Chapter 33
As the weeks went by and the dreams came at night, it didn't take me long to realize that the fractured laugh preceding them belonged to Yackle. The strange thing was, even though the cracked, sinister laughter preceded every dream every night, Yackle herself never appeared in them. Often the dreams had nothing to do with her at all. Sometimes I got to the point where I would wake with a splitting headache and I was no longer sure if it was a symptom of the pregnancy or a delayed effect of Yackle's voice. I couldn't even ask the Tiger about any of it, since I hadn't seen hide or hair of him since his last visit the day the morning sickness kicked in. I would often wake and wonder why the mad old woman chose me of all people to torment. Hadn't I been through enough without her screwing with my mind?
::Get out of my head!:: I cried out mentally as I awoke one morning, my head pounding. I pushed myself up with some difficulty; my stomach had begun to swell with evidence of my condition and it vexed me to no end. Bringing a hand up to my face, I pressed my fingers to my eyes, trying to block out my lover's familiar voice reaching my ears and the feel of his hand on my arm.
"Dammit, Fiyero, not now." I moaned, not moving from the position I was in.
"But I really think -" he began, his voice slightly amused.
"Please stop talking to me!"
"Alright, if you say so." He knew better than to push my buttons when I woke in a state like this. I could hear him laughing softly to himself as I felt him lay back down beside me; I squeezed my eyes shut more tightly, trying to ignore him. Something brushed against my arm and I assumed it was Fiyero again, so I reached out my free hand to give him a light smack, hoping to get him to leave me alone. Instead of connecting with his skin, my hand hit fur and a surprised squeal issued from whatever it was I'd hit. I heard Fiyero burst out laughing before the other little voice vied for my attention.
"Ow! That hurt! Don't hit mee!"
I opened my eyes to see my monkey sitting next to me on the floor, rubbing his arm where my hand had connected with it, and shooting me evil looks. Beyond that was Fiyero, bolting upright and trying to suppress his laughter. Sitting up a little behind him was the Tiger, who was chuckling to himself while watching me look back and forth between himself and Chistery, my face poised in happy astonishment. I scooped up the monkey and hugged him, burying my face in his caramel fur.
"Hey! Stoppit! You hug too hard!" Chistery whined, wriggling in my grasp to get himself a little more breathing room. The Tiger smiled, shook his head, and melted away into nothingness.
I loosened my grip and kissed his head, scratching between his wings as I murmured, "I thought I'd never see you again, little one. I missed you."
"I missed you, too. It's scary out there."
"Don't we know it, Chistery." I answered, looking out toward where the cave tapered off into the corridor leading away from it. "Did the Tiger find you and take you back to me?"
"Yup. I like him."
"Good, so do I."
"Whoa - what happened to you?"the monkey asked, finally noticing how much larger my stomach was than the last time he saw me.
"She going to have a baby, my winged friend." Fiyero answered for me, reaching over to scratch Chistery's head, his voice warm as his eyes met mine. I averted my gaze, not sure what to feel. Chistery's eyes grew big and round and looked from Fiyero to me and back again.
"Really?"
I nodded, a look that teetered on the borderline of happiness and sorrow and could be taken as either.
"Wow." Chistery exhaled, paying no attention to my face. "When?"
"Soon enough." I said no more about it.
"Never ever go away again." Chistery said, climbing up to my shoulder and wrapping his little monkey arms around my neck in a hug.
"I had no choice. Fiyero and I were forced to."
"By who?"
"The Gale Force, Chistery."
"They scare me. I hid when they came in the tower and yelled and took you away." The little thing buried his face in my hair and I reached up to stroke his soft golden fur.
"It's okay." I murmured, trying to calm my pet some.
"Here, you better get to know this place, my friend. You'll be seeing a lot of it for the next stretch of time." said Fiyero, reaching out and untangling the creature from my hair. Chistery perked up at his words; he could never resist the prospect of nosing about in places he'd never seen. With that, he jumped from Fiyero's hands and scurried across the floor, looking around at the wealth of things littering the rather large stone room.
