Yeah, yeah, sorry - I should't be going around promising extra updates when I'm not at home to actually update. I was away all day yesterday and I got back later than I had expected.
Kudos to Ozian-in-Australia for guessing Elphaba's talent!
12. Prove My Worth
Elphaba would be called upon by the Miss Emerald TV crew for the recording of her talent presentation on Tuesday, along with, of course, Glinda and Nessarose. Until that day, she kept the talent she would be using firmly under wraps, refusing to tell Glinda about it no matter how many times she asked. Only Fiyero knew and he gave her an encouraging grin every time the subject came up. He was confident she'd do great. She was less sure, but she knew this talent was the best chance she had at not embarrassing herself on TV and so she'd just have to grin and bear it.
Nessarose would be showing the TV crew some of her embroidering material as the presentation of her own skill, while Glinda was hosting a small party in the courtyard so she could show off her organisational, social, and dancing skills. Glinda had already informed Elphaba about the talents some the other girls were going to show off, having interrogated quite of a few of them at the ball in Gillikin.
"Lunare is probably going to show off her fashion sense by giving a make-over or something – or at least, that's what Micaela told me," the blonde had said. "Saraphina is going to sing, of course. She's supposed to have a lovely voice. If you ask me, Fiyero really missed out on something when his behaviour led her to break their engagement."
Elphaba hadn't replied and Glinda had flushed, realising what she'd said. "Oh, I didn't mean that, Elphie! I mean, Saraphina is wonderful, but you're even better! He's much happier with you than he ever could have been with her, because you're meant to be together!"
Elphaba had just snorted. "Nice try, Glin."
Her roommate had then quickly prattled on. "Anyway, Macy will be playing the piano, Faye is dancing; and I don't know for sure what the others might do, but it'll surely be something impressive, too. Now what are you going to do, Elphie?"
"Not telling," Elphaba had said and that had been the end of it.
"You know what annoys me the most about this whole thing?" the dark-haired witch was complaining to her sister as they were attending Glinda's party and watching the TV crew swarm around the blonde, filming her as she danced with some handsome boys, socialised with the other students, giggled, and tossed her hair.
"What?" asked Nessa and Elphaba sighed.
"That it's true what Glinda said to me last weekend," she said miserably. "I was supposed to do this in order to spy for Oscar, help him discover who is planning on blowing up the whole circus during the finale, and be an inside man. Or woman, I guess," she added, which made Nessa giggle slightly. "Instead, I'm spending all my time working on my manners and etiquette, on skills that have nothing to do whatsoever with the things I deem important in life, and on socialising with people I don't even really want to get to know. I feel like a doll, constantly dressing up and letting myself be judged by other people, and it's consuming so much of my time; yet I still haven't found out anything about Bomb Threat Guy – aside from a very strong suspicion that it might be Morrible, but even for that suspicion I haven't found any proof yet."
Nessa placed a hand on her sister's arm comfortingly. "You'll get there, Fabala. These things are quite difficult. Going undercover on a mission for the Wizard is very hard in itself, because you have to blend in," she said. "Just… consider this training for the actual events – the live shows in a couple of weeks. All this beauty pageant stuff is just you training to not stand out among the other candidates and earning their trust so you can get them to give you information in a while that might help you catch the culprit."
That did, in fact, cheer Elphaba up a little. She hadn't thought of it that way before. "You know what?" she said in surprise. "You're right. I hadn't looked at it that way, but that does help. Thanks, Nessie."
Nessa smiled. "No problem, Fabala."
They watched for a while as Glinda played the perfect hostess to her little party, charming the TV crew and the students alike, and Elphaba had to grin at the display. "She looks like she was born in front of a camera."
"Who knows? Maybe she was," Nessa said and the sisters shared a quiet laugh. Nessarose had already been up in front of the camera earlier that day, so she was fairly relaxed, sipping her punch and enjoying the party. Elphaba, however, felt a little jittery at the prospect of still having to show off her talent. She had practised, of course, but she was still a little insecure about the whole thing. She just hoped everything would go okay.
As if he had read her mind, Fiyero came running towards the two. "Fae!" He skidded to a halt in front of them, slightly out of breath. "The TV crew asked me to get you. You're up," he said and Elphaba tensed, quickly turning to Nessa.
"How do I look?"
"You look great, Fabala," the younger girl assured her, but that didn't stop Elphaba from smoothing out some invisible wrinkles in her dress and nervously running her fingers through her hair. The movement was stopped, however, by Fiyero gently closing his fingers around her wrists.
"Fae," he said, bringing her hands down to clasp them against his chest. "You're beautiful."
She softened. "Thank you, Yero."
He smiled and kissed her gently. "Go and get them, hon. Show them something," he encouraged her and she flashed him a small grin.
