutes, okay?" Fiyero suggested, feeling a strange sense wash over him at having a plan for once.
Elphaba looked at him, steadied by his plan but also surprised by it. She, the practical one, was wondering about destiny, while the straw man was making the plans. Nodding in agreement, she walked back down the stairs and found the broom where she'd left in on the bed. At the front doors, Fiyero jumped onto the broom behind her and wrapped his arms around her. Taking a look down at the icy palace floor, Elphaba kicked off and flew out the double doors.
About half an hour later, Elphaba pulled the broom to a sudden stop. Fiyero glanced over her shoulder to see why and could do nothing but stare in surprise at the scene that they saw developing below them.
In a small valley between two of the lower peaks, a group consisting of a girl with red and white hair, a blond mountain man, a reindeer, and a walking snowman was surrounded by moving rocks.
I hope you're liking it so far! Constructive criticism welcome! Sorry for slow updates, but I'm trying to keep a couple chapters ahead of posting and, well, school keeps me busy. :P
-Queen Elsa Thropp
