Timeline Note: This chapter starts back on the morning after the dream, now from Elphaba and Fiyero’s point of view.

Song note: While in the process of writing this chapter my Muse put the idea of Arjiki love poetry into my head, I’m not a poet so I borrowed and translated someone else’s work :)

Preparations for the sentries’ departure were well underway by the time Elphaba woke up the next day, she had been sleeping so deeply that she didn’t wake up even when Fiyero was stumbling around the room trying to find one of his bags and tripped over in the process.

She woke up with her heart pounding and her breath catching in her throat as an overwhelming sense of dread washed over her. The first time that had happened she’d come close to a full-scale panic attack but this was not the first time and she knew enough to force herself to keep breathing and not think too much until she could do that without having to think about it.

Once she was calm it was easier to analyse the feeling and realise the danger she had only recently discovered was getting closer, it also reminded her of her promise to go and speak to the Quadling Sorceress – a trip that now felt even more urgent. She sighed and wondered how she was going to break the news to Fiyero.

“Good morning,” Fiyero greeted her with a smile, and a kiss, appearing in the room as though her thoughts had summoned him. “Anjeri wanted me to inform you that the men will be ready to leave any time after noon, he wants to know if day or night makes a difference to the spell.”

“Any time will be fine, I’ll need about an hour to prepare to cast it and I can guarantee it will last a day. Perhaps you could tell him that and ask him when he would prefer the spell to wear off?”

“I certainly can,” agreed Fiyero. Noticing how tired she looked he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Are you getting up now? You look like you need to sleep for a bit longer… about a week maybe.”

“Yes I am getting up, thank you,” replied Elphaba shaking her head at his attempt to make her laugh.

“Made you smile,” he informed her triumphantly.

“Just by being here,” agreed Elphaba as she stood up. “I’m going to have a bath while you talk to Anjeri.”

“Is that part of the hour of preparation you need?” teased Fiyero.

“Well of course,” replied Elphaba with a nod. “Absolutely necessary.”

“I’ll see you when you’re done then,” said Fiyero, putting his arms around her from behind. “Don’t be too long now.”

“Fiyero, before I go downstairs…” Elphaba turned around and looked at him, trying to push guilt to one side. “I have to tell you something.”

“You can tell me anything, you know that.”

“Once I’ve cast the spell I have to go away for a few days, to Quadling country, like I promised I would.”

“There’s nothing to keep us here once Anjeri and the others leave,” answered Fiyero, he couldn’t see why that was a problem at least not until he caught an expression on her face that she didn’t quite hide in time.

“You weren't thinking of leaving me here all on my own were you?” he asked, taking care to make his tone teasing rather than seriously questioning so as to make her less uneasy. “Imagine the trouble I might get myself into!”

Elphaba suppressed a momentary shiver of misapprehension, blaming on what had woken her up rather than his prediction of getting in trouble if left alone, and replied in a somewhat flustered manner that Fiyero found a little bit amusing.

“No I… well actually yes but… the thing is, you see,” her voice trailed off as she tried to frame her thoughts coherently. “I’m just so used to telling people I’m going somewhere and going there alone that it never occurred to me that I didn’t need to do that now.”

“So it’s not that you don’t want me to come with you,” clarified Fiyero, relaxing a little when he realised she wasn’t deliberately trying to leave him. “It’s that you don’t expect me to want to?”

Elphaba nodded silently, amazed by the fact that there was someone in the world who actually understood her so well.

“For a minute there I was worried we were going to argue,” remarked Fiyero. “Not that I have a problem with a little healthy conflict sometimes but not when there are important things to do and what you’re trying to do is important.”

“Not so important that I should disregard your feelings!” Elphaba raised her voice in denial of what he was saying. “Not so important that I should not even think of asking you what you wanted!”

“You stopped to find out what I wanted though,” pointed out Fiyero reasonably. “When you realised the mistake you’d made, that counts.”

