Elphaba had quickly changed out of her sleeping garb and slipped into her longsleeved, customary black.
Her clothing concealed her green skin almost completely by intention.
That way she only had to layer the hated make up onto her hands and face.
The plain, long cotton skirt and simple button up shirt of the same material were of simple cut and kept nicely in line with the fashion of the local farmwomen.
Fieryo watched her pack a few of their belongings into a knotted cloth, unmoved.
He kept studying her face through the mirror as she carefully applied her make up.
Bit by bit the Elphaba he knew began to disappear and the townswoman, Romaine, his wife, his shy…his quiet and obedient wife emerged.
Her eyes did not meet his while she was intent on obliterating any trace of greenness from her face.
For some reason it pained him more to watch her repeat the gesture on her hands .
Usually Elphaba wore gloves outside, working, or not, but she never dared risk a rip or a tear and repeated the gesture every morning at the crack of dawn with the same unwavering diligence.
A part of Fieryo knew that the reason that Eplhaba was leaving, was not, that he didn't love her enough.
There was no doubt about that.
He had probably loved her from the first day that she had run into his carriage.
He loved her to the point that it hurt him.
Him, who wasn't supposed to be able to feel any pain.
His heart, his unbreakable, unbleeding heart ,broke and bled, ached and wept at the thought of losing her.
But Fieryo also knew, that a part of her was also leaving, because he had begun to also love that other woman.
Romaine.
He had loved her quietness, her shyness, her dedication to work, himself, the children…
And by that he had done Elphaba the greatest of injustices.
It was more of a betrayal than it would have been, had he cheated on her with another, real woman.
And he knew it.
It was that wicked thinking thing again…
That part of him that still loved Elphaba, loved her for her temper, her strangeness, her greenness.
And that part of him, the one that was still human…
Let her go.
As she finished with her make up, succeeding in making her green self disappear wholly, Fieryo knew, that if she had stayed, she would have been just as obliterated as her color, bit by bit, by that other woman, Romaine, with every dab of make up, with every humbly uttered word.
Sadly, it made him also realize, that he was already more of a scarecrow, than she would ever be just a regular woman.
Elphaba reached for her broom.
"You're not going to ride that, are you?"
His voice was suddenly stern.
"Fieryo, … I know how to ride this broom..it is perfectly capable of carrying.." she paused, the realization hurt too much to be uttered aloud.." more than one person..it is perfectly safe" She rolled her eyes.
Of course.
"I don't doubt your flying prowess or your broom.."Fieryo's voice remained insistent.
"But if just one person sees you in the sky….Just for a moment…" he paused to add weight to his words.
"All will be lost."
Elphaba couldn't reason with his logic.
Only she had ever mastered gravity.
Who ever saw her, even guessed her form in the sky..would know immediately, that she was alive.
And back.
Rumors about her did, admittedly, have the nastiest of habits of spreading.
With a heavy sigh, she put the broom back into its corner.
But while her hand still hovered over the inanimate object, she quickly made a decision.
Grabbing it, she swiftly tied up the loose branches to fasten the bag with her belongings to it.
Fieryo appeared behind her soundlessly.
His hands contained a large loaf of fresh bread, goat cheese and a jug of fresh water.
Tears started into Elphaba's eyes, but she quickly accepted both with a sad smile.
"Can't wait to be rid of me, eh?" she tried to lighten the moment with an effort at humor.
But the deep pain in the scarecrow's eyes only made her throat constrict with a similar emotion.
Fieryo wordlessly crushed her to him.
Elphaba dropped her bag and broom to the floor and held onto him as for dear life.
Such as he had been..or at least so she had thought.
She touched her lips to his face..meeting the soft cloth there.
She had gotten used to his soft lips.."They're like a woman's" she had once joked between them, but this moment, she longed for those other lips..the ones that had responded to hers in that fateful night, when he had come with her.
Those that had been undeniably his.
"Kiss me too fiercely,
Hold me too tight.."
She whispered against his ear.
Tears had begun to catch in her dark lashes and began to gleam like miniature stars in the light of the rising sun.
"I don't.." he paused to look down at himself before wringing a smile out of his unutterably sad face.
"I don't regret anything, Elphaba." He said quietly.
She looked at him, stricken.
"This.." he looked at her, and gently drawing her to himself again, motioned over to their sleeping children with his head, "is more than I ever dared dreamed of."
He leant down to whisper into her ear, while his own tears were now falling freely into her beautiful, silver-lined, black hair.
His voice had turned to a whisper against her cheek.
"I don't ever regret falling under your spell, Elphaba, and I want you to know, that if you should ever wish to return…I'll be right here."
Taking a step back, he clasped her hands to his chest and began to sing softly, so as not to wake the sleeping infants.
"Say there's no future for us as a pair, and though I may have known…I never cared."
His voice rose into a sweet and soft falsetto.
"Just for that moment,
As long as you were mine,
It turns out, it's over…"
His voice cracked.
"Too fast, but that one moment.."
"We made it last.."
"The moonlight is gone."
Elphaba's voice was thick with tears, but her heart was suddenly full of urgency and claustrophobia.
"I know." Fieryo wiped the tears off of his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and bent down to gather up her things.
His eyes caught her sudden, hurried movement.
Elphaba was tying a colorful cloth around her torso.
Fieryo inhaled sharply.
Breathing became suddenly painful as he watched Elphaba cry through her tightly shut lids and haphazardly manouver through their apartment in jerky, awkward movements.
She kept blindly stumbling into their sparse furniture, her hands reaching for the feel of a particular kind of wood.
When she finally made contact with the soft, brushed texture of the crib's encasings, Elphaba only began to cry even harder.
She had to try hard not to slump down in the sheer agony at the prospect of what she was about to do.
Making her mind and heart a blank, she reached in.
Her blind hands, by a mother's instinct, found the little girl who needed comfort the most.
Sleep had witched shadows onto the tiny creature's brow.
Ever so gently, Elphaba lifted the infant up and placed her into the colorful cloth, securing it almost overtightly against her body.
Keeping her eyes tightly shut to the world and her heart breaking, she kissed her youngest a tear stained goodbye.
