Author's Note: The chapter title comes from a Mary Higgins Clark book, not a lot of relevance to the chapter except that there are dreams involved and I couldn't think of a title with the word dream/s in it that suited.
This chapter does not have a song/quote, after a great deal of agonising over breaking the pattern I've set I decided against it.
Finally a warning for all the readers out there who don't get advance copies of the chapters: following certain hints in the previous chapter this chapter is about three quarters Fiyero/OC. I would suggest that anyone who doesn't like the idea probably shouldn't read any further.
To everyone else I hope you like the update
Chapter 14 – While My Pretty One Sleeps
"Wake up, my love," whispered a voice that Fiyero hadn't heard since he was sixteen. He opened his eyes and found himself in an Arjiki tent with her sitting next to him.
"This is impossible!" he exclaimed as he sat up quickly.
"If it were impossible it could not be," she remarked with an understanding smile. "But it is, so it must be."
"Quadling wisdom?"
"The only kind."
"I never dreamed of you before," he protested. "Not ever!"
"If one were to be technical this is not your dream – you're just sharing it."
"Then whose dream is it?" asked Fiyero with the sinking feeling that he already knew the answer.
"Elphaba's, of course," she answered, laughing at the stricken expression on his face. "Don't worry, she is not here and I am real – not a figment of your combined imaginations. Elphaba doesn't even know she's doing this, at least not consciously. I don't even know how it works myself to be truthful. The point is that we are both real and both here."
"You're older," said Fiyero, having finally noticed what was different about her.
"There is no time where I am, my love, I can be fifteen again if that is what you prefer."
The air around her shimmered for a moment then she looked exactly as she had when they had been married. He almost asked where she was but his mind shied away from the enormity of the question.
"And can you see Oz from…where you are?"
"Now we're getting close to the reason you're here," she remarked without answering his question. "I never intended to speak to you like this, I'm not even sure if I could have on my own, but you seem to have suffered a lapse of memory, or perhaps you just need the reassurance. My point is I haven't been lurking around following you for you for years. I love you with all my soul but I have accepted our separation – it's entirely likely you will not even remember this conversation."
Fiyero opened his mouth to say something, anything, but she interrupted again.
"Close your mouth, you look like a fish. Now I'm going to put this into simple words for you, just in case you've gotten as stupid as you've been pretending to be. I meant what I said to you, I want you to be happy and if it's another woman who makes you happy then so be it, I'm happy for both of you. I couldn't help noticing, however, that you seem to be feeling guilty."
"I was handling it, or at least I thought I was, until Anjeri…well he said that I had forgotten you and replaced you, which isn't true! I love both of you too much to let anyone, including myself, imply that you have been replaced or were the second best choice."
"We've found the problem then," stated Kh'ya calmly.
"We have?" answered Fiyero, confused.
" You love both of us," she informed him as if it was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. "You're allowed to, you know, after all: there are as many kinds of love…"
"As there are stars in the sky," finished Fiyero. "I thought that was an Eastern poem."
"Why would you think that?"
"Elphaba quoted it to me."
"It is a Quadling poem, I learned it from my own mother."
"Oh. I wonder how Elphaba's mother knew it then."
"Probably because Elphaba's grandmother was a Quadling."
"What?"
"Well it doesn't show in Elphaba and her sister so I suppose it didn't show in her mother either or the Governor wouldn't have married her don't you think?"
"How do you know so much about Elphaba?"
"Oh we're friends, she and I, in this world between worlds. She knows all about us in her dreams but in the other world she doesn't remember me."
"Does she mind, when she's here, that I loved you first?"
"Oh no. She cried for us and the years we should have had together. Even now, we've known each other for longer here, she still gets sad and just wants to sit without talking."
"I wonder what it is I have done to deserve two such wonderful women in my life."
"It's us who are the lucky ones, to have found someone so willing to share his heart with us."
"A man so in denial about his feelings, of grief and love, that he spent years with women he didn't have to share his heart with?" Fiyero challenged her statement harshly. "And being in love with that man makes you lucky?"
"But they meant nothing to you, those women you spent years with, if you mean all those silly Gillikin girls before Shiz. Your feelings for Glinda Upland, on the other hand, are something you'll have to figure out on your own."
