Hey,
I didn't want to give up this great thing I have been doing. It feels so good to put up a chapter every day, and I love doing it. So, I'm not giving that up. I will try to give you one each day and I am going to try to give you two chapters on Sunday. I can't promise this to you, but I hope to make it happen. Especially since I really want to get to a certain chapter.
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Enjoy this chapter.
TempeGeller
Chapter 11: A silent mind
Too often the strong, silent man
is silent only because
he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong
only because he has remained silent.
Winston Chirchill
Fiyero wanted to tell his parents that he wasn't joining Glinda to Gillikin, even though the words could pretty much not leave his mouth. He did not want to go with Glinda, he knew his father wanted it be some kind of 'fall in love with the Glinda vacation. But that wasn't going to happen. Neither him or Glinda wanted to get married, but that seemed to be written in the stars for their future. It didn't matter what they said to both of their parents, marriage was a choice they couldn't make in life. Glinda had a nice Munchkin boy she was in love with and he had a girlfriend that was a ghost. Was Elphaba actually his girlfriend? Did he need to ask her? Or maybe he needed to bring her the news that he was leaving. He would spend two weeks in the Gillikin, apparently that would be the time it took his to fall in love with Glinda.
He stared to his parents as he left the room. How was he going to tell Elphaba that she was going to be alone for the next 2 weeks, he should maybe get someone to talk to her. Or maybe he needed to leave a tape with his voice on it. Saying something else every day, that would take a lot time. So he needed to find the right words. 'Elphaba, I'm going to Gillikin for two weeks, have fun by yourself, talking to yourself'. Or maybe he just needed to leave, but Elphaba would be scared. So he just needed to find better words. 'Elphaba, I'm off to see Gillikin with my fiancé, Glinda'. Yeah, those words of brilliance. Maybe, he need to speak this friends. She knew about the arrange marriage after all.
"Elphaba." He sat down. "Where are you?"
"I'm right somewhere here." She smiled as she saw him stepping towards the wall. "You can't know my exact whereabouts; you might send the ghost busters. I don't want to be chased."
"You're funny…" He laughed. "Elphaba, my dad wants me to go to the Gillikin for two weeks with my fiancé Glinda. Are you okay with that?"
"Off course not…" She paused "I would be alone, but I don't think neither one of us can change the situation. How do you like her?"
"A lot…" Fiyero smiled "Turns out she doesn't want to get married to me either, that creates a band between two people"
"Yeah, like any special band between two people who don't want to get married at all." She laughed "I think that you should start to like her, I mean you won't be able to marry the marriage. I think you'll have to take the future as it comes."
"Do you think so?" Fiyero smiled for a moment. "I thought you would say we needed to fight for the future, don't you think that we can't let other people tell us what to do."
"I don't think you're supposed to be talking to me about this." She stared to her feet. "You have more future than I do. So do I think you should fight for your future? If you want to, yes. It's about yours, not mine. You have to fight for it. For me it's too late."
"Why?"
"I'm a ghost Fiyero."
Fiyero had not said anything to Elphaba after she spoke about her existence as a ghost. He couldn't find a reason why she needed to take her life in her own hands, yet there was a slight touch of jealousy in her voice. There were moments he noticed it in her voice, but now after Glinda had pointed him to his feelings, he felt something in his stomach change as Elphaba spoke. How was that possible? There was nothing but a voice and movement; he didn't know what she looked like. He knew everything about her and to him it felt weird that he fell for her. When had he fallen for her? He didn't know it, it happened so slowly that his body hadn't noticed a change until it was too far. Would he have chosen for these feelings? Yes, even with the knowledge of how everything was. There was no one part of him that wanted to feel bad for these feelings. Yet he wanted things to be different.
If he would have met Elphaba is a physical way, she would have been the woman he would marry and he would have fought for her. Yet now there was no possibility for that. He needed to take the life his parents had signed out for her. That was something he didn't like. He had always known his parents would choose what his life would look like, but somehow he hoped that he would have the power to stand up for himself.
As he took his bags, he said goodbye to Elphaba. A goodbye that would only last for 2 weeks, maybe his parents would turn it in a longer period of time. He hoped they didn't, he hoped to be back as soon as possible.
As he stepped to the front of the mansion, he saw the carriage come closer. Glinda stepped next to him, there was a look on her face, yet he couldn't put a feeling with it. She seemed happy, but at the same time there was a thing he could not understand.
"You're going to love Gillikin." She whispered to him. "There are many forests; some of the most tangled woods are located in this part of the Gillikin. You will love it, it's not the same as the Vinkus. I think we should take it upon ourselves to see every part of Oz. Even behind that stupid border, I mean you don't believe that anything that touches that sand died, right?"
"I don't know…"Fiyero turned away. "There must be a reason why these words flood over the land right? Not everything that's told is a lie.."
"Some things are…" She stared at him. "I mean we don't have to believe everything they say, we're supposed to figure it out for ourselves. "
Fiyero listened to Glinda the entire ride there; she was a spirit that was looking for adventure and to see things for herself. Just because someone spoke words, didn't make them the truth. If Glinda had seen something, she would believe it with all her heart. There were no words he didn't want to listen to, but sometimes the conversation moved on another plane than his conversations with Elphaba. The two of them talked about more things they cared about and it seemed that Glinda's conversation didn't scraped underneath the surface, sometimes it seemed that their first conversation had more personality in it. She hadn't mentioned the supposed boy she liked anymore and Fiyero didn't really care that much about it. He didn't want to talk about love.
"So who's the special girl?" Fiyero couldn't believe that she chose this very moment to talk about love. He couldn't believe she was going to move the conversation that much personal. "I mean the girl that you are so crazy about? The girl who can make your eyes light up when just mention his name."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"What's her name?"