Chistery spent the rest of the day exploring his new home, poking his head wherever it would fit and occasionally scampering into the next cave/room over where the horses were housed just for a change of scenery. It was a terrible lot of work for me just keeping an eye on him and making sure he didn't get his little monkey nose stuck in things he shouldn't be meddling in, or into unexplored corridors or rooms in the cavern system. After a while Fiyero flopped back down for an extra hour or two of sleep and coaxed the monkey into a nap as well to give me a little time to myself. Heavens knew I desperately needed it after eight or nine hours of scrambling to extricate the little beast from either our things, our food, or my own hair.
I sat there on my own, pulling a pillow over from the makeshift bed Fiyero and Chistery had dozed off on, thinking about nothing in particular and enjoying the time I had to myself. After a while I drifted off, that abrasive cackling seeping into my head and filling my mind like a wealth of suffocating smoke. The cracked laughter faded after a short while, the sound and blackness replaced by light and images of a dream.
The harsh sound of Yackle's laugh that had accompanied each and every dream of mine for the past weeks deteriorated to a low chuckle; I had the sinking feeling that the woman was laughing at my expense. The scenery was thrown suddenly into sharp focus and with the hurried clarification of my surroundings I felt as if I were about to lose my balance. Swinging my hand out at the last moment my palm connected with the cool brick of the wall and I caught myself, bringing my other hand up to rub the dizziness from my eyes. When I could see again my gaze swept over the room, my tower room, actually, if I could still call it mine; the old bed and part of a mostly-empty bookcase were bathed in moonlight streaming in through easterly-facing window. The room had been stripped of the vast majority of it's former contents, much of which was now in the cave my lover and I called home, the rest either trashed or in the hands of the Gale Force. Yackle stood leaning against the wall; I doubted she'd be able to hold herself up on her own if she tried; her arms were folded and there was a smile on her face colored by emotions I couldn't place. It was unnerving and I didn't like it. She took far too much pleasure in messing with the little sanity I'd managed to hold onto through the ups and downs of my life. I waited for her to speak first; you had to be careful with this one. You could never tell when she would begin and act like no more than a crazy old bat, then change tracks entirely until you no longer knew which way was up.
"You're in quite a state, now, aren't you, dearie?" she started, looking me up and down and estimating how far along I was in pregnancy. When I regarded her with a steely, calculating stare and didn't reply, she did no more than laugh once and reach for her gnarled walking stick, clunking awkwardly to my side of the room.
"Why am I here?"
"I have something to give to you, dolly." Yackle answered, smiling her eerie grin once more. "You ruined it once; don't make the same mistake again."
I wasted a few seconds wondering what it was she was gibbering about until she produced a broomstick from behind her.
::That can't be mine...::
"Well? Take it already and get out of my sight! Mother Yackle's arms are too old to hold up something this heavy for as long as you're making her wait!" she barked impatiently, thrusting the broom's handle into my hands and making to wave away my dream, but she halted abruptly when I spoke.
"How and why are you giving this to me? Months ago, the night that Dorothy brat came here I burnt the thing to charcoal; what did you do to it?"
"Fixed it, of course! Dearie, Old Yackle thought you were a little swifter than that." She tsked at me and shook her head, wearing the same strange little smile.
"What kind of unbalanced magic have you laid on it? For all I know it'll throw me to my death a hundred feet up in the air -"
"Why would Mother Yackle do something disturbed like that? She's not so brainsick, you know. That sorry excuse for a broomstick is no worse than it was when you first learnt to use it. Spruced up some, but no worse for the wear."
"How can I -"
"For Lurline's sake, Yackle is not out to kill you, woman! Just take the be-damned broomstick and let's be done with it! Don't you know a benefactor when you meet one?" she cried, shaking her head as if I were totally daft. "Go, witch. Out of my sight!"
With that, the dream dissolved.
I sat bolt upright, breathing hard. My stomach was overcome with a wave of nausea that I just managed to fight off before its contents could rise into my mouth. The broom's handle was still clutched tight in my hand. Once my stomach calmed I stared at the broom for a few moments, running my fingers down the handle. The wood was still smooth and worn in one place near the front end of it, where I used to place my hands before I lost it and burned the thing to ash.