“I suppose but…”

“I saw how nervous you looked when you said you had something to tell me,” interrupted Fiyero. “You didn’t have your mind entirely on what you were saying and you sounded more like you were asking for my permission than telling me.”

“When did you get so damned perceptive?” muttered Elphaba crossing her arms irritably. Fiyero was, as had already been established, not as ‘brainless’ as he had pretended and recognised a gesture of self-protection when he saw one though he wasn’t really sure what she was trying to protect herself from.

“What can I say, I’ve been making a point of trying to understand you,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong or go back to what we were doing, which was – I believe – you preparing to cast your spell while I ask Anjeri when he wants to leave.”

“It was fine when it was just us and even when we were staying with the Animals but now there are people around us with their different rules and I don’t understand how things should be when we’re around them!”

Elphaba had to smile, despite her frustration, as she watched Fiyero’s face and could literally see him thinking his way through the sentence.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head apologetically. “I don’t quite understand what’s wrong.”

“I don’t like being around people without understanding what they expect of me,” summarised Elphaba with a dismissive shrug.

It made much more sense to Fiyero when she put it like that and he understood that she was anxious because she was worried about doing the wrong thing, it was almost an amusing attitude for a wanted criminal to have – even one who hadn’t actually committed a crime.

“I’ve always known what people expect of me,” he replied. “It actually doesn’t help very much.”

“I’m really not sure if that is reassuring or not,” remarked Elphaba with a slight frown. “I’ll have to think on it.”

“While you have your bath,” suggested Fiyero.

“I do remember,” she replied tartly. “And you were going to go and talk to Anjeri.”

“I do remember,” answered Fiyero trying, and failing horribly, to mimic her accent.

“Be off with you then, my Fiyero, and hurry back.”

“You’re not planning a long bath then?” teased Fiyero.

“As a matter of fact, no,” replied Elphaba. “Just in case the good Captain decides he wants to leave tonight.”

“He’d delay it if you weren't ready,” protested Fiyero, not wanting her to feel pressured.

“But if I wasn't ready he'd be doubtful and the last thing I need when trying to cast a spell is people doubting that it will work.”

There didn't seem to be anything he could say to that, not when he knew she was right, so he kissed her goodbye-for-now and went downstairs to talk to Anjeri.

Fiyero knocked on the door of the room he was sharing with Elphaba and said: “It's me.”

“Well come in then,” suggested Elphaba, raising his voice as she had done so the sound carried through the sturdy wooden door.

It was nearly sunset, it had taken that long for Anjeri and his men to make their decision, and Elphaba had been ready to cast the spell for several hours – she'd had a strong feeling Anjeri would decide to have her cast it tonight and had prepared accordingly.

“Anjeri and his men are waiting in the courtyard,” said Fiyero, closing the door behind him and peering around the room to find Elphaba. “I tried to.... mmm suggest that it was impolite to give you only ten minutes notice but he insisted that if you were 'truly as powerful as your reputation claims' that would be sufficient warning.”

Reaching the end of his highly distasteful explanation he looked around the room again.

“Elphaba, where are you?”

“I’m here,” she said, standing up from the dressing table, a shadow among shadow in her black dress cloak and hat with her hair falling loose over her shoulders. In the dim light she looked so fiercely magnificent that he couldn't speak until she asked him a question.

“Why do you sound so upset about Anjeri?”

“I suppose because he's my brother and I feel he isn't behaving properly.”

“Will his disappointment at the fact ten minutes was sufficient make you feel better about his behaviour?” offered Elphaba with a smile that was just a little bit smug.

“You’re ready?”

“You sound surprised.”

“It’s only been a few hours, I don't know I always thought of magic as something that took a lot of time to prepare.”

“Madame Morrible used to say that magic takes as long as it takes – though she was referring to my deficiencies rather than how long it should take to prepare for a spell. I've decided that a spell is prepared when I feel ready to cast it. I don't know of that is the 'right' way, it's just mine and it seems to be more effective than anything she taught me. Now would you do me the favour of going all the way downstairs and telling Anjeri that I am ready?”

