AN: An early update. Just... because I felt like it.

2.

Fiyero groaned as he slowly forced his eyes open, squinting against the bright light streaming into his room. He had forgotten to close the curtains again last night… or was it this morning? When had he come home again? All he remembered was going to some party in the town nearby and fooling around a bit with a couple of girls… he'd drunk a lot, that he did remember, but other than that he had no idea what he had done.

He eventually dragged himself out of bed despite his headache, stumbling around for a few moments before finding his robe and shrugging into it. He decided to get some coffee first and then go down to the hot springs to let the steam clear his head… and to have some time alone without anyone harassing him or bugging him about where he had been last night, why he had come home so late, and why he had felt the need to get drunk again. An added advantage to being alone was not having to face his dearest betrothed, who might just hex him again once she found out that he hadn't really learnt anything from their previous encounter.

He downed his coffee quickly as he walked, leaving the empty cup on a side table somewhere – a servant would clean that up – and making his way down a series of small stairs in the back of the castle. No-one ever used these stairs anymore, so he had taken to using them to sneak in and out of the castle without anyone seeing him.

Instead of sneaking out of the castle today, though, he followed the stairs all the way down to the hot springs in the basement. Instead of bothering with the heavy door, he used a crevice in the wall to slip inside – he and his friends had once discovered the narrow opening and they had used it sometimes back in their teenage years, when they sneaked inside to watch the maids take a bath. The maids hardly ever came here anymore now, and his parents were often too busy; so he sometimes came here by himself to relax a little.

Now, he stripped off his robe and underwear and threw a towel onto one of the benches before walking towards one of the pools and testing the temperature with his toe. Perfect. Nice and hot. He sighed happily and was just about to wade in when he heard the sound of splashing water echoing through the underground room.

He frowned. He hadn't done that, had he? He turned around, but he could see no-one or nothing else down here. No wonder – there was steam everywhere. He grimaced. Perhaps he should have checked the door first, to see if there really wasn't anyone in here… what if the governor of Munchkinland had decided to take a bath in the hot springs? The mere thought of seeing stern Frexspar Thropp stark naked made him shudder.

He turned back, intending to try and find out who else was here without them noticing him; but the moment he turned, he saw something emerging from the water and he let out a very unmanly scream of surprise.

Elphaba – because that was who it was, he realised with a shock – shrieked, too, when she saw him standing there, and both their screams echoed through the underground room. He blinked and stared at her. He couldn't have guessed, but she actually had a really nice figure. Why did she always hide those curves with shapeless dresses? Right now, still half in the water and with the steam drifting around her, her long, ebony hair sticking to her body, she looked almost ethereal… almost pretty.

"Stop staring, you pervert!" she shouted at him and he blinked again and looked away, a dark red colour slowly creeping up into his cheeks. When she realised she was still standing up straight, she blushed, too, and quickly lowered herself back into the water so he wouldn't see anything else. "What are you doing here?!"

"What am I doing here?" he shot back. "It's my castle!"

"I locked the door!"

He snorted. "I've lived here all my life. I know at least two ways into every room. Actually, I know three into this one," he added, thinking about the underground passageway from outside that almost no-one knew about and that led into this room as well.

She narrowed her eyes. "And it did not occur to you that someone else might be here?!" she demanded. "Have you really no brain at all?"

He scoffed. "You know nothing about me!" He took a step towards her.

She suddenly flushed and looked away. "Would you cover yourself up?" she snapped, not looking at him again.

He looked down and then back at her, grinning. "Why? Is this distracting you?"

"I don't want to see you naked. It's bad enough I will have to on our wedding night."

"You're just jealous." He struck a pose and she nearly choked when she accidentally glanced at him.

"Stop shaking your ding-a-ling at me or I'll tear it off," she growled as she looked away again, cracking her knuckles to emphasise her threat.

Fiyero just laughed. "You're jealous," he concluded smugly, "because so many girls have gotten to have their fun with this amazing body and you secretly want that, too. Or maybe you're just jealous of my body, because you know you won't ever be even half as gorgeous as I am."

She made her way out of the water and quickly moved past him and to the benches where they had left their towels. She wrapped hers tightly around her body before turning back to him.

