Chapter 2

“I can’t believe it,” one of the other maids said one night six months later while Elphaba was preparing for bed. “It’s completely ridiculous and out of character.”

“I know,” another said. “Yeah, he’s charismatic and a little chivalric with his dates, but that’s just too far.”

“What are you talking about?” Elphaba said, annoyed at the continued squawking of the other maids she had to share a room with.

“Fiyero Tiggular,” one said. “He’s the Prince of the Arjiki tribe. You know, the one that controls most of Winkie Country, including its borders?”

Elphaba paused there for a moment, trying to see if she could place a face to the name, or even that she might have heard of the name before, but gave up and said “I’m sorry, it doesn’t strike a bell to me. If he wasn’t mentioned in hard news, I wouldn’t know him. I know about the rest of what you’re saying.”

The maid rolled her eyes. “Honestly Elphaba, if you’re going to be in the same room as us, at least until your father…”

“The governor is not my father. Master Diggs is.”

“Whatever, until the Governor has you go to the University of his picking with Miss Nessarose, if he does, you better know who Fiyero is.”

The Maids filled her in on every detail of Fiyero’s life known at the time, which unfortunately included only the past few months. He went to a school in the city. Emphasis on went. Some boys started bringing him to clubs, thinking it would be fun to see what would happen outside the camera-free environment of the school. Fiyero was naturally charismatic, and quite good looking according to the pictures the other maids showed Elphaba.

“Is that real?” Elphaba had asked at the time, holding the centerfold picture of Prince Charming in a tight white shirt and even tighter breeches, showing off every one of his lean muscles. In one hand he held a brightly colored vest. The maids giggled and nodded.

However, in his most recent clubbing excursion, he brought a girl, as he often did. Some lowlifes tried to hit on her. She was having none of it, so Fiyero hit them. This ended up with him being expelled from school.

“What a shame,” Elphaba said. “He was protecting his date, a girl he barely knew, from some guys and he’s the one that gets blamed for it.”

“That’s something I didn’t expect to hear from you,” one of the others, Hicali, said.

“You know all those romance books around Nessarose’s room that never seem to be picked up?” Elphaba asked. The others nodded. Elphaba grinned as she said “That’s my doing, even before I was put here. I do have a sensitive side for mindless chivalry like that.”

“Yeah, and he’ll show up here and sweep you off your feet,” one, Kirianna, said.

Elphaba smiled with a slight emptiness in her eyes. “In my dreams, he might,” she said wistfully. It seemed the others were swiftly becoming friends to her. She no longer was the disgraced daughter. She was just another maid who Nessarose liked.

“I was being serious. Sooner or later he’ll have to practice his duties. His father might make up a conflict to get him here.”

“I take care of Miss Nessarose. If anything, he’d fall for her and all her tragically beautiful traits. Not her petty, disgusting maid.”

Kirianna rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Elphaba.”

Elphaba laughed loudly. Kirianna, Hicali, and Trina all smiled seeing the sight. They had made a friend of her.

As the time passed, Elphaba paid attention to the gossip the other girls brought. Not just about Fiyero, but also about various other men they liked, though none seemed quite as interesting as the Prince. None seemed to have quite as many girls lusting after him, either. Elphaba knew that the other maids turned her into one of the many who fancied him, and even though she denied it whenever they brought up the fantasy, she dreamed that he would come and see past her skin, and take her away from the Governor.

She did have a taste for mindless chivalry like that. Her problem with reading Nessarose’s expansive library of romance novels continued, only now she saw herself as the nubile young heroine (replacing any references towards hair and eye color to her own, though letting the imaginary her keep the pale skin) and the handsome prince as the strong-yet-sensitive hero who took the young flower. Although no one suspected the wild imaginings to be taking place, and she always denied it whenever the other maids caught her reading one.