AN: Thank you all for the congratulotions! ^^ I'm super-happy, as you can imagine.
4.
Elphaba looked up from her book when Fiyero entered the library. She expected him to either make a snide remark or just ignore her completely and go about his business; but much to her surprise, he did neither. Instead he sat down in a chair nearby, fidgeting a little.
"So…" he began.
She gave him a questioning look.
When he didn't say anything right away, she said sarcastically, "Oh, just spit it out already. What do you want to say? I've heard every vegetable name you can come up with at least a hundred times already, but if it makes you feel better, then just go ahead and say it. Let me guess: the royal cook is going to make some cabbage soup and you were wondering if I would mind jumping in the cooking pot? Or maybe when you came in just now and saw me, you thought that one of the frogs had escaped from the pond in the garden and taken up residence in the library?"
He looked down, a little embarrassed. "No. I just…" He faltered. "I came here to…"
When he trailed off and fell silent again, she scowled. His demeanour was unnerving her and she hated feeling unnerved.
"What, have you lost your tongue as well as your brain cells now?" she quipped and his head shot up to glare at her.
"For Oz's sake, Elphaba," he snapped, "I'm trying to apologise here!"
She blinked at him, her mouth slightly agape. "You… what?"
He sighed tiredly. "I… I'm sorry," he forced himself to say, "for what I said the other day… in the hot springs, I mean… when you –"
Elphaba flushed at the mere memory of that day. Mortified, she interjected, "Yes, I know which day you mean, thank you very much."
He gave her a crooked grin that told her he knew exactly how uncomfortable she was feeling, but he didn't press the issue, much to her surprise. "I shouldn't have said any of those things," he said. "Or… anything at all about your skin, really. I guess it's not your fault you're green and it was mean of me to say all those things about it. So, I'm sorry."
She looked at him for a long time, trying to figure out if he was being sincere or if this was just another big joke.
"Apology accepted," she said finally. "I mean, um… thank you, I guess."
"I just thought that given the fact that we're going to be married, we might want to try to at least get along." He looked at her through his eyelashes. "You know, just… get to know one another a bit better, I guess."
"In order to avoid murder in the royal bedroom within a week after the wedding?" Elphaba asked and he grinned at her again, showing off the small gap between his front teeth.
"Something like that."
"Okay," she conceded a bit hesitantly. "So… what do you want to do, then?"
He thought about that for a moment. "Go down to the hot springs?" he suggested cheekily, chuckling at his own joke.
Elphaba's eyes, however, narrowed; and he could only just dodge the book she threw at him. Given the fact that she usually treated books like they were sacred, he realised he had really pissed her off now.
"This is all some game to you, isn't it?" she shouted at him. "I should have seen it right away – even though I am green and repulsive, I'm still a female and therefore you just want to have sex with me. Well, don't bother trying to be nice to me, Your Highness. If you had actually used your two brain cells, you'd have realised that we're supposed to sleep together on our wedding night, anyway, so you didn't have to go through all the trouble of apologising and trying to get on my good side!"
"Now wait a clock-tick!" Fiyero protested hotly, jumping to his feet. "Don't put words in my mouth! You don't know the first thing about me and you're being completely ridiculous!"
"Yeah, right!" She sneered at him. "You're just mad that I am on to you!"
"Don't be stupid!"
"Oh, you are calling me stupid now?" She threw her head back and cackled. "That's a good one!"
His own eyes narrowed as well now. He was completely fed up with her. He'd tried to apologise to her and talk to her. He'd tried to get along with her, but she was just impossible to be around.
"I'm not going to stand around here and listen to this," he declared, turning on his heels. "I tried." He stalked out of the room.
Elphaba sighed and slumped back down in her chair, wondering if maybe she'd gone too far.
"It's snowing!" Nessarose came wheeling into Elphaba's bedroom, beaming. Cyara danced after her. "Fabala, look out your window! It's snowing! Have you ever seen something so beautiful?" the wheelchair-bound girl gushed, clasping her hands together.
Elphaba, who had been sitting in the window sill for the past half hour to watch the snow, grinned widely at her sister. "It's beautiful," she agreed.
"I was hoping for snow," Cyara said happily. "It usually snows this time of the year. Give it a few days and the entire Vinkus will be covered in a blanket of white. With a bit of luck, it will stay that way until well after the new year."
"Oh, could you imagine that, Fabala?" Nessa was nearly bouncing in her chair. "You could have a winter wedding! The ceremony could be outside, in the snow… how wonderful would that be?"
"Wedding in a winter wonderland," Cyara sang and the two girls giggled in excitement.
Elphaba rolled her eyes. "Guys, I'm not going to get married outside."
Their faces fell. "Why not?" Nessarose asked in disappointment.
"The wedding guests would freeze, for one," said Elphaba, "and so would I."
