I am expecting A LOT of happy reviews for this chapter, if you please. I'm not all that fond of it...But it's character development! Which is always good!...Right?
Rilt reeled back, feeling his false teeth bite down on his tongue. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.
"You little bitch!" he bawled, lunging with surprising speed back towards Elphaba. She sprang out of his reach with astounding agility, her posture rigid and defensive, almost feline.
"Don't touch me," she warned quietly, her bare shoulders shaking in anger and repulsion. Rilt did not heed her, and advanced forward once more, making a blind grab for her. His hand closed around her ankle as she attempted to kick him away, and she screamed again, a high, shrill soprano in the top of her head that made his ears ring.
"Leave me!" bellowed the girl, flailing wildly. Her hostility spurred him on, and Rilt laughed horribly, throwing all of his weight on top of the girl in an attempt to stop her struggling.
And stop she did. He was dumbfounded at the way she suddenly turned to nothing underneath him, flopping lazily into the bed.
"Ah, so you've decided to give in?" he croaked, his breathing labouring from the energy he had exerted. Elphaba laughed humourlessly, her voice hollow.
"You know that I could kill you, right this second, and no-one would know?" she smiled pleasantly. Rilt raised an eyebrow. "And even if I don't, someone will have heard my screams anyway. Fiyero will be here at any moment."
"And he will be able to do nothing. It is my right-"
"You lost any rights you had when you agreed to this marriage. I'm of a higher social standing than you, and you took my name. You are nothing to me."
"But I am your husband! You have a duty!"
"Let me tell you a secret," Elphaba whispered against his ear, her hot breath tickling his neck. "I do not have a duty to you. I love Fiyero, and I cannot wait until you are dead so that he and I can be together properly."
"You slut! Have you been sleeping with him? Sleeping with him when you refuse me? Your own husband?"
"Who can say, my dear?" Elphaba spat, and a surge of power erupted from her stomach through her entire body, exiting through the very tips of her long fingers.
The last sight that Rilt saw was Elphaba's wide, crazed eyes as he was blasted to the other side of the room on a beam of powerful magic. She was a witch, and an impressive one at that.
Apparently, during marriage arrangements, Eissa had forgotten to mention that tiny fact.
Fiyero entered the room the second Rilt hit the opposite wall and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. His head flicked back and forth between the figure on the floor and the figure on the bed. Elphaba was flat against the headboard, her nightdress hitched high on her thighs and her hands balled into claws as they clutched at the duvet. Her eyes were wide and afraid, and her breath came in quick gasps.
She turned her bewildered gaze upon the young man, her lips parted in horror. She was stiff with fright, and Fiyero hurried to her side.
"What in the name of Kumbricia happened, Fae?" he quizzed, prizing her unyielding fingers from the covers. She shook her head rapidly.
"I-I didn't think that…" she stuttered. "The…the magic, it-it just…exploded…I couldn't control it. I only meant t-to scare him…" Fiyero clutched her hands in his, trying to make sense of her jumbled sentences.
"Magic, Fae? What magic? You couldn't have done that! He's dead!" he reassured her, pressing a soothing kiss on her forehead. At that word, Elphaba visibly flinched. She rose gingerly to her feet and crossed the room to where Rilt lay like a crumpled piece of paper. She nudged him with her bare foot and he slid sideways, his eyes staring, and now entirely sightless.
"Oh God," she shrieked. "He's dead! I killed him!"
The King and Queen had Rilt laid in a spare bedroom, under the assumption that he had simply had a heart attack and keeled over. They did not let on to the young pair that they had seen their kiss by the stables, and instructed Fiyero to take Elphaba down to the kitchens and get her something calming to drink.
"I had no idea you were so proficient in the kitchen," Elphaba laughed shakily, taking the cup of hot cocoa from Fiyero's hands.
"Full of surprises, me." he replied dryly, watching her take a tentative sip. The young woman immediately sensed his annoyance, and set the mug down on the table.
"What?"
"You said magic. You said that the magic had killed him. And then you said that you killed him. Forgive me for reverting to type and seeming a bit dense, but I'm afraid I don't get it." he shot, infuriated at his own stupidity rather than Elphaba. She saw this, and motioned for him to draw up a seat next to her.