"I'll try."
Glinda had helped her dress that morning, so she knew there couldn't really be anything wrong with her clothes – another petticoat, covered by a full, cream-coloured skirt that fell just below her knees. A modestly high neckline, long sleeves, and accents of red and black finished the picture, along with a pair of black ballet flats. The blonde had loaned her friend a red headband to keep her raven hair out of her face and Elphaba personally thought she lookedlike one of the dolls she'd been comparing herself with earlier, but she kept her thoughts on the matter to herself.
She took a deep breath. "Okay. Here goes nothing." She straightened and tried to walk over to the TV crew with an air of confident calm.
"Oh, Elphie!" Glinda cried. "There you are!" She linked arms with her roommate and smiled brightly at the camera. "As you probably know by now, we're roommates and we're very close," she said, smiling sweetly. "Elphie is really the sweetest person ever, aren't you, Elphie? She's refused to tell me about her talent, though, so I can't wait to see her show it to you!"
"Neither can we," Reven said excitedly. "Elphaba, do you need to prepare anything in advance for your presentation?"
The green girl shook her head. "Not really," she said. "I'll just need your band to step down from the stage, Glin."
"Of course!" Glinda hurried away to talk to the band and Elphaba gave the camera her best smile.
"What's it like rooming with Glinda, Elphaba?" Reven asked. "Are you two really such good friends?"
As Elphaba talked about her relationship with the pretty blonde, as well as the one with her sister, Glinda managed to make the band stop playing and they all came down from the stage the blonde had set up. Cashel then encouraged Elphaba to show them what she could do and she inhaled slowly as she walked over to the stage.
"What is she doing?" she heard Glinda hiss to Boq, Nessa, and Fiyero. "She's not going to sing, is she?"
"Don't worry," Fiyero said and she could hear the grin in his voice. "She'll amaze you all."
Elphaba sat down behind the drum set. There were surprised murmurs and whispers from the people around her, including her friends; but she simply took up the drum sticks and searched out Fiyero's face in the crowd. He gave her a thumbs-up and she smirked at him before hitting the drums.
She played with a ferocity that had Fiyero suggest to the others in a low voice that she was probably imagining to be hitting Pfannee, Milla, and Shenshen with her drum sticks – or maybe the Miss Emerald participants. It made the wheelchair-bound girl giggle, but Glinda and Boq didn't even hear him. They were staring open-mouthed as Elphaba performed a drum solo they had never thought their friend capable of performing. Nessa had known about Elphaba's ability to play drums from back in Munchkinland, but up until now, Boq and Glinda had had no idea the green girl had ever touched a drum stick in her life.
Cashel and Reven appeared to be quite enthusiastic about the whole thing and they nearly fell over themselves trying to get to Elphaba after she finished, bombarding her with questions about when she'd learned to play, and who had taught her, and where, and why, and how. She struggled to answer them the best she could, but Fiyero could tell she was uncomfortable. He wanted to step in to save her, but Glinda held him back.
"Wait," she whispered, shaking her head. "Let her have her moment in the spotlight. Does the Miss Emerald crew know you and Elphie are together?"
"No," Fiyero said, puzzled by the question.
Glinda smiled in satisfaction. "Perfect. You must reveal that this weekend," she told him.
This did nothing to alleviate the prince's confusion. "Huh?"
Glinda heaved an impatient sigh. "We want people to like Elphaba, don't we? Well, in order for that to happen, we have to make sure she stands out. Last week, there was that whole newspaper story making her out to be some kind of hero. This week, it's her unusual talent. Next week, it will be your relationship. That way, she will continue to be interesting for the audience because she keeps surprising everyone in some way or another."
Fiyero stared at her. He wasn't the only one; Nessa was frowning slightly and Boq's eyebrows were raised.
"If I didn't know any better," the latter said, "I'd say you were Elphaba's campaign manager in this whole contest."
"I thought you wanted to win," Nessa added. "Why are you helping Fabala?"
"Because she's my best friend!" Glinda protested. "And besides, she's not going to win. She doesn't even want to. She just needs to charm the audience to make it to the finale so she can catch Bomb Threat Guy or Woman, and I can help her do that. Charm the audience, that is. Not catch the bad guy. I'll leave that to her and Oscar."
Fiyero shook his head. This petite blonde girl just continued to amaze him.
Watching that Friday's Miss Emerald episode was actually, Elphaba had to admit, a lot of fun. That afternoon after their classes, she, Glinda, Nessa, Fiyero, Boq, and Chistery all travelled to the Emerald City. They'd have to be there the next day for the recording of next week's episode and since Oscar was unable to leave the City again to come watch this week's episode with them, they decided to instead leave early and go to Oscar, who invited them to spend the weekend at the Palace.