::How in Oz did she manage this...?::
"I don't believe it." I whispered, my gaze sweeping over the broom; it looked as if I'd never set the thing afire at all the night Dorothy hurled that bucket of rainwater at me. I was delighted to have the thing back; possibilities of escape or at least the door leading toward it opening flashed through my head and the broom seemed to shiver with anticipation in my hands, yet all the while I was afraid that this was a part of a twisted scheme cooked up by Yackle to either kill me or make me go mad. I moved to set the broom aside and in doing so I accidentally hit Fiyero with the bristled end of it, scratching the skin on his arm.
"Fabala, what was that for?" he asked, sitting up and rubbing his forearm. He looked over at me and it registered in his head that the broom I was holding hadn't been there before. "Where did that come from?"
"I don't even rightfully know. Even to me it sounds far-fetched, and I was the one who lived - or slept - through it."
"Start at the beginning. I'm already lost."
By the time I was finished telling him what had come to pass in my subconscious he was staring from me to the broom and back again, a puzzled expression on his face.
"But who, exactly, is this Yackle person?" he asked, confused. I continued my explanation, going back through my various encounters with her.
"So this Yackle woman, she's the same one from the Philosophy Club all those years ago according to Tibbet, who told you about it while you were living and he was dying in the mauntery. She was also one of the maunts there, one of the ones that took you in after you'd thought I'd met my end. She was the one who gave Boq the medicine for my arm and the one who's been appearing and laughing in your dreams, among other things?"
"None other."
"She called herself your benefactor, am I correct?"
"Yes. I just want to know why. She's done nothing that could ever really help me, aside from giving Boq that medicine for your arm. Everything else she'd just been watching from the sidelines, stepping in every so often to shake up my sanity."
"But the broom..."
"Yes, the broom. I don't know what to think, but then again Yackle often has that sort of effect on people."
"What do you propose we do with it?"
"I figured I'd try to fly it the way I used to. I can't know if she screwed with it or not unless I try."
"Elphaba, I don't want you trying to fly that thing! There's got to be some sort of spell you can use to screen it for malicious magic -"
"I'm not going to get myself or the baby killed, if that's what you mean." I began, lending an edge to my voice. "There's also the fact that the Grimmerie is no longer within my possession; even if there was such a spell I wouldn't know what it could possibly be without that book in my hands. I'll start out by practicing flight in here if it makes you feel a little more secure."
"I'm sure you can do it, Fae, there's no doubt in my mind about that. I'm more afraid of what might happen after you branch out and leave the caverns. What if you're seen?"
"I've never really flown during the day; I'm conspicuous enough, and was never so stupid to fly in broad daylight. What makes you think I'll do so now, when more is at stake than just my life alone?"
"Elphie, please don't." he implored.
"Do you see what this thing could do for us if, in fact, Yackle has really fixed my broom and not messed with it? We could finally get out of here, escape for good, to Fliaan or Quox or somewhere else outside Oz, where no one will know or care about who I am! It'll be so much easier to have our baby in a place where we'll be left to ourselves. If we try to stay here there will be the same persecution I've received for most of my life, only heightened by the Gale Force once they find out we've had a child. Sooner or later they'll put two and two together and use that fact to give them the upper hand on me. We'll always be running, just like we are now. I never had to worry about constant flight until I left Shiz. Imagine what it'll be like for the child, knowing nothing but prejudice and fear and flight from the very beginning of its existence and never having a chance at anything better in life, all because of its mother. I'm desperate, Fiyero, for the freedom I've never experienced because of my color. Let me try. We still have about two months, maybe a little more, to worm our way away from the Gale Force. It could work. Just please, let me try."
He shook his head, undecided, and sighed, running a hand through his hair in agitation. Looking from me to the broom, he remained wordless for a moment or two as I waited for his word on this. I was going to fly it anyway with or without Fiyero's permission, make no mistake; what I really wanted to see was if he trusted me enough to go with what I thought might just give us passage to possible freedom.
"Do what you feel is best. I won't stand in your way." he murmured, turning away from me.
