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He groans, loudly, as if the sun might take the hint and dim itself. No such luck. The light slides across his eyelids like a nosy courtier determined to announce itself. He buries his face deeper into Elphaba’s braids in retaliation, which is far more satisfying than arguing with celestial bodies.
He came in late. Far too late. His sister had opinions, and opinions tended to grow legs when they came from Vinkun royalty; they wander, they multiply, they steal whole evenings. By the time he and Feldspur escaped the main castle, both were nearly sleepwalking and equally motivated by the knowledge of who waited for them.
He’d expected her to be asleep. He knows how hard she works.
He hadn’t expected the room to smell faintly of boiled herbs and stress-sweat. Hadn’t expected to find her still in her boots, cloak tossed somewhere in a way that said urgency, hands shaking from too many hours trying to find ways to coax stolen voices back into broken Animal throats. She’d been pacing patterns into the stone floor, exhausted and afraid for every creature they hadn’t yet freed.
And then she’d seen him. Relief had crashed across her face so intensely that it knocked the breath out of him.
Now she’s finally sleeping, and he feels like the luckiest fool in Oz.
He tightens his arm around her waist, pulling her back flush against him. She’s warm, a slow-burning hearth tucked under blankets. The scent of her braids—wild mint, a hint of ash, something he’s privately named home—fills his lungs. His whole body slackens.
Her breathing stutters, a tiny shift, and then her fingers weave into his as if seeking confirmation he hadn’t disappeared in the night.
He smiles. He can’t help it. It lifts through him, soft and victorious.
“Good morning,” he whispers, though she’s still deep in sleep.
Outside, the wind brushes against the shutters, carrying the distant calls of Animals waking, lives rebuilt stitch by stubborn stitch. Inside, her hand curls tighter around his.
Whatever chaos waits beyond this room can wait another breath, another heartbeat, another moment of peace.
He tucks his chin against her shoulder, shutting his eyes again. If the sun wants him up, it can fight him for her.
And the sun has never won that battle.
For two years they’ve lived inside a truth no propaganda machine could scrub away.
Two years of fighting the Wizard and Morrible side by side, the two of them carving their own legend in the shadows while Galinda sparkled under spotlights brighter than logic. Galinda, who’d been moulded into the kingdom’s darling of righteousness, a perfect foil to Elphaba’s painted wickedness and Fiyero’s supposed enchantment. The public adored the story even as it burned both of them alive.
But the truth began much earlier, back when green lightning cleaved the western sky, and he’d abandoned everything to follow it.
He remembers the endless days riding across harsh Vinkus plains, Feldspur below him muttering about his terrible sense of direction. He remembers the moment the sky cracked open one final time, and he found her. Her broom sputtering, her magic sparking like frantic heartbeat after frantic heartbeat. She’d looked like she was made of storms, but her hands were trembling.
She’d been alone, shaking, terrified of what she’d just done, terrified of what she would have to do next. And somehow still righteous. Still ready to shield a world that refused to shield her.
He’d walked up to her without hesitation. Told her none of Morrible’s venom mattered. Told her he knew her heart because no one truly wicked would set a caged Lion cub free. No one wicked would soothe that same cub after they scared it with their bickering. That someone wicked wouldn't have healed the cut on his temple from the frightened cub with her gentle touch, but it was the first proof he’d ever needed.
Feldspur, pacing with the dignity of an Animal with standards, had simply flicked his tail and declared, “I’m an excellent judge of character, my prince. If she were wicked, you’d be dead.”
And that was that.
The three of them became a family before any of them said the word out loud. A strange, stitched-together little unit held together by defiance and love and shared purpose. Waging a two-year war no one asked them to fight, but the three of them couldn’t walk away from.
Saving Animals. Sabotaging the Wizard’s machinery. Exposing Morrible’s quiet atrocities. Dreaming, fiercely and privately, of an Oz where no one needed to hide their voice or their colour or their magic.
Two years of choosing each other in the dark and being hunted for it in the light.
And somehow, through every raid, every night ride, every brush with death, they never stopped choosing.
Two years of sabotaging.
Of slipping through the cracks in the Wizard’s shining veneer, planting little catastrophes that toppled big lies. Of leaving behind only ash, hope, and the lingering question of who keeps defeating an empire in the dead of night.
Two years of guerrilla warfare.
Fights in forests that swallowed sound, escapes through riverbeds slick with moonlight, battles fought in whispers because losing their voices meant losing the Animals they were trying to save. They learned how to fight sideways, upside down, and in the dark. They became very good at it.
Two years of near experiences that felt like borrowed breaths.
Swords and gunfire grazing skin. Arrows splintering inches from bone. One early morning, when Elphaba nearly fell from the sky and he nearly climbed the air after her. One night where Fiyero had to carry her, blood in her hair, whispering that she wasn’t allowed to die because he hadn’t finished telling her everything yet.
Two years of pleading with his sister, the Queen of the Vinkus, for Animal sanctuary.
Of stepping into the throne room wearing mud and fury, begging her to understand the stakes, begging her to see that neutrality was just cowardice dressed in a crown.
Sometimes she listened. Sometimes she didn’t. But eventually she bent the laws because she knew her brother’s heart wouldn’t let her sleep if she didn’t.
Two years of attempts on his own life.
Assassins with silver-tipped arrows. Poison slipped into missives from “allies.”
Times he was treated as a consort, a pretty decoration for a green tyrant.
Times he was seen as her puppet, a bewitched noble boy who’d lost his mind to her magic.
Times he was sent out alone for diplomacy, for recon, for recruitment, because he could smile his way into rooms she never could.
And of course those were the missions where people tried to kill him most often.
Two years of co-conspirators tortured and murdered.
Of sharing bread with someone at dawn and burying their message by dusk.
Of whispered goodbyes and louder silences.
Of holding Elphaba through the nights when she accused herself of not saving enough, not fast enough, not well enough.
Of him telling her that grief wasn’t a debt to pay but a weight to carry, and he’d carry it with her.
Two years of Elphaba being hunted.
Her name scraped out of the memory of anyone who might utter it.
Her face turned into a caricature, chin sharpened, spine hunched, wickedness drawn in exaggerated strokes so the children of Oz would fear the silhouette of a woman they never met.
Her magic was painted as corruption.
Her green skin turned into a warning sign.
Her voice twisted into threats by newspapers that didn’t deserve ink.
Two years of her fight for Animal freedom spun into a crime.
Of the world insisting she hated Oz when she was breaking her heart trying to save it.
Of the Wizard calling her dangerous because she refused to kneel.
Of Morrible calling her wicked because she refused to silence herself.
Two years of her love—for justice, for Oz, for him—turned into an accusation.
But he knows the truth.
He’s held the truth in his arms every night for two years.
And every time he wakes to her fingers intertwined with his, he remembers exactly why they keep fighting.
One and a half years as a couple.
Not that they marked the day it began. It wasn’t a single moment, more a slow-burning fuse that had been lit the night he found her shaking on the plains. But that was the year the line between partnership and something deeper blurred until there was no line left at all.