"I'm not in love with Glinda," said Fiyero straight away.
"Are you sure?" asked Kh'ya curiously. "You deny it so quickly, quara."
Is she saying that because she's curious? Fiyero wondered. Or because she is trying to make me think about it?
"What I feel for Glinda," he began speaking slowly. "It is nothing like what I feel for Elphaba or for you…but I am not sure if what I feel for you is a great deal like what I feel for Elphaba and, as you said, 'there are as many kinds of love…'. So even though I am not in love with Glinda I could not truthfully say that I do not love her."
"Now that wasn't so difficult was it? And don't you feel better now that you're starting to work out some of that emotional conflict?"
"You always know the right things to say to make people feel better."
"I am Kilahi ra das Aelj," replied Kh'ya. "How could I do otherwise?"
Whatever reply Fiyero might have made was drowned out by the abrupt entry of another person into the tent - a young girl, probably eleven or twelve years old, with strawberry blonde hair.
"Mera!" exclaimed the girl. "I heard we had a visitor, is it Dahnakilahi Fabala?"
"If you would but stand still a moment, my little whirlwind, you would see that Gahma and Dahna are trying to have a conversation."
"Shor'hi," said Fiyero, having finally connected the pieces of the puzzle, the words in Quadling and Arjiki resolved themselves to make sense. She had called Kh'ya 'Mother'; Kh'ya had called him the girl's Father.
"You sound funny, Gahma, are you unwell?"
"No," began Fiyero then cleared his throat to try and get rid of the tightness caused by him wanting to cry for joy. "No, Dhani, I am very well indeed and all the better for seeing you."
"Mama, may I go and visit Riake while you talk?"
"Of course," replied Kh'ya with a gentle smile. The child smiled back, an expression that made her look like a younger version of her mother, and then hugged Fiyero quickly.
"Goodbye Fera!"
"Goodbye, "whispered Fiyero as she left. "She's beautiful."
"I know," said Kh'ya proudly.
"Well don't look as though I had nothing to do with that fact," teased Fiyero, because jesting with her felt so natural.
"Well I certainly did most of the work!" protested Kh'ya.
"She didn't seem to notice that you look younger," he said, frowning slightly. "She didn't seem surprised to see me here…"
"For her, you have always been here and for us time is not a thing to be concerned about. I will not claim to know how any of this is what it is but I would guess that perhaps sometime recently you have been thinking of how she would be eleven years old this year, yes? And so she is."
"That makes as much sense as any of this," agreed Fiyero, indicating the entire scene with a sweep of his hand. Looking slightly puzzled he asked another question. "And who is Aunt Fabala? I know you do not have any sisters."
"It is Fabala, the Quadling form of Elphaba."
"'Aunt' Elphaba?" repeated Fiyero. "Now that's a title I can't quite see her being comfortable with."
"No, being tolerant of it is about the most she manages in fact," agreed Kh'ya. "But we were talking about you."
"You're going to ask me how I feel aren't you?" said Fiyero with a resigned sigh.
"Whatever makes you think that?"
"Darling I lived with you just after you finished your training, remember? I know how it works."
"It's still a legitimate question. You seem less upset than you were when you got here but I don't know until I ask if you feel that way."
"You make it sound so reasonable…probably because it is," he admitted. "So how do I feel? How did I feel? That's a good question as well I think."
"It is," she agreed. "Start with whichever you like."
"I was feeling guilty, so guilty I probably wouldn't have been able to sleep if I hadn't been so worn out – I don't know if you've heard..."
It amazed him that he could speak so casually of what she had told him about knowing Elphaba.
"But it's been a rough few days. Like I said it was fine until Anjeri lost his temper with me, accused me of replacing you, and even though I know that's not true I couldn't help having doubts and then here you are, and you tell me I won't remember this so what good is it?"
"From what Elphaba tells me she remembers some things we talk about as thoughts she has had of her own accord, perhaps it will be the same. If not, well, you are not entirely hopeless I'm sure you will work it out again for yourself. But you were saying 'here I am'…"
"Here you are and you're telling me it's fine and if it had just been someone saying to me that you would want me to be happy I wouldn't have believed them. I didn't even believe myself earlier when I was trying to say that but now that you've said it I think I really do believe it."
