Elphaba and Fiyero exchanged wide-eyed looks and Elphaba's lips disappeared into a tight line.
"You are?" asked Glinda.
"No. He's not. I have no idea what you're talking about," Elphaba said as convincingly as possible. She tried to kick Fiyero under the table, but Glinda's skirts got in the way. She jumped in her seat.
"What was that?" Glinda shrieked. Elphaba groaned in abject frustration and buried her face in her hands.
"He is. He is. You are, aren't you?" Dorothy said, addressing Fiyero.
"Um…"
Elphaba turned her eyes skyward at this in a gesture of exasperation.
Suddenly, everyone's attention was redirected towards an near explosion of sound at the end of the hallway. In quick succession, a small brown Dog, muddy and scruffy, Grania, and Cassie came running back into the kitchen, the Dog's nails clicking loudly on the stone floor as he ran, Grania giggling and shouting in delight, and Cassie yelling at both of them to stop.
"Pygmalius!" Elphaba screamed. The Dog screeched to a stop and gave her a big brown-eyed look of innocence. "Oh, stop. I have told you a thousand times that you do not come in here covered in mud, and you do not listen to anything Grania says." The Dog looked about to interrupt, but Elphaba held up a hand firmly. "No. I do not care what she said. She is two. A precocious two, but two nonetheless. And you are five. And five times seven is thirty-five. So you are the adult in this situation, Pygmalius, dubious as that distinction seems at the moment. And that means that you do not participate in her hare-brained schemes."
"I'm sorry," Pygmalius wrenched out in a croaky voice. He offered a crooked grin. "I was oppress-"
"And that has what to do with you listening to a two-year-old? Honestly," Elphaba glared furiously.
"I'll just…go…outside," Pygmalius said finally.
"Good idea." Elphaba turned to her daughters and took in Grania's disheveled, mud-spattered appearance. "Grania, what have I told you about mud?"
"Wash it off," said Grania, her smile never disappearing.
"And what about staying in your room?"
"Oh…"
"Go in your room, Grania, but do not touch anything until I wash you off, all right?"
"Yes!" Grania responded enthusiastically, and went skipping vigorously to her room.
"I tried to tell her-" Cassie interjected.
"I know, darling. I know. Go on and play," Elphaba urged her, and the little girl obeyed.
"You know," said a voice from outside the window, "that Grania is quite persuasive-"
"PYGMALIUS!" Elphaba roared, and the Dog's footsteps could be heard retreating into the meadow.
Elphaba dropped back into her chair and rubbed her temples. "I am cursed," she muttered to herself.
Dorothy stared, dumbfounded. Glinda, who after all knew Elphaba quite well, merely tittered into her hand. Fiyero sipped at a cup of coffee, used to the chaotic goings-on that centered continually around his wife.
"What…what is going on here?" Dorothy asked when she finally found her voice.
"Elphaba," said Fiyero.
"Fine," Elphaba said. "Go on, I don't care, clearly no one listens to anything I say around here anyway."
"You're right, Dorothy," began Fiyero. "I am the Scarecrow." Elphaba groaned and buried her face deeper into her hands. "Well- I was. Um. Let's see…well, the three of us went to college together, and Glinda and Elphaba were roommates, and I dated Glinda…for a while…but we don't talk about that," he added hastily, wary of the glares he was receiving from two directions. "And I was just kind of an idiot. Until this one day, when our professor, Dr. Dillamond, a Goat, was taken away by government agents, and our new professor had this Lion cub in a cage, and he was doing stuff to it, and Elphaba got all angry and suddenly everyone except the two of us was frozen, and we grabbed the cage and ran off and set the cub free…and yes, he was the Cowardly Lion you knew, Dorothy," he continued. "And I was failing History, so Elphaba decided to tutor me, and we kind of started falling in love…" Fiyero trailed off. "And. Um. Well, the Wizard of Oz summoned Elphaba because of her powers at sorcery, and she brought Glinda with her, and I…kind of…snuck onto the train."
Glinda took over. "And then he wasn't allowed in the throne room with us. And the Wizard made Elphie read this spell, and it was awful! All these monkeys got wings and they were screaming, and Morrible- our headmistress- told Elphie spells couldn't be reversed and so Elphie was screaming, and then she ran off and the Wizard got behind his giant head-thingy and he was screaming for the guards, and I ran after her, and then she levitated this broom thingy and took off through the roof and became a fugitive and it was awful," Glinda concluded breathlessly.
"Right. And then Fiyero followed me and wouldn't leave me the hell alone," Elphaba said sourly. Fiyero grinned brightly at her and continued with the story.
"So we wandered back toward the City and ran into some members of the Resistance against the Wizard, which we joined, and we lived there for a while, and I got kidnapped and then we got married and went to my castle and got married again and then moved back to the City except then my dad died and we went back to my castle and then Elphie had a baby and then your house fell on her sister and then I went to see what was going on and some Gale Forcers caught me and beat me and Elphaba chanted this spell to save my life that accidentally turned me into the Scarecrow, and the whole time we were traveling to her castle from the City, she would fly to me every night and we planned out how to fake her death, and then you came and she pretended to melt and we hid out here and she turned me back, and here we are," Fiyero finished. "Oh. She also turned our old friend Boq into the Tinman, but that was an accident and really her sister's fault-" Fiyero noticed the dark look Elphaba was giving him. "But that's another story. That I do not think you will be hearing in the near future."
"So there you have it," Elphaba said softly, staring at Dorothy. "The question is, which version do you believe?" She smiled wryly. "After all, the truth is just what everyone agrees on."