And it almost ended before either of them admitted what it really was.
She had left him in their earlier apartment—one of their many temporary homes, each abandoned the moment a whisper of danger curled toward them. Just a short meeting, she’d said. An hour, maybe less. He’d teased her, kissed her, told her not to worry.
He’d barely finished washing the dishes when they came.
He remembers the hands dragging him, the sack over his head, the sickening tilt of the world as he fought and lost. He remembers the bite of chains cutting into his wrists as they hung him from the ceiling like a warning sign. He remembers the questions spat at him: 'What was she planning?' 'Where was she hiding?' 'What was she building now?' 'Why wouldn’t he speak?'
He’d refused. Flatly. Repeatedly. His silence was the sharpest weapon he had.
They called him bewitched. Cursed. A puppet dangling from her green fingers. Not worth real interrogation because only her spell could explain why he wouldn’t betray her.
They tortured him anyway.
Days blurred into something fevered and smoky. His world shrank to pain, darkness, and the stubborn pulse of loyalty in his chest.
He thought he might die there.
But then he heard shouting. Horrible shouting. Not the tidy, controlled cries of soldiers. Something wilder. Angrier. He heard magic crack against stone. He heard men screaming in fear. And even with swollen eyes and a skull pounding like a war drum, he knew it was her.
Elphaba. Coming for him.
The carnage she carved on her way in was unlike anything he’d seen. And he’d seen a lot by then. These men weren’t just jailers—they were butchers. They’d been murdering Animals. He’d only been a bonus prize. A convenient excuse for revolutionaries to strike back.
But she wasn’t striking back. She was burning through the room for him.
He saw her through the haze. Her eyes were red from exhaustion and terror. Magic sparking violently around her hands as she sliced through the chains, snarling spells that cracked the ceiling. She didn’t care about subtlety, or tactics, or the mess. She didn’t care that she was shaking.
She only cared about reaching him.
And watching her fight for him like that—fierce, flawed, furious, beautiful—something in him split open.
He had to tell her.
His body gave out the moment the chain snapped and he fell into her arms, barely conscious. His voice was fraying, his heartbeat stuttering, but the words clawed their way free.
“I love you.”
Just like that. No speech. No cleverness. Just truth.
He remembers her inhaling sharply. Her hands trembling harder. Her forehead pressed to his.
He remembers nothing after that because he promptly passed out.
But she told him later: she caught him before his head hit the floor. She held him. And she whispered, “I love you too,” against his hair until he came back to her.
Elphaba didn’t speak much of it.
She rarely speaks of her own terror unless pressed, and no one pressed her about those nearly two weeks he was gone. It had never been about her, she insisted. He was the one taken. He was the one hurt. He was the one chained and tortured. What right did she have to make it hers?
But the truth lived under her skin like a bruise that never faded.
They had faced worse threats since then. They’d grown sharper, wiser, more careful. Their partnership had settled into something strong enough to survive storms and conspiracies and assassination attempts. Their love—well. Neither of them was foolish enough to pretend it hadn’t deepened, even if they rarely spoke it outside the safety of a whisper or a wound.
Still, the fear never left her.
Every time he went out alone.
Every time she returned without him stepping through the door behind her.
Every time she heard a sudden noise and her heart stopped.
She was yanked back to that day.
In her sleep, her fingers tighten around his without conscious thought. Her nightmare unfolds scene by scene, obedient to her greatest dread.
She is standing in the doorway of that cramped apartment they’d been using then, boots still dusty from her errand. She calls his name once. Lightly. Expecting him to answer from the kitchen or the small sitting area. The silence answers instead.
The first thing she smells is copper.
She sees it next: the smear on the floorboards. His blood. She knows it like she knows her own magic. She’s seen it too many times while stitching him up after bounty hunters used him to lure her out, or jealous lovers accused him of flirting with their lovers. But this…this is different. This is wrong. This is too much.
Her throat closes.
Her eyes scan the room, expecting—desperately hoping—for him to leap out from behind a chair with a terrible joke. He’s horrifically bad at jokes. He could absolutely think pretending to be kidnapped would be funny.
(He wouldn't)
But he doesn’t come out.
No one comes out.
The bile climbs her throat. Her knees nearly give. Her magic burns beneath her skin, frantic and directionless, begging for somewhere to go. She grips the edge of the table so hard she leaves indentations in the wood.
She wants to scream for her sister.
For Galinda.
For her long-dead mother.
For anyone—someone—to come hold her upright and tell her he would be fine. That this wasn’t happening. That the blood wasn’t his. That he wasn’t gone.
But she had no one.
Feldspur was out on his own mission.
Their fellow conspirators were colleagues, not confidants.
Acquaintances willing to die for the cause, but not willing—or able—to hold her while she shattered.
He was her person.
And they took him.
So who did she have now?
She remembers sinking to her knees.
She remembers swallowing a sob so violently it scraped her ribs.
She remembers the exact thought that tore her in half:
'They took my person. They took my home.'
And then the fear turned to fury so absolute it steadied her shaking hands. Her magic gathered like a storm. She rose, spine straight, eyes burning.
If the world wasn’t going to give her someone to cling to, then fine.
She would become the storm that ripped the world apart until she found him.
She hunted him through half of Oz.
At first, it was frantic, wild, directionless. A storm with no compass. But fear can only rule her for so long before it calcifies into resolve. She gathered herself. She forced breath into her lungs. She washed his blood from her hands but not from her memory. And then she started moving.
Days of tracking broken whispers.
Of interrogating informants who thought they feared the Wizard more than they feared her.
Of sifting through rumours passed between Animal networks and half-trusted rebels.
Of sleepless nights where she paced until her feet throbbed.
Every hour she didn’t find him was a squeeze of her heart.
When she finally discovered where they’d taken him, she didn’t go alone.
The revolutionaries came with her—grim-faced, exhausted, eyes full of the same grief she’d seen too often this year. Because those men weren’t just jailers. They were butchers. They’d murdered Animals for sport, for experiments, for intimidation.
The revolutionaries wanted revenge.
She wanted him.
The hideout was a squat stone building carved into a hillside, pretending to be unremarkable. She felt her magic before she saw it—pockets of twisted wards, traces of dampened power, the thick stagnant air of a place used for cruelty.
Her heart hammered in her throat.
The moment they breached the door, the world fractured.
Revolutionaries surged in with blades and ferocious teeth, shouting for vengeance. They struck with the fury of the silenced, of the muzzled, of the caged. Every man in that building wore the guilt of Animal blood, and the rebels carved their retribution into the walls.
But Elphaba stepped into the carnage like something older and sharper.
Her magic roared.
Golden light tore through the hallways, snapping metal, shattering locks, burning through the wards that tried to smother her.
Every time she saw a uniform, she struck ruthlessly, precisely, with a possessive fury that frightened even the rebels at her side.
Because this wasn’t abstract justice.
This wasn’t vengeance for a cause.
This was personal.
They had taken him.
Her partner.
