The Witches of Oz

Ozma Tippetarius, the lost Princess and rightful Queen of Oz, repeated Fiyero silently, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I don’t see how it’s possible,” protested Fiyero. “If she had survived the start of the Wizard’s Reign surely someone would have come forward by now and told the world that she was alive?”

“I expect they probably would have if Emerald had known who she was but she didn’t.”

“She didn’t? Then how did you… one of your dreams?”

“I saw a child, the Princess, lost in the Emerald City. She was taken in by a middle class Gillikinese family who had no idea who she was, the woman who became her mother had wanted a child but never had any of her own so they took it as a sign and took her with them to Lower Gillikin. She lived a perfectly normal life there, aside from the fact she could not remember where she came from, until the new laws against Animals came into effect – Gillikin was the first place they passed the laws, after the City itself.”

“So she joined the resistance?” guessed Fiyero.

“She started the formal resistance against the Wizard, before her they were far less organised and only small groups in different places. Now we have allies all over Oz, including those in the Vinkus who provide shelter for the Animal refugees especially those who can no longer speak and in the South where I have never been myself but where many Animals and those who do not wish to live in Oz proper live in more freedom than they would have otherwise.”

“You really admire her don’t you?” asked Fiyero, sounding very surprised but then his opinion was based on the brief glimpse he had had of their first meeting.

“Oh yes, and she...” Elphaba paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to describe their complex relationship. “She appreciates my unique abilities and what I can do for our cause.”

“So I saw all of this while I was asleep,” she continued. “Then, when I woke up, I saw her and even though I never saw her adult face in the visions I knew it was her. I was trying to think of some way to say it and I met her eyes because she was being all irritatingly Gillikinese and I don’t know what happened but somehow I showed or told her what I knew about her and she… well she fainted but when she woke up she remembered it.”

“That is pretty big,” said Fiyero slowly, after taking a long moment to absorb what she was saying. “Does it get any bigger than that?”

“Something else I saw during that time prompted me to trace the offshoots of the Ozma bloodline, some of the Ozmas have had younger sisters who married into to other families. Did you know that outside the direct line a person has to have magic to hold the Throne?”

“Glinda?” gasped Fiyero, making the connection almost immediately. “Is that why Madame Morrible has been so interested in her?”

“That’s my best guess at this point, it doesn’t say that you have to have a great amount of magic or actually use it,” agreed Elphaba before returning to her original topic. “There was only one other person on the list whose name caught my attention, I felt like I should know who she was. The rest of them, mostly Gillikinese or Gillikin Borderlanders, I had accounted for. I couldn’t find her anywhere and I thought I had given up, until today when you told me about Kh’ya. I dreamed about her tonight, a dream that was not a dream, like the one in which I spoke to my parents and the Quadling Sorceress.”

“You talked to Kh’ya in a dream?” repeated Fiyero. “I don't understand, how is that even possible?”

“I don’t claim to understand it myself, my best guess sounds very trite: it’s magic. I've never heard of anyone being able to do it but then I’ve never heard of anyone being able to walk on air and water or understand the Grimmerie the first time they lay eyes on it or–”

Fiyero raised his hand to silence her rapid explanation.

“I understand the point you are making, is this what you’ve been building up to with everything you’ve been telling me? That you spoke to Kh’ya after I told you about her?”

“Actually,” replied Elphaba, resisting the split second urge to answer ‘yes, that was it’. “Not quite.”

“There’s more?”

To Elphaba’s relief he sounded curious and slightly awed which was a bit uncomfortable for her, rather than upset or afraid.

“Tonight I remembered what really happened after I thought I had given up on locating that last Scion of the Ozma line. I woke up in a dream and spoke to her, she told me how she had died along with her daughter, whom I also met later. We knew each other for a year, as we measure time in Oz, before your name was mentioned. She said it and was surprised by my shock. She told me who you were to her and I did the same. I know now that it was some part of me that I hid from myself – I do not know why.”

