"I don't understand you and him," said Fiyero as we left the City under cover of darkness. He gestured back towards the Wizard's palace.
"Oh, Yero, neither do I." I sighed. "He is evil, I believe he is, I know he is- I couldn't have done anything I have if I didn't- but at the same time, no one is unequivocally evil, or unequivocally good. It's a matter of actions, really, of the sum of them, or that's how we determine good and evil, at any rate. But releasing us, keeping that bastard away from Fala, was good- but he'd captured us in the first place, he caused it, and besides, the four of us are nothing compared to all the others he's hurt, killed…" Fiyero tightened his arm around my waist.
"It's a better philosophy than 'real or realer people,'" he said, recalling our old conversation as if it had been just yesterday instead of over fourteen years before. I whacked him lightly on the back of the head.
"It istrue, to an extent."
"Oh, no, not again."
"It is," I insisted. "In a way. Take my father-"
"Which one?"
"That one," I said, waving my hand in the direction of the City. "If he were to die, how many would that save? That is the equation of the worth of a life at its most extreme, at its most fundamental, Fiyero."
"If I didn't know you," he said slowly, "That- coldness- would frighten me, Elphaba." He said my name pointedly, instead of Fae.
"But it is true, isn't it?" I pressed on. "And, Yero, who would you save between a man and a child on the street? Who has done more evil- or more good? Who has a family?"
"But what of all the good the child could do?"
"What of all the evil?" I countered. "We don't know, do we, so we guess, and we hope, and we grope blindly towards an unknown outcome-"
"Mother, stop it, stop it," Liir said suddenly, from behind us. "I don't want to listen to this anymore."
"Then-" I began, but Fala stole the words from my tongue.
"Then close your ears!"
Fiyero and Liir exchanged looks.
"What?!" Fala and I asked at the same moment. The pair of them laughed, and each got hit on the head, twice.
"Do we even know where we're going?" Liir asked a few minutes later.
"We'd best go back to Munchkinland and disappoint my brother with the news that we're still alive," I said.
"Mm," affirmed Fiyero, "And we can get a carriage or a wagon or something."
"Specific," I commented.
"Shut up."
"Make me."
"Oh, aren't we mature today?"
"There is no we. That patronizing we is obnoxious."
"Stop acting like a two-year old."
"I've never acted like a two-year old."
"At some point even you-"
"No."
"But everyone-"
"No."
"But-"
"No."
Fiyero gave up and pulled me tightly to him for a kiss.
"Ew, gross," said Liir.
"Shut up," said Fala, elbowing him.
…
Children, I have learned, are not at all fun to travel with, and exhausted adolescents are even less so.
"Are we there yet?"
"How much farther?"
"Why are we going to Munchkinland?"
"Why does Grandfather have to live in Munchkinland?"
"Why were we even in Munchkinland?"
"I hate Munchkinland."
"I hate our dead aunt."
"Can we find something to eat?"
This was going to be a long trip.