Her home in human form.
They had spilt his blood across their floor and thought she’d simply endure it.
Thought she would break quietly.
Thought they could touch what was hers and survive it.
Audacity had consequences.
She moved through that hideout like retribution wearing boots. Her magic cracked the air, slammed soldiers into walls, ripped shackles from their hinges. She shouted his name so loudly it shook dust from the rafters.
"FIYERO!"
At one point, she disarmed a guard, only to hurl him bodily down a corridor with a spell so violent it almost rattled the building. The revolutionaries paused—some in awe, some in terror—as she advanced, eyes blazing, breath shaking.
Someone tried to flee.
She sealed the exit with a flick of her wrist.
No one was leaving until she had him.
The deeper she went, the thicker the dread became—an invisible thread tugging her toward him. She could feel him. Not magically, not truly—just…her. His magicless life brushing the edge of hers like a faint echo she’d somehow come to recognise.
And then she saw it: a heavy door at the end of a narrow hallway, lined with rudimentary runes from fake anti-magic charlatans meant to suppress. Her magic snarled. She blasted the hinges clean off.
The room inside was dim.
Smelled of blood and sweat and pain.
And there he was.
Hanging from the ceiling by chains that dug into bruised wrists, face swollen, body limp but alive. Barely. His head lolled to the side, breath shallow, ribs trembling with the effort.
“Fiyero,” she whispered.
It wasn’t a cry this time. It was a vow.
The rebels kept fighting behind her, the sounds of revenge echoing like thunder. But she was already moving, already reaching for him, already tearing through chains with magic sharp enough to cut bone.
The moment he fell, she caught him.
His weight slumped into her arms.
And her possessive fury melted into something rawer: relief so fierce it hurt.
He cracked one swollen eye open and looked at her, dazed, half-conscious, still himself enough to smile like a fool at being found.
“I love you,” he slurred.
Her heart clenched so hard she could barely breathe.
He collapsed in her arms before she could answer.
She held him tighter.
No one was ever taking him from her again.
The morning folds around them gently, as if even the sun has agreed to play quietly for once.
Elphaba wakes, the remnants of the nightmare dissolving like smoke the moment she feels warmth pressed against her back. She turns and blinks, slow and heavy, her lashes brushing against his chest as reality unspools again into something familiar. Safe. Solid.
Fiyero’s already watching her, of course.
He always watches her like he’s relearning the sunrise.
Her fingers move instinctively, green and steady now, carding through his straw-colored hair. It’s a little tangled from sleep, softening in every direction like it’s trying to mimic him: earnest, charming, impossible to manage. He leans into her touch without shame, eyes fluttering briefly before he nuzzles his nose against her temple.
A tiny, vulnerable sound slips out of him. She tries not to melt at it. Fails spectacularly.
“Good morning, love,” he whispers. His voice is warm and low, a private thing meant only for her. His blue eyes shine at her like there is no war, no Wizard, no headline calling her wicked. Just her. Just this.
She feels the words settle against her ribs, tucking themselves into the cracks where fear used to live.
“Good morning, my sweet,” she murmurs back, matching his softness with her own.
They linger there, staring at each other like they have all the time in the world. His thumb brushes her cheek. Her fingers trace the line of his jaw. Their breaths mingle, easy and unhurried, the sort of peace that has to be stolen because the world never offers it freely.
For this heartbeat, they are not hunted.
Not revolutionaries.
Not fugitives.
Not legends twisted into propaganda.
They’re simply Elphaba and Fiyero.
A woman loved fiercely and reluctantly learning she deserves it.
A man who would follow her into fire without hesitation.
Just for this moment, their world shrinks to the size of their shared pillow. The size of his hand curled around hers. The size of her smile when he kisses her forehead.
The rebellion can wait.
Love doesn’t.
They rise slowly, stealing the last wisps of morning softness before the world intrudes.
Elphaba reaches first, fingertips brushing the scar on his chest—the one carved into him during those days she almost lost him. She presses a kiss there, reverent and steady. Fiyero exhales, a sound halfway between contentment and the quiet vow he makes every morning to never let anyone touch her that way.
He returns the gesture by taking her hair gently in his hands. Her smaller braids have come loose overnight; he smooths them, weaving them into thicker, steadier strands. His fingers move with practised familiarity, never tugging, always careful, as if her hair were sacred scripture he’s memorising touch by touch.
“You’re going to spoil me,” she mutters, though her eyes soften with every braid he finishes.
“You deserve spoiling,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.
She tries not to blush. She fails magnificently.
When they’re both dressed, he steps back and slides something into her palm.
His family signet ring.
The one he gave her months ago, quiet and solemn, when he told her she was his future, whether Oz deserved her or not.
She slips it onto her finger with the same quiet ceremony she always does.
He watches her like it’s the sunrise.
Then she hands him his jacket—the one she found in a forgotten wardrobe, dark and long and lined with embroidery that mirrors the detailing on her own coat. When he wears it, they look like a matched set. Not identical. Complementary. Two halves of the same defiant colour.
They exchange soft, almost secret smiles.
And then they step out of their room, out of that pocket of tenderness, and become the leaders a revolution demands.
Down the large stone staircase they walk, side by side. The castle hums faintly with activity—whispers from the kitchen, the shuffle of hooves and boots in corridors, the muted rustle of maps in hidden corners.
By the time they reach the ground-floor study, the room is already occupied: Animals and humans alike, those not currently out on missions, gathered around a table strewn with plans and danger.
The moment Elphaba and Fiyero enter, the low conversation settles. They are not royalty here, not exactly, but they are something just as weighty. Something that makes people straighten instinctively.
She brushes her fingers against his, subtle and grounding.
He squeezes back, once, before stepping forward to speak of his sister, of armies, of sanctuary.
Elphaba stands at his side—green, unbowed, braided hair shining like woven night—and together they look every bit the force Oz has tried so hard to snuff out.
And failed.
Fiyero straightens as the room settles, the hum of conversation dimming into expectant quiet. The study’s high windows catch the morning light, painting him in gold and shadow, a prince turned diplomat turned revolutionary standing before a council that has grown used to hearing truth delivered in his soft-spoken certainty.
“My sister,” he begins, voice steady despite the exhaustion that clings to his eyes, “is willing to part with a contingent of foot soldiers.”
A ripple of surprise moves through the room. Vinkun soldiers are no small offer. They are disciplined, loyal, and—perhaps most importantly—unlikely to be swayed by Emerald City propaganda.
“She’s agreed they’ll help guard the castle and the Animals residing here,” he continues. “Some of them refuse to be refugees in the Vinkus. They want to remain close, to rest here, to take what they can carry when we bring them through the old passageways beneath Kiamo Ko. Her soldiers will make sure they’re protected until the moment they leave Oz.”
An older Chimpanzee revolutionary exhales a shaky breath of relief. A Fox nods, jaw tight but hopeful.
“And,” Fiyero adds, “she will not contest our use of the castle. Kiamo Ko is part of my inheritance as Prince of the Arjiki. She respects that. Her council respects that. They won’t challenge it.”