"Magic and I are the same thing, Yero. Something has given me power, whether it be the same anomaly in my DNA as caused this skin, or the fact that my mother isn't sure who my father is. Don't look at me like that! I'm trying to tell you the truth!" she exclaimed, massaging her temples in irritation. Fiyero rearranged his features into a more agreeable expression, and his companion continued.
She explained the mystery of her birth, the little green bottle, her mother's failure to remember. She told him that the tinker could have been anyone, but Melena had always suspected that he was a magician of some sort, and had passed his magic on to her, as well as colouring her visage with the green elixir.
"Of course, Frex could be my father just as easily as the other man. Apparently I shirked my obligations right from birth; I never cried or anything, I just stared up at them. It's perfectly possible that there's a mutation in my DNA that causes my verdegris. But…I don't know what gave me this power. I just wish that I could control it."
"What made you go mental and blast Rilt across the room, anyway? For future reference, that's all!" Fiyero added with a grin, ignoring Elphaba's dark glare.
"He was trying to claim his 'rights' as a husband." she spat, raking her nails up her arms like she used to when a child and something made her angry. "He wouldn't be told. I don't understand. He told me how repulsive he found me, and suddenly he wanted to…" Elphaba shuddered, and clasped her hands around the mug of cocoa, as though trying to extract comfort from the warm liquid.
Fiyero drew closer, so that they were almost nose to nose. She avoided his eyes, looking anywhere but at him.
"Listen, my Elphaba. You are not repulsive. Who cares what an old twit like him thinks anyway?"
"I care! I don't even know why I care. I've never wanted to be all pink and white and tan like everyone else. I like that I'm unique, believe it or not. It's just…when there are only four people in the entire world who don't look at you like you have contagious disease, and don't call you names, and don't cross the street when they see you coming, you start to wonder if individuality is such a good thing after all. When Glinda became my friend, I became more comfortable with myself again. When I met you, I thought that I didn't care what anyone thought of me anymore. Let them say what they like, it would go over my head." Here Elphaba paused for breath, and Fiyero realised that he had been holding his in anticipation. She was finally pouring her heart out to him, like he had hoped she someday would.
"But I'm so used to the good things in my life disappearing. All too soon, Glinda had to go back to the Pertha hills, and I was left without a contemporary that I could turn to. Shell was sent away to begin boarding school, so I was deprived of my little brother. Nessa grew out of my company and got friends of her own. Papa went away to try and help the Quadlings. Aunt Eissa died, meaning Mother had to devote all of her time to ruling Munchkinland."
"And then there was you. You frustrating, sweet, funny, stubborn, wonderful man, and the minute I meet you I'm bundled off to get married to a man I absolutely abhor. For a moment, when he was telling me about his life as a younger man, a thought flickered across my mind. 'I could be his friend!' I thought. And then he told me how nauseating I was. I knew then that I hated him. The perversity he displayed over the last few weeks deepened that hate to something I never knew I could feel. There isn't even a word for it."
"And now you know about my magic, and that I killed man…by accident. You should also know that I might have accidentally dropped a gargoyle on my aunt, but that wasn't my fault either." She finished wryly, looking expectantly at him from underneath her long sooty lashes.
"If you're waiting for me to scream and run away, it's not going to happen." Fiyero smiled softly, raising her chin so that he could look her in the eyes. Elphaba laughed wretchedly,
"Don't worry, it will come."
"I don't think so," he chuckled, kissing the corner of her mouth teasingly, like he had the very first time in the garden at Colwen Grounds.
That night, Elphaba and Fiyero slept in the library, as that was where the green girl was most at her ease. He himself barely closed his eyes for hours, so enamoured was he with watching her. She held him close, and he stroked her raven hair.
As the light of dawn touched Kiamo Ko, the Crown Prince of the Vinkus finally fell asleep, murmuring something about not enough dancing and too many books.
Really lame ending to this chapter. I sat up until 2am finishing it, and my brain was refusing to function. Sorry. :)