"And was that so difficult?" asked Kh'ya rather smugly.
"Exhausting!" declared Fiyero semi-seriously.
"Then sleep," suggested Kh'ya, more serious than he had been.
"I don't want to leave you," he whispered in anguish. "Not yet."
"We've never been apart," she assured him, lifting their linked hands (and he didn't even remember taking her hand!) as symbol of the fact. "And, as our revered Arjiki ancestors said: A rahn harc tal dhiya nyanya ezar arme dhi errata édaa geir ameski."
"Are you telling me," began Fiyero, pushing back the emotional response to his own question until he finished it. "In your oh so convolutedly Kilahi ra das Aelj way, that I could see you here again?"
"If you wished it," she replied, as calm as he was not.
"I don't know if that would be right…"
"Why ever not?"
"To be honest, it feels a lot like I would be being unfaithful and the truly wretched part is that I can't decide who I'd be being unfaithful to."
"I would never ask you to do anything that would harm your spirit so, my dearest one. Now sleep, I promise you need not go yet."
"Well…if you promise…"
"Upon my honour."
"Perhaps I'll just rest my eyes for a moment," he agreed reluctantly. "It has been a long day."
"I have a gift for you, Dhiquaral," murmured Kh'ya, when he was nearly asleep.
"For me? What is it?"
"A dream within a dream, a gift of what might have been."
"I don't understand," he said, speech slurred by the fact he was two thirds asleep.
"You don't need to understand," she replied gently. "You just need to be here."
In the centre of the western grasslands was a semipermanent encampment of the Arjiki people inhabited by those, such as Elders and families with young children, who could not survive winters on the grasslands. It was home also to the Arjiki Quaki and various members of his family including Prince Fiyero Tiggular the son of his wife's sister, Princess Kh'ya who was the daughter of his younger brother, and their daughter Shor'hi. The small family had come in from the plains to visit relatives before moving on to the City to spend the winter with Fiyero's parents, sisters, and assorted nieces and nephews.
"Mother, Father, wake up!" was the only warning Fiyero and Kh'ya had before their eleven year old daughter landed on the bed, luckily managing not to land on either of them.
"What?" grumbled Fiyero sleepily.
"What's wrong?" asked Kh'ya more urgently, being more of a morning person than her husband she was quicker to react.
"Nothing's wrong, silly!"
"Why are you all dressed, sweetheart?"
"Is it even dawn yet?" interjected Fiyero with a huge yawn.
Shor'hi's smile vanished at this seeming disinterest on the part of her parents.
"Don't you remember?"
Kh'ya pushed her hair out of the way with exaggerated casualness and, with a hint of amusement in her eyes, she tapped a finger against the bed thoughtfully.
"I don't know about your father but I certainly don't remember us promising you an outing to celebrate your birthday."
"Mera! You do remember don't you?"
"Remember things?" repeated Fiyero. "Who us?"
"Yes you, Fera!"
"Do you know," he said, with a disarming smile for both of them. "I simply adore the way the two of you sprinkle Quadling phrases into your Arjiki. It's very endearing."
"Father! Stop trying to distract me."
"Yes, Fiyero, we promised to take our daughter out today so stop stalling."
Fiyero burrowed under the blankets and pulled them over his head.
"Before dawn," came his muffled voice. "She's your daughter."
Kh'ya rolled her eyes with an air about her that suggested she hadn't expected anything less.
"Come along, yu dama, let's go and make some breakfast while your Chetzu of a father goes back to sleep."
"Excuse me," interrupted Fiyero, still under the blankets. "But I caught the breakfast!"
The only reply was laughter from the food preparation area.
By the time Fiyero woke up properly, around midmorning, Kh'ya and Shor'hi had not only made breakfast but also packed lunch and were both sitting on the floor next to the bed watching him.
"Good morning," he greeted them cheerfully as he climbed out of bed.
"That's not what you said at dawn," teased Kh'ya, smiling back at him. "Shor'hi, go and tell Riake that we will be ready soon now."
Riake was a member of the Ziansa Tribe, some of whom lived in the far West and some among the Arjiki, and a special friend of Shor'hi's.
"I will! He's been looking forward to it!"