"I said I don't want to talk about it." He directed his eyes to the ground. "That situation is one that I have figured out myself. So before I know all the answers, I want to let it go."
"How difficult can it be?" She moved closer. "You like her, she likes you. How difficult can it get?"
"You have no idea."
When Fiyero arrived in Glinda's home, he noticed that it was not the castle he had expected. The house had a certain charm to it, it was bigger than an average home, but still had a home feeling to it. His castle did not always have that, it had something cold, something that didn't say home. It said something else and he didn't always like it. The house was built from simple orange brick and the roof was covered with blue stones. There were small trees in front of the house and the windows were not that big either. There were about 4 to each side of the house and it the middle of the front, you could notice a small door. In his house the door would have been two times that size, but his house would have been bigger too.
Glinda's parents brought him to a small room on the first floor, it was not a room they used, since the closet was empty and there was layer of dust. The bed seemed to be made just for him and underneath the window there was a small bureau and next to his bed there was a bedside table. He put his bag down and put the clothes in the closet. After that he stared at an artwork hanging on the wall. It was an image of a garden, he would imagine it was their garden. That was one thing Fiyero didn't have, they had a garden but there were no flowers. Not in the same way as this one.
His garden was filled with trees and grass, not flowers that needed much work. The staff didn't care taking care of flowers, so they were not at the castle. And he did not know how to care for flowers either, so he did not ask for it. Glinda however entered the room with a bunch of flowers, who she put on the desk.
"My mom , she has green fingers." Glinda smiled "She loves flowers as much as live itself. If the flowers died, she would be depressed for two days. And when she was down, it seemed the flowers felt that too. I've never seen anyone so much in contact with nature as my mom is. She's from Gillikin. I don't think I care about anything like she cares about nature, I hope to find that passion one day. It seems that you have that passion for the girl, she seems to add something to you. I have never seen a boy who reads more books than you do."
She pointed to the bag next to his bed that was filled with books, that were carefully picked out by Elphaba. She said if they both read, she wouldn't be that alone. So he would take every night to read a book.
"Someone once said that they take you from this world." Fiyero turned to Glinda. "To a world that helps us grasp this one. It doesn't just set you free, it helps you fight your emotion. "
"I never looked at it that way…" Glinda smiled "I'm not an avid reader. Maybe I should try.."
"Go ahead?" He handed her his copy of pride and prejudice he carried around. It was Elphaba's opinion that not reading pride and prejudice should be noted down as one of the greatest sins.
"I'll give this one a try."
"Elphaba thinks it feeds the expectation for love." Fiyero stared to his feet. "She thinks it shows that you shouldn't settle for marriage and go after your dreams and passions. I don't know if the book is supposed to say that, it's what she got from it."
"Elphaba, huh?" Glinda smiled "That is a beautiful name. "You just said her name, the special girl, the girl you love, why don't you tell your parents about her. Maybe they'll allow you to get married."
"It's more complicated." He turned away. "Everything is more complicated."
"There are you again with more complicated." She turned away. "I don't get it, why is everything supposed to be complicated? Why can't we just marry the ones we love?"
"Because they won't allow it."
"That's it." She turned away. "People make choices that are not theirs to make. We should be able to take charge of our own lives, they should just send us out there and trust us to make our own mistakes. I mean what am I going to learn by their mistakes."
"I get it."
"It feels like my life is just a series of could have been's." She turned away. "And my future is a set of things I really don't need."
Elphaba put her hand to the wall as she put the book to the ground. She knew she could be reading the exact same book as Fiyero, but still she missed him. He had just returned to her life and he was gone again. The idea that he would be back was something that kept her alive. Something that she needed to keep believing.
She thought about everything that Fiyero meant to her. About what she liked about him.
Ice blue as the sky,
love as pure as the sun.
Truth as warm as a burning fire,
A spring night as clear as day.
My heart skips a beat,
And as your eyes meet mine,
I'm truly as happy as a girl can be.
She turned around, couldn't he be with her right now. She felt that she could think too much about everything that could happen in her future. Why couldn't she tell the truth? She shook her head, if he knew what she looked like he wouldn't want to be with her anymore. Her father said that people didn't want to be with people who were as physically ugly as she was. And then he made it seem that she was a horrible person too. She was the reason why everything in his life went wrong and the reason why people had ended up where they ended up. When something happened he always blamed her.
She grabbed for the guitar, maybe there was something in her head that wanted to come out. But music didn't seem to be in there, it was harder than other times. As she put it to the floor, she couldn't feel anything. The stories of the ghost were next to her. And as she saw the empty page in her small notebook, she thought about her story.
Once upon a time, there was a girl. I can tell you more about here, but it might make you change your mind about her. So I will tell you that she's looking for a future that gets her away from a terrible fate. And she won't have a prince that will save her.
Her kind of princess was never saved by princes, because it seemed they were too shallow to see passed her exterior.
And as Fiyero pulled the covers around him, he thought about Elphaba. He was willing to admit that he was actually in love with Elphaba, Glinda was the one who made himself admit it. How could he be in love with someone he had never seen? Didn't you fall in love with the physical appearance? With the way they kept their hair, their face looked as they smiled. And it seemed that he was in love with that, since he tried to think about all of those things. He was just unsure if his imaginations were actually anywhere near the reality.
What did he need to do? Would Glinda tell his parents about the name 'Elphaba? And if they found out, he would be send to that terrible place. He needed to make sure that Glinda would not mention that name to his parents. Did he need to come clean with Glinda? Or did he need to lie?
He didn't know anymore.
What did he need to do?
