If We Let Them

Disclaimer: Don’t own them, never will. That honor belongs to Maguire, Schwartz, Holzman, and Platt.

“It looks good on you,” someone said, snapping Elphaba out of her daze. She hadn’t expected anyone to notice her. She looked around briefly to find the one how noticed, only to see Fiyero.

“It’s you that said that,” She said calmly. Since actually meeting him, she sensed something more to him. She neither really liked nor disliked him until she could get to know him. “I suppose Galinda told you to compliment me to prove her point.”

Fiyero shook his head. “I haven’t seen her today. But she did a great job, you should wear your hair down more often. You might actually catch someone.” He reached to take a piece of her hair, but she moved away.

“Of course you’d take her side, Master Tiggular.” She stood up and walked to the other side of the room, in the front, where she took a seat. Fiyero started to move towards her, but the class was called at the time, so he settled for the seat in the back where she had been sitting before.

She spent the first few minutes still upset about Fiyero’s statements. She barely noticed that Dillamond’s statements at the time were that he had been dismissed. But whatever force forced his dismissal didn’t seem real enough to become more upset at.

However, the replacement, who said he was appointed by the Wizard himself, was real enough to change her fury’s reason from the petty reason of cosmetics to making up for not trying to save her favorite teacher. She couldn’t believe how he treated the possible Lion Cub as no better than a child’s toy. What bothered her more was how willingly the students crowded around to enjoy the poor Cub’s torture.

When he covered it up and spoke of using Electricity for reinforcement, more like punishment, she snapped. All the safeguards Madame Morrible had taught her broke and everyone in the room started jumping around.

She smirked at Fiyero, still near his seat, doing the same odd movements as the other students. She watched him for a moment, idly wondering why he wasn’t with the others, but decided that he had been too lazy to get closer.

She had no idea what to make of what happened at first, but a few seconds later, she decided it was a chance to free the Lion, grabbed the cage, and ran out. She didn’t know how long she kept up the pace, and she barely paid attention to various landmarks to help her get back to wherever she needed to be.

It was not until she reached an open field next to a deep forest that she stopped running. The location appeared to be pretty safe, so she placed the cage down and opened it up.

“Go on,” She said firmly. “You’re free now.”

It nervously moved out and looked at her, as if questioning why she would give such an act.

She smiled gently at him. “Trust me, Cub, I think your life would be better in this forest,” she gestured in its general direction. “Than in that cage. Make a life, Cub. Become king. Tell me how it feels to have such power.”

The cub stared at her for a moment, it seemed almost fearful of her before it ran into the forest. Elphaba cackled with glee at her first accomplishment over whoever it was that was ordaining all this. Certainly it couldn’t be the Wizard, could it?

The next day went by poorly. She chose to skip the rest of her classes for the day, which was only the seminar thankfully, because she knew the news of her losing control would spread quickly.

The bad day began when she ran into Fiyero in the dining hall during breakfast.

“Hello there Greenie,” He said smoothly, giving a quick smirk to some of the other very-high-class males at Shiz. They came to him immediately.

“You never struck me as a morning person, Master Tiggular,” Elphaba said calmly.

He directed his smirk to her. “I can be when given the right incentive, and playing me for a fool like you did yesterday is enough to make sure I make your life here worse than anything your Father threw at you. I didn’t even have an interest in the cub and I got hurt, you stupid Witch. No good will come from you.”

Fiyero looked at one of the other boys. One of the boys nodded and took the tray. Elphaba managed to grab a piece of toast before the boys dumped the tray down the closest bin

“I think you’ve had enough of your breakfast for today,” Fiyero said, plucking the toast, which she only managed a few large bites of, from her hand. He took a corner. “I need to make sure you aren’t contagious. Imagine me green.” He laughed, and the other boys did too.

Elphaba was half-tempted to accidentally lose control, but that seemed to be the fuel for Fiyero’s hatred and do very little to stop the half-brained teasing.

“Fine,” She said upset, turning around and heading out. “I wasn’t hungry any way.”

She got the invitation to see the Wizard the next day. It wanted her to come a week after that. She dealt with the days dealing with Fiyero. Galinda was quite a problem in these cases. She would want to sit with both of them, trying to make a circle of her closest friends.

It made it all that much easier for Fiyero to steal her food. “You’ll never lose that weight you want if you eat that much,” he said a few days into it.