"We'll get you a warm wedding dress!" Cyara promised. "And we'll just tell the guests to dress warmly, too!"
"But –"
"Oh, Fabala, please, it would be so amazing!" Nessa begged. Elphaba opened her mouth again to protest, but then changed her mind.
"You know what?" she said. "Fine. I don't care about this whole wedding, anyway. If you want me to have a winter wedding, then by all means, arrange for me to have a winter wedding. It's going to be unpleasant, no matter what."
Cyara and Nessa exchanged a look. "Elphaba," the princess began, "it doesn't have to be unpleasant –"
"I'm going to have to wear a wedding dress, which will undoubtedly be poofy, and I hate poofy," Elphaba interrupted. "I'm going to be surrounded all day by hundreds, possibly thousands, of people I don't even know, while I hate being around people I don't know; and I'm going to be the centre of attention, too, which I also hate. Last but not least, I'm marrying a man I hate and who hates me, too."
Cyara wrinkled her nose. "Okay, I guess it's not going to be a very happy day for you," she conceded.
"We'll talk to Father and the king and queen about the winter wedding," Nessa said. "And to Galinda, of course. Who knows, Fabala – you might actually end up enjoying it."
Elphaba snorted in reply before re-focusing her attention on the small flakes of snow fluttering down from the sky outside her window.
The other girls joined her and they sat in silence for a while, watching the snowfall. It came faster and faster, the flakes growing larger and thicker. It was already sticking, covering the gardens of the Vinkun royal castle with a thin layer of snow.
"Can we go outside and play in it?" Nessarose whispered, clearly in awe of the spectacle. "I'd love to feel it on my skin…"
Cyara laughed. "You're talking like you've never touched snow before."
"She hasn't," said Elphaba. "Neither have I. It never snows in Munchkinland."
Cyara looked taken aback. "Never?"
Elphaba shook her head. "It snowed at Shiz once," she said, "but that was during Lurlinemas break, when I was at home with Father and Nessa. Galinda and Boq told me about it later. It's a shame I missed it."
"Come outside right now," Cyara ordered. "You cannot keep on living without touching snow. It's simply impossible. We'll ask Galinda to come, too – where is she?"
"Discussing the colour scheme of the wedding with the wedding planner your parents hired," Elphaba muttered. "I already told the wedding planner that if he lets Galinda talk him into implementing the colour pink anywhere, he's going to be fired right away."
Cyara and Nessarose giggled.
They found Galinda and the wedding planner in the parlour and stole the blonde girl away. The four of them made their way outside – with some help of a few servants to get Nessa's chair down the stairs – and Elphaba and Nessa looked around in wonder.
"It's fantastic," Nessa said softly, reaching out to catch some snowflakes in the palm of her hand.
"Let's build a snowman!" Cyara started gathering snow and the other girls soon followed. It was a bit hard, given the fact that there was not that much snow yet; but eventually, they managed to create a fairly decent snowman.
Cyara turned around and suddenly found a snowball being flung straight into her face. She spluttered at the snow in her mouth and wiped her face, glaring at the person responsible. "That was not funny, Fiyero."
"I thought it was," he said in amusement, appearing from behind a tree.
Cyara started making a snowball as well, but before she could throw it, another snowball of Fiyero's hit her in the neck, seeping past her scarf and down into her dress, making her squeal. "Fiyero!"
He was doubling over with laughter. Galinda joined in now, even though she started shrieking and hid behind a tree every time someone threw a snowball at her, flapping her arms in panic as she screeched for them not to ruin her hair or her expensive clothes. Cyara, Nessa, and Elphaba teamed up to target Fiyero, who protested that this wasn't fair and tried to run from them, but Elphaba muttered a spell under her breath that froze his feet to the snow underneath, preventing him from moving.
"Hey!" he shouted.
Elphaba smiled sweetly at him. "What's wrong, Fiyero?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Cheater."
"Jerk."
"Guys!" Galinda said, flapping her arms again to get their attention. "Be nice!"
They eventually dropped down in the snow on their backs to make snow angels and then went back inside, shivering slightly. Fiyero looked at his bride-to-be. Her cheeks were red and there was snow in her hair and all over her clothes, but her eyes were sparkling and she was laughing along with the other girls. He realised that this was probably the first time he saw her happy, and it confused him a little. Had he just never noticed it before? Or was she really almost never happy? He supposed that, being green and engaged to someone she loathed, she didn't have all that much to be happy about…
She had a pretty smile, though. He wouldn't mind seeing her smile like that more often.
Just then, she turned her head and caught him looking at her; and her smile was instantly replaced by a scowl. He scowled right back at her and she looked away, turning her attention to Galinda instead, who was babbling on about one thing or another.
Fiyero sighed. She was so strange.
Don't worry, guys... they're getting there.