"I'll go and get the presents from Father's Brother Nihran's tent while you get ready," offered Kh'ya.
"Thank you, my greetings to him and my Mother's Sister."
Their destination that day was an area known as the Dyhiran Hills (contrary to popular eastern belief the grasslands were not completely flat) named after an ancient tribal leader who once held off an army from the highest hill.
Fiyero and Kh'ya each rode one of the Jhakerli, with the day's meal and birthday gifts for Shor'hi shared between their saddlebags. Shor'hi, who seemed to be reacting to being a year older by acting younger, was sitting in front of her mother while Riake jogged along behind them.
Once they reached their chosen lunching spot the trip turned almost immediately into a game of 'chase me' between Riake and Shor'hi while Fiyero and Kh'ya sat on the ground and ducked every so often as flying leaps were made over them.
"She doesn't seem too interested in presents," remarked Fiyero lazily.
"Another reason for your mother to ask us questions about her health and upbringing no doubt," replied Kh'ya, pulling a face at the thought.
"As if my sister's children are so much different," agreed Fiyero. His mother (and father to a lesser degree) had a lot of opinions about how the girl whose brother or son would eventually rule the West should be raised, though if Fiyero had his way when he came to the Throne she would be next in line herself.
"Oh yes, dear heart, but their children don't have "dangerously wild Quadling blood" in them."
"Blessed Saint, did she actually say that?"
"If it's any consolation she did not realise I was listening, or perhaps she did realise I was listening and only did not realise that I understand Ozian quite well, despite the fact I greeted her in that language."
"Maybe we should go to Kiamo Ko for the winter instead," suggested Fiyero. "As opposed to spending four months in reach of my mother and father."
"That freezing dreary old castle? No, thank you, I would rather suffer your parents and let Shor'hi have her cousins' company. According to your sister Kalira's last letter, which you haven't read yet I might add, all of your sisters their husbands and children will be there."
"Are you sure?" said Fiyero. "Don't you remember what it was like last year?"
"Perhaps the freedom of the plains has dulled my memory," offered Kh'ya.
"Mother expected you to wear your dresses all the time."
In the Arjiki tribe all children wore trousers and long sleeved tunics but girls were given a ceremonial dress at a certain age and could wear them or not as they chose after that time.
"Oh mercy," muttered Kh'ya, who mostly chose not to wear her dresses despite the fact her mother in-law kept giving them to her as presents.
"And then it will be 'oh look how much dear little Shor'hi has grown'," added Fiyero, mimicking his mother's 'sincere but not' tone perfectly.
"Followed by 'what a shame she doesn't have a little sibling to care for'," continued Kh'ya with a groan. "And all those positively charming personal questions about why she doesn't have such a sibling."
"On the bright side," said Fiyero in a mournful sounding tone (naturally it only sounded mournful as they were both outrageously making fun of his mother).
"This was an arranged pairing so she can't suggest that I put you aside for some wide hipped Gillikinese girl who could give me half a dozen sons in as many years without horribly offending your father and causing some kind of civil war that would leave the entire country in a state of disaster."
"Well thank the Mother and the Saint for that!"
"What's so funny?" demanded Shor'hi, a few minutes later, when she and Riake returned from their running to find the pair laughing hysterically.
"We were just anticipating the winter we are about to spend with Father's Father and Father's Mother," explained Kh'ya.
"Do we have to? Aunt Alika is always trying to make me dress up like cousin Elaine does, and Elaine is so…bouncy! And she always tries to make me try on her dresses and even though she's part Arjiki she won't listen when I try to tell her about not wearing dresses until you're old enough. She said only girl savages don't wear dresses! At least Jiana and Syarhi understand about dresses."
"Well," said Fiyero. "As it happens this winter will be a little bit different."
"Elaine won't be there?" guessed Shor'hi hopefully.
"Not quite that lucky," said her mother, laughing.
"But you can wear a dress if you want to."
"It's nice of you to give me permission but I wouldn't feel right about it."
"This is more what your father had in mind, dear child."
The way Kh'ya said 'this' made Shor'hi turn to look at her mother then at the folded fabric her mother was holding in her hands.
"A joyous birthday to you, my daughter, from both of us," said Kh'ya formally.