"Fiyero?"
"What?"
"You're sure?"
"It's not mine to decide. Do what you will with your life."
"You're okay with this?"
His voice softened, almost tired. "No, truthfully, I'm not. I'm afraid for you. If I knew anything of magic I'd try to fly the thing for you just to make sure you stay safe. But if you feel you can do this, by all means go ahead. It's the normal thing to feel when you love someone, I guess."
"I know for a fact that it is. I understannd that." I replied, wrapping my arms around him. He kissed my forehead and I stretched to bring my lips closer to his. As he leaned in to kiss me I tensed and swayed backward a bit, wrapping one arm tightly around my stomach.
"What is it, Fabala? Are you alright?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. It's...this is the first time I've felt the baby move. It hurts, in a way, but...I think it's the sweetest pain I'll ever experience."
"I'll believe it." Fiyero whispered, pulling me close and wrapping one arm around my back from the side. The other he used to swing me up into his arms. I laughed as he picked me up and I slid my arms around his neck, reaching up to brush a kiss on his lips. He kissed me back, gently trailing a line of little kisses from my lips up to my eyelids and back again. It was slow and drawn-out, the kind of kiss that takes your breath away and makes the blood sing in your ears, which were exactly the effects it had on me. When finally we did break it he walked me over to our makeshift bed, really only a very large pile of rumpled blankets, and laid me back on it, then lowered himself to sit beside me. I rested my head contentedly on his shoulder and felt the baby move again. It hurt less than the last time, but being as unused to the feeling as I was I brought my hands back to rest upon my stomach, wishing I could somehow stop the sensation.
"You alright?"
"Mmmn hmmn."
Fiyero reached over and removed my hands from my belly, resting his own there. The child kicked again and his face broke into a warm smile; I couldn't help but return the expression, as much in love with the little life as he was, ignoring the physical pain as best I could.
After a little while my mind drifted back to my broomstick. ::He said he'd fly it for me if he knew how...::
"Yero my hero?"
"Fabala-Fae?"
"What would you say to this whole broom situation if...if I could teach you how to fly it?"
"I don't like the thought of either of us flying it at all."
"Your daughter flew it once. As much as I don't like saying it, she wasn't all that bad at it, to tell the truth. If Nor could do it, you shouldn't have a problem."
"Nor? How did she...? I thought you'd need to have some knowledge of magic to fly the thing. Plus, you're not the kind of person to let children mess with your things at all."
"All three - four - of them never asked for permission to barge into my tower and take my things, and Nor least of all. Between my broom and my monkey -" I glanced back over at Chistery, who was still sleeping, thank Oz; as much as I loved the little winged menace, he had an annoying habit of poking into things at inconvenient moments; "- the girl and her counterparts nearly drove me mad." I laughed once, a bittersweet sort of affair. It bothered me how I'd despised the children not terribly long ago and now I wished I'd never made the decision to leave and visit my own sister if staying meant I would've been able to forestall their fates. If Fiyero felt any sort of sorrow at the mention of his daughter he hid it well, showing no indication of it. Still, I moved the discussion away from his family, as the subject was still touchy on both our parts.
"I'm serious, if you'd like to learn I can teach you how to fly."
"I'll think about it, Fae-Fae." He sounded a little uneasy, like he wanted to but at the same time fear was holding him back.
"If it gives you any reassurance, it took me a while to get the hang of it, too, and you know how inept I am at magic -"
"Inept my ass, Elphaba."
"Oh, please, Fiyero. I mean it. Would you believe I had to threaten the broom sometimes to get it to take me even six feet above the ground?"
"How would threatening it do you any good? It's an inanimate object, for Lurline's sake -"
"Yackle gave the thing to me; when she's involved there's no telling what's possible and what's not; reality is skewed. So skewed in fact that a seemingly inanimate object is fully capable of having a mind of its own."
He took another few minutes to answer, still not totally at peace with his decision, but willing to give it a shot. "I'll try it, Elphaba, but I'm not saying I'll ever fly the thing out in the open."