(He leaves out the part where she threw her arms around him after the negotiations ended, holding him with a fierceness that cracked three years of royal restraint. The part where she whispered, voice shaking, that she had feared losing him to politics, to war, to his own reckless devotion to the green-skinned woman at his side. Where he told her he feared losing her, too.
He keeps the tears to himself. Keeps the unsteady breath they shared in the privacy of her chambers. Keeps the moment she cupped his face and said she was proud of him. Proud that the carefree younger brother she’d sent to Shiz had become a man capable of leading, loving, and choosing what was right even when the cost was steep.
She had looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.
Not the boy who danced away from responsibility.
But a leader.
A partner.
A man with purpose etched into his very bones.
He had walked out of her room taller for it.)
“Fiyero?” someone prompts gently.
He blinks, realising he’s drifted back into the warmth of that moment. He inhales and steps forward again, shoulders squaring, present fully once more.
“Apologies,” he murmurs. “There’s more.”
He gestures to the map spread across the central table, arrows and markers indicating troop movements, safehouses, and active dangers.
“My sister believes Morrible’s influence is spreading beyond Emerald City. There have been patrols on the Vinkus borders, unusual ones. They’re searching for rebels, yes, but they’re also interrogating villages for hidden Animals. She’s ordered her garrisons to deny access, but we should expect an escalation.”
A murmur of concern rises.
He nods grimly. “We’ll need to coordinate departures through the tunnels carefully. The Wizard’s forces don’t know about them yet, but if they find even one entrance…”
The implication hangs heavy.
He glances toward Elphaba without meaning to, an instinctive check that she’s still there beside him. Her steady presence anchors him. Her green fingers tap the table in silent calculation. She meets his eyes, and something passes between them—agreement, resolve, a shared promise stronger than any oath he made in the throne room.
Fiyero clears his throat and continues.
“We have support. We have soldiers. We have time—less than we’d like, but enough.”
He lifts his chin. “We make every moment count.”
The room straightens around him, energy shifting, determination hardening into action.
And Fiyero Tigelaar—prince, diplomat, revolutionary—steps fully back into his role, ready to hear the next report that will determine the course of their rebellion.
The young fawn Rabbit stands near the corner of the table, small hands clasped so tightly around his notes that the paper shakes. He looks far too young to carry news like this. His voice, when it comes, is thin but steady, as if courage has been stitched into it by necessity rather than confidence.
“There have been disappearances,” he begins, ears drooping low. “Poor families. Both Animals and humans.”
The room stills. Even the candles seem to quiet.
“They…they were suspected of supporting us.” He swallows. “Some of the bodies are being found in the swamp beds. Mutilated. Disfigured. Tongues cut out. Limbs rearranged.”
A few rebels curse under their breath. The older raven-black Owl closes her eyes, feathers trembling with restrained horror. Feldspur’s tail lashes once, sharply.
The Rabbit presses on.
“The Wizard’s guard lays the blame on ‘uncivilised Animal violence’. They claim Animals turned on humans for vengeance, or that some wild pack acted out of hunger.” His voice cracks slightly. “But that’s not true. It’s coordinated. It’s planned. It’s them. Morrible. The Wizard. Their enforcers.”
Elphaba feels her stomach turn. Fiyero’s jaw clenches so tightly a muscle jumps near his temple.
The Rabbit continues, a tremor creeping into his words.
“They want to frighten people. Make them believe Animals are monsters. Make them think supporting us means death. Make them think you’re the danger, not them.”
And then, like a final blow:
“These crimes are being overshadowed—buried—by Glinda’s tour of Oz.”
A bitter silence hangs.
“She’s travelling from city to city,” he whispers, “renewing hope.”
He says it the way one might repeat a line from propaganda because everyone else is repeating it too.
“She dazzles the crowds. Speaks about unity. Goodness. She shakes hands. Blesses babies. Performs kindness like a pageant. The newspapers adore her. No one looks past the glitter.”
Elphaba’s breath stutters, not because she wants the spotlight, but because she knows exactly what the regime is doing.
Glinda’s tour is a smokescreen.
A curtain of sequins to hide the blood pooling beneath it.
The Rabbit’s ears lower further.
“They keep the country blinded with her shine. While in the dark…they carve warnings into the bodies of people who only wanted to help us.”
Fiyero is seething.
He grips the edge of the table so hard the wood groans. “Of course they are,” he mutters, fury barely contained. “Of course they’d use her image to hide their atrocities.”
Elphaba closes her eyes, guilt and sorrow swimming together.
Her first friend.
Her almost-sister.
Paraded as proof that Oz is safe, while innocent people are butchered.
She forces breath into her lungs because someone has to stay level-headed.
Fiyero doesn’t.
Not when it comes to this.
Not when it comes to her.
“They’re murdering families,” he growls, voice rough with rage. “And she’s out there endorsing their lies? Distracting the public while Morrible slaughters anyone who speaks out? Using her shine to cover their filth?” His fists tremble.
“Fiyero—” Elphaba begins softly.
“No,” he snaps—not at her, but at the injustice of it. His voice breaks, raw. “They’re killing people, Elphaba. And Galinda is smiling while they do it.”
The room feels colder.
The young Rabbit stares down at his notes, shoulders shaking.
Elphaba steps forward, gentle but sure, placing a hand on his back. “You were brave to bring this. You did right.”
The Rabbit nods, eyes wet but grateful.
Around them, the revolution shifts again, not just angry, but galvanised.
The lies are thinner than they look.
The fear is deliberate.
The cruelty is calculated.
And Elphaba and Fiyero stand at the centre of it all, two hearts steadying each other as the world darkens, refusing to look away.
Elphaba inhales slowly, gathering herself. The room is already brittle with horror from the Rabbit’s report, and the next truth she must deliver will only sharpen the edges. Still—leadership demands clarity, even when it cuts.
“Speaking of Galinda…” she begins, voice low enough that everyone leans in instinctively.
Feldspur stills.
The Owl turns her head sharply.
Fiyero’s eyes flick to her, waiting.
Elphaba looks at the map, at the little wooden markers representing troops and refugees and danger zones, because looking at anyone’s face might break something inside her.
“I received word,” she says, “from one of our spies within the Emerald Palace.”
A beat of silence.
Her hands curl on the table.
“Galinda will be endorsing Morrible’s narrative.”
The reaction is immediate: a collective intake of breath, whispered curses, the rustle of wings as the Owl bristles, Feldspur’s hoof striking the floor once, sharp as a heartbeat.
Elphaba keeps going, because stopping would hurt more.
“They’re claiming I attacked the Wizard in cold blood,” she says softly. “That I stole the Grimmerie because I wanted power. That I mutilated the monkeys for my own cruel experiments. That Galinda confronted me. That we…fought.”
The word tastes wrong in her mouth.
“And that the only reason I left the Emerald City was because she bested me with her ‘good’ magic.”
A bitter laugh escapes her before she can stop it: quiet, cracked, painful. “Apparently, I fled in shame once she defeated me.”
