Hey all. It's been a while, I know, I'm sorry. Things have been...well, shitty to say the least since I last posted, but they're turning around. After my dad died, I had a lot of other deaths (including my beloved Nana) as well as a couple ICU-level near deaths and I came out of it with a pretty severe depression. I wondered if I should share any of this, because this shit makes people uncomfortable, but then I always think of the late Carrie Fisher and if it was her, she'd be open about her mental health issues and then cheerfully flip everyone off, so here we are following in her great footsteps.
This is all to say that I've never stopped thinking about this story and all of you. I still roll chapters around in my head, over and over. Life has just prevented me from being able to write them down. Which was probably for the best, as this story has had enough angst anyway lol.
How about some adorable little Lion Cub action, some look into Elphaba's cynicism, and...well, Fiyero angst. :)
Fiyero trudged along the practiced path to visit his newest friend, half dazed with fatigue, but still determined to check on the young Cub he had taken under his wing. Brrr had begun to react with excitement when he would arrive, which was turning into a mild addiction to Fiyero since his very presence with most humans at Shiz was tainted with sadness, disappointment, or displeasure. Sure, Brrr's motivations weren't entirely love for Fiyero as a person, but rather for Fiyero as a source of snacks or pets, but Fiyero would take any boost in self-esteem where he could at this point.
He hadn't quite approached the Cub's clearing when he heard a voice that made his heart jump; he quieted his steps and hid behind some shrub, not wanting to intrude on Elphaba and trigger a conflict or terribly unpleasant interaction. Peering over dense leaves and seeing Elphaba crouching next to an excitable Cub, Fiyero ignored that internal voice that advised him that he was snooping, and he smiled affectionately as the mewling Animal rubbed insistently against any surface of her he could, his purrs so loud he could hear them from where he stood.
The afternoon light cut through the trees dramatically, illuminating the dell with stripes of color. Seeing Elphaba amongst the greens and browns of the forest always affected him powerfully, but seeing her profile concurrently lit and shadowed in the intense contrasting lines of sunlight made his chest tighten with bizarre sensitivity, like she was transforming into her older form in front of his eyes and back again.
His weight shifted without conscious intent and his heel broke a dead stick, its snap reverberating loudly in his ears and against the surrounding trees; he grimaced and shrunk back slightly, watching as Elphaba peered in his direction. Her clever eyes didn't seem to settle on anything before resuming attention on the squirrelly Animal in front of her, framed in lines of fondness. It was so unlike the vigilant Wicked Witch he had known, whose gaze rarely loitered – always probing every hint of danger – in a face furrowed from strain.
This woman wasn't the Witch. He was stricken relieved and disillusioned, which was a bizarre combination to feel. He both tremendously yearned for that other person and desperately did not want her to come to exist.
The older Elphaba was an intense person; she was someone to fear but more importantly to fear for. Sometimes he forgot that. He forgot about how his blood pumped differently then, with a constant verve of passion but also apprehension for the peril that harried their every moment. Even as selfish as Fiyero could be, he would never conjure that person who loved him, with whom he had such intimacy, if it meant that she would have to endure any of that hardship over again.
It was consoling to see this Elphaba calm and seemingly unencumbered, especially since she rarely displayed this peace around him since they saved the Cub that day. The Cub's paws milled dirt into the material of her skirt, but she didn't seem to notice or care as she chuckled and hummed acknowledgments almost imperceptibly. Her green fingers fondly caressed along the golden, lanky length of the Cub's growing body, not seeming to discourage his intrusion into her personal space despite muttering audibly, "This is why Galinda complains I come home smelling like wet dog…"
The Animal whined in objection to her remark, to Fiyero's amusement, and she corrected, "I'm aware you're not a dog, I'm sorry I said that," which seemed to satisfy him as if he had understood what she said.
The Cat, who at this point was bordering on thirty pounds, was ungainly as one who was unaware of its growth; in his uncontained movements, he rammed her so hard that she fell from her squat onto the hard forest floor with a grunt. Fiyero resisted coming to her aide; she laughed warmly before verbally encouraging him to calm down.
The Cub pawed at her bag, pulling the strap from her shoulder so he had better access to the opening. At first, Fiyero suspected she had food in there since the creature habitually did the same thing to him, but instead, clever claws pulled what appeared to be thin, hard-backed books with colorful covers.
"What did I tell you about asking for things?" Elphaba's dulcet voice asked the Animal, and even from Fiyero's hiding place he noticed the Cub's furry face seem to react to her question, as if thinking on it. Then, astonishingly, the Cat sat deferentially, his brown eyes watching her face expectantly. "What do you say when you want something?" Fiyero watched in amazement as Brrr made a noise more bark-like than meow, lifting his paw up eagerly as if gesturing to what he wanted.
Fiyero was captivated – despite his near-daily visits, he hadn't suspected that Elphaba was also dropping in on the Cub and hadn't fathomed the notion that Brrr had a rapport with anyone else. Not that he was surprised in the least, given Elphaba's tunnel vision of concern for the Animal that notable day. Brrr's behaviors were drastically different with her than they were with him; he, admittedly, had been emotionally distant to Brrr and limited his communication to what he deemed was instructive. Elphaba, on the other hand, spoke to him as if he was a human child and, astonishingly, Brrr seemed to listen like one.
Elphaba took the books Brrr had begun to dig out of her bag and fanned them out for the Cub to see. Fiyero squinted; they appeared to be a collection of a half-dozen children's books.
"Which one are we going to read first today?"
The beast quickly batted a paw against the book second from the left that she displayed.
