Thank you all for the birthday wishes. By far the bet part of my otherwise un-wonderful week.
This chapter grossed out HollyBush. With that said, I hope you enjoy it :)
Underneath his favorite pearlfruit tree by the Suicide Canal, Fiyero lazed in a circle of his closest friends and felt sick to his stomach. Looking around, none of the girls – Elphaba, Galinda and Nessarose – nor the boys – Boq, Tibbett and Crope – seemed to be suffering the way he was, and he understood why: none of them were going through the hardship he was currently experiencing. They did not sympathize because they couldn't possibly comprehend his misery. Inhaling glumly, he asked them all, "Do you ever make a mistake so great, so profound that you feel like your life could never possibly return to what it once was, no matter how much you wish it could?"
"Your sandwich can't be that bad, Fiyero."
"Oh, but it is," the prince said, staring morosely at the brown paper in front of him, on which was the yellowy mess of goo and bread he regretfully chose as his lunch.
Fiyero had been running a bit behind today, having been cornered by a group of young ladies who wanted to chat him up. He was much more comfortable flirting than he had been at first, which was proving to be as disadvantageous as could be expected. When he said he was heading to the refectory to grab lunch after class, they insisted on accompanying him, a girl hanging on each arm so heavily he feared he'd start sinking into the ground. A couple more hovered nearby, as if waiting for their own turn, and they cooed and giggled and teased him, ready to squeal with delight every time he responded to their banter.
He was glad to finally get to the cafeteria. It wasn't a place he preferred to stay; like the rest of Shiz, the building was at least a couple hundred years old. The old brick walls were oily gray, the floors were dingy stone, and the well-worn and well-stained hardwood tables and benches were always filled with the din of mind-numbing chatter. But even the most persnickety students had to eat, and there was nothing more convenient than the steam-table slops and chops. Okay, he wasn't giving it enough credit: Shiz did provide decent dining options as far as most universities went, but after months of eating food straight from the Emerald Palace's kitchen, the dumpling stews and corned beef and fried fish had usually left him wanting.
After thanking the girls profusely for their company, he shot away from them as quickly as was polite before they invited him to sit with them and beelined straight for the cold sandwich case, wanting a hearty roast-turkey hoagie. Alas, because of the long path through Shiz the girls had insisted on taking, the pre-made sandwiches had been picked through. Desperate to meet his friends before one of the young women found him again, he chose one of the scant paper-wrapped sandwiches left, paid, and sprinted across campus to the Shiz canal before it would be too late to steal any of Elphaba's lunch.
After Galinda had discovered that Fiyero and Elphaba sometimes would meet by the canal to share snacks, she had courteously made the effort to bring her own the next time she decided to join him: strawberries, dusted with sugar, naturally. Once Galinda started meeting them, Boq and Nessarose followed – Boq's affection for the blonde would not wane so easily, after all – and Boq's two best friends trailed closely behind them.
They were a charmed circle of friends that, in another life, would barely know each other. Fiyero reveled in it.
He was the last to arrive and sadly missed out on the spots of grass next to Elphaba, as those places were filled by her sister (who Elphaba had clearly helped from her chair to lounge about on the grass with the rest of them) and Galinda, and plopped down next to Boq on Nessarose's other side instead.
After a few estranged weeks, the two Munchkins had moved on from their breakup to be quite companionate. However, to the keen eye, it was easy to see the way Nessa would watch Boq with sad, envious eyes, especially as he spluttered and stammered after the pretty Galinda, but surprisingly she kept her feelings to herself. She had taken Fiyero's advice to heart, she said to him when he asked her about it, about accepting that she and Boq could still have and share affection without it being romantic. It was she who went to Boq and asked if they could still be friends, and little Boq, being the genial fellow that he was, gladly accepted.
Nessarose told Fiyero that she still loved Boq, but Fiyero knew that what the girl felt wasn't love. Maybe it wasn't fair to decide that for someone else, but he couldn't help but appraise it rationally. Nessarose attached herself to the first man that showed her any attention besides her father and became infatuated with him, and more importantly, with the idea that despite being crippled she could have a classic love story. Boq was the unfortunate chap who stumbled into that happily-ever-after fill-in-the-blank for her.
Nessarose was not so mature that she could truly let go of the resentment she held in regard to Boq's dillydallying shillyshallying. He led her on, in her mind, and no amount of prayer could really ease away the bitter thoughts within her that thinned the lips and subtly lined the brow of her smooth, pretty face.
