Chapter Text
The Wise Ones left a prophecy:
In Oz’s darkest hour, there will come one with a power—a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.
On Elphaba Thropp’s first day at Shizdale High, she walks herself to school alone.
She wears a white blouse (buttoned all the way to the top) tucked into what even she can admit is a rather frumpy black skirt, with a black-and-gray striped sweater vest over it all and beat-up Doc Martens underneath. The sleeves and boots and knit wool and dark colors are all perhaps a bit much for the perpetually balmy weather of southern Gillikin, especially teetering here on the back end of summertime. The leopard print silk scrunchie tying off her no-nonsense braid is the sole pop of personality she’s allowed herself today.
Her father’s parting words to her ring in her head:
“I trust there will be no more…” He’d looked her up and down with a small, tight, insincere smile. “Incidents.”
“No, Father.” Elphaba had ducked her head, and Frexspar Thropp had squeezed her shoulder.
“Because we can’t afford another incident,” he’d added, like it had been necessary.
“I know, Father,” said Elphaba.
He’d straightened up, fixing his tie. “Good.” Another tight, false smile. “Off you go, or you’ll be late.”
No incidents. This year’s expectations: Elphaba is to keep her head down, avoid attracting too much attention, and make it through her senior year with no detentions, suspensions, or expulsions and, at very least, forgettably decent grades—although Frex would prefer good ones, and Elphaba herself aims for perfect.
She kicks a pebble down the sidewalk and winces as it skitters further than she wants it to, bouncing off the door of someone’s old beater of a Dozdge Bubble with a loud thunk. No one seems to notice, and with the state of the car being what it is, likely no one will, so she grips her worn leather messenger bag in both hands and hurries past. Head down.
Shizdale High is not, she thinks as she approaches, so different from Emerald High, nor Peerless Thropp High in Nest Hardings before it. They blur together, these high schools. Loud, stupid jocks and snotty rich kids and quiet nerds and preppy overachievers and annoying, permafried burnouts, none of whom have ever seen fit to give Elphaba the time of day.
She pushes her glasses up her nose. There will be no incidents. She’ll graduate at the end of this year, and then she can flee her father’s home and move way out West, which will most likely improve both their lives, and she’ll never have to step foot inside another high school ever again.
It’s a minor victory she makes it to the front door of the school unremarked upon, but Elphaba Thropp’s luck has never been known to last. Crossing the threshold, she hears a loud, “Whoa!” just moments before another body slams into hers, knocking them both to the ground. A skateboard skitters away and slams into a bank of lockers with a resonant, metallic crash.
“I’m sorry,” comes a boy’s voice from somewhere to her left, “I didn’t see you there, you must’ve—”
Elphaba turns, meets his eyes. Mischievous, blue-gray. Sandy colored hair that’s a bit between brown and blonde, perfectly tousled. One strand falls in the way of his eyes. He blinks at her, at the green lockers behind her.
“—blended with the walls.”
He offers her a hand up. She refuses it, dusting herself off. Grabs the offending skateboard on her way up and wields it at him.
“Is this how you go through life?” she snaps. “Just running amok and trampling anyone in your path?”
These are the first words she speaks to anybody at her new school. Starting off well, she has the shame to think, if only for a moment.
A small, surprised beat. Conversations around the two of them take a pause. The boy’s eyebrows creep towards his hairline as he adopts a wide-eyed expression of faux innocence. “No,” he answers. Then smirks, leveling something akin to a smolder at her. “Sometimes I’m asleep.”
She huffs. She’s met these types before. It’s funny to some of these boys—a big joke to hit on the odd, unfriendly girl with green skin and no social life. She’s lived this scene a thousand times before. As if to prove her point, there’s a handful of snickers from around them. She can feel the moment the outright stares and the whispers start. “Alright,” she decides aloud. Glances around herself at her fellow students and, yes , they’re all looking now. A taller, curvier blonde whispers something to a bespectacled boy beside her, and they both titter.