“What makes you think I want to lose weight?” Elphaba replied calmly. “Is it my bony figure? That you think, oh, you can’t. Do you believe that my shape believes I have issues with self image and see myself much heavier and must lose weight?”

Fiyero only stared.

“I have news for you Tiggular. I’m like this because I happened to develop late and just went through a growth spurt shortly before I arrived at Shiz.” She turned to Galinda. “I’m sorry, I can’t deal with this. Him or me. Choose.”

Galinda looked at her. “Elphie, I can’t choose. You two should just get along. Do something that recreates our circumstances for becoming friends.”

Elphaba shook her head. “No, I can’t deal with him. You know what, Galinda? You don’t have to choose. I’m leaving.”

She got out of her chair and walked from the cafeteria.

The next time she spoke to Galinda, she was bitter and resentful.

“Elphie!” Galinda said. “You’re acting like you did before Fiyero…”

“Hah!” Elphaba said turning around. “You used his name. You lose, Blondie.”

“You’re acting like you did before the dance. Honestly, it’s like you don’t believe you deserve a friend so you’re doing this to hurt yourself.”

Elphaba laughed. “Sorry, Blondie, but you’ve got it messed up. You see, you’re too close to Mister Right that I seem to think you might as well get married to him. You need to choose one of us Blondie, or else you’ll be a witness to murder tomorrow.”

Galinda looked at her shocked. “Elphie, I really don’t have a choice if you’re acting like this. He says he’ll try.”

“And he’ll convieniently forget because he lacks a brain.”

“You know what, Elphie, fine, I’ll give you some space to cool down over this, but once you come back from the Wizard, I’m hoping you’ll give him a chance.”

The students were surprised when Galinda and Elphaba ignored each other for the next day. It wasn’t the impassioned loathing from the beginning, or the almost-in-love friendship from the days prior.

The rumors stated it had something to do with Fiyero, and none of the three said anything about the rumors. Elphaba more than welcomed being treated as something worse than a human. She figured that the students would be sorry by the time next weekend rolled around. But then again, they would only have to like her, as opposed to wanting to like her. Perhaps she shouldn’t go. Perhaps her father was right in saying that she isn’t normal enough to deserve the right kind of attention.

The days went by slowly. She and Galinda maintained their refusal to acknowledge the other existing until the day she left.

No one saw her off on the day she went to see the Wizard. Even her sister refused to say goodbye. Elphaba didn’t let it get to her. Until an hour after she got on.

Between arriving at the station and being called for the Wizard, Elphaba, who had always thought she might be normal in the Emerald City, hid in her room trying to calm herself down before the Wizard called for her.

Everything was a disaster when she was called. She could barely choke out her name, and Morrible, who had mysteriously gotten the job of Press Secretary between Elphaba leaving the station and that moment, had her read out a spell.

The Wizard had said that he wanted his pet Monkey to have its wish, to fly, using a levitation spell. Elphaba couldn’t count the number of lies on that statement on one hand. For one, it was a monkey, not a Monkey. Second, it wasn’t his pet.

The monkey never really had the idea of flying in its head; it ran away as she started to chant the spell. It wasn’t even the only monkey affected. The Wizard hid a cage of ten or twenty of them behind a false wall. The spell wasn’t a levitation spell. It was a transformative spell which caused wings to grow, not appear, grow from the backs. They were in pain.

The Wizard admitted his true purpose, to use the monkeys to find and report any subversive Animal activity to the Gale Force.

At that moment, Elphaba fled, carrying the spellbook she was provided. The one with the spell that hurt the poor monkeys. For some reason, instead of searching for an exit, she ran up stairs whenever she found a set. She ended up in an attic of one of the towers. It was mostly barren, save for various items used in storage. She closed the door off with an old broom and curled up, praying it was all a bad dream, or that she could get away, but neither occurred.

Guards caught her and brought her to the Wizard.

“I suppose you heard Madame Morrible only moments ago, Witch,” The Wizard said spitefully.

Elphaba nodded weakly.

“Oh well, Miss Witch, at least I managed to recover the Grimmerie from you.” He held it up, flaunting his victory.

“So what will you do with me?” Elphaba asked.

He smiled. “I’ve made your execution orders. You’ll be seen once, and that will be your only time in public.”

Elphaba struggled against the guards. That evening, Elphaba Thropp was executed. No one mourned her. Not even Galinda.