“Of course,” agreed Fiyero, finally catching on to the fact she was planning a dramatic entrance – not that it would be difficult at the moment, he'd only had to enter a room with her to be overwhelmed by her presence, but then he was rather biased. “I’ll go first shall I?”

“You read my mind,” agreed Elphaba. “Anjeri and all of the men are in the courtyard so I’ll follow you down most of the way.”

They went downstairs together and parted, at Fiyero’s insistence, with a kiss for good luck.

Fiyero had only just told Anjeri that Elphaba was ready and on her way when some of the men gasped as she appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to stand in the doorway. The bright torchlight combined with her trademark hat to shroud her face in darkness and make her look more like a spirit than a witch. Many of the men looked terrified but all Fiyero could think was that she looked beautiful, and stern, and somehow more than human.

“Good evening, gentlemen, are you all prepared to leave?”

“We are ready when you are, my Lady,” replied Anjeri, he was nearly as affected by her sudden appearance as the men but hid it well. Elphaba nodded silently and while the silence in the courtyard grew heavily she sent a silent magical call to Chistery. The flying Monkey dropped out of the sky carrying the Grimmerie.

“The spell can not begin until the last ray of sunlight has passed beneath the horizon,” she announced in a lower tone than her normal speaking voice. Fiyero had to appreciate her sense of dramatic timing; it looked as though none of the men doubted her power now, not even Anjeri.

Elphaba, watching the horizon, took the Grimmerie from Chistery and set it floating in the air. She opened it to the page she ‘required’ secure in the knowledge that no one there would know the difference between a spell of concealment, which the Grimmerie had refused to give her even though she was certain it contained one, and the one she was going to read out loud - a spell of harmony between companions. It seemed to her that harmony as they travelled could only be a good thing, considering the tense situation, and it wasn’t really manipulation just enough to make them think before taking or giving offence to each other.

“Tas Aubera En Sutten Li Abar Din Est. Dihari Sut Ben Afar Ki. Bah Heless De Schen Dala Ent Nece Keerat Nai Esh Nee Sah.”

As she chanted the words of, and cast, the harmony spell Elphaba wove, for lack of a better description, a cloak of magic over all of the sentries in the courtyard. It was not so much an invisibility spell the way it was in stories as an encouragement for anyone within a certain distance of them (close enough to see who they were) to disregard them. Anyone who happened to see the men would see people, or something else, that was a normal sight in the place they happened to be in. Finishing the spell she lowered her arms from the dramatic gesture they had been raised in and made a short announcement of sorts.

“The spell is cast,” she told the men, who felt no different than they had before but took this for a sign of skilled magic use. “Go into Oz and serve your Queen faithfully.”

“Long live Ozma,” cheered the men, collecting their packs and shuffling around into proper marching formation.

“Be sure to have them somewhere safe by sunset tomorrow, Captain,” Elphaba reminded Anjeri when he approached her. “And give my greetings to my Lady Emerald if you should see her again before I do. She and some of the others are hiding in the Emerald City at the moment.”

“Any message for those of us we might meet along the way?” asked Anjeri reluctantly, he didn’t enjoy the fact she was at least his equal in the resistance.

“Tell them that change is coming.”

“I had not heard that we had any plans in motion.”

“No plans, Captain, only... let us call it a premonition, which you may believe in or not as you will. Perhaps when you and your men pass the King's sentries unseen you will be more willing to believe me.”

There was no diplomatic way to respond to her statement so Anjeri nodded curtly to Elphaba, bowed to Fiyero, and directed his men to follow him from the castle. Chistery plucked the book out of the air and handed it to Elphaba then took off to fly back to the tower the Monkeys were living in.

“You were amazing,” said Fiyero in a low voice, a few minutes later, when the lights from the sentries’ torches had vanished into the surrounding mountains. In the light of the remaining torches he saw Elphaba smile uncertainly, the same way she had smiled years ago when Galinda had told her she looked beautiful – not that Fiyero could know that he simply realised that she needed reassurance.