The moment Oscar saw his daughter, he smiled widely and approached her, enveloping her in a hug before she even knew what was happening. "I'm proud of you," he told her, which left her rather speechless.
He let go again, still smiling. "You're doing great, Elphaba," he said, beaming at her. "Other than that little anger management problem you showed during the interviews, you've done a wonderful job. I never imagined this would go over so well."
"Thanks?" said Elphaba, feeling a little bemused. She wasn't even sure if she should take that as a compliment or as an insult. "You do realise you have only seen two episodes in total so far, right? For all you know, I've completely messed up this talent thing."
He grinned knowingly. "Not according to Dr Dillamond's letter, you haven't."
The Goat had been exceptionally proud of his brightest student after her display of drum skills in the courtyard at Shiz. He'd been talking of nothing else for at least two days afterwards, which left Elphaba slightly embarrassed, even though she also thought it was sweet of him. It was a shame he could not be here to watch the episode with them, but he had an important staff meeting to go to back at Shiz on Saturday, so he hadn't been able to come along.
Elphaba glanced at her father apprehensively. "And you're not mad about the whole newspaper article thing? You know – Princess Elphaba stands up for minority groups?"
He chuckled. "I won't pretend to be happy with the fact that all of Oz knows you have magical powers now," he said, sobering a little. "I'd rather have kept that as a surprise – a secret weapon in case we needed one. However, it's not a big problem and this article helps with our facade. To those who don't know you, it seems like you're taking this contest very seriously and that's all we really want, isn't it? As long as no-one has reason to suspect you are undercover for me, it's fine. I'm actually quite proud of you for standing up for your friends like that," he added, "although it could have been a little less… drastic."
She flushed and pointedly avoided Fiyero's gaze. Oscar chuckled again. Glinda just smirked knowingly.
They freshened up a little, had dinner, and then settled down in one of Oscar's many sitting rooms to watch the episode together. Oscar looked surprised when he noticed his daughter cuddling up to the Vinkun prince, Fiyero's arm going around her, and Glinda giggled at the older man's face.
"Aren't they cute?" she gushed. "It was about time they got together, don't you think?"
"When did this happen?" Oscar asked in bewilderment.
Elphaba, feeling herself redden a little, replied, "About a week ago."
"Aha." He still looked confused. "Well, I suppose that would explain your drastic reaction to that girl insulting his people in class."
The dark-haired witch was pretty sure her cheeks couldn't get any redder right now, but when Oscar directed a stern gaze at Fiyero, she groaned and buried her face in her hands in embarrassment. "Don't, Dad."
"Young man," Oscar said, ignoring his daughter. "I like you, but I just want to say that I do hope your intentions with my daughter are honourable and –"
"Dad," Elphaba cut him off with another groan. "We've been together for a week. We've been on, like, one date."
Fiyero gave her a questioning look and she shrugged at him. "Well, I don't count group dates and you didn't want me to count study dates. I'm also not counting the time you rescued me from the contest craziness, because we weren't together yet then. So then it's only been one date, right?"
"Right," he agreed, mild horror dawning in his eyes at the realisation. "We seriously need to fix that."
Oscar cleared his throat loudly and Fiyero looked at his possible future father-in-law sheepishly. "Sorry, sir."
"As I was saying," Oscar began again, but this time he was shushed by Glinda.
"It's starting!"
"This conversation isn't over yet," Oscar whispered to Fiyero, but Elphaba pushed the prince aside so she could glare daggers at her father.
"Yes, it is."
"We'll see," Oscar threatened.
"Isn't it nice to see them have a normal father-daughter relationship?" Boq whispered to Nessa, making her giggle. Glinda shushed the two of them, too.
The girls' talents were being shown in random order, with commentary from Cashel and Reven on how they were all doing and some very short interviews with friends and family members to give the viewers at home some insight into the contestants' lives. First up was Nathalinia, whose talent was that she could spell any given word correctly. She had a tough crowd, with people giving her words that varied from 'smaragdine' and 'cymotrichous' to 'laodicean' and 'autochthonous'. She spelled them all right, however, and she got a polite applause afterwards. Her parents gave a short interview, gushing about how proud they were of their daughter.
Macy played the piano – not exceptionally well, but well nonetheless, and her friends were interviewed. There was a lot of eyelash-fluttering and giggling going on during this and Elphaba pretended to vomit, earning herself disapproving looks from Glinda, Oscar, and Nessarose and grins from Boq, Fiyero, and Chistery. Caila demonstrated her skills at archery, which were quite good.
"Now there's a talent that stands out!" Reven said enthusiastically about the performance. "Archery is something not many beauty pageant contestants have tried before, but it can be an elegant sport, as shown here by Caila. Let's see what her fellow students thought of this!"
