Rifiuto: Non Miriena

A/N: Written: 2012. Rewritten: 2014. Found: 2018.- Licia

Maybe now, he would understand. Maybe now, he would try and help her.

For she'd watched the boy for the last three days, as he hid in the shadows, watching her and everyone else. He was as astute as her husband, as calculating and quick to understand things as Fiyero, and she hoped, that in showing him the diamonds upon her back, he would be willing to not just understand, but help.

Help her to flee before she became so entrenched in his world that she forgot hers. Help her to convince his parents to let her return to her tribe, to her husband and her babies, for she felt as though she would die the longer she stayed within this world. It was not hers to inhabit; she did not belong, and yet, if she stayed, she would not belong to her world either. She needed the boy to get his parents to understand. And so she deliberately left the door unlocked, deliberately stripped down, deliberately kept quiet.

She needed his help.

Glancing over her shoulder, she watched the boy slowly climb to his feet; he seemed to think for but a moment before quickly and quietly shutting the door. Then, he continued to make his way towards her, stopping when he was close enough to touch her, and let his gaze move over her back. The diamonds shimmered in the evening light, and he soon realized that they weren't actual diamonds, but tattoos.

Hundreds and hundreds of green tattoos, that cascaded from her shoulders, down her back, over her buttocks; a waterfall of diamonds, signifying her acceptance into the Arjiki tribe, her position as wife to the Crown Prince, as Crown Princess, as the future Chieftess, once her husband became Chief. She was of high status within the tribe, higher than anyone in the white world would ever know. She had come to the tribe as a captive, a prisoner, taken in a raid and bought from the Scrow, married to the Crown Prince at the tender age of thirteen; swelled greatly with and borne her first child not long after turning sixteen moons, her second around seventeen, and her last before she saw nineteen moons. Her children were royal, her oldest son, the future chief, her daughter, the only Crown Princess if her brother failed to marry. In Arjiki tradition, the oldest daughter of the Crown Prince and Princess was referred to as the gioiello reale, the Royal Jewel, for she was the first female borne of the future Chief and Chieftess, and therefore, held a title higher than even her brothers.

And since Nor was Elphaba's only daughter, the title meant so much more. While her oldest son was the future Crown Prince and would one day be Chief after his father, her daughter was the one that kept the Arjiki bloodline continuing, despite the white blood in her veins. In Arjiki culture, a woman was seen as more valuable than a man, because she carried the future lines within her. With each of Elphaba's pregnancies, she- like many Arjiki women round with child- had been seen as akin to a living goddess, growing the seeds her husband had planted within her. A woman's role in the tribe was sacred; it was why women were protected, why daughters were seen as blessings, not curses.

She met the boy's gaze; didn't say a word as he hesitantly reached out to brush his fingers against the slightly raised pattern on her skin. To say Shell had never seen anything like it, would be an understatement. He'd gotten used to the tattoos on the translator's face, the same green diamonds forever in full view for the world to see. But these... seeing his sister's... and the number... it was shocking. A moment passed, before he looked up, meeting her gaze as she glanced at him over her shoulder.

"I... I don't understand..."

She leaned close, their faces mere inches apart, her long black hair falling in curtains down either side of her face, hiding her neck and giving her head a disjointed appearance away from her body or, perhaps the appearance that her neck was unusually long, similar to a kintasqu in Arjiki oral tradition- a woman whose neck elongates or whose head detaches. The boy stepped back, startled, and she reached out, grabbing his wrist. Voice shaky, she carefully replied,

"... h...elp... me..."

Shell pulled away, half startled by her voice and half startled by the strength of her grip. In the seven years since she'd been gone, he'd all but forgotten the sound of his oldest sister's voice. It was soft, melodic, haunting almost. Was this the same voice her children got to hear as she sang them to sleep? That her husband got to hear? She had barely said two words since arriving- aside from the English she was relearning- and when she did speak, it was to Tibbett, in their tongue, away from the family. "But... but how? I can't do anything, Elia. I can't-"

She pulled back, releasing him. Setting the brush on the bed, she reached down, hands resting over her womb. Tears began to trail softly down her cheeks, and Shell suddenly realized why she was asking.

"You miss your children." She looked up at him, dark eyes filled with pain as the words left his mouth. "You want to go back to your children, right? Is that it, Elia? You want-"

She nodded frantically, cutting him off. "I miei bambinis..."

The teenager watched his older sister; he'd started to pick up a little Arjiki from Tibbett, who was willing to teach the young man. The boy was more eager to learn of his sister's old life than his parents. Yes, he saw his sister as having been lost these last seven years, but even more so than that. He saw what his parents refused to see- that she was a grown woman, a married woman, a mother, who had built a life for herself within the tribe that had taken her in. That she had been happy, until the white had come and taken her away. "You want to be... returned to your... babies."

His sister nodded, the weight of her breaking heart becoming too much for her, and she crumpled at his feet, arms wrapped tight around her womb, sobs shaking her small shoulders. Before Shell could do or say anything, a voice on the other side of the door startled him. "Sophelia? Is everything all right?" Never hesitating, the boy rushed to the door, grabbing the handle and firmly holding it closed, even as Melena gently pushed on it. "Sophelia? Sweetheart?" She gently pushed again, and again, Shell held the door, before finally reaching down at locking it. The click of the lock caused Melena to pause, and after a moment, she sighed. "If you need to talk, you can always come talk to me, sweetheart."

Once she'd left, Shell turned back to oldest sister. It was evident to him now that, with that simple action, he was on her side.