Fiyero moved to stand next to Kh'ya and continued the ritual.
"As your parents, and in equal partnership, we have judged you ready to begin accepting the responsibilities of your future adulthood. We give you the clothing of womanhood so that all who see you may know this to be true."
"I'm not sure I'm ready."
Those words were so much always the answer that they had become part of the ritual by default.
"By this token," replied Kh'ya, hiding her pride behind the formality of the day, and handed Shor'hi the dress. "I confirm your status as a young adult of the Tribe as I will stand to confirm your status as an independent woman when the time comes."
"By this token," repeated Fiyero, taking a small wrapped object out of his saddlebag. "I, too, do confirm your status as a young adult of the Tribe as I will stand to confirm your status as an independent woman when the time comes."
"We would also tell you," added Kh'ya, the words she was about to say reminding her of her own eleventh birthday…except her mother's words were the opposite of what she was about to tell Shor'hi. "That we have arranged no marriage-pairing for you and so, with due consideration, you are free to make your own choice."
With that the formal section of the day was completed and all three members of the small family smiled at each happily.
"Can I open my present from Father now?" asked Shor'hi, holding the parcel carefully in her hands.
"Of course you can," her parents assured her simultaneously.
Shor'hi opened it with childlike exuberance and gasped softly when she saw what was inside. A delicate silver chain, the links shaped like leaves, with a ruby pendant in the shape of a rose attached to it.
"It's lovely, Father when did you ever have time to get this? It must have come from the south surely?"
"It did," confirmed Fiyero. "And I sent a request to a cousin of your mother's to have it made the day after your mother told me she was with child. I'm glad you like it."
"This is the most wonderful birthday ever! And I know I've said that every year," she added, noticing her parents' indulgent smiles. "But I really mean it, I don't think I could ever have a better birthday than this one and it isn't even over yet!"
Hours later the three of them stretched out on a blanket watching the sun drop beyond the horizon and the stars appear in its place.
"We should go back soon," murmured Kh'ya with no great urgency in her voice.
"I don't want this day to ever end," protested Shor'hi sleepily.
"Everything comes to end," said Fiyero philosophically. "Even birthdays."
"Yes," agreed Kh'ya sadly. "Everything must come to an end, even special days such as this one."
The only window in the tower room occupied by Fiyero and Elphaba faced South so the sun didn't enter the room at all as it passed from east to west and gave way to the rising of the nearly full moon the next night.
Fiyero woke up feeling a lot better than he had when he went to sleep, as if sleeping had somehow washed away his fears and anxieties. He stretched his hand out to see where Elphaba was, she responded to his hand on her shoulder with a murmured greeting.
"Good evening."
"Did I wake you?"
"Yes, but don't let it worry you. This was the first time in years I've slept through a whole day and into the next night."
"Did you sleep well?"
"Better than you, from the sound of things."
Fiyero rolled onto his side to look at her, she was just visible in the moonlight.
"You were muttering in your sleep."
"Really? I must have been dreaming…I don't remember dreaming but I used to talk in my sleep as a young man," he stopped talking for a moment then asked curiously. "What did I say?"
"It was all Arjiki to me, I'm afraid, there was one word you said a lot though. It sounded like a name. Kh'ya."
"I said her name?"
"She's someone you love isn't she?"
Fiyero repeated her question in his mind, searching for the sound of jealousy ad finding only understanding and, hardly unexpected really, an undertone of curiousity. There was also something he couldn't quite decipher but it was similar to the day before when she had seen his tattoos and stated that she'd known he was more than he had been at Shiz.
In another lifetime, he pondered thoughtfully. She would have been one of those History Keepers who sought the answers to everything.
"She was fourteen when we met, it sounds so young when you're used to Eastern thinking, but she had been a woman for several years. She was my cousin Ciryan's cousin, no relation to me but a Princess of the Arjiki Tribe. Our parents arranged our engagement about, from what they told me, three months after she was born but they only informed me after I completed the Arjiki Warrior Trials."
"I presume they considered such news too distracting to tell you before you risked your life in the wilderness?" remarked Elphaba dryly. "My opinion of your parents does not improve, I must admit."