Elphaba peeked down at it and sighed, her face falling with mild exasperation. "Again? Really?"
The Cub mewed and moved to rub against her again, his eyes glued to hers.
"It's a fairy tale with impractical and idealistic depictions of romance," Elphaba protested. "We talked about this. There's no reason to repeatedly subject yourself to naïve notions of fancy."
The Cub growled in dissatisfaction and after a few seconds of staring stubbornly at one another, Elphaba seemed to cave. "I'm sorry. I'm probably projecting. I just..." She trailed off, a green hand running along her temple as if to push hair from her face that seemed secure in its braid, clearly an anxious movement. "What if books like these give misleading perceptions of romance and life? Is that something I should be teaching you?"
Brrr's little head tilted, a confused or concerned expression, Fiyero couldn't be sure. He watched with fascination, wondering if the creature had any notion of what she was saying or was simply empathizing as children and pets often do before language is fully developed.
Elphaba, either believing that he did understand or knowing he didn't but needing to express herself, held up the book for him to see, which had a colorful painting of a girl on its cover. "Women are depicted as attractive, docile, materialistic, persecuted maidens in need of a male hero; minorities are pilloried and villainized; witches are evil occultists while wizards are…"
She trailed off, as if whatever she was about to acknowledge about wizards (or the Wizard?) caused her discomposure.
"Books like these, aimed at ingenuous children, romanticize dangerous notions, like…" Her beautiful, unusual face furrowed further as she considered her words, "…a cosmically predestined soulmate is necessary to complete some naturally fractional person…or that love of a victimized but faithful woman will turn monsters into princes. And princes!"
The present prince's ears perked up at this spike of passion, intrigued and afraid of what would be said.
"They're provided to little girls as the ultimate ideal but who are they as people? What, beyond titles and riches, makes them trustworthy and safe for some ingénue beyond happily ever after? Why is it so much to believe that a girl can be strong and intelligent and have personal aspirations and doesn't have need of some prince saving them from evil?"
Fiyero was shamefully burning in his skin, knowing that his audience had long-past lost its innocence. His forehead fell against the smooth bark of the tree in front of him as he tried to buoy his stomach from wherever it sunk inside him.
"I just don't want you to fall for these platitudes," Elphaba said to Brrr solemnly, sighing. "I don't want to fall for them."
While the Animal lingered quietly during her diatribe, he seemed to have lost patience, pacing a bit in front of her.
"Galinda picked this book out for you." Green fingers traced the colorful front. "Apparently, it was her favorite when she was young as well. Now she pushes her trashy books with half-naked men on the covers into my hands because she knows I read a lot, as if her books were suitable substitutes to what I choose for myself. This—" She held up the children's book for him to see. "—evolves into the kind she likes, with the scanty rhetoric that implies that a woman's life has no value without having been swept off her feet by a man.
"Galinda has been more successful in sharing her novels with Nessarose. My sister always favored stories like these to the nonfiction I prefer. Both have had their hearts hurt recently because of their naivete. I don't want you to be alone; I just don't want you to be ignorant. Just don't seek value in others that you already have."
Brrr rubbed himself against her folded legs, his head bumping her hands which still clutched the thick-papered tale.
"Won't you at least consider another book?" she asked, holding them all up again.
Brrr, however, bit the exposed corner of the hardback he had earlier picked and yanked it from her grasp to the forest floor before nosing it open to a random page, meowing intently.
Elphaba, thwarted by the creature's singular interest, seemed to deflate as she studied the Animal affectionately. She put down the other hardcovers and reached a green hand to pet along Brrr's soft ears, acquiescing, "Fine, you win this time," before moving the hand to grab the Cat's favorite book, flipping to the first page. In response, Brrr curled into her side, purring loudly once more.
"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl who lived in a cottage on the edge of a great kingdom…"
Fiyero stole from his hiding place in the brush, his self-loathing so overwhelming that he barely managed to creep away, only his hunting instincts preventing him from stepping on twigs and crisp leaves.
He barely remembered the walk back to campus once he knew he was out of her earshot, for he began drowning in all the negativity and self-doubt and shame he felt not only overhearing her private feelings without permission but the ways they referenced him personally. After all, there were no other princes around. He knew she was speaking in figurative terms regarding characterizations in fairy tales, but there was no misunderstanding how her personal feelings jarred with those depictions.
It wasn't as though she hadn't been upfront about her reluctance; she had devalued him as a "perfect Prince Charming" to his face and though he reminded her of his fallibility, she would always have her nonconformist cynicism. With the way she shunned his protectiveness, it was as if she thought he was waiting in the wings to ride in on his white horse to save her. Maybe he was, but when was it ever so simple?
It's not like he chose to be a prince. He would take it out of the equation this exact moment if it meant she lost her diffidence and would trust that he was just a sweet, dumb guy in love with a girl. Instead, politics and fictional misconceptions were just more obstacles for them. Didn't they have enough?
He resented fairy tales as much as she did. They didn't prepare him at all for all for real love. Real love was as much misery as it was pleasure, as much doubt as it was butterfly feelings. And she was right; happily ever after was bullshit. How many years had he been searching for moments of life with her? How many more would he live without getting more than mere moments? Was there ever going to be an end to it?
There was no relief to be found, in solitude or company or exercise or liquor bottle. He could do nothing but live with himself.
A sincere thank you to everyone who has made it this far. Stay with me a little longer so we can see what happens when Fiyero decides to properly talk to Elphaba, and what that looks like when their friends stick their noses in it.