The room erupts.
“That is absurd,” snarls a Tiger in the back.
“She would never—” the Chimpanzee begins, but falters, doubt creeping in.
Feldspur snorts. “Galinda? Fight you? The girl wouldn't dare.”
The Owl’s feathers are so puffed she resembles a storm cloud about to strike lightning. “The gall. The sheer gall.”
But Fiyero...Fiyero doesn’t move.
Doesn’t blink.
Doesn’t breathe.
He goes still in the way dangerous things go still.
Elphaba feels his fury building before he opens his mouth.
Of course she feels it.
“She’s afraid,” Elphaba continues quickly, trying to soften the blow for him, for herself. “She’s alone in the Emerald City and surrounded by people who speak in threats wrapped in smiles. I don’t know what she’s thinking or why she—why she would agree to this, but—”
But Fiyero cuts in, voice a blade.
“Afraid?” His anger is quiet, controlled, the kind that trembles with the effort of containment. “She saw Morrible manipulate you. She saw the Wizard trick you. She watched you beg her—beg her—to leave with you. She stayed behind. She chose them.”
Elphaba flinches as if struck.
He presses on.
“And now she’s telling Oz you’re a monster? That you mutilated monkeys? That she defeated you in some shining duel between good and evil? That you’re hungry for power?” His hand slams onto the table. “She knows better!”
The room watches him, wide-eyed, as if he’s become fire.
Elphaba swallows, voice small despite her steel. “I know. I know. But she’s scared. She’s lost. And she—she was my friend.”
“Exactly,” he snaps. “And she’s willing to destroy you to protect herself.”
A harsh silence drops.
He looks at Elphaba then, properly, and the anger softens but doesn’t cool. His voice cracks at the edges. “They’re trying to break you.”
She meets his gaze, dark eyes shadowed with hurt. “I’m used to it.”
“Well I’m not,” he says, fierce and trembling. “Not when it’s her. Not when it’s someone who should have stood by you. Not when it paints you as wicked to keep Oz blind.”
The Owl clears her throat sharply, some mix of disappointment and sympathy aimed at him. Feldspur immediately steps between them, tail flicking protectively.
“Leave him be,” the blue stallion rumbles. “He has every right to be furious. A lie hurts worst when told by someone who once held truth in their hands.”
The room simmers.
Elphaba stands straighter, her breath settling.
Not unhurt.
But unbroken.
“We can’t waste energy on what she chooses to say,” she says tightly but hopefully. “Oz will hear the truth one day. We will make sure of it.”
Fiyero doesn’t look entirely convinced.
But he steps closer to her, the anger in him curling inward, redirected, repurposed.
If Galinda is letting herself become the glittering curtain hiding Oz’s horrors…
Then he and Elphaba will tear the curtain down.
But Elphaba was simmering in anger all her own.
The rest of the meeting dissolves into smaller reports, logistics, and whispered confirmations. Nothing else erupts. Nothing else breaks. But Elphaba’s face is carved from something strained and sharp, and when the meeting finally adjourns, she is gone before anyone can blink.
She stalks out, cloak snapping behind her like a living shadow.
Not her usual brisk stride.
This is marching with purpose.
This is 'do not touch me unless you wish to lose fingers.'
Fiyero excuses himself before anyone can try to speak to him. His legs are already moving, following the wake she leaves behind like a man chasing the storm that stole his breath.
“Elphaba!” he calls as they climb the stone steps spiralling upward. He knows she hears him; her shoulders are stiff, jaw tight, magic humming faintly like a warning.
She doesn’t answer.
Instead, she lifts a hand, and the Grimmerie leaps from its shelf at the base of the tower, slamming shut mid-air before floating obediently after her. The ancient book knows her mood; it doesn’t dare disobey.
“Elphaba, talk to me!” he tries again, heart pounding, not from the climb, but from the fear that he’s the one she’s angry at.
They reach the topmost chamber of the floating towers, the cradle of her magic. Sunlight pours through the glass dome above, catching in the dust motes and turning her silhouette mythic. The Grimmerie lands on her desk with a thud.
She whirls around.
Anger and hurt blaze across her beautiful green features, raw and bright enough to sting.
“I don’t need you to get angry on my behalf, Fiyero!” she snaps. “I don’t need you to disparage Galinda and whatever she’s going through! She’s my friend and—and—”
Her voice cracks. The stutter is rare, and it guts him.
“Is she?” he fires back before he can stop himself.
She freezes.
He steps closer, hands trembling with emotion, not rage: fear. Frustration. Love stretched thin.
“If I told you Feldspur was standing with the very people who wanted me dead,” he says, voice tight and disbelieving, “going around spreading lies about me—about who I am, what I believe—calling my being disgusting, telling the world I’m a repulsion—”
She flinches. He pushes on, the truth ripping out of him.
“—saying I was going to bring doom to our home, that families were being murdered because of my actions, that every horror Morrible commits is my fault…would you still call him my friend?”
Her mouth opens, closes. No sound.
“If he was willing to be the face of propaganda that kills people and steals their voices, would you still defend him?” His voice breaks, cracking wide, bare. “Would you?”
She stares at him, chest rising and falling, throat working. The Grimmerie glows faintly behind her, sensing her turmoil.
Fiyero takes a half step closer, softer now but no less fierce.
“Because that is exactly what she’s doing to you.”
Silence stretches, trembling between them.
Her eyes shine, not with tears yet, but with the terrible ache of being forced to choose between truth and loyalty, justice and memory.
The tower feels too small for both their hearts.
Her breath shudders, a fragile sound swallowed by the vast, echoing chamber. The sun catches the tears gathering in her dark eyes, turning them into tiny trembling universes.
“She’s the only friend I’ve ever had,” Elphaba whispers, voice cracking under the weight of years she never speaks aloud. “Nessa was ashamed of me and now she’s fully in support of the Wizard. My father hated me until the day he died. I never really knew my mother.”
Her throat tightens. “Dulcibear was sent away when I was ten.”
The confession tears out of her—raw, small, devastating.
“Galinda got everyone to stop bullying me at Shiz,” she says, two-toned green lips trembling. “She brought our group—brought us—together.”
The ache in her eyes is older than any war. Older than any magic. It’s the ache of a girl who grew up starving for affection and learned not to reach for it.
Fiyero moves toward her slowly, as if approaching a wounded creature who might bolt from touch. His voice lowers, gentles, steadies.
“I won’t even attempt to pretend I understand everything about your relationship with her,” he says. “I know it’s complicated. I know you care for her.”
He stops in front of her, close but not yet touching. Letting the words land.
“You told me she bullied you for months before anything changed. You chose to forgive her. That’s yours to decide.”
He gives a soft, sad shake of his head, blond waves falling over his forehead. “You told me she gave you that hat to mock you. And you forgave her again. That’s your right.”
His hands lift, hesitating for a breath—then he takes hers gently, cradling them like something precious.
“But Fae,” he murmurs, voice trembling with conviction, “I’m not willing to risk your life on something she did almost three years ago.”