Elphaba's sister had such potential to be someone Fiyero could respect, but Elphaba's blunt observation of Nessarose once upon a time was wiser in hindsight than it had been at the time: Nessarose liked her place on her self-made pedestal, high above them with her spiritual superiority, and should she ever come down to Oz and be one with her bitchiness then maybe she'd be more tolerable. Until then, she was too self-consumed and too damned self-righteous. She didn't care about Boq as a person, she didn't care about the citizens of Munchkinland that had been in her charge after her father's passing in his alternate life, and she didn't care about her sister beyond what was necessary. But, what Fiyero observed that perhaps no one else had, was that Nessarose contained herself because of her sister. She often alluded to Elphaba's habits of misbehavior, of willfulness, of emotionalism, and she dared not to fall to such lows herself. And as long as her sister would be around providing some ever-present behavioral antithesis, Fiyero didn't believe that the future governor of Munchkinland would also be the future Wicked Witch of the East.
But the promise that Nessa showed in staying friends with Boq was something. It showed a hint of reasonableness, assuming she would eventually move on from the feelings of attachment she had yet to abandon; but those things often came in time, especially when those feelings were not of love. Which Fiyero was confident they weren't.
Fiyero knew he understood love. It was a foolish thing to assume, especially given his history, but throughout his life he had experienced plenty of girls with whom he had felt real attraction and dozens of dozens more who were entirely besotted by him, as he experienced this afternoon. He was a good-looking prince and girls liked that sort of thing. But in Elphaba, he experienced enchantment that transcended any of that. It was the sort of obsession that stuck deeply with a person, like the head of an arrow lodged in his chest, one that ached and sent a flood of adrenaline each time he thought of her. In the time he spent looking for her, Fiyero often wondered if his fixation was love, for it was beyond anything he had known before, but at that point it wasn't. Love was that vortex that he was irreversibly sucked into the moment he truly looked into her eyes once he found her, it was the gravity that grounded him with her kiss, and it was the safe box he gave her with his heart the moment he told her to save herself in that cornfield.
Love, at its most pure, was the opposite of what he felt for this sandwich.
"Who came up with the idea of egg-salad sandwiches anyway?" Fiyero grumbled. He was laying on his side on the grass, which was cool and shaded and smelled fresh like it had been recently cut, with his head propped up on a hand while the other one poked at his lunch in front of him. "There are some things that should not be made into a salad and some salads that should not be made into sandwiches. This is an example of something that fits into both of those categories."
"Then why did you get it?" Elphaba said, unamused. She was sitting cross-legged, trying not to move much as Galinda played with her hair, and given that Elphaba already had a few braids in her dark tresses before he arrived he could only imagine how difficult it was to tolerate the blonde as long as she did. But Fiyero was constantly impressed at the patience Elphaba could keep around Galinda and her antics; it seemed like one of those things that would be out-of-character for her but somehow wasn't.
"It was accidental. I thought I was grabbing one of those stinky cheese sandwiches I like – you know, the one with the pepper aioli – or at the very least tuna." Pulling a face, the prince took another disgruntled bite, and as he chewed the soggy mess he shuddered and whimpered.
"You don't have to eat it."
"Look who you're talking to," Crope laughed. He was twisting thin branches of pearlfruit tree into a wreath with the ease and adeptness of an artist; the tiny leaves that faded from dark green at the base to pale pink at the very tip were quite pretty. "I once saw Fiyero eat a full tray of curried turkey wings in an eating contest at the pub one night. His opponent was 300 pounds. Guess who won! I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the fat guy."
"That's revolting, Fiyero," said Galinda chirpily, using the hand not laced with multiple plaits to steal neat bites of yogurt parfait.
"Why would you do that?" Elphaba said, clearly disgusted by every aspect of Crope's story.
"I had a point to make," Fiyero said with a shrug, hoping to appear nonchalant. Truthfully, he was embarrassed. He didn't like to talk about eating meat in front of Elphaba; he admired her vegetarian lifestyle. He had already made a great effort since returning to Shiz to cut back on eating so much meat, if only so he didn't create many opportunities to offend her with his meal choices. But Fiyero Tiggular, becoming vegetarian? That wasn't going to happen, no matter how much he loved her.
"Look, Fiyero, if you hate the sandwich so much just trade me. You can have my apple."