“And who was I to you?”

His calm reaction surprised Elphaba who, in all of her conversations with Kh’ya the Aelja Kilahi, had never encountered the fact that among the Arjiki there were those who could speak with the spirits of the people who had passed on.

“My impossible dream,” she replied quietly. “My heart’s desire, the one thing in this world I thought less likely than us actually succeeding in our goals of restoring Ozma to the throne and winning back the rights of the Animals of Oz.”

“And you have spoken to Kh’ya,” he repeated, amazed, then his tone turned hesitant. “Does she know in the other world what has happened... how things have been?”

“Only what I’ve told her, she hasn’t been lurking around following you for years or anything like that. It’s more like she lives in another country and has to rely on a visitor from here to pass on news of what is happening in Oz.”

“Some other country,” repeated Fiyero. “That’s one way of putting it I suppose.”

“I was going to tell her about… us meeting again and… everything but we were… distracted, by a discussion of the nature of honesty. You see I wasn’t going to tell you about Emerald just yet but then she just had to bring it up and make me feel like I’d be the worst kind of hypocrite if I didn’t tell you about her now. I hope you understand that I can’t really tell you anymore than I have, about where she is and what our plans are that sort of thing. We all agreed it was best not to share that information outside the group without them first meeting Emerald. Oh and when you do, please don’t let slip that I told you about her truth reading gift, it took me months to convince her that she shouldn’t tell people.”

“When,” reiterated Fiyero. “Not if?”

“Of course, even if it happens to be that the Prince of the West is being introduced to the crowned Queen of Oz you will meet her one day.”

“You’re that certain that she will be?”

“I wasn’t, there was always the feeling of her having more than one possible fate but sometime since I saw her last the fork in that road has been passed and she is clearly on the path towards reclaiming her birthright though I have not any idea how it will be so.”

“You can actually tell that, when a possible future is no longer… possible?”

“The dream I dreamed that night in the den, when I woke up screaming asking if you were dead, I’m almost completely certain that it was a vision of what might have been if you hadn’t waited so long for me to come back to the forest.”

“But it didn’t happen?”

“I think that somewhere it did. There’s a theory I read somewhere that every time someone makes a choice there’s a place where a different choice was made. The simplest example is walking down a road and coming to a fork in it you choose to turn left, well according to this theory there is another (the writer called it) alternate universe where you turned right.”

“And you can see what happened in these alternate universes?”

“Sometimes, not clearly, and mostly when they are based on my choices. I saw a lot of those in the fever dreams after Emerald and Mahar, the Lion, found me. I still don’t know if I find it comforting or just unfair to know that there is a world where my mother lived and took me away to Quadling country to be raised by herself and my Grandfather, another where I was captured in the Emerald City and you rescued me but were later caught and tortured yourself, still another where we left the world to be ruled by Glinda the Good, I’ve even seen a world where the Wizard never came to Oz, and a world in which Kh’ya didn’t die and you were both my closest, dearest, friends.”

Elphaba sighed softly and leaned her head against Fiyero’s shoulder.

“Sometimes I scare myself so much that I can’t blame people for being afraid of me.”

“But they’re afraid of you because they believe lies,” protested Fiyero. “I don’t see how you can compare that, no one could possibly blame you for being scared of what you can do. I have no idea how you feel, I think the nearest thing I can think of is that when I first learned how to hunt and realised I had the power of life and death over the creatures I was hunting. It’s not like in Gillikin, where they believe wild things are there for them to hunt, in the West we respect the fact that they die for us to live.”

“Some of them are so depraved they kill Animals and think no more of it than they do an animal!”

“I know,” admitted Fiyero. “Some people I knew at a school up there invited me to their lodge for a hunting party. The first night those who were already there provided the meal and bragged about how the Deer had begged for her life. I’ve never hunted in any part of Oz since and I was relieved that he said those things before I ate, the idea of consuming another thinking being is just sickening!”