Her eyes close, one tear slipping free.
He squeezes her hands tighter, pulling her closer, grounding her.
“She didn’t bring us together,” he says, and the truth in his tone hits like a soft hammer. “We did that. You and me. Through fire and fear and blood and stubbornness.” His thumb brushes her knuckles.
“We made us.”
He steps closer still, until she can feel his breath against her cheek.
“And I’m trying—unnamed gods, I’m trying—to understand how someone who claimed you were her best friend could do this to you. But I can’t. Because I cannot imagine a world where I have the chance to stand by your side and I don’t take it.”
Her breath hitches.
She looks up at him—hurt, furious, grieving, loving—all of it tangled together.
And Fiyero Tigelaar looks back at her as if she is the axis of his entire world.
“It’s so hard, Yero—” she manages, voice splintering apart like a cracked spell.
The rest never forms.
It collapses into a sound pulled from the centre of her chest, raw and breaking, and she falls into his arms as if her knees have finally given up fighting gravity. Fiyero catches her instantly, arms closing around her with all the gentleness of a man holding something sacred. He draws her in, tucks her against him, presses his cheek to the crown of her braids as if he can shield her from all the world's hurt and expectations with his body alone.
And she cries.
Not the quiet, restrained tears they allow themselves sometimes in the dark when the losses get too heavy.
This is everything she’s carried for years, spilling out: violent, shaking, unstoppable.
She cries for the young idealist who burned inside her at Shiz, the girl who believed in justice so fiercely she thought the world would recognise her heart if she only worked hard enough. That bright-eyed student who stepped into the Emerald Palace believing the Wizard was good, that her gifts meant something, that she mattered.
She cries for the moment that dream died—brutally, instantly—the moment she saw the man behind the curtain had no love for the Oz she knew and realised she’d placed her faith in a fraud.
She cries for the betrayal that followed, for the shattering inside her when Madame Morrible turned on her without hesitation. Her mentor. Her advocate. Her would-be protector.
Gone in a single breath.
She cries for the university girl who stood alone on that balcony, clutching Galinda’s hand, begging her best friend to come with her. Begging not to fight alone. And feeling that hope drop out from under her when Galinda hesitated, when she chose safety over sisterhood. But she never blamed her.
She cries for the green-skinned girl who mounted the broom with no idea where she was going, convinced she’d be waging this war with no one beside her…right until Fiyero and Feldspur appeared beneath her storm-torn sky, refusing to let her be alone. Refusing to let her vanish.
She cries for the older sister who tried her whole life to be enough. To be gentle, protective, and patient. Playing both mother and sister. And who was still cast out, rejected when Nessa turned on her the moment their father died: blaming her for every fault, every fear, every shadow.
She cries for the final plea of “DON’T LEAVE ME!” that her baby sister roared underneath a banner that said ’The Governess Stands With The Wizard of Oz Against The Wicked Witch’ and she knew she had to go for good
She cries for the leader she has become, one who cannot save everyone.
The woman who carries the faces of fallen humans and Animals like stones in her pockets.
The witch who tries endlessly to free those trapped in cages, and must live with the truth that not all cages break in time.
She cries for the woman who had her lover stolen.
Dragged away.
Tortured.
Hung from a ceiling for days while she tore half of Oz apart trying to find him. She cries for the terror that lived under her skin then, terror so sharp it cut her every time she breathed. The terror that has never fully left.
But above all, she cries for herself.
For every shard that makes her the woman she is: fierce, brilliant, flawed, hopeful, wounded, loving, stubborn, lonely, dangerous, kind.
Shards she’s carried like scars.
Shards she’s tried to hide because Oz told her she was too much or not enough or somehow both.
She cries because almost no one ever wanted all of her.
Because almost everyone she has loved has turned away.
Because even her goodness is twisted into wickedness and her love is repaid with fear.
She cries for the love in her—vast, fierce, quiet, enormous—that keeps getting rejected, misunderstood, mocked, twisted.
Fiyero holds her through all of it.
He whispers nothing because words would cheapen this, and he knows it.
He just holds her, steady and unmovable, letting her grief pour out, letting her body shake, letting her clutch his shirt as if she’s afraid he’ll vanish if she lets go.
He holds her like a promise.
Like an anchor.
Like a man who has chosen her a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes and will choose her a thousand more.
And slowly—slowly—the storm inside her begins to ease, not because the pain has gone, but because he is there to hold her while it hurts.
Elphaba’s sobs taper off slowly, like a storm exhausting itself. The last tremor leaves her shoulders, and she sags against him, breathing in shallow, unsteady pulls. For a moment, she stays there, face pressed into the warm curve between his shoulder and neck, fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt as if anchoring herself to the world through him alone.
Then she inhales.
A long, thin, shuddering breath that sounds like a spell half-formed and half-forgiven.
She pushes—slightly, shakily—against his chest.
Fiyero loosens his hold but doesn’t step back, his hands hovering around her elbows and ribs as if the air itself might bruise her. Elphaba rises slowly, unsteady on her feet at first, the weight of every memory and wound dragging at her bones. Her knees wobble; he reaches out on instinct; she steadies herself before he has to catch her.
It is the smallest victory. But hers.
When she finally looks at him, her eyes are reddened, her cheeks damp, but her expression is gentler than he has seen in days. A small watery smile—thin as a petal, warm as candlelight—curves her lips.
Her voice is hoarse from crying when she whispers, “I’ll deal with the complicated feelings in regards to the Galinda of it all when the time comes, Yero.”
She steps forward, cupping his jaw with a trembling hand. “But for now, I have work to do.”
She brushes her mouth against his—soft, grounding, deliberate. “And so do you.”
He makes a soft, low sound—part protest, part devotion—and chases her mouth for one more kiss. A longer one. A deeper one. The kind that says 'I would fight every army in Oz for you,' and 'please stay safe', and 'don’t disappear into your magic without remembering I need you.'
She lets him have it. Lets it linger. Lets the warmth of him settle the last tremor in her fingertips.
Then she pulls away, breath mingling with his for a beat before she fully steps back.
Her body is still recovering, still regaining its strength, but she squares her shoulders and turns toward the Grimmerie. With each step she takes toward the ancient floating desk, her magic seems to re-thread itself through her spine. Purpose rebuilding her posture. Determination stitching her back together.
He watches her fingers hover over the Grimmerie’s cover, the gold filigree pulsing as if recognizing her renewed resolve. She opens it reverently. Pages flutter as if greeting her. The air around her hums to life.
Behind her, Fiyero’s arms remain slightly outstretched, as though some part of him still expects her to fall back into them. Already missing her weight against him. Already wishing he could steal her away from all of this—Oz, the war, the grief, the lies—into a quiet life where mornings aren’t filled with strategy and fear.
But he knows better.
Knows her.
Knows the woman she is and the world she refuses to abandon.
He exhales and lowers his arms.
“I’ll bring you lunch later,” he says softly.