It was nice while it lasted.
“Let’s get this over with,” she announces. Hands on hips, she turns to face a sea of new peers. “No, I am not seasick.” The students around her give a louder round of laughs in response to this. Elphaba’s face prickles with heat. “No,” she says, a bit harsher, “I did not eat grass as a child.”
“Oh you didn’t?” the boy pipes up from behind her. “I did.”
More laughs. Elphaba grinds her teeth. “And yes,” she declares, turning back to scowl in his face. “I have always been green.”
“And the defensiveness,” he says, brushing that annoying lock of hair off his forehead again. “Is that a recent development?”
Another round of laughter. She opens her mouth to say something else—
The bell rings. She shoves the skateboard into his chest. He receives it with an audible, “Oof!”
“You shouldn’t skateboard inside,” she snarls. “You could seriously hurt someone. And I’m certain it’s against school rules.”
“Miss Thropp! There you are.” A voice rings out down the hallway, through the din of slamming lockers and sneakers squeaking on linoleum and the burble of student gossip. The sea of students parts, and on the other end of the hallway stands a round-faced, squat woman in a blazer. She gives Elphaba the same kind of tight, wary fake smile she often receives from her father. This must be Principal Coddle. “My office, please.”
With glum resignation, Elphaba follows after her.
“So, you’re the Governor’s daughter I was told would be joining our student body this year,” Principal Coddle says. Normally Elphaba would correct her—former Governor—but she’s afraid she’s already caused a small incident today despite her intentions otherwise and she hasn’t even been here thirty minutes yet, so she bites her tongue. The two sit across from one another in Coddle’s office on opposite sides of a rather plain wooden desk. Principal Coddle is backlit by the massive window facing Shizdale High’s interior courtyard. There’s nothing in the office to indicate any kind of personality or personal life. She has Elphaba’s transcripts and permanent record laid out on the desk in front of her. She pulls at her collar. “Your father called us ahead of time, but he never mentioned your—um, well. Or, that you were so… so… unique.”
Elphaba has no idea whether Principal Coddle means the permanent record or the green.
“Your transcripts are rather—well, colorful.” So, the first one then. “I suppose much like yourself,” Coddle mutters under her breath, and Elphaba sighs. So it’s both. Coddle swallows visibly. “Did you really set the courtyard on fire at your last school?”
“I—” Elphaba starts. “It was an accident. And there were—circumstances I’m not sure I can explain, but if you can trust me, I needed to—”
Coddle pastes on a bright, fake smile to face Elphaba. “No matter! You are the Governor’s daughter, so we trust you can conduct yourself here in an upstanding manner. Besides, we here at Shizdale believe in second chances, don’t we, Miss Elphaba?”
“I’m—I’m very grateful for that, Miss Coddle. And about earlier, in the hallway—I shouldn’t have sprouted off like that, it’s just, that boy, he nearly ran me over on his skateboard, and someone could’ve been hurt—”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Tigelaar,” Principal Coddle waves it off. “Discipline never seems to stick to the young prince, so we find it’s easiest for everyone to just let him do as he pleases.” She glances at the clock on her desk, then at the door. “Where is that girl?” she mutters.
“What girl?”
“Our senior class president promised she’d give a guided tour to any recently arrived students,” Miss Coddle explains. “And seeing as you are a recently arrived student—”
“I’m here, I’m here!” A high, trilling voice calls. “Sorry I’m late, you wouldn’t believe the traffic this morning, Miss Coddle. Just horrendible. How those pedestrians expect anyone to get around this town when they keep jumping out in front of cars at those crosswalk thingies is beyond me, but I’m here and ready to—”
Elphaba turns around in her seat.
The girl shrieks, hands flying to cover her mouth in shock. “You’re green!”