“I am regularly shocked by the depths people are capable of sinking to, it wasn’t that long ago that Animals were considered equal citizens who simply required assistance with things they could not do themselves like writing.”

Elphaba sighed again and slipped her hand out of Fiyero’s so she could move behind him and lie down.

“Are you all right, Elphaba?” he asked, concerned, and moved so he was facing her,

“All this magic, all this talking and thinking, it was necessary but now I find that I really just want to just…”

“Just be?” suggested Fiyero, leaning over and kissing her softly.

“Yes,” agreed Elphaba quietly as she pulled him closer to her for another kiss. “I want to just be me, here now, with you and let tomorrow worry about itself for awhile.”

“Your wish,” murmured Fiyero, as she pulled him even closer.

A nagging pain in her head woke Elphaba up the next day, Fiyero still sleeping peacefully next to her, she rubbed her temples and frowned.

This doesn't feel like a normal headache, she thought with a slight sigh. Careful not to disturb Fiyero she climbed out of the bed, stepping over her discarded nightgown to pick up her cloak and wrap it tightly around her instead.

Maybe I just need some fresh air, she decided. We have been inside for a while and it should be safe enough to step outside for a few minutes.

She unbarred the door that led to the balcony, not realising at the time that it was joined to the wall patrolled by the sentries, and walked outside. That just made the pain in her head worse, and now she could almost hear voices or was it emotions?

Fear, anxious, soldiers -must-hide-from, no must go to the one who Made us.

Then there were voices, human voices, men’s voices.

“Flying monsters, approaching the south tower! Ready your bows!”

The same instant the five men rounded the corner and stood face to face with her she recognised the mind sounds – the flying Monkeys!

Heedless of the fact that the sentries now had their bows aimed at her, all of them had only recently been transferred to Kiamo Ko and had heard the many descriptions from the Emerald City of the Wicked Witch but none of them had expected to encounter her in the remote mountain castle, Elphaba was looking over the mountains and trying to communicate with the Monkeys – sending feelings to them, telling them to go away find somewhere safe she would call them back when they were not in danger.

Most of the Monkeys fled but their leader, Chistery came closer and some of the men turned their bows towards him.

“Let so much as one arrow touch that Monkey,” hissed Elphaba, noticing their weapons aimed at her for the first time. “And I’ll break every bone in every one of your bodies.”

The sentries, all relatively new recruits in their twenties, had been close to terrified at the mere sight of her and being threatened did little to help their resolve. First one of them dropped his bow and backed away then the others followed suit, Elphaba heard the thudding of their boots on the stone walkway as they rounded the corner and broke into a run.

Chistery landed cautiously on the railing and looked at her expectantly.

“Chistery! You made it out of the palace, oh but how did you know I was here?”

The Monkey opened his mouth but no sound came out so he shrugged.

“Oh don’t stop,” she said urgently. “Please Chistery try to speak!”

The Monkey pulled a face that clearly meant ‘well I will but only because you asked.’

“We fly, we find.”

“Well so I see, but how did you find me?”

“Is magic,” said the Monkey, stretching his wings out then folding them up and pointing at her. “Is magic.”

“A link between the magic that… made you fly and the magic I haven’t used yet, that does make sense.”

She shook her head quickly, as fascinating as all of this was this was not the time to go all ‘scientifical’ as Fiyero had put it.

“Chistery you need to follow the others and hide from the men here so you don’t get hurt.”

“No hurt, stay.”

“It’s not safe!”

“Where is safe?”

“Out there,” said Elphaba, trying to point without losing her cloak. “Safer anyway.”

“Stay,” repeated Chistery. “Protect.”

“Go, I’ll be fine!”

“Stay!”

“Oh for the love of Oz! Chistery, I need to go back inside and you need to go to safety.”

The Monkey ignored the glare that had most humans looking for any excuse to leave her presence and folded his arms.

“Stay.”

“Stay then!” agreed Elphaba out of sheer exasperation.