"You might as well know how. One of us will eventually."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
As the weeks went by and the dreams came at night, it didn't take me long to realize that the fractured laugh preceding them belonged to Yackle. The strange thing was, even though the cracked, sinister laughter preceded every dream every night, Yackle herself never appeared in them. Often the dreams had nothing to do with her at all. Sometimes I got to the point where I would wake with a splitting headache and I was no longer sure if it was a symptom of the pregnancy or a delayed effect of Yackle's voice. I couldn't even ask the Tiger about any of it, since I hadn't seen hide or hair of him since his last visit the day the morning sickness kicked in. I would often wake and wonder why the mad old woman chose me of all people to torment. Hadn't I been through enough without her screwing with my mind?
::Get out of my head!:: I cried out mentally as I awoke one morning, my head pounding. I pushed myself up with some difficulty; my stomach had begun to swell with evidence of my condition and it vexed me to no end. Bringing a hand up to my face, I pressed my fingers to my eyes, trying to block out my lover's familiar voice reaching my ears and the feel of his hand on my arm.
"Dammit, Fiyero, not now." I moaned, not moving from the position I was in.
"But I really think -" he began, his voice slightly amused.
"Please stop talking to me!"
"Alright, if you say so." He knew better than to push my buttons when I woke in a state like this. I could hear him laughing softly to himself as I felt him lay back down beside me; I squeezed my eyes shut more tightly, trying to ignore him. Something brushed against my arm and I assumed it was Fiyero again, so I reached out my free hand to give him a light smack, hoping to get him to leave me alone. Instead of connecting with his skin, my hand hit fur and a surprised squeal issued from whatever it was I'd hit. I heard Fiyero burst out laughing before the other little voice vied for my attention.
"Ow! That hurt! Don't hit mee!"
I opened my eyes to see my monkey sitting next to me on the floor, rubbing his arm where my hand had connected with it, and shooting me evil looks. Beyond that was Fiyero, bolting upright and trying to suppress his laughter. Sitting up a little behind him was the Tiger, who was chuckling to himself while watching me look back and forth between himself and Chistery, my face poised in happy astonishment. I scooped up the monkey and hugged him, burying my face in his caramel fur.
"Hey! Stoppit! You hug too hard!" Chistery whined, wriggling in my grasp to get himself a little more breathing room. The Tiger smiled, shook his head, and melted away into nothingness.
I loosened my grip and kissed his head, scratching between his wings as I murmured, "I thought I'd never see you again, little one. I missed you."
"I missed you, too. It's scary out there."
"Don't we know it, Chistery." I answered, looking out toward where the cave tapered off into the corridor leading away from it. "Did the Tiger find you and take you back to me?"
"Yup. I like him."
"Good, so do I."
"Whoa - what happened to you?"the monkey asked, finally noticing how much larger my stomach was than the last time he saw me.
"She going to have a baby, my winged friend." Fiyero answered for me, reaching over to scratch Chistery's head, his voice warm as his eyes met mine. I averted my gaze, not sure what to feel. Chistery's eyes grew big and round and looked from Fiyero to me and back again.
"Really?"
I nodded, a look that teetered on the borderline of happiness and sorrow and could be taken as either.
"Wow." Chistery exhaled, paying no attention to my face. "When?"
"Soon enough." I said no more about it.
"Never ever go away again." Chistery said, climbing up to my shoulder and wrapping his little monkey arms around my neck in a hug.
"I had no choice. Fiyero and I were forced to."
"By who?"
"The Gale Force, Chistery."
"They scare me. I hid when they came in the tower and yelled and took you away." The little thing buried his face in my hair and I reached up to stroke his soft golden fur.
"It's okay." I murmured, trying to calm my pet some.
"Here, you better get to know this place, my friend. You'll be seeing a lot of it for the next stretch of time." said Fiyero, reaching out and untangling the creature from my hair. Chistery perked up at his words; he could never resist the prospect of nosing about in places he'd never seen. With that, he jumped from Fiyero's hands and scurried across the floor, looking around at the wealth of things littering the rather large stone room.
