A/N: I like words. Wicked is my vade mecum.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Once everyone had woken up, Elphaba had managed to work herself into a rage, inveighing loudly against Yackle.
"Ooh, that woman! She thinks it's her right just to play around in my head? I may not know what the hell she is, but woman, devil, or angel, it won't stop me from defenestrating her!"
"I don't think you can do that to a girl," said Liir. Elphaba gave him the look.
"It means 'to throw out a window,' Liir. Get your mind out of the gutter!"
"But you always-" Liir tried to protest.
"But this time I didn't," Elphaba cut him off. "Learn this- don't make assumptions, not even based on previous patterns." She started pacing again and went on with the same tone of utter acrimony. "She's execrable, evil, detestable, esurient for all my happiness! Whether she be supernal or diabolical, I will have the best of her! I will!"
Fiyero crossed the room to her side quietly.
"I think you already have," he said.
"What do you mean?" she asked, whirling in a flurry of dark skirts and loosened hair to face him.
"You're supposed to be dead, Elphaba, and so am I, but we're not. We're back here, together, again, with Liir and Nor, and you've met Glinda again and she's helped you, and I get the distinct feeling we've cheated destiny. This was not supposed to happen."
"I don't believe in destiny, Fiyero. There is nothing written in the stars that we don't write ourselves."
"You still don't believe in divine beings and souls, Elphaba? Then where the hell is Yackle from?"
She quieted. "I…don't know."
"You yourself called her supernal, Elphaba, celestial. Angel or devil, you said. She's not an earthly being. So tell me, Elphaba the Soulless, what is she then?"
The title sent a shiver running down her spine. Fiyero noticed its affect and amended it. "The self-proclaimed soulless, Elphaba. I don't think you're soulless, you know that."
"Words are words," she murmured quietly, "and what's said is said. I don't know if I have a soul or not, now, I don't know what Yackle is, I don't know what she wants. I don't know," she told Fiyero quietly, oblivious to the three adolescents trying rather desperately not to look at them, "and that frightens me more than anything ever has in my life." Elphaba whirled on the teenagers behind her, suddenly, undaunted by the gravity of her admission. "Nor, Cass," she said in her ordinary voice, as if they had not just heard her voice her fears and discuss the state of her soul, "go-" she waved her hand distractedly, "Go, go do something useful, just go. Liir…" she sighed long and hard, as if making a decision. "Come with us, then, I suppose this concerns you." She turned on her heel and stalked out the door. Liir looked to Fiyero- to his father- for any hint as to what he was doing, but Fiyero just shrugged. Elphaba stuck her head back in the door, her hair hastily plaited now.
"Well?" she asked, eyes blazing. "Are you coming, or would you prefer we do this another time? A week before next Lurlinemas good for you?"
"If I knew what we were doing, I could tell you that," said Fiyero, following her out the door again. Liir trailed after them reluctantly, wishing he could stay with Nor and Cass. He wanted to think about Elphaba and all that had happened lately, and it felt more than faintly blasphemous to mentally speculate about her while she was right there. Especially since, Elphaba being Elphaba, it was not entirely farfetched to wonder if perhaps she could not hear his thoughts after all.