“Stay,” agreed the Monkey with a nod and a definite air of smugness about him as he hopped from the railing to the walkway. “Where?”

“You’d better come inside in case those guards come back.”

She led the Monkey into the room and barred the door behind her, taking a moment to decide if she should wake Fiyero or get dressed first. She decided, given that Fiyero wasn’t much of a morning person, she would wake him up then get dressed while he was waking up.

“Time to get up,” she said, poking him in the ribs gently.

“Already?” mumbled Fiyero.

“Unless you want the Captain breaking our door down.”

“What?” exclaimed Fiyero, trying to jump out of bed and getting tangled up in the blankets.

“I went outside for some air,” explained Elphaba calmly, as she pulled the trousers and shirt out of her bag and started putting them on. “Chistery and the others found me. Some of the sentries saw them and ran around the walkway to shoot at them then they saw me.”

“They probably went running to get Anjeri,” said Fiyero, struggling with his own clothes and wondering how Elphaba managed so much hand-eye coordination so early in the day.

“I certainly hope so.”

“You… what?”

“He knows who I am, with the resistance I mean. Not everyone does but the inner circle I suppose one might call it the same ones who know who Emerald really is know that I’m the Witch. He wouldn’t have recognised my name last night because we go by code but Emerald told me when one of ours became Commander of the Kiamo Ko sentries, I didn’t know his name until last night. Don’t you know why these men are assigned here?”

“I assumed they lost a draw or something like that,” replied Fiyero.

“They’re all assigned here because they have dangerous political opinions – thinking the Wizard shouldn’t be ruling Oz for example.”

“You mean they’re all revolutionaries?” exclaimed Fiyero. “All of them?”

“Or sympathetic with the resistance and yes, all of them, except those who are assigned to whatever other middle of nowhere posts that exist in the West.”

“Well, now I know why Anjeri volunteered to be posted here.”

Whatever Elphaba’s reply might have been a firm knocking on the door interrupted it.

“I’ll go,” said Fiyero. “In case it’s not Anjeri.”

“Yes?” said Fiyero in his best bored tone as he opened the door. “Captain, what can I do for you?”

“I would like to speak to your companion,” said Anjeri politely, not saying too much in case Fiyero didn’t know about his partner’s resistance connections. “She requested a meeting when you arrived.”

“Elphaba, the Captain is here to talk to you.”

“Well then let him in,” suggested Elphaba, after gesturing for Chistery to hide in the darkest corner of the room.

“It’s true then,” said Anjeri, taking in her unhidden green skin. “I half thought the troops were just seeing things in the early morning light.”

“It wasn’t exactly the way I planned to make my presence here known but I couldn’t let those ignorant young men hurt my friends.”

“The ‘flying monsters’,” said Anjeri sceptically. “What were they? A flock of birds?”

“Monkeys, actually.”

“Monkeys?” repeated Anjeri. “You mean it’s true, you really did do that?”

“Did you think Emerald was not telling the truth when she spoke of it?”

She saw Anjeri shoot a look at Fiyero, who was leaning against the door looking nonchalant, and added:

“Fiyero knows who she is, everything about who she is, and what our plans are.”

“You told the Captain of the Wizard’s Guards that the leader of the resistance is the Lost Princess?”

“And wouldn’t we be in trouble right now if I didn’t trust him and hadn’t told him that! Did you really ask to be assigned here, Captain, or was it suggested as a way to keep our private plans private?”

“You accuse me of indiscretion when your face is known all over oz?”

“It’s hardly a comparable situation,” protested Fiyero, not giving Elphaba a chance to do so herself. “I know Elphaba would very much prefer that she wasn't instantly recognised by every person who saw her skin.”

“Leave it, Fiyero, please,” said Elphaba. “Anjeri is clearly one of those who were, and are, of the opinion that I am too distinctive and notorious to be allowed to be involved in their Great Resistance against the Wizard. It seems that he, like most of them, cares nothing for what I have done since then not in the least providing a symbol for the people to focus their hatred against and so distracting them from the activities of others such as himself. My only concern at the moment is that he has managed to prevent his sentries from causing a panic.”