Chistery spent the rest of the day exploring his new home, poking his head wherever it would fit and occasionally scampering into the next cave/room over where the horses were housed just for a change of scenery. It was a terrible lot of work for me just keeping an eye on him and making sure he didn't get his little monkey nose stuck in things he shouldn't be meddling in, or into unexplored corridors or rooms in the cavern system. After a while Fiyero flopped back down for an extra hour or two of sleep and coaxed the monkey into a nap as well to give me a little time to myself. Heavens knew I desperately needed it after eight or nine hours of scrambling to extricate the little beast from either our things, our food, or my own hair.
I sat there on my own, pulling a pillow over from the makeshift bed Fiyero and Chistery had dozed off on, thinking about nothing in particular and enjoying the time I had to myself. After a while I drifted off, that abrasive cackling seeping into my head and filling my mind like a wealth of suffocating smoke. The cracked laughter faded after a short while, the sound and blackness replaced by light and images of a dream.
The harsh sound of Yackle's laugh that had accompanied each and every dream of mine for the past weeks deteriorated to a low chuckle; I had the sinking feeling that the woman was laughing at my expense. The scenery was thrown suddenly into sharp focus and with the hurried clarification of my surroundings I felt as if I were about to lose my balance. Swinging my hand out at the last moment my palm connected with the cool brick of the wall and I caught myself, bringing my other hand up to rub the dizziness from my eyes. When I could see again my gaze swept over the room, my tower room, actually, if I could still call it mine; the old bed and part of a mostly-empty bookcase were bathed in moonlight streaming in through easterly-facing window. The room had been stripped of the vast majority of it's former contents, much of which was now in the cave my lover and I called home, the rest either trashed or in the hands of the Gale Force. Yackle stood leaning against the wall; I doubted she'd be able to hold herself up on her own if she tried; her arms were folded and there was a smile on her face colored by emotions I couldn't place. It was unnerving and I didn't like it. She took far too much pleasure in messing with the little sanity I'd managed to hold onto through the ups and downs of my life. I waited for her to speak first; you had to be careful with this one. You could never tell when she would begin and act like no more than a crazy old bat, then change tracks entirely until you no longer knew which way was up.
"You're in quite a state, now, aren't you, dearie?" she started, looking me up and down and estimating how far along I was in pregnancy. When I regarded her with a steely, calculating stare and didn't reply, she did no more than laugh once and reach for her gnarled walking stick, clunking awkwardly to my side of the room.
"Why am I here?"
"I have something to give to you, dolly." Yackle answered, smiling her eerie grin once more. "You ruined it once; don't make the same mistake again."
I wasted a few seconds wondering what it was she was gibbering about until she produced a broomstick from behind her.
::That can't be mine...::
"Well? Take it already and get out of my sight! Mother Yackle's arms are too old to hold up something this heavy for as long as you're making her wait!" she barked impatiently, thrusting the broom's handle into my hands and making to wave away my dream, but she halted abruptly when I spoke.
"How and why are you giving this to me? Months ago, the night that Dorothy brat came here I burnt the thing to charcoal; what did you do to it?"
"Fixed it, of course! Dearie, Old Yackle thought you were a little swifter than that." She tsked at me and shook her head, wearing the same strange little smile.
"What kind of unbalanced magic have you laid on it? For all I know it'll throw me to my death a hundred feet up in the air -"
"Why would Mother Yackle do something disturbed like that? She's not so brainsick, you know. That sorry excuse for a broomstick is no worse than it was when you first learnt to use it. Spruced up some, but no worse for the wear."
"How can I -"
"For Lurline's sake, Yackle is not out to kill you, woman! Just take the be-damned broomstick and let's be done with it! Don't you know a benefactor when you meet one?" she cried, shaking her head as if I were totally daft. "Go, witch. Out of my sight!"
With that, the dream dissolved.
I sat bolt upright, breathing hard. My stomach was overcome with a wave of nausea that I just managed to fight off before its contents could rise into my mouth. The broom's handle was still clutched tight in my hand. Once my stomach calmed I stared at the broom for a few moments, running my fingers down the handle. The wood was still smooth and worn in one place near the front end of it, where I used to place my hands before I lost it and burned the thing to ash.
