Rifiuto: Non Miriena

Thanks to FabalaTiggular for reviewing 5.

August, Day Three

Boq looked up from his book the next morning, to see Nessa hurrying to class. After a moment, he put his book away and rushed to catch up with her.

"Hey."

"Oh hi!" She cried, excited to see him. "I didn't see you yesterday. How are you?"

He shrugged. "I'm doing good. I started an internship here at Shiz, so that's why I wasn't around yesterday. I was working on that all day, and unfortunately, I'll be working on that today as well, after my first two classes. So it looks like you'll be having lunch by yourself today." She shrugged, unaffected.

"Better alone than with Galinda."

"Galinda?" His mind ran through all Galinda's he knew, before coming up with, "Elphie's roommate?"

Nessa nodded.

"Yeah. Her. I don't like her. She's a bitch."

"She's always a bitch. It's in her nature. She doesn't have a nice bone in her body." Boq replied, as they moved along the path. Both had classes on the second floor, and it was nice to have someone to walk with on the cool autumn days. Boq had plenty of friends- Elphie being one of his closest, even though she played amnesia whenever he was near- but there were days when he wanted to keep to himself. However, today wasn't one of them.

"So how's Elphie doing?" He asked, as they took the elevator to the second floor. "I saw her yesterday before my first class, and when I called out to her, she acted like a frightened cat, screeched, then turned and fled in the opposite direction. Is she all right?"

Nessa rolled her eyes at her sister's reaction.

"That... sounds like Fabala."

Boq chuckled softly.

"I take it she always reacts that way whenever anyone says hello?" Boq asked, meeting Nessa's eyes. The younger girl shook her head.

"No. Normally, she reacts witha glare- and I say normally. The screeching is just reserved for... special people." He nodded, laughing silently at his old friend's antics. When the elevator opened, and they got out, they moved down the hall towards Nessa's class. "Well, it was nice to see you again, Nessa. I wish we could have lunch today, but unfortunately-"

"It's all right, Boq. Thank you for telling me, though." She said softly, before entering the classroom. Once she was gone, he headed down the hall in the opposite direction, towards his own class. He spent the first two classes taking notes and sitting through lecture, and then hurried down to the Education Department to start his second day of internship. However, he spent most of the time thinking about the Thropp sisters, and how two girls, so alike, could be so different.

Nessa, while she may have the pale skin her sister so longed for, she didn't possess the calm confidence or mysterious beauty Elphaba did. She was safe, untouched by the world and its true hardships. She was a sweet girl, she really was, but she wasn't someone he could imagine himself with for the rest of his life. She was like his little sister Denaa, always curious about everything going on, but afraid to go out and explore for fear of getting into trouble.

And Elphaba... the girl was a sister to him, albeit a strange sister, but still a sister, and she had the quirks of a mentally ill family member, but could be forgiven her faults. As for how Elphaba would precieve him helping out her baby sister, well, maybe he'd better keep that under wraps until he was certain he and Elphaba could get along. After all, Elphaba's bite was usually worse than her bark, and he wasn't in the mood for getting rabies shots after confronting her.

He loved Elphaba, he did, and they'd been exceedingly close as children, even going so far as to handcuff themselves together one afternoon out of sheer boredom, and then realizing how much they hated always being around each other for a whole afternoon. Their friendship had fractured as they got older, and eventually, they'd lost contact, barely seeing each other; only to meet again at Shiz, and then, Elphaba had refused to acknowledge that they were friends.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

The Thropp girls were definately a strange breed...

As he started working on his internship, he thought back to when he'd first met Elphaba. It was before Nessa was born, and Elphaba had seemed to almost flaunt her status as the only daughter of the Govenor. Then when Nessa came along, Elphaba almost seemed to... resent her. She was almost... jealous. Well, he knew about that, he'd been jealous when Denaa was born, so it was normal for Elphaba to feel jealous when Nessa was born...

The question however, turned to was she jealous now? Or just plain ignorant?

No, Boq decided, Elphaba was smart, prideful, but not ignorant. The ignorant one was her roommate- Galinda.

That girl he would never understand, nor accept, no matter how 'good' she tried to portray herself. As far as Boq- and everyone else in his and Elphie's small circle- were concerned, Galinda could pack up and return to the Pertha Hills, where she belonged. She didn't belong at Shiz, she wasn't wanted, it was clear. A rich girl from the Pertha Hills, who expected everyone to bow down to her because she was supposedly 'beautiful', wasn't going to survive here at Shiz. The fact that they hadn't sent her home screaming for her mother two years earlier was a shock in and of itself.

He chuckled softly.

That just meant they'd have to try harder.