“I explained to them that your... reputation was part of our plans to undermine the power of the Wizard, that was sufficient thought I would request that you come and speak with them so they can all see for themselves that you are no supernatural creature.”

“How do you know that I am not?” replied Elphaba, treating them both to a mischievous smile that made her look years younger.

“My mother was Arjiki, my lady,” said Anjeri, the first time he had addressed her politely. “I admit it has taken me a few moments, pray blame the earliness of the hour and the time spent calming down my young troops, but I do recognise one of the Aelja Kilahia when I see her. I also apologise for what I said of you outside your hearing when you arrived, I should have known that no ordinary Eastern woman would cure my brother of his grief for Lady Kh’ya.”

Elphaba looked over Anjeri's shoulder at Fiyero, her sceptical expression clearly asking him if this change of heart was genuine, the prince shrugged and mouthed words that looked like 'it's an Arjiki thing'.

“Very well then,” said Elphaba graciously. “Are you certain all of your men are trustworthy, Captain?”

“My men could not leave even if they wanted to, without being seen, and the King has said in my presence – thinking I was loyal only to him and volunteering to seek proof of subversive activity in this place – that he had never sent a loyal man here until I asked for it.”

Anjeri paused seeming, at the same time, to be finished and wanting to say something else. Elphaba read his body language correctly and waited patiently for him to speak his mind, Fiyero couldn’t help noticing that a patient Elphaba was nearly as intimidating as an angry Elphaba, finally Anjeri couldn’t take the silence and said what he had to say so quickly it was nearly unintelligible.

“If you could see you way to going downstairs and talking to them, it doesn’t matter what about, just to prove – as I said – that you’re...”

“Diplomatic language fails you, Captain?” suggested Elphaba as his voice trailed away, Fiyero had been feeling offended on her behalf but it seemed she wasn’t really bothered... then he remembered something Galinda had said, years ago, ‘of course she does, she just pretends not to’ and he wondered if that was the case now.

“It does,” agreed Anjeri, looking embarrassed for the first time Fiyero could recall.

“If I had realised you needed permission to speak bluntly, Captain, I would have granted it however the way you addressed me before suggested it was otherwise.”

“I deserved that,” admitted Anjeri, quite ungraciously, as Fiyero winced in sympathy (Anjeri did deserve it though).

“I will speak bluntly then. I would like you to come downstairs and, acting as normally as possible, apologise to those you terrified with violent death threats.”

“Violent death threats?” repeated Fiyero.

“So they say,” confirmed Anjeri.

“Now wasn’t that much less painful than dancing around the subject?” replied Elphaba, quietly relieved that Fiyero sounded more disbelieving than upset by the mention of violent death threats. “I’m quite willing to speak to your men, Captain, I would have offered but I could not tell if you would want me to.”

“Are you sure?”

To Elphaba’s surprise the question came from Fiyero while Anjeri remained silent.

“Of course, we’re all on the same side here.”

“Very well then,” said Anjeri formally. “I will w... inform the men that you and the Prince?”

Fiyero nodded and Anjeri continued.

“...will be joining us shortly.”

“I think that went quite well, don't you?” remarked Elphaba, when Anjeri had left the room.

“If somewhat nerve-wracking for this hour of the day,” agreed Fiyero. He waited for over a minute without ay reply from her. “Elphaba? Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I suppose I was waiting for a comment about getting into trouble so early on the day.”

“I wasn’t even thinking it,” Fiyero assured her instantly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Oh it hardly ever is,” replied Elphaba. “But somehow it always is. Come on, we’d better finish getting ready.”

“Shall I comb your hair for you?” offered Fiyero with a smile, which Elphaba returned then shook her head.

“I’ll do it the other way, we should probably hurry so the young men don’t have to long to anticipate our arrival after Anjeri warns them.”