She’s devastatingly pretty, with huge, sparkling dark brown eyes and expertly blown out waves of light blonde, held back away from her face by a tortoiseshell comb headband. Only just about Elphaba’s height, slim and petite. She’s a vision in a baby pink minidress and white cashmere cardigan, though her skirt is scandalociously short and, Elphaba’s certain, cannot possibly adhere to school dress code. The buttons on her sweater are little pearls, and she has shiny patent leather maryjanes on her feet. To top it all off, her white socks have little lace frills. Because of course they do.
Elphaba finds her immediately annoying. She knows these types of girls.
Elphaba looks down at her hands. “I am?” Looks back up at her class president in faux shock. “Sweet Oz, I am!” she gasps.
The girl’s brow draws together, a hint of irritation.
“Elphaba Thropp,” Principal Coddle says, getting up from behind her desk. “Meet Miss Galinda Upland.”
“Of the Upper Uplands,” the girl adds, extending a hand for Elphaba to shake. Elphaba does, and when their hands part, Elphaba watches the girl wipe her palm off on her too-short skirt. “How do you do?”
Elphaba narrows her eyes. “Fine.”
“Hm.” Galinda narrows her eyes in return, but only for a moment before she puts that bright smile—the most charming of the fake smiles Elphaba’s been subjected to today, surely, but fake nonetheless—back in place. “Well.” she says, gesturing towards the door. “Shall we?”
Without another word, Elphaba stomps past her.
“Miss Galinda,” Coddle calls after them. “I’d like to gently remind you of our dress code here at dear old Shizdale, and that as class president, you set an example for the student body—”
“Yes, yes, I’m so terribly sorry, Principal Coddle! I was running late this morning and grabbed the first thing my hands touched in my armoire, but I promise, promise, promise it won’t happen again! Thank you ever so much for reminderating me,” Galinda shouts back. Miss Coddle harrumphs in a way that tells Elphaba that everyone present knows it will happen again, most likely tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
Galinda has to jog a few steps to catch up with her. She brushes her clothes off with a huff, though there’s nothing in particular that Elphaba can see that would need to be brushed off, and examines Elphaba out of the corner of her eye. She looks a bit pale, and keeps an awkward foot of distance between them.
“It’s not contagious,” Elphaba says sharply.
“Oh. Good.” Galinda giggles nervously, then falls into step beside Elphaba. “Well, um—how—? How did it—? If you don’t mind my asking—”
“I was born with it,” Elphaba cuts her off.
“Oh.” Galinda clears her throat. A beat. “Well, allow me to say how very sorry I am that you have been forced to live with… this. For your whole life long.” She gestures at Elphaba. “It must be just horrendible, to have a condition like this.”
Elphaba stops short, arms folded over her chest. A lifetime of this kind of thing, so it shouldn’t sting anymore, but—she finds she has to bite the inside of her cheek, just for a moment, to collect herself before she can respond. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Galinda gushes. “But—well, if you ever wanted to address the, um, problem—”
“Problem,” Elphaba repeats softly under her breath, glancing away.
Galinda plugs on: “I have just a wonderful collection of skincare products. I don’t mean to brag, but it may just be the best in Oz. I haven’t had a pimple in four years. I’m sure something in there can help with this affliction of yours.” Affliction. She bats her big brown eyes at Elphaba, gives her a dizzyingly bright smile. She has a dimple on the left side of her face, but none on the right. Somehow, this small asymmetry makes her look even more perfect. Somehow. Something squirms and curdles in Elphaba’s gut; something that feels almost a bit like jealousy, though Elphaba’s long since moved past feeling things like jealous over other people’s looks.
“I’m good,” Elphaba says, brusque, and continues marching. Galinda huffs, shocked at the dismissal.
“You’re a bit rude, you know,” Galinda tells her. “I’m only trying to help. And it’s rather generous of me to offer, by the way. You could perhaps try thanking me.”
“Yes, thank you so much for pointing out my problem, but I actually never asked for your help,” Elphaba retorts. “Aren’t you supposed to be giving me some kind of a guided tour? I’d like to know where my locker is, and where I can pick up my textbooks.”
