A/N: Ok, here goes another chapter.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
They gathered up their things to leave the pub when Fiyero noticed Elphaba looking as if she were going to drop right where she stood.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Nothing. I'm just tired."
"What, too afraid to sleep in Southstairs?" Elphaba glared at him.
"It started before that," Liir put in helpfully. Elphaba glared at him even more fiercely.
"How long do you think it's been since she slept?" asked Fiyero.
"Can we just get to Glinda's already?" Elphaba moaned.
It was pouring rain and Lady Glinda was hideously bored when her bell rang.
"I'll get it!" she squealed before any of the servants could intercept her. She leapt up with surprising agility, lifted the hems of her voluminous skirts above her ankles, and dashed for the door.
"Hello?" she asked cheerily, her smile fading a bit as she took in the ragtag group before her. There was a man she thought she vaguely recognized (Fiyero's head was down so that she could not see the blue diamond markings on his face), the boy, Liir, was it? The one who'd come here with Elphaba's broomstick…. And a shadowy figure behind them.
"Why, hello again, uh, Liir," Lady Glinda said slowly. "And…" the man looked up.
"Fiyero, Prince, well, former prince by now- of the Arjikis," he said, smiling. "I'm sure you remember me from Shiz, Miss Glinda."
"Of course," she said, smiling wider. "But who," she asked, gesturing to the shadowed figure, "is this?"
The figure did not speak, but simply stepped forward and removed her hood. Just as she had twenty-one years before, Glinda at first thought that what she saw was a trick of the light, brought on by the moss and ivy on her old mansion, and perhaps, this time, from carefully concealed grief. But, just as she had been twenty-one years ago, Glinda was wrong.
The girl was green.
"Elphaba?" Glinda gasped. "But…but…but…how?"
"Oh, you didn't believe all that about water too, did you? Honestly, Glinda, I took you for cleverer than that."
Liir looked a bit insulted.
"But you never-"
"Yet I'm standing here before you, not only having been doused by a bucket of water- rather cold water, too, I might add- but in the rain. Which, incidentally, is also quite cold," Elphaba said, a bit pointedly.
"Oh, oh, dear, yes, of course, come in," said Glinda, flustered.
And so they did.
After a few days, Glinda's husband Sir Chuffrey had been, for the most part, filled in. Elphaba, however, still made his skin crawl, and he tended to believe that she was indeed a Wicked Witch.
One morning, Elphaba was in the kitchen, having been commissioned by Glinda to make some apple cider for her upcoming Lurlinemas party, and so Elphaba had a huge black pot of the stuff bubbling on the stove and was stirring spices into it. Sir Chuffrey walked into the kitchen and shrieked.
"What is it?" asked Elphaba. "A mouse?"
"You- you-you-you witch!" Chuffrey squealed.
"So I've been told," Elphaba replied, and stirred the cider again, unperturbed.
"I demand to know what is in that pot!"
"Apple cider, the last time I checked it," Elphaba answered.
"And what is that you're stirring in? Eye of newt?" asked Chuffrey.
"Actually, it's cinnamon," said Elphaba. "Would you prefer eye of newt? Because I can arrange that…simply remove one of your eyes," she said sweetly. Chuffrey stormed out of the room, nearly knocking over Glinda.
"Why, hello, dear," she said. "What's the matter?"
"The witch," he growled.
"Elphaba? What about her?"
"Well, to begin with, whatever are we going to do with her at the ball?"
"I was thinking she'd go."