Disclaimer: They belong to Maguire, Schwartz, Holzman, and Platt.

Note: This story was originally often written while on “Pushing Daisies” highs, so the narration is best done in the tone Jim Dale uses for the stories, and the effect is intentional. I set out to write the story serious, but I ended up writing the thing with the quirky style of “Pushing Daisies” (Which is awesome, even if you aren’t in the Wicked fandom for Kristin Chenoweth, I know I’m not. I like it for the corpse humor, and off-kilter world. Shame it got cancelled) However, I solemnly swear to keep everything except the writing style and maybe Olive’s Season 1 work uniform out of this.

Elphaba wasn’t quite sure what had happened until it was too late, as was the unfortunate tendency of the curse tended to sneak up on her as much as everyone else. She knew it happened when she got riled up, but it didn’t happen every time, or even approach certainty as it approached a quantity of anger, should one try to quantify a quality such as Elphaba’s rage at various things in correlation to the outbreaks of the magical powers she had been constantly told was a curse since she could remember.

In an instant, the pancake batter for the three-berry and chocolate chip pancake she had been making for her sister, through the rage she had at her father for seemingly dawdling while mixing the batter, had burst into flame. The pancake caught fire and moved onto the bowl she was holding, and immediately dropped. Her sister spotted the fire and immedieately moved to go and find their father, but finding he was in his study upstairs, instead went to the nearest exit that didn’t cross the fire.

Thankfully Elphaba had already done so, too trained to also fear what she had been told was curse to try and do anything to fix it.

Fortunately almost everyone except for a maid survived the attack. Unfortunately, Frex decided to replace the maid with Elphaba and say it was his elusive elder daughter who died in the attack. He said many things; that she had started it, but tried to contain it and unfortunately failed.

“My Nessarose said that Elphaba had started it,” Frex said at the funeral of the Maid-who-was-buried-as-Elphaba. “But that it was an accident, and that my dear Elphaba ended up trying to contain the fire. Ultimately, she failed in that, but I am proud she stepped up for her mistake and tried to fix it.”

Elphaba, dressed in the uniform that Frex had mandated for the maids, which thankfully was a long-sleeved floor-length dress with an apron of appropriate length. She added more to her uniform to hide her skin, wearing gloves that her sister said went decently with the maid uniform, as well as a couple scarves to cover her neck and as much extraneous face as possible while still being able to function.

In private after the funeral, Elphaba had learned the specifics of the case. He had privately disowned her, which she had known. She was to work as Nessa’s personal maid, which she knew, and had seemed to have done so since she was old enough to reach half the things she needed. Further, the money that was to send her to college when her sister was old enough, in three years, was to be used to rebuild the manor. Frex was kind enough to let her go to Shiz, if only to continue to assist Nessa. Frex was also kind enough to pay her for her services, albeit somewhat less than the average servant in the house made.

Elphaba didn’t think that was fair.

“It’s not fair,” she said as she brushed her sister’s hair. “I’m fine with his disowning me and my new position. I’ve been expecting that. Heck, I’m even fine with the fact that he’s using the money he didn’t want to save up but had to for my future education to rebuild the manor.”

“So what’s bothering you, Si-Elphaba?” Nessarose asked calmly.

Elphaba huffed. “I have a lowered wage. My job is to take care of you personally. I’ll be cleaning your room, dressing you, tidying your hair, helping you bathe, and cooking for you. I don’t necessarily want a higher wage than average, just an average one.”

Nessa smiled. “I can help with that.” She wheeled over to a corner of her room, where most of the keepsakes of their dear, late mother Melena were kept. “It’s not money, but I figured you would like a little keepsake of Mom.”

Elphaba held the box. It was relatively plain and had a large “M” monogrammed right below the lid. “Uh, thanks Ne- Miss Thropp.”

After putting her sister to sleep, she returned to her new room in the servant’s quarters, which she shared with four other maids, all of which were not much older than her. Although Elphaba was younger than the rest, being only a few months shy of 18. They were gossiping away about nothing Elphaba thought important as she decided to open the box, maybe she could find a few things hiding around the house of value and hide them in the box and she could make a little money from that. But she wasn’t a slave, she was a servant, and if she were to leave the mansion, what would dear, dear Nessarose do?

She was pulling out the letters, making room for the keepsake box when one of the letters caught her eye. It was likely another suitor begging her mother to leave her father, like most of them were. However, unlike the other letters, usually on somewhat dirty and thin pieces of parchment, this one was on a thicker, bright green piece of paper that was opened delicately.

The letter didn’t quite amuse her much, it was as sappy as the others, and the poor man seemed deluded into thinking that her mother actually slept with him. (It said something like “Thank you for those nights when I travelled through your town, sheltering me and keeping me from your husband” or some sort of romantic mush that made Elphaba visibly cringe)

Then again, it wasn’t crumpled like the others, where it seemed her mother kept them simply as reminders of what could have been, and that her life was much better where she was. It was kept neat, and fit well right at the bottom of the box. Also, it was dated somewhere between Elphaba’s conception (if she did her math right) and her birth. And the note itself gave a rough time for when this love affair he thought existed. It had began a few days after the date she had come up with. But wasn’t she also a bit early?

She laughed at that, but maybe she could pretend the mysterious man was her father. After all, she cared as much about Frex as he did about her, and she would more than likely move in kind to his refusal to acknowledge her as his daughter and not see him as her father. This mysterious man, O.Z. Diggs, he signed it, laughing at how his initials made up the name of the land, he’ll be her father now.

She was Elphaba Diggs.