“Hmph,” says Galinda, with an angry little pout. She looks like an overgrown child throwing a tantrum when she makes that face, and Elphaba feels a small flicker of satisfaction that she can ruffle Galinda’s polished perfection so easily. “Come along, then. Right this way.”
Galinda shows her all there is to see at Shizdale High: the courtyard, the classrooms, the cafeteria, the gym. It’s not a terribly huge school, but then, Shizdale is not a terribly huge town. Galinda loses the word for library at one point, gesturing vaguely in its direction: “And that is the school’s… the… it’s the… book place.”
Elphaba snorts at the book place. Galinda’s eyes flash, and she tosses her shampoo commercial hair over one shoulder to express her displeasure.
“It’s got a wonderful collection of rare books, or so I’m told,” she pushes on, voice just that little bit cooler. “Some medium rare, as well. You can pick up your textbooks there later.”
First period ends, and so too do their excused absences from class, the guided tour, and Galinda and Elphaba’s time together. Thank Oz.
Or so Elphaba thinks, because when she shows up to second period: there is Galinda, in the back of the classroom with a gaggle of students around her all vying for her attention. She catches Elphaba’s eye and frowns, flipping her hair over a shoulder before returning to her crowd of cronies.
And then third period: there’s Galinda.
Fourth period: Galinda.
When Elphaba goes to introduce herself to her first period chemistry teacher and collect her homework during the lunch break, there, too, is Galinda, fetching the same assignment.
Galinda scowls but says nothing as they pass one another in the doorway.
Elphaba’s free period is her fifth one, and, if the first half of the day says anything about the second, it very well could be Galinda’s, too. But wherever she is, it’s not where Elphaba is, so Elphaba breathes a sigh of relief to be free of her grating presence for the first time all day and makes her way to the library to pick up her textbooks.
Sorry, the book place.
The door creaks as she swings it open. It’s eerily quiet, but the sunlight streaming through the windows makes the space feel welcoming despite its utter emptiness. It’s a bit warm, like perhaps the school’s AC system doesn’t reach all the way here, and it smells like dust and printer ink and paper. A vase of poppies sits on the check out desk.
It might just be love at first sight for Elphaba.
She slings her messenger bag off her shoulder and down onto the big round table in the center of the space, gazing up at a skylight overhead. She wanders to the nearest shelf, running her fingertips over the spines of the books. She’s in the 100s—Philosophy and Psychology.
“Hello?” she calls softly, peering into the stacks for a librarian. “Anyone here?”
“Hello there.” The voice comes from just behind her, and Elphaba doesn’t mean to, but she startles. Whipping around—a man. A man who, in the kindest way possible, looks startlingly—impressively—like a goat. He wears a cardigan and a bowtie and a slightly-too-small pair of spectacles. He takes Elphaba in with a spark of recognition. “Elphaba Thropp?”
Elphaba goes to grip the strap of her messenger bag, only to realize she’s left it on the table. Left without a fidget, she crosses her arms over her chest instead. “Yes,” she answers softly. The goatlike librarian gives her a warm, gentle smile.
“My name is Dr. Dillamond. I’m the school librarian. I know what you’re here for,” he says, hurrying behind the counter.
“Thank you,” Elphaba says, and then sees fit to start listing her classes anyway: “I’m looking for—I’m taking chemistry, AP statistics, AP English, AP US history, Spanish, um… Let’s see, I won’t need any books for PE. Oh! And computer science—”
Dr. Dillamond drops a huge tome on the counter in front of Elphaba, bright-eyed. Elphaba looks down.
Leather cover. Weathered yellow pages. Across the cover:
The Grimmerie: A Slayer’s Compendium on Magick, Vampyrs, and Demonic Entities
A cold chill trickles down Elphaba’s spine. She backs up a step.
“No,” she says automatically.
“No?” Dillamond tips his head to the side, like he’s confused.
Elphaba shakes her head. “No,” she says, more insistently.
Because—no. No more incidents. No more of this, this thing in her life that causes incidents. She’s done. She did that, and it ruined her life several times over, and now she’s done. Fresh start. New leaf. Clean slate.