It echoes gently across the tower chamber, a small promise tucked into the enormity of everything else.
She nods once, still reading, but he sees the slight softening of her jaw, the faint easing in her shoulders. She heard him. She held it.
He lingers for a moment longer, memorising the line of her spine, the glow of her magic, the way her braids fall across her back: strong, steady, unbroken.
Then, with a final look, he turns and walks back toward the staircase.
Down the tower he goes, step by step, off to check on the rescued Animals, to handle the endless tasks of rebellion. Each footfall feels heavier than the last, weighted with longing and fear and fierce, stubborn love.
He wishes—quietly, fervently—for a future where he and Elphaba get to live without hunting or being hunted.
A life where she smiles without trembling first.
A life where he wakes without checking the door.
A life where her magic is only ever used to build, never to survive.
A life where they are simply Fiyero and Elphaba.
Happy.
Free.
But for now, he walks on and makes it halfway to the staircase before something in him falters—no, gravitates.
Because leaving her when she’s still trembling, still piecing herself back together with raw will alone, feels like tearing himself away from the centre of his own orbit.
He stops.
Turns.
And the pull is immediate, instinctive, almost physical.
He is back across the room in seconds.
Elphaba doesn’t even have time to lift her head fully before he’s there, gathering her into him with a force that borders on reverent desperation. His hands find her, one settling firmly at her hip, fingers flexing like he’s rediscovering something he feared losing; the other slides around her waist, drawing her flush against him.
“Yero—?” she starts, breath catching.
Her question turns into a gasp as he kisses her—thoroughly, hungrily, without hesitation. The kind of kiss that steals the air from her lungs and replaces it with warmth and the heady certainty that she is wanted, chosen, adored.
She melts into it like she’s been waiting for this exact collapse.
Her hands surge up to him without conscious thought: one threading possessively into the blond waves at the back of his head, nails grazing his scalp just enough to make him groan into her mouth. The other hand drifts to the nape of his neck, fingers curling around the soft hair there, grounding herself in his heat, his solidity, his himness.
Fiyero kisses her like she’s breath and future and absolution all at once.
Like she is the most important lesson ever learned.
Like he’s terrified the world might shatter around them again, and he needs her to feel him before it does.
When he finally pulls back—barely, reluctantly, noses brushing—his voice is low and earnest, frayed at the edges with everything he’s too overwhelmed to hide.
“I love you, my Fae.”
He says it like it’s oxygen.
Like he wouldn’t survive withholding it.
Elphaba blinks up at him, her breath trembling, her lips still parted from the kiss. She feels that familiar rush—disbelief, giddiness, wonder—that sweeps through her every single time he says those words. She still isn’t used to them, to him, to the reality that someone loves her without condition or caveat.
She cups his face, thumb brushing the freckles beneath his eye.
“I love you too,” she says, voice soft but fierce, every syllable glowing with truth. “My sweet.”
He closes his eyes for a heartbeat, as if committing the sound and shape of her words to memory.
She leans up to kiss him again—gentler this time, slower, a promise rather than a plea.
Then she places her palms against his chest and presses lightly, nudging him back a step.
“Go, Yero,” she murmurs. “Before I change my mind and keep you here.”
His smile is helpless, crooked, so full of affection it tightens her throat.
“Never could resist you, you know,” he admits, brushing one last kiss to her forehead.
“And I hope you never do,” she replies, turning back toward the Grimmerie with new steadiness in her spine.
She walks toward her work with her magic gathering at her fingertips again, her breath evening out, her grief settling into something she can carry.
Fiyero stays where he is, watching her—arms half-lifted as if part of him still expects her to fall back into them. He already misses her warmth, her weight, the soft brush of her fingers in his hair.
But he also knows she’s right.
There is work to do.
Lives to save.
Lies to fight.
And she—gods, she—deserves a world where she can rest someday.
“I’ll bring you lunch later,” he reiterates, the promise soft but steady, filling the quiet tower.
She doesn’t look up from the Grimmerie, but her lips curve in the faintest smile.
With one last look, aching, devoted, hopeful, Fiyero turns and makes his way toward the stairs.
As he descends the tower, he imagines a future where their mornings look different.
Where there are no rebels to brief.
No Animals to hide.
No tyrants to dismantle.
Just her.
And him.
And peace.
He clings to that dream as he heads off to check on the rescued Animals.
Because if anyone deserves that future…
It’s Elphaba Thropp.
Five years later, Oz breathes differently.
The air is lighter. Not healed, not whole—not yet—but no longer suffocating under fear and forced fantasy. The Emerald City looks like real people live there instead of perfectly placed dolls, in the way cities often do after surviving something monstrous: cracked, wounded, but real. Gone are the enchanted facades masking rot. Gone are the illusions of perfection.
Oscar Diggs is dead.
Madame Morrible, too.
Fiyero killed the Wizard in the end, swiftly, cleanly, with a Vinkun dagger plunged to the hilt.
While, from what he heard, Elphaba and Galinda faced Morrible together in the shattered atrium of Shiz’s ruined sorcery tower, a fitting place for their ending. And the magic unleashed during that confrontation echoes in stories whispered across taverns and dormitories:
Morrible summoning storms that clawed at the sky.
Elphaba suspending herself in the air, gravity bending beneath her, gold-threaded sorcery burning like a second sun.
Galinda wielding healing light so bright it cut through Morrible’s storms and shielded Elphaba like a guardian in pink and white.
Three women.
One battle.
A turning point carved into history.
The war ended.
But the work—oh, the work—did not.
Reconstruction is slow.
Painful.
Messy.
Elphaba endures it with the bone-deep determination of someone who refuses to let her homeland rot a second time. She rebuilds because Oz is hers, too. Hers by heartbreak and birthright and promise.
Galinda stands at the front of the new government—not queen, not yet officially elected, not anything with a crown. Just an interim leader. A woman forced into maturity by her own mistakes and her courage to face them.
She and Elphaba navigate each other carefully.
Lunches in quiet courtyards.
Shared reports.
Soft, tentative questions about their past: about who they were, who they are, who they can be, about the love they still hold for each other, and the hurt one side had dealt more to the other side.
Trust, rebuilt.
Delicate.
Beautiful.
Haunted.
Fiyero limps now.
The last kidnapping—the one meant to lure Elphaba into a trap and send him to the gallows—left his right leg a ruin. The infection nearly killed him. Elphaba found him too late to save much of the muscle, but not too late to save him and some bone. He still jokes about it, especially around foreign dignitaries who underestimate him.
He dances.
Not as well as before.
But according to Elphaba, still more gracefully than most others.
And the papers call it 'charming, a prince’s boyish quirk.'
Elphaba remembers the fever, though.
The night sweats.
The smell of decay.
His sweaty fingers were clutching hers, as if terrified she might disappear if he let go, in the throes of infection.
The way she whispered to him—stories, prayers, lies—anything to keep him tethered.
Every time he limps, her heart folds around gratitude sharp enough to draw blood.
Some Animals stayed.