"I'm still not happy that they didn't tell me, I'm quite capable of handling distractions and I was almost expecting an arranged marriage since that's how most of my family has been paired off for generations…right up until Kalira turned twelve and told our parents that she would not have an arranged marriage no matter what I and the three oldest girls had done."
"I can imagine her being the one to stand up to them…not that I don't think you wouldn't have, of course, but you didn't."
"I was planning to, I thought I should at least meet the girl first though before risking a blood feud between her father and mine. I was completely unprepared for what happened when I met her, she wasn't at all what I had expected. The first thing I noticed was that she had the most brilliant red hair – when I had been expecting was a brunette you see? I learned later that her mother was from a Quadling family we Westerners have our own Border Landers much as Munchkinland and Gillikin do."
"I'm starting to feel a great deal of kinship with your Kh'ya," admitted Elphaba, and Fiyero could almost see her smile despite the lack of light. "My mother was also from a Quadling family, not a Border Lander though, the daughter of a mostly Gillikinese Missionary. It's not something my father ever advertised and obviously you couldn't tell from looking at her or her daughters."
Fiyero was surprised into silence but he almost felt like she was telling him something he already knew.
"Did you speak Quadling as a child?"
"I still do, on occasion," replied Elphaba. "I learned it from Mother."
"That's what it is!" he said, forgetting in his excitement that she wouldn't know what he was talking about.
"That's what what is?"
"The first time you spoke to me, beyond muttering 'hello' when you and Galinda made friends at the party, there was something about the way you spoke that I couldn't quite place but it makes sense now. Kh'ya spoke Arjiki with a Quadling accent on some of the words but it didn't occur to me that was what you were reminding me of because you speak Ozian with a Quadling accent and that was the first time I've heard anyone from East or North with that accent."
"I'm so happy you've solved that little linguistic mystery," said Elphaba, not being sarcastic. "You were telling me about Kh'ya and her red hair."
"It made a very strong impression, that and she was one of the smallest women I'd ever seen, Galinda's height but so slender, and her eyes! She had the most stunning eyes, blue as the sky."
He stopped speaking again to reach over and stroke Elphaba's face with one hand.
"I've only met one woman since whose eyes entranced me as much as hers did," he admitted quietly.
"Really?" whispered Elphaba, plainly wanting to believe him but not sure if she could (despite their earlier conversation).
"Really," he agreed. "It doesn't surprise me, now, that you saw past my pretences. I remember, even then, seeing the shadows in your eyes and wondering what past heartache you were holding inside."
"I saw the same in you," replied Elphaba. "The shadows of grief hidden from the world. Now, I think, you are telling me the reason."
"So I am. Perhaps one day you will return the favour?"
"Perhaps."
That seemed to be all the answer he was going to get so Fiyero continued his story, wondering as he did so why it seemed so much less painful than he thought it would be.
"The most important thing that happened when I met Kh'ya was that I fell in love for the first time.
We both understood our duty and we didn't find each other's company excruciating so it seemed things would work out amiably enough. We were always surrounded people, which was very frustrating because I wanted to get to know her. One day we actually ended up alone together and after about fifteen minutes of small talk she turned to me and rather bluntly asked if I really wanted to marry her or if I was just doing it because it was my duty.
We'd only known each other for three days, and I said so, asking her how could I possibly know that yet?
She replied, "I knew from the moment we were introduced that I want to marry you for better reasons than my family's honour."
Well, what could I do after that but admit that my thoughts had been full only of her since the moment I saw her.
I suppose a lot of people would say it was impossible to fall in love in three days…"
"Sometimes it only takes one sentence," said Elphaba, automatically disagreeing with 'a lot of people'.
"Really? I suppose if it was a very meaningful sentence…"
"It was 'you don't have to do that, you know?'"
"And 'No, not really stupid'," countered Fiyero, making Elphaba laugh quietly.
"I couldn't believe my luck in having my parents choose such a woman for me," he continued without being coerced into it. "I knew she would be as wonderful a Princess of the West as she was Princess of her own tribe. That was for later, of course, we weren't expected to take on formal responsibilities until we were at least eighteen or twenty. Children mature early in the Vinkus so we spend a lot of time being adults and learning responsibility.