“You are amazing,” he repeated, tilting her hat up so he could kiss her without bumping into it. “And beautiful.”

“Fiyero!” protested Elphaba. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of their argument about his perception of beauty but at the same time she couldn't let the compliment pass without comment.

“You’ve said my name in that tone before,” observed Fiyero, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Only that time I was running away not trying to get closer.”

“I didn't realise you'd heard,” muttered Elphaba, dropping her chin so the hat brim cast a shadow over her face.

“I was trying to apologise, that day at the train station. I nearly asked if you remembered but of course you would.”

“You gave me silk flowers, red roses,” replied Elphaba quietly, seeming more at ease with her face hidden.

“I keep them in my bag and whenever I feel... whenever I felt lonely, or sad, or like I had imagined everything I would take them out and remember that there was something there. Though I did wonder...” she shook her head. “It doesn't matter.”

“You wondered if...” repeated Fiyero encouragingly. There was that tone again, that emption that came into her voice when she realised what she was saying might be upsetting.

“If it would have gone better for you and Glinda, if not for me.”

“Elphaba!” Fiyero was shocked that she could even think such a thing. “I love you.”

“I know you do, I know! But it’s just… I can’t help wondering. You have to understand that this, us, for me, is… like living in my own Land of What Might Have Been. I know you love me but I can’t help being afraid sometimes that I’m going to wake up back in the real world. The real world where the Prince marries the beautiful Princess after doing away with the villain. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m no Princess!”

“You’re no villain either!” replied Fiyero firmly, repressing the urge to say she could be a Princess – this was hardly the time, and that was hardly the way, to propose. He took her hand in his and tried not to wince when she squeezed it hard enough to hurt.

“Though you do still have that habit of not letting anyone else get a word in. I just want to say that if the place you described is the real world then I have no desire to go back there. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me in your, what did you call it? Your Land of What Might Have Been.”

“Oh yes,” murmured Elphaba softly. “It is such a terrible hardship, to be loved by someone who sees my faults and doesn’t seem to care about them. However will I stand it?”

“One day at a time,” suggested Fiyero, taking her last question a little literally. “We’ll go upstairs and pack then we won’t even think about tomorrow until it arrives. Naturally by ‘arrives’ I mean ‘until at least midmorning because I don’t think well at dawn’ – and there I go assuming that we’re travelling by day. I should ask the designated driver, or flyer as it may be, before I go around assuming things.”

“We’d have to go up higher and fly faster,” explained Elphaba, after considering the question. “But I see no reason why we can’t travel during the day. I’ll tell Chistery our plans before we leave and make sure they all know to say near the castle.”

“It goes higher?” repeated Fiyero nervously, completely missing what she’d said about the Monkeys.

“It does,” agreed Elphaba, she hadn’t realised the broom rides had affected him so badly. “Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all, I can handle it,” Fiyero assured her. In fact he felt queasy at the mere thought but he didn’t want her to have any excuse to leave him behind let alone something as ridiculous as a fear of falling. “It’s getting cool out here, why don’t we go back upstairs?”

Bemused at the sudden change of topic Elphaba nodded and held her out her hand to him. She was very quiet on the way so Fiyero decided to try and fill the silence with some simple conversation.

“Do you like it here?”

“I adore Kiamo Ko,” said Elphaba as they climbed up the stairs. “You didn’t seem to like it much, when you spoke about it, would you mind coming back here later?”

“If you’re happy here,” replied Fiyero. “I’m happy with you. In fact right now there is one room in this castle I particularly adore: it has a handy chair for draping dresses over, as I understand women like to do, a wonderfully big window that let’s in the light of the moon so there’s no need for any lamps to spoil the mood and…”

He paused to open the door and kiss her softly before finishing his description in a low husky tone.

“A neatly made bed that is just asking to have its sheets rumpled…”