Feldspur, proud and strong, his midnight-blue coat glossy and full again, works tirelessly to help Animals relearn speech beside Doctor Dillamond and Brrr, the cub Elphaba and Fiyero rescued so many lifetimes ago and found once again as a teenager during their missions. Younger Animals cling to all three older Animals like they’re a myth or heroes. Their lessons turn into gatherings, their voices into a guiding light.
Feldspur walks the halls of government beside Elphaba and Fiyero, sometimes advising, sometimes scolding, sometimes laughing so loudly it echoes off marble. He rides out with them when palace walls feel too close.
Elphaba serves as Munchkinland’s representative.
A role she never wanted but one she inherited after Nessa’s tragic and tyrannical tenure.
She carries it to honour her mother’s line, not her father’s hatred or her sister’s turbulent feelings toward her.
Galinda represents Greater Oz; she’s the only one they still look and cling to like children look to a parent.
Fiyero represents the Vinkus, carrying the weight his sister refuses to shoulder, not out of disinterest, but because she still bears the bruises of a nation that tried to colonize her lands. Fiyero is her diplomat, her emissary, her shield.
When the three walk into a room, they draw every eye.
Elphaba Thropp, no longer Wicked, but whispered about all the same.
Fiyero Tigelaar, the prince who killed a ruler in combat and wears a limp like a medal.
Galinda Arduenna Upland, the golden girl turned revolutionary leader who shines for herself now, not for others’ expectations.
But not everything is healed.
Fiyero and Galinda are frost-edged.
He speaks to her politely.
Professionally.
With effortless charm.
But warmth?
Not for her.
Because he remembers.
Every poster.
Every speech.
Every lie she let her name endorse.
Every night, Elphaba crumbled in his arms because her dearest friend had endorsed the turning of her into a monster.
He trusts Elphaba’s decision to rebuild their relationship.
But that trust ends at Elphaba’s feet, not Galinda’s.
And there are plenty on the governing council who still want to arrest Elphaba.
Still call her dangerous.
Still cling to the old, easy lie that green must mean wicked.
So Fiyero deploys charm like a shield.
Smiles like a weapon.
Laughs like a strategy.
He flatters governors who despise sorcery.
Distracts councilors who eye Elphaba with fear.
Plays the fool prince with dazzling accuracy until people underestimate him enough to be manoeuvred.
He does it for her.
Because she still won’t defend herself.
Because she shouldn’t have to.
Because she saved Oz, and Oz owes her more than suspicion and scrutiny.
He will out-diplomat every bigot in the room if it keeps her safe.
Slowly—painfully—they rebuild.
Elphaba, in deep purple dresses and braids loose and light, walks with her head high, her signature hat long lost, her broom and Grimmerie by her side, his family signet ring on her finger.
Fiyero, dressed in Vinkun blues with small touches of green for his beloved, limps beside her with a bearded grin and sharpened blue eyes and longer blond hair.
Galinda, blonde curls soft again no longer crowned, back in pink dresses and suits, leads with a steadiness no one expected from her seven years ago at Shiz.
They are battered.
Brilliant.
Stubborn as bedrock.
And Oz—scarred, trembling, learning to breathe again—leans on them to rebuild what was broken.
Not perfectly.
Not easily.
Not without ghosts lingering in every corner.
But undeniably.
Because Oz will not save itself.
And these three—flawed, fierce, forged in the fire of their own sins and triumphs—
are the closest thing the country has to hope.
Their shared rooms in the Emerald Palace are warm but never quite home. The lighting is softer here since Elphaba spelled the sconces to stop flickering. Fiyero’s clothes spill out of drawers because he still hasn’t learned how to fold properly. A faint scent of mint and herbs clings to the air from Elphaba’s potions. It’s cosy enough. Safe enough. But neither of them pretends it’s truly theirs.
After dinner with Galinda, rebuilding emotionally exhausting as always, they retreat behind their door with a sigh that is almost synchronised.
Elphaba guides him to sit on the edge of their bed.
“Boots off,” she orders gently.
He obeys easily, muttering about how he’s living most men's dream being bossed around by beautiful green witches, and she snorts before sliding to her knees and placing her hands around his injured leg. Gold magic hums at her fingertips, soft and warm, sinking into the twisted scar tissue. His breath hitches, not in pain, but in relief.
The ache drains out of him slowly, melting like ice near a flame.
“You’re the only reason this leg doesn’t fall off at inopportune times,” he murmurs.
“That is not medically accurate,” she mutters, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
When she’s done, he pulls her onto the bed with him, settling her between his legs. His fingers find the base of her skull without prompting, massaging in slow, reverent circles. Her migraines have grown worse since the last year of the war—too much magic, too much stress, too much everything—but his hands feel like blessed relief.
She makes a soft noise, halfway between a sigh and a purr, and he kisses the top of her head, beard brushing her braids.
“We’re the cutest couple I know,” he teases, amused.
“We’re not cute,” she scrunches her nose, leaning back into him as he works his fingers through her braids. “And we’re learning how to…exist.”
She doesn’t say “live,” but the word hangs there anyway. Alive. Not hunted. Not hiding.
He finishes her massage and shifts them down onto the pillows. She lies with her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat—solid, rhythmic, grounding. Her favourite sound. The sound she listens for whenever she wakes from old nightmares.
He wraps an arm around her shoulders, fingers stroking her upper arm slowly, absentmindedly.
“I still want us back in our castle,” he grumbles, as if it’s a grievance personally inflicted by whatever gods, if any, exist.
Elphaba smiles softly against his chest. “I know.”
“It’s ours,” he continues with a stubborn pout she can hear. “It smells like us. I don't trip over council paperwork on every surface. Feldspur has his stable. You have your experiment tower. I have my kitchen. I miss it.”
Her heart gives a warm, aching thud. She presses a kiss to the hair on his chest, gentle and fond.
“I miss it too,” she murmurs. “We’ll head home with the carriage at the end of the month.”
He perks up slightly, despite himself.
“The broom is too uncomfortable for you to ride the long distance,” she adds. “And Feldspur has two sweethearts around here that he’s reluctant to part from.”
Fiyero huffs a laugh. “Of course he does. Feldspur always did have good taste.”
“Jealous you’ve only got one?” She teases, snuggling closer.
He cups the back of her head, thumb brushing her scalp with a tenderness that burns.
“You, Elphaba Thropp, are more than enough. I want…a life with you there,” he says quietly. It’s not a dramatic confession...just truth. Soft, precious truth spoken in the dark. “A normal life. Or whatever our version of normal looks like.”
Elphaba closes her eyes, basking in the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
“We’ll have it,” she promises, looking up at him. “Slowly. Carefully. But we will.”
He hums, content as he leans down to kiss her gently and softly. For the first time in years, they are not planning a raid. Not running. Not bleeding. Just breathing together in a quiet room, in a city learning how to heal, dreaming of a home that waits for them.
And Elphaba falls asleep with no spells humming in her fingers, only Fiyero’s heartbeat under her ear and the certainty that this, finally, is the beginning of something like peace.