Fiyero had never considered himself a truly selfless, deep, or farsighted person, but when he saw Elphaba in her magical disguise he had to admit that he found her far more beautiful in her natural state. Honestly. It was quite a pleasant surprise to him that he didn't have to chide himself for his thoughts in this instance. Which wasn't to say that the glamoured Elphaba wasn't beautiful; she was remarkably so. She was what people ought to see when they looked at her normally. She was also lighter, not just in terms of skin, but as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders along with the distinguishing stain of her verdigris.

It was quite jarring to look at, in fact. She looked exactly like herself, yet not. The pale color of her skin made her almost more striking when contrasted with her dark hair; as when she was green, she required a second look.

It appeared, too, that Lysia had lent her a dress. It was light blue, a color Elphaba couldn't wear when green, and simply cut, a little large in the waist, where it was tied by one of Elphaba's scarves. Fiyero was glad that she didn't seem perturbed by her disguise, in fact she seemed genuinely relaxed.

"Thirty minutes," said Moya when Elphaba emerged into the kitchen. "Starting as soon as you walk through that door."

"You said twenty."

"You sound as if it's a death sentence, dear."

"It could be, if I overestimate my abilities and go green in the middle of the plaza," said Elphaba darkly.

"You? Overestimate your abilities? Never," said Lysia sarcastically. "Little one twenty pound girl going after burly men with knives."

"I won, didn't I?"

"You used magic."

"Which is an ability of mine. Therefore, I did not overestimate my abilities."

"Hah! So you can go!" exclaimed Moya, grinning broadly at Lysia.

Elphaba glared fiercely, the intensity of the look not at all diminished by her alteration in color.

"Fine, then, Fiyero, let's go."

"Have a good time!"

"Shameless harlots!"

"But you love us!"

Elphaba grinned and pushed the door open. "That I do."

…

The thirty minutes stretched into forty-five, then fifty; then even sixty. Magic was much easier for Elphaba to sustain when she was calm. When she needed to blow something up with an instant burst of unfathomable power, passionate anger was more effective, or so Fiyero guessed from his various encounters with Elphaba's sorcery. When she wasn't terrified of her hood falling down or her glove slipping to reveal a centimeter of green, Elphaba laughed quite a bit more, and was quite a bit happier. Fiyero was delighted when she let him put his arm around her, and even leaned into him as they walked. She usually wasn't even that demonstrative in public, not that they had been much in public together since they had become…intimate. But the worst of winter had faded, and the day was unseasonably warm. Neither of them wore jackets. Elphaba's long, loose hair was her only shawl. Fiyero was even more mesmerized by it when he wasn't equally distracted by the uniquely magnificent color of her skin. He wished he could wind his hands through it, as if it were silk.

Their hour together was wonderful. He introduced her to the delicious manoush fruit of the Vinkus. She surprised him by translating the word correctly.

"It means sweet, doesn't it?"

"Yes- how did you know that?"

Elphaba smiled. "I want to learn all the old languages, from before the Wizard standardized things with Universal Ozian. I know Old Gillikinese pretty well. I can usually decipher Qua'ati and the old Vinkus dialects. It's funny, I'm from Munchkinland, but I don't speak that one very well. It's extraordinarily hard to learn the pronunciations once you're older than three or so, especially when they aren't used around you as you grow up, and you know we were growing up just as the worst of the bans against the old culture were being enforced."

"There wasn't so much of that in the Vinkus, actually, not until recently. I mean, they made us learn UO in all the schools, and officially the government is under the Wizard, but not much more than that."

"I get the same sense about Quadling Country. I wonder why those regions were left to rule themselves with near autonomy, while Gillikin and Munchkinland were appropriated so- so brutally."

"Well, you know us savages," said Fiyero. He meant it to be funny, but it sounded bitter.

"No," said Elphaba, staring at him. "I don't. I know people, and I know Animals. I've only met a few savages in my life, and they all reside right there," she pointed deliberately at the spire of the palace, rising angrily into the sky like a murdering sword. "Indiscriminate destroyers of beings and of traditions and cultures that have been around for millennia? Taking power by violence and maintaining authority the same way?" She shook her head. "Savages, the Wizard and his minions, and so few others, Fiyero. Certainly not you." She smiled again, but almost sardonically, baring her teeth. "Moreso me than you, at any rate." She grinned more sincerely. "I don't read Ozmopolitan."

"Neither do I!" he protested, grabbing her hand. She gasped, and he looked down. The slim, elegant fingers he clutched in his own were a light green. She closed her eyes, and the color faded.

"We have to go," she said, seriousness taking over her voice. "Hurry."

When they reached the ramshackle building, it was apparent that the dissipation of Elphaba's glamour was the least of their problems.

They had been raided.