The next day we disappeared in the Grasslands at dawn and didn't come back for three weeks. We went all the way to the Shrine of Saint Aelphaba on the edge of the Thursk Desert – the Shrine is at the same north point as the Pertha Hills in Gillikin but on the other side of the Great Kells – and said our vows before the High Priestess herself. That was very important to Kh'ya, being one of the Aelja Kilahia – that's the title given to Arjiki Priestess-Magicians – you uneducated Easterners call them 'Shamans' I think."
"If they are from 'savage' Western tribes they do," agreed Elphaba. "Otherwise one might be called anything from Magician to Wizard."
"We decided to live among the Arjiki for a few years, as I had planned myself, then I would enquire about Universities in Central Oz and she would come with me though she wasn't sure yet if she wanted to take classes or just 'keep house', as she put it, for me. As you may notice from that statement she was not an advocate of feminist as Eastern girls understand it but, as she tried to explain to me once, Arjiki women have enough choices no matter what outsiders think. She had a low opinion of the misconceptions of such outsiders I remember her response to one such comment from my mother…"
"Of course," muttered Elphaba."
"Kh'ya told my mother that she was far more free than any 'civilised' Queen."
"Naturally your mother was appalled."
"So shocked she actually apologised for speaking improperly and kept her comments to the weather and such trivialities for the rest of the visit. What followed was the happiest year of my life and its highest point came at midsummer, exactly a year after we'd said our vows together.
Kh'ya took me aside from the celebrations, we sat down under a full moon just like this one, and she said to me."
His voice trailed off hoarsely but Fiyero didn't realise he was crying until Elphaba lifted one hand and brushed it across his cheek.
"If it's too painful, Fiyero, you don't have to…"
"No, I want to, it's just…I've never talked to anyone about her, not for years but then I've never wanted to before."
He took a deep breath, noticing that Elphaba was holding his hand tightly and wondering when she'd done that, then continued his story.
"She said to me…
My love, I have something to tell you.
She said it quietly and calmly, she was always so quiet and calm, and in such a way that it took me a moment to understand what she meant.
She continued: The first days of Spring are going to bring us a wonderful gift, my Fiyero.
It was only when she took my hand and placed it over her stomach that I realised we were going to have a child."
That last statement brought a dozen questions to Elphaba's mind, she couldn't imagine Fiyero, even at his most 'genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow' being the sort of man to abandon his child. Fortunately she thought it through in the time it took him to take a breath and thought she had guessed how this might end.
"I was so solicitous of her health after that she frequently told me I was driving her to madness with my fussing but she didn't really mind. We were young, I was sixteen and she fifteen, but adult enough to be responsible for our child. We were so in love it seemed like nothing could spoil our happiness.
How wrong we were…
Everything was wonderful at first and all of our families were excited when we announced the incipient arrival of the newest member of the family."
Elphaba nearly made a joking comment about his mother but, having a fair idea of what he would say next, decided against levity.
"I teased Kh'ya, when she got bigger, told her she looked like a python who'd swallowed a sheep which she thought was hilarious, and true.
Of course I had no idea that anything could, and would, go wrong.
Arjiki tradition is that men are not allowed in the tent of a woman giving birth so all I could do was listen, from outside, as Kh'ya yelled curses and insults at the top of her lungs. When things got quieter I assumed it was a sign that it would be over soon.
The midwife came out of the tent and quietly told me that Kh'ya wanted to see me. Before she could finish I ran into the tent and came to an abrupt halt when I smelled blood.
She was on the bed, her eyes closed, breathing shallowly. I demanded to know what had happened and the midwife, oh so gently, explained that Kh'ya's hips had been too narrow for her to give birth. She'd started bleeding inside and they couldn't stop it.
I couldn't believe it, I knew what she was saying but it didn't seem real. My Kh'ya, my beautiful wife who was only just sixteen years old could not possibly be dying. I just stood there staring as she told me that the Yiraki, an Arjiki Healer, had tried to cut the child out but it was too late.
Kh'ya was holding her, our small daughter who had never even drawn breath in this world. She had been awake but too exhausted to open her eyes until the midwife finished speaking. She called my name softly and I sat down next to her realising, despite the denial in my heart, that this would be our goodbye.