The fellow students, of course, all praised Caila's talent.
"I wonder if anyone was interviewed saying something negative about the contestant," Elphaba muttered to Nessa, who shrugged.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't think anyone would dare look disagreeable on TV."
Elphaba smirked. "Unless they interviewed Pfannee and Milla about my performance."
Nessa grimaced. "Let's hope they did not."
Saraphina was up next, singing a song rather beautifully, which made Elphaba sulk. She crossed her arms and glared at the TV. "Is there anything that girl is not good at?" she demanded. "She's beautiful, she can sing, she can dance, she's talented in pretty much every way; popular, judging from these friends surrounding her, and she has a sweet boyfriend. The least I'd expect is that she'd have to be incredibly stupid or mean, but she's neither of those things, either. She's quite smart, actually, and nice, too. It's not fair."
"You're beautiful, talented, smart, and nice, too," Chistery offered, which earned him a smile that was grateful, but told him she didn't believe a word of it nonetheless.
"And you have friends," Glinda added.
"And a sweet boyfriend," Fiyero pointed out, giving her a puppy-eyed look, but he was disappointed by his girlfriend's reaction. She only rolled her eyes at him.
Micaela, being from Quadling Country, had chosen a typically southern talent and played the fiddle – somehow managing to make that look sophisticated and ladylike, too, which made Elphaba grumble some more about all those stupid girls being so stupidly talented at making every stupid skill look good. Nessarose showed off her embroidery, Faye danced, and Glinda was portrayed as the perfect party hostess, socialising with everyone, showing off the beautiful decorations and the great band as well as, of course, her perfect outfit. Umbia didn't do so well; she sang a song, too, but she was obviously very nervous and her voice shook throughout almost the entire song. Fortunately, her friends and family were very positive about her, emphasising what a sweet and quiet girl she was, which probably earned her some points with the audience again.
Karise, of course, had chosen a rather unconventional talent as well: knife-throwing. Elphaba thought it was brilliant, especially when it became clear that Karise had decided to show everyone her hatred for the whole beauty pageant competition by sticking pictures of dresses, make-up, and some of the other contestants' faces onto her targets. She managed to land a knife in Lunare's eye and one in Macy's nose. Glinda and Nessa were less amused by this, but Elphaba could appreciate it.
Lunare was up next, giving one of her friends a make-over to show how much insight she had into make-up, hair, and fashion, with her boyfriend giving a complete speech about how wonderful the girl was; and then, finally, it was Elphaba's turn. She had to admit that her playing the drums didn't even look too unladylike. It had a certain charm, as Glinda assured her. Showing off musical talent was not uncommon in beauty pageants, meaning Elphaba's skill fit with the whole thing, but playing drums was just uncommon enough for her to stand out among the other candidates – at least about as much as Caila, Karise, and Micaela did, in a positive manner at least.
Oscar was quite impressed as well. "You really are doing wonderfully, Elphaba," he assured her, smiling again.
"Thanks," she muttered. "I still hope it'll be over soon, though." She tilted her head a little to the side. "Did you know that Morrible is going to be in the judge panel for the semi-final and the finale?"
"I did," he said and she looked at him incredulously.
"Then why did we even get into this whole circus?" she demanded. "It's obviously she who threatened to blow the thing up!"
He frowned. "I'm not convinced of that, Elphaba."
"I am," she countered. "She's evil, Dad. Something like this would be just like her."
Oscar, however, shook his head. "I've considered it," he admitted. "I still am considering it. It could be her. It could also not be her, however. I'm inclined to believe she wouldn't take such drastic measures. Besides, my security department has deduced from the handwriting that our culprit is most likely a man."
"Maybe she got some guy to write those threats for her," Elphaba persisted, but she could tell Oscar clearly wasn't convinced.
"Just keep an open mind about this, all right?" he asked her. "Keep looking around. It might be her, but we don't know that for sure and I won't risk something actually happening just because we were too short-sighted to look past the obvious."
She sighed, but nodded. "What if I don't find anything out before the finale?"
"Then we will cancel it after all," Oscar said calmly. "I hope that won't be necessary, but we won't risk anyone's safety here. If we don't catch our bad guy, the finale can't go through. It's as simple as that."
Glinda and even Nessa were very dismayed at this, but Elphaba was relieved. At least the lives of Oz-knew-how-many people didn't depend on her discovering the person behind this. Still, she was nervous. She had a bad feeling – a hazy vision, if you will – that something was going to happen. Something none of them would see coming.
Next up is chapter 13, which will feature your alter egos again. The poll is still open, although if you haven't voted yet, I'd suggest waiting until after the next chapter to do so.