No vampire slaying.
Dillamond scratches his head. His brown hair, shot through with salt and pepper, is wiry and wild and grows in every direction.
“Oh. I’m terribly sorry. My mistake.” He takes the tome and stashes it away under the counter. “What was it you—?”
But Elphaba’s already out the door, putting as much space between herself and that horrendible book as she possibly can.
Gym class has always been something of a minefield for Elphaba.
Gym at Shizdale High, much like most things at Shizdale High thus far, is no different.
Elphaba changes in a bathroom stall so as not to subject herself to the stares and snickers that inevitably come from showing more green skin than absolutely strictly necessary at any given time. Even so, in her t-shirt and gym shorts, she feels uncomfortably exposed.
Entering the gym, there, predictably, is Galinda and her entourage. Her closest inner circle consists of the tall blonde with curves and the bespectacled boy Elphaba had seen in the hallway this morning, plus occasionally a girl with a merlot-colored bob and wire-framed glasses. Elphaba snags a bit of their conversation as she brushes past:
“…So there I am, offering to help fix her problem—because I can’t stand to see someone suffering like that from some kind of perfectly treatable skin condition—and she says to me, I never asked for your help. Just like that! As if I need to be asked to do something kind for someone else.” She tosses her hair back over her shoulders. “Anyone who knows me knows I just love helping others.”
“You’re a saint, honey,” the boy says, resting a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re too good a person to worry about what an ogre thinks of you,” says the taller blonde.
“Galinda, you’re so good!” a short, curly-haired ginger boy pipes up, hovering on the edge of the circle. Galinda and her three little cronies all turn to look at him with equal looks of dismissal and disdain.
Galinda levels a deeply patronizing smile in his direction. “Thank you, Biq.”
He lights up at the acknowledgement and opens his mouth to say something else, but Galinda turns back to her friends with another hair toss, ignoring him even more pointedly than before.
Ugh. Elphaba really does hate these types of girls.
Elphaba finds herself a place to hover alone in the corner and fixate on her nails, but she’s not left alone for quite as long as she’d like.
“I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot this morning.”
She looks up. That boy with the skateboard. Behind him, two other boys, snickering with one another. Skateboard boy smacks a hand in their direction like he’s halfheartedly trying to shush them. There’s a smirk lodged in the corner of his lips; a glimmer in his eyes. Elphaba glowers. She’s already tired of this interaction.
“I'd like to formally apologize for nearly running you over. My name’s Fiyero. Tigelaar.” He holds out a hand for her to shake. Elphaba simply stares at it. “Prince Fiyero Tigelaar,” he adds. A beat. “Of the Vinkus.” He winks. Elphaba continues to stare. “Right now would be about the time you say your name, if we’re to have a proper introduction.”
“Elphaba,” she replies, short and terse, and shakes his hand. The boys behind him giggle with one another. Elphaba’s jaw clenches despite her best intentions.
“Elphaba,” Fiyero repeats, and for a moment, his face is earnest and open, almost as though she’s not some big joke to him and his stupid friends. “Well, Miss Elphaba, welcome to Shizdale. It’s lovely to make your acquaintance.” But then he lifts her hand to his lips and places a kiss on the back of it, and his idiot friends break out in guffaws.
A sharp gasp. Elphaba looks up to see Galinda and her friends looking their way, too—Galinda with nothing short of pure poison in her eyes, her friends with a mix of shock and horror. Elphaba quickly rips her hand from Fiyero’s. Galinda tosses her hair over a shoulder rather pointedly.
Oh, shit, Elphaba thinks, eyes darting back to Fiyero’s face. He must be hers, in that way that sometimes certain people belong to each other without necessarily being together. Unless they are together. Elphaba wouldn't know. What she does know is that she wants nothing to do with whatever this is.
“Very funny,” she snarls.
“What? Hang on, I—” Fiyero scrambles, but Elphaba shoulders