::How in Oz did she manage this...?::
"I don't believe it." I whispered, my gaze sweeping over the broom; it looked as if I'd never set the thing afire at all the night Dorothy hurled that bucket of rainwater at me. I was delighted to have the thing back; possibilities of escape or at least the door leading toward it opening flashed through my head and the broom seemed to shiver with anticipation in my hands, yet all the while I was afraid that this was a part of a twisted scheme cooked up by Yackle to either kill me or make me go mad. I moved to set the broom aside and in doing so I accidentally hit Fiyero with the bristled end of it, scratching the skin on his arm.
"Fabala, what was that for?" he asked, sitting up and rubbing his forearm. He looked over at me and it registered in his head that the broom I was holding hadn't been there before. "Where did that come from?"
"I don't even rightfully know. Even to me it sounds far-fetched, and I was the one who lived - or slept - through it."
"Start at the beginning. I'm already lost."
By the time I was finished telling him what had come to pass in my subconscious he was staring from me to the broom and back again, a puzzled expression on his face.
"But who, exactly, is this Yackle person?" he asked, confused. I continued my explanation, going back through my various encounters with her.
"So this Yackle woman, she's the same one from the Philosophy Club all those years ago according to Tibbet, who told you about it while you were living and he was dying in the mauntery. She was also one of the maunts there, one of the ones that took you in after you'd thought I'd met my end. She was the one who gave Boq the medicine for my arm and the one who's been appearing and laughing in your dreams, among other things?"
"None other."
"She called herself your benefactor, am I correct?"
"Yes. I just want to know why. She's done nothing that could ever really help me, aside from giving Boq that medicine for your arm. Everything else she'd just been watching from the sidelines, stepping in every so often to shake up my sanity."
"But the broom..."
"Yes, the broom. I don't know what to think, but then again Yackle often has that sort of effect on people."
"What do you propose we do with it?"
"I figured I'd try to fly it the way I used to. I can't know if she screwed with it or not unless I try."
"Elphaba, I don't want you trying to fly that thing! There's got to be some sort of spell you can use to screen it for malicious magic -"
"I'm not going to get myself or the baby killed, if that's what you mean." I began, lending an edge to my voice. "There's also the fact that the Grimmerie is no longer within my possession; even if there was such a spell I wouldn't know what it could possibly be without that book in my hands. I'll start out by practicing flight in here if it makes you feel a little more secure."
"I'm sure you can do it, Fae, there's no doubt in my mind about that. I'm more afraid of what might happen after you branch out and leave the caverns. What if you're seen?"
"I've never really flown during the day; I'm conspicuous enough, and was never so stupid to fly in broad daylight. What makes you think I'll do so now, when more is at stake than just my life alone?"
"Elphie, please don't." he implored.
"Do you see what this thing could do for us if, in fact, Yackle has really fixed my broom and not messed with it? We could finally get out of here, escape for good, to Fliaan or Quox or somewhere else outside Oz, where no one will know or care about who I am! It'll be so much easier to have our baby in a place where we'll be left to ourselves. If we try to stay here there will be the same persecution I've received for most of my life, only heightened by the Gale Force once they find out we've had a child. Sooner or later they'll put two and two together and use that fact to give them the upper hand on me. We'll always be running, just like we are now. I never had to worry about constant flight until I left Shiz. Imagine what it'll be like for the child, knowing nothing but prejudice and fear and flight from the very beginning of its existence and never having a chance at anything better in life, all because of its mother. I'm desperate, Fiyero, for the freedom I've never experienced because of my color. Let me try. We still have about two months, maybe a little more, to worm our way away from the Gale Force. It could work. Just please, let me try."
He shook his head, undecided, and sighed, running a hand through his hair in agitation. Looking from me to the broom, he remained wordless for a moment or two as I waited for his word on this. I was going to fly it anyway with or without Fiyero's permission, make no mistake; what I really wanted to see was if he trusted me enough to go with what I thought might just give us passage to possible freedom.
"Do what you feel is best. I won't stand in your way." he murmured, turning away from me.