"Wait, you eat eggs?" Fiyero asked Elphaba.
"Why is that such a surprise?" Galinda asked curiously.
"Well…aren't eggs meat?"
"Meat? Fiyero that's ridiculous! Eggs aren't meat!" Galinda said with a scoff.
"They come from chickens, and they turn into chickens. Sounds like meat to me."
"Until they're fertilized, eggs are merely a byproduct of the animal," Elphaba educated. "Eggs are no more of a meat than milk is."
"So eggs are dairy," Galinda concluded, stirring her yogurt confidently. "That would make sense. They're kind of similar to dairy items, and they are sold with cheeses and creams at the market!"
"Well, no," Elphaba said, her voice thinning with hesitance as she considered her words. "Dairy by definition is a product that is created by the mammary glands of a mammal, so eggs aren't dairy either. Categorically, they're meat because of the protein they contain, but so are nuts and beans so that tells you how sensible that classification is."
Nessarose, in her ever-so-helpful way, added, "Unionist scripture makes the issue of diet quite clear: 'Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.'"
"What does that even mean," Tibbett deadpanned, and rather than engage him Nessarose merely turned her nose up his way. Tibbett, being the kind of guy he was, loved challenging Nessa's religiousness and she had only just begun to learn not to fall for his prompts for debate. Fiyero was glad, because they conversed with each other as if they spoke two completely different languages, for his logic was wasted on her and her doctrines were lost on him. It wasn't as much fun to witness as it sounded.
"I don't understand that either," Galinda admitted.
"Ooh! Flash debate!" called out Tibbett, before Nessa could get going on one of her sermons, and he turned to Crope with feigned seriousness. "Chicken or the egg! Go!"
"Which came first? Easy! Egg!" said Crope, who pointed to Fiyero.
Fiyero shrugged. "Sure, egg."
"But what laid the egg?" Galinda disputed. "A chicken had to do it."
"But the chicken had to come from an egg," Boq said, troubled, "which came from a chicken. Is there a right answer to this question?"
"Of course there is. Multiple places in scripture suggest that the Unnamed God put fowl upon the earth with other beasts and man so that they may all multiply and populate the world!"
"So Nessa votes chicken," Crope said neutrally. "That leaves Elphie. Ohh, this should be good."
Elphaba rolled her eyes at him but said to her sister, "I'm sorry Nessa, but as an evolutionist I vote egg. Since deoxyribonucleic acid can be modified before or after birth, it's implied that mutation takes place at conception or during development. In the case of the chicken, it infers that a creature similar to a chicken, but not a chicken per se, laid the egg that would eventually be inbred to the bird with which we are familiar."
"What I really want to know is how do you know the egg is from an animal and not an Animal?" Fiyero asked, picking at the crust of his sandwich. "Are there such things as Eggs?"
"No. There's no life to an unfertilized egg, so there isn't any Life either. The egg itself is not an Animal any more than the ovum I discharge during monthly menstruation is a baby."
"So Fiyero is eating chicken menstruation on bread," Crope laughed. "Delectable!"
Now Fiyero definitely couldn't eat his sandwich. He put it down on the paper and wiped his hand clean on the grass while Crope snorted at his expense.
"Such matters are not appropriate for open discussion, especially at meal times," Nessa scolded.
"Since it's already out there, I gotta know," Tibbett said. "You're not offended consuming something that is a byproduct of something else? You wouldn't eat your own oval-egg thing, whatever you called it."
"'Ovum,'" Elphaba repeated for him. "That's not feasible or rational, so obviously no. But consider that infants drink breast milk from human women the same way we consume the milk of cows and goats."
"But you wouldn't drink a person's breast milk!"
"I would be open to trying it," Elphaba said without reserve. "Aren't you curious?"
"That's probably the sexiest thing I've ever heard," Fiyero breathed, his eyes wide, and involuntarily stole a glance at her well-hidden but, as he knew, very alluring breasts. Thankfully, no one paid him any attention.
"Let me put it to you this way Thropp— whatever milk I drink that comes out of a person won't be from a lady, thank you very much," he stated, at which he and Crope shared a smug high-five. Boq's palm met his forehead with a loud clap. Elphaba, amused, shook her head at them. Galinda just seemed confused.
"Oh Fabala, why must you talk so much? You always manage to take things too far," Nessarose admonished.
"I was just answering Fiyero's question, and Tibbett's after that."