“Other way?”

“Like this,” replied Elphaba, thinking a demonstration would be quicker than an explanation. She ran her hands through her sleep-tangled hair and Fiyero heard a crackling noise, like static, then she separated it into three knot-free sections and plaited it quickly.

“And here I was thinking magic could only be used for big things, or maybe even medium size things. I’m sure if Glinda had any idea that was possible I would have heard about it.”

“It’s nothing Madame Morrible ever taught us, which us a pity really as I’m sure Glinda would find it more exciting than the mere convenience it is to me.”

Before he went upstairs Anjeri had called all of his sentries into the main hall, even those who knew that the rebel called Onyx was the Witch, and explained in short sentences that the woman their Prince had arrived with was a senior member of the Resistance and the woman known as the Wicked Witch of the West. They handled it fairly well, though with a large dose of disbelief, so he told them to stay there while he went upstairs.

The men were still sitting, disturbingly quietly, in the hall when Anjeri returned.

“We’re about to have company, men,” he informed them in a no nonsense tone. “The Prince and his lady are coming downstairs to reassure you that she does not intend us any harm. If any of you were feeling doubtful at this time please keep in mind that attacking her would be counted as treason against your Prince, no matter what is said about her out in the world. As I have explained most of that is rumour and the rest was done in aid of the Great Resistance.”

Elphaba and Fiyero, Fiyero in the lead at his insistence, arrived at the hall just after Anjeri finished his short speech. All eyes were on them but no one was leaping to his feet or anything distressing like that so Elphaba assumed Anjeri had convinced them somehow.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Fiyero. The sentries, as if they had just remembered who he was, jumped to their feet and saluted him. “I would like to properly introduce my travelling companion to you, Miss Elphaba Thropp.”

“And I,” said Elphaba, jumping in before they could react to the introduction. “Would like to offer my sincerest apologies to those of you I… encountered this morning on the walkway. I hope you will all allow me to explain why I stopped you from attacking.”

“Yes, tell us why you stopped us from killing those…well whatever they were, they were attacking us!”

Anjeri moved forward to reprimand the young man but stopped when Elphaba held up a hand.

“No, Captain, it is a perfectly valid question, which I am happy to answer. I realise now I should have told the Captain who I was when we arrived but I was rather tired and chose to wait.”

She paused for a moment but none of the men seemed inclined to interrupt and she sensed the same sort of grudging acceptance that other members of the resistance felt in her presence, they didn’t like her or particularly want to know her but they weren’t chasing her away either.

“The creatures you saw were Flying Monkeys, some of you may have heard that I… created them, they were recently released from the Wizard’s Palace where he was holding them prisoner and they came here looking for me. They are intelligent beings and I am sure they are also sorry for the misunderstanding.”

It would surprise Fiyero when he realised that it was possible for Elphaba to run out of things to say but at this point she had so she stopped talking and looked around the room without making any actual eye contact for more than a few seconds.

“Does that clear up all of your questions men?” asked Anjeri, tacitly giving them permission to ask questions if they wanted to.

“Would you really have broken all our bones if we’d shot one of those Flying Monkeys?” asked one of the men who had encountered her on the wall. Anjeri winced imperceptibly because he had a feeling her answer would an unequivocal ‘yes’.

“Just as I would do to anyone who put an arrow through one of you,” replied Elphaba, establishing two important points – that she considered the Monkeys intelligent, as she had said, and that she would defend a fellow resistance member as well.

“Is it true…” piped up a young man who had been in the army for less than a year. “That you’re hundred of years old and you used dark misty-kal powers to stay young?”

“Actually,” replied Elphaba, hiding a smile. “I was born in the first year of the Wizard’s Reign of Oz, it makes it easy to keep track. May I ask where you heard that rumor? I’m interested to know if it’s one of ours or one of theirs.”

“Ours?” repeated one of the older sentries, Elphaba noticed that most of the older ones relaxed a little when she told them how old she was.

