Milkflower Birth (Pre-Wicked, featuring Elphaba, Frex)
The night Nessarose lives and her mother dies, Elphaba shares a strained moment with her father.
"Oz-damnit, child, get your hands away from your ears!"
She jumps. Oh. Spray spatters at her from behind, waking her from her daze; Father's voice is a hissing command, strained with anguish she knows he does not wish for her to hear. She sits very still, knees curled up to her chest upon the stair she perches on, not looking at him. She removes her hands slowly, obediently from her ears. On any other day, she would not. She would keep them tight where they were, just to see how far she could goad him, just to savour that attention a few seconds longer…
But today is not the day. She may be young. And green. But she is not stupid.
"Not like it's even all that bad," Father mutters irritably, as though he himself had heard her very thoughts. "It will be over soon enough… Oz-knows Melena has suffered worse, yes, many a child has been known to arrive far earlier than this –"
- his words cut off abruptly, and she cuts off, too, from her racing thoughts and tangled mess of silent questions as they both jump at her Mother's resounding scream echoing from her bedroom far above them…
Oh Mother, Mother, Mother…
She shivers all over, squeezing her eyes tight shut as though it will keep away the world outside that, for once, she does not want to face. Does not want to argue, to bite back, to defend or deny or anything else besides…she wants to hide. To bury her face against Mother's warm shoulder, safe and protected and rocked to sleep in that way she so very occasionally is…Mother…
"For Oz's sake, child, stop making such a dreadful fuss. Wipe that absurd expression off your face."
Expression? What expression? She examines the nooks and crannies of her features with trembling, grassy fingers, feeling the hard lines and tense, lowered eyebrows…
Father does not like it because he is pretending. Still. Pretending that all is well, that Mother shall be just fine, that her little sister or brother will be with them all within the hour…a baby, the servants all said. A him. A her.
She finds it all very confusing and very illogical, to imagine a new, real person appearing from her Mother's swollen tummy during the course of just one evening. But Father says it will be just fine; very easy, very normal, very natural. He says the milkflowers will make it all right, this time. This time. She believed him, yesterday…but now, she knows better.
She struggles to rearrange the contours of her face into a more neutral set – but fails, as another splintering shriek sounds from Mother, far away upstairs. The sound makes her tummy jolt and flip in the most horrible way, and silly, irrational dampness well in her eyes. She blinks hard, pressing a hand to her mouth to stop it trembling.
"Oh merciful Oz..." Father's voice whispers from up behind her, and the sound is a cry, the softest wisp of one, all pretence gone now. He is desperate, falling to pieces before her very eyes and the sight is wrong, frightening. If Father cannot hold on, then what hope is there for the rest of them? "What could have happened…what could be wrong…Fabala, run and see if they will let you into the chamber, there must be something we can do –"
She is shaking her head before he can finish his sentence. "Father, I already tried –"
"Try again, Fabala. Try again."
She squirms at the name, her stomach beginning to rights itself again. Oh, what wouldn't she give to have him call her that every day, every time he speaks to her, of her, with her…
"Get a move on, child, we haven't got all day!"
She frowns, rising from her step to turn and pad up the remainder of them, hand reaching for the banister, far above her.
"None, Father."
"What?" he snapped. "What do you mean? Speak up, child!"
"None," she murmurs, scrambling up step by step and past him, onto the landing carpet. "None of the day left, Father. It's night."
His hand snaps out to clip her ear, but she dodges, tumbling away from him and down the landing to the locked door of Mother's bedroom.