"Fiyero?"
"What?"
"You're sure?"
"It's not mine to decide. Do what you will with your life."
"You're okay with this?"
His voice softened, almost tired. "No, truthfully, I'm not. I'm afraid for you. If I knew anything of magic I'd try to fly the thing for you just to make sure you stay safe. But if you feel you can do this, by all means go ahead. It's the normal thing to feel when you love someone, I guess."
"I know for a fact that it is. I understannd that." I replied, wrapping my arms around him. He kissed my forehead and I stretched to bring my lips closer to his. As he leaned in to kiss me I tensed and swayed backward a bit, wrapping one arm tightly around my stomach.
"What is it, Fabala? Are you alright?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. It's...this is the first time I've felt the baby move. It hurts, in a way, but...I think it's the sweetest pain I'll ever experience."
"I'll believe it." Fiyero whispered, pulling me close and wrapping one arm around my back from the side. The other he used to swing me up into his arms. I laughed as he picked me up and I slid my arms around his neck, reaching up to brush a kiss on his lips. He kissed me back, gently trailing a line of little kisses from my lips up to my eyelids and back again. It was slow and drawn-out, the kind of kiss that takes your breath away and makes the blood sing in your ears, which were exactly the effects it had on me. When finally we did break it he walked me over to our makeshift bed, really only a very large pile of rumpled blankets, and laid me back on it, then lowered himself to sit beside me. I rested my head contentedly on his shoulder and felt the baby move again. It hurt less than the last time, but being as unused to the feeling as I was I brought my hands back to rest upon my stomach, wishing I could somehow stop the sensation.
"You alright?"
"Mmmn hmmn."
Fiyero reached over and removed my hands from my belly, resting his own there. The child kicked again and his face broke into a warm smile; I couldn't help but return the expression, as much in love with the little life as he was, ignoring the physical pain as best I could.
After a little while my mind drifted back to my broomstick. ::He said he'd fly it for me if he knew how...::
"Yero my hero?"
"Fabala-Fae?"
"What would you say to this whole broom situation if...if I could teach you how to fly it?"
"I don't like the thought of either of us flying it at all."
"Your daughter flew it once. As much as I don't like saying it, she wasn't all that bad at it, to tell the truth. If Nor could do it, you shouldn't have a problem."
"Nor? How did she...? I thought you'd need to have some knowledge of magic to fly the thing. Plus, you're not the kind of person to let children mess with your things at all."
"All three - four - of them never asked for permission to barge into my tower and take my things, and Nor least of all. Between my broom and my monkey -" I glanced back over at Chistery, who was still sleeping, thank Oz; as much as I loved the little winged menace, he had an annoying habit of poking into things at inconvenient moments; "- the girl and her counterparts nearly drove me mad." I laughed once, a bittersweet sort of affair. It bothered me how I'd despised the children not terribly long ago and now I wished I'd never made the decision to leave and visit my own sister if staying meant I would've been able to forestall their fates. If Fiyero felt any sort of sorrow at the mention of his daughter he hid it well, showing no indication of it. Still, I moved the discussion away from his family, as the subject was still touchy on both our parts.
"I'm serious, if you'd like to learn I can teach you how to fly."
"I'll think about it, Fae-Fae." He sounded a little uneasy, like he wanted to but at the same time fear was holding him back.
"If it gives you any reassurance, it took me a while to get the hang of it, too, and you know how inept I am at magic -"
"Inept my ass, Elphaba."
"Oh, please, Fiyero. I mean it. Would you believe I had to threaten the broom sometimes to get it to take me even six feet above the ground?"
"How would threatening it do you any good? It's an inanimate object, for Lurline's sake -"
"Yackle gave the thing to me; when she's involved there's no telling what's possible and what's not; reality is skewed. So skewed in fact that a seemingly inanimate object is fully capable of having a mind of its own."
He took another few minutes to answer, still not totally at peace with his decision, but willing to give it a shot. "I'll try it, Elphaba, but I'm not saying I'll ever fly the thing out in the open."
"You might as well know how. One of us will eventually."
"That's what I'm afraid of."