"You know what?" she said, with a resignation and calm in her voice that confused him. "You're right. You're handsome. I'll be lucky if someone ever even finds me not completely repulsive. I will never be half as gorgeous as you are – I will never even be able to stand in your shadow when it comes to beauty. But beauty is not the most important thing in this world, Fiyero. There are other things that matter. Who do you think the Vinkun people are going to remember? The king who was wise, just, and kind to his subjects; or the king who was handsome, but made a mess out of everything?"

He didn't say anything.

"I genuinely believe that you are not as stupid as you pretend to be, Fiyero," she said quietly. "But drinking and partying are not going to solve your problems or make you any less unhappy."

"Stop talking to me like you're so much better than I am," he snapped and she recoiled as if he had slapped her. "I get it, Elphaba. You're so smart and that makes you better than the partying playboy prince. But you know what? I can learn. I can learn to be a good king and I can become smarter. You, however, will be green for the rest of your life and everyone is always going to hate you and be repulsed by you – so really, which one of us is better off?"

She abruptly turned and left the room, snatching Fiyero's robe with her in order to cover herself as she presumably stormed back to her own room. He felt a twitch of guilt, but he brushed that away. She had it coming, he told himself. She was annoying, mouthy, and weird, and even though she had looked kind of attractive there in the water just now, the green colour of her skin was just impossible to ignore. Who did she think she was? What made her think she could lecture him about his lifestyle? She had only known him for a few days – what did she know?

But she is right, an annoying voice whispered in the back of his head. Isn't she? You are unhappy. You can be smarter. You can be a better person. You're just running away from your responsibilities, that is all.

He brushed the voice aside, refusing to listen to it, even though he knew that it was right… but that was what scared him so.

King Humberto was pacing up and down the room. His queen was sitting in a chair by the window, looking thoughtful as she watched her husband; and Kevon was sitting across from Danna, patiently waiting for his son to say something.

Humberto stopped pacing and looked at his father and his wife. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," Kevon said, "that you could take the effort to get to know the girl a bit better."

"And I am saying," Danna said with a small scowl, "that we should reconsider this decision. Fiyero clearly is not very taken with her, and to be honest, neither am I. The girl is green, for Oz's sake!"

"I know she's green," Humberto said, frowning as well. "That doesn't say anything about her, though. I admit that it is strange, but do we really want to be the kind of people that judge others because of the colour of their skin?!"

"No," Kevon answered for him. "You do not want to be that kind of people. Especially not since you are the rulers of the province – you are an example. Do you want to give the example of discrimination on the ground of someone's looks? You might as well join the Wizard's anti-Animal campaigns right away, then."

Humberto growled. "Those campaigns are the entire reason this union is such a good idea!"

"But Fiyero does not like her!" Danna protested.

Kevon snorted. "Fiyero will live."

Queen Danna glared at him. "Does my son's happiness not matter to you?" she sneered.

Kevon sighed. "Danna, he's twenty-three years old, but he is still very much a child – and acting that way, too, if I might add. He needs to settle down. No girl you two choose will ever be good enough for him because he wants nothing more than to spite you. Miss Elphaba is a kind and intelligent young woman and I have no doubt that she could be very good to Fiyero. Frankly, it's his treatment of her that I am worried about at this moment," he muttered.

Humberto shook his head. "We've spoilt him too much, Danna," he said tiredly. "This union is needed and I am not going to let my son's childish behaviour get in the way of that."

"Can you blame him for not liking the girl?" Danna said in a high voice. "Look at that skin!"

"That's enough!" Kevon suddenly boomed, rising to his feet. He glared at both royals. "You two are behaving like children yourselves and I will not listen to this!"

With that, he left the room, leaving the king and queen behind in baffled silence.

He went straight to the library, where he found Elphaba immersed in a book. He smiled at her when she looked up and she hesitantly smiled back.

"Hello," he said, sitting down across from her. "I haven't really had a chance to get to know you so far, so I thought I'd change that."

"Me?" she asked in surprise, as if she had never been told before that someone would like to get to know her. "Um… okay. What would you like to know?"

He spent the next few hours learning everything there was to know about Elphaba Thropp from her childhood in Munchkinland to her time at Shiz University. He learnt which books she liked to read and what her favourite dish was, what she loved to do and what the things were that really set her off, who her friends were – or, rather, who her friend was – and how she had been treated her entire life. She wasn't exactly willing to share those things with him, but he kept on gently prodding until she admitted to it and it horrified him slightly. He felt even more angry towards his own relatives now, since the way they had treated Elphaba was exactly the same way she had been treated her entire life long: with wariness, disgust, and contempt.

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