I whispered her name and she smiled at me despite the pain that clouded her eyes then she apologised to me, she apologised, because she was leaving me alone. I told her I loved her, I begged her not to leave me, and she said…she said 'goodbye isn't forever, my love, one day we'll be together again.'
She closed her eyes again and I thought it was for the last time until she spoke to me again, and that really was the last time."
He stopped speaking, unaware that he had been barely whispering, and pulled Elphaba almost painfully close to him.
"She gave me some wonderful advice which I have only recently had the opportunity to follow. She told me, so quietly I had to hold her even closer than this to me to hear her voice that I wasn't to do anything stupid and if I ever had the chance to love someone as we loved each other I shouldn't hesitate to take it. Then she was gone and I couldn't stay, not after they were buried – Kh'ya and the daughter we were going to name Shor'hi, it means Joy.
I made myself forget her but I realise now that I never really did, there was always a part of me thinking of her and how annoyed she would be with me for running away. I went on 'dancing through life', acting as shallow and self-absorbed as I believed I'd become and trying not to think about how disappointed in me Kh'ya would be.
Finally, after being expelled from nearly every other university in Oz, I went to Shiz University and I met two very special women. One of them was so completely right for who I was pretending to be, though by then the pretence was nearly the truth, that I was immediately attracted to her and the other was so perfect for who I really am that I was scared to admit, even to myself, how I felt about her."
"I never realised love could be so terrifying until I realised I loved my best, and only, friend's beau," whispered Elphaba.
"Me neither," replied Fiyero. "Not until that crazy day when I helped the most amazing woman I've ever met rescue a Lion cub from a classroom did I ever imagine that I could love someone again.
I could never say I love you more, or less, than I love Kh'ya. I love her now as much as I ever did but I've found that there is room in my heart to love another woman as well. The greatest irony is that before I met Kh'ya I never really believed that love was real, almost all of the married couples I had contact with were at best cordial to each other. So you see if I had never loved, and lost, her I would never have met you, the only other woman I can imagine myself being able to love."
She didn't reply and he wondered if his frank admissions had upset or offended her in some way then he realised she was crying.
"Elphaba?" he said her name anxiously. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"
"Oh Fiyero, I wouldn't exchange what we have for everything in the world! But it just breaks my heart, it does, to think of what you must have gone through. I can barely imagine how I would feel if I lost you! And poor Kh'ya to lose you so soon as well as you losing her, and for both of you to never have the chance to know your little daughter."
Fiyero couldn't find the words to explain how her reaction made him feel, he hadn't exactly been expecting her to be upset but then he hadn't been surprised when she was.
"I love you," he whispered in her ear. "More than anything in the world."
"I love you," she murmured back. "More than everything in the world."
A note on Ozian names for magic users: a Witch can only be female, there is no male version of Sorceress, Magicians and Wizards can be male or female. Generally Magician was a term used when there were many more magic users for those who had not completed their formal training
Translations:
Arjiki:
Quara love
Kilahi ra das Aelj (literally) Sister of the Saint. It's the title given to Arjiki priestess-magicians. The plural is: Aelja Kilahia (literally Saint's Sisters)
Dahnakilahi Aunt or, more properly, Mother's sister
Gahma Father
Dahna Mother
Dhani daughter
A rahn harc tal dhiya nyanya ezar arme dhi erréza édaa geir ameski
A path that has been walked once can be followed again more easily.
Dhiquaral beloved
Quaki This word is misinterpreted by non-Arjiki people as 'king' but the literal meaning is more like 'Leader' or 'First among warriors'
Ziansa not technically an Arjiki word but used only in the west. A race of intelligent creatures that take the form of horses. They are in fact refugees from a country beyond Oz who were fleeing the same shadow creatures now threatening Oz.
Jhakerli the name given to Arjiki warhorses (as a breed) after they are retired (generally due to old age) from active service and put into a common herd. Arjiki warhorses before they retire are Jhake. It's a formal name, which is why I didn't translate it.
Quadling:
Mera Mother
Fabala Quadling form of Elphaba
Fera Father
Yu dama my child
Chetzu: an animal that lives in colonies in the Quadling swamps. It resembles a caterpillar but is the same size as a large rat. They are famous for living in the same patch of shrubs for their entire lives and spending all the time they aren't asleep eating.