"Can't you do so without bringing up such private matters?"
"Women menstruate and lactate. It's natural. Why does such a topic mortify you so?"
"It's distasteful to discuss. Leave it at that, Elphaba— not every taboo requires challenge."
"You know, one time my mom was cooking eggs from our henhouse and she ended up breaking one open that had a birdie fetus in it," Boq said cheerfully, as if to deter a fight between the sisters. "It had a little tiny beak and everything."
Fiyero pulled a face at Boq's slipshod attempt to placate the girls. Elphaba was offended, sure, but more importantly: did the little Munchkin forget that Nessa was on a crusade for propriety? "Boq, please! You're no better than Elphaba! What makes you think that would be a compliment to this already foul discussion—"
"But Nessa, don't you mean fowl discussion?" Galinda asked sweetly, blinking with such exaggerated innocence that even Nessarose couldn't resist a smile as everyone laughed.
Stealing a glance at Elphaba, he took time to submerge himself in the swell of serenity he had in moments like these. While the burden of his secrets never disappeared, in passing moments like these in which he could simply relax around friends and experience Elphaba so candidly, the troubles felt far away. Her full smile was a rare treat, like some sort of delectable fruit that was special and nourishing.
While her sister may take offense to such candor, Fiyero was greatly attracted to Elphaba's forthrightness. Had any other woman talked about their menstruation and he would be on his feet and gone before they finished their sentence, but as strange as it was such a thing captivated him about the green girl. She spent so much of her time substantiating the idea that she was different than the other girls – Fiyero supposed it was an easy thing to do when one was born as she was – that the reminders that she really wasn't thrilled him for her. No matter what anyone else believed, she wasn't defected and abnormal. She was a woman and she was a woman who could bear children.
He never gave into fantasies about faraway impossible futures, but he allowed himself some rare whimsy: He imagined some future Elphaba tucked up against him, smiling that bright smile as giggling green and tan rugrats chased themselves in circles around their feet…
A slight tickle on his scalp startled him, and he looked over to see Crope had taken advantage of his distraction to start carefully inserting tiny, leafy twigs leftover from his garland project into the prince's hair. Embarrassed to be caught in the middle of a daydream, he shoved his sandwich in his mouth again and began chewing, hoping he wasn't blushing at all.
"Galinda, do you know the man staring at us?"
"I can't say that I do," the socialite answered her best friend. They were both peering behind him toward the main campus.
"People stand around gawping like they've never seen a green person before," Elphaba groused wryly, to which Galinda giggled.
"He's impeccably dressed—always an admirable quality. His adornment seems Vinkun. Pashmina, I think. What do you think, Fiyero?"
Chewing lazily, Fiyero rolled over on his back to look across the lawn to see the mysterious figure about whom the girls spoke. Squinting against the glint from the high windows of the university, it took Fiyero a moment to decide if he recognized the man. Sweet Ozma Ridiculous, he did! Gasping, Fiyero accidentally breathed in chunks of egg and started to choke intensely, springing up and sideways so he could retch on the grass, frantic to clear his airway.
"Why does Fiyero always seem to choke on his food around us?" Galinda whined.
"It might have something to do with the fact that he's constantly eating," the green girl muttered back dryly.
"Oh Bick, give him the Heimlich if your arms can reach."
"My arms aren't that short! Just because I'm a Munchkin doesn't mean—"
While they argued, Fiyero slammed a balled-up fist into his own diaphragm repeatedly until he coughed up the bite of egg and bread, followed closely by something that seemed to be a combination of a hiccup and a belch.
"Ooh, classy," Tibbett teased, as Elphaba thoughtfully gave Fiyero the rest of her water and he drained the container desperately.
Mortified, Fiyero wiped the drips of water from the side of his mouth as he straightened and stood, turning to look at the familiar man standing across the lawn from them, unmoving, his hands resting in his pockets the way Fiyero sometimes stood. Without a word to his friends, he walked away from them, leaving them murmuring in confusion and calling after him as he left them and that sandwich under the comfort of the pearlfruit tree.
With every step, he regretted leaving Elphaba behind. Whether she knew it or not – and he knew she did not – he had begun to rely on the strength and softness of her fleeting gaze far too much to assuage his distresses and the tension in his gut when self-doubt struck him hardest. That twisting inside increased with every step he took to meet the set of hard, leaden-blue eyes in front of him with his own.
"Hello Father."