“The Resistance has its own way of spreading rumors and rumor can be a useful tool,” explained Elphaba. “Though our attempts to discredit the Wizard and Morrible have been less successful so far.”

“If there are no more questions we three have strategy to discuss,” said Anjeri, deliberately giving the impression that Elphaba and Fiyero were there on resistance business.

“I did have one more thing to bring up,” said Elphaba, to Anjeri’s well-hidden dismay. “I would like to offer the Monkeys shelter in Kiamo Ko if that is acceptable to Prince Fiyero. I thought it best to bring up the topic while you are all here so we can avoid any misunderstandings later.”

“The south tower hasn’t been inhabited by people for quite some time,” said Fiyero, he didn’t quite see why the Monkeys couldn’t stay out in the mountain caves but supposed she had a good reason for making the request. “They could stay there.”

“As you say Your Highness,” said Anjeri formally. “You heard him, the Monkeys will be staying in the south tower with permission. Now are there any other questions?”

There were no questions so Anjeri told the men to return to their duties. Following his lead Elphaba and Fiyero said nothing and walked into the Captain’s office with him. Anjeri closed the door behind them and sat down.

“That could have been worse,” said Elphaba since neither of the men seemed inclined to speak.

“You were very calm considering how badly it could have gone,” remarked Anjeri.

"I didn’t see anything to get emotional about,” replied Elphaba. “Now that we’ve sorted that out let’s talk about what you’re going to do next.”

“I hadn’t decided.”

“I don’t think it was a question,” Fiyero, being better versed in the different tones of Elphaba’s voice, informed his brother.

“Fiyero,” protested Elphaba. “I would never presume to tell Captain Anjeri what to do, I was only going to make a suggestion.”

“And what is your ‘suggestion’?” asked Anjeri sceptically.

“Only that you, and your men, could do more good for Ozma and the resistance if you were to go out into the world and join the others.”

“As I explained to you, Miss Elphaba, the only way out of these mountains is guarded by the King’s loyal men. So I am afraid, unless you have some way of making us invisible, you are stuck with our company.”

“Now that you mention…” began Elphaba, smiling just a little bit smugly and deliberately letting her voice trail away.

“You can’t!” protested Anjeri. “That’s not possible, even for a sorceress!”

“Since when are you an expert?” muttered Fiyero, even though he had never heard of such a thing either.

“Actually I’m quite certain that I can but I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention the idea to your men until I’m sure I can do it. The alternative is that I can create some kind of distraction to draw them out while you go past but that’s less foolproof. None of this matters, of course, if you think you and your men should stay here – you didn’t actually answer that part of the question.”

“Of course I don’t want to be cooped up in here if I could be out there doing something useful and I know everyone here feels the same. If you can find a safe way to get us all out of here then we’ll take it.”

“After breakfast,” interrupted Fiyero.

“Pardon?”

Fiyero noticed, not for the first time, that Elphaba tilted her head slightly to the left when she didn’t understand what someone was saying.

“I think you should eat something before you go haring off upstairs to seek out invisibility spells in that big old book of yours.”

“I think you’ll find the meal would be more accurately named ‘lunch’,” corrected Anjeri. “And you are, naturally, welcome to help yourselves form the kitchen. I believe one of the Privates has prepared a stew for the others, I should avoid it unless you wish to court severe indigestion.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

Fiyero decided not to point out that as a younger man he had eaten his own cooking, out in the wilderness, for an entire season – a fact that Anjeri was well aware of. Elphaba didn’t make any comment, it couldn’t be as bad as some things she’d eaten and at least these men could be trusted to only obtain their meat from an animal source.

Author's note: The alternate realities Elphie talks about are all my ideas (so no touchee/stealing) except for the one where she says, “I was captured in the Emerald City and you rescued me but were later caught and tortured yourself.”

That is from Lost and Found by Fae2135 over at fanfiction.net, and if you haven’t read it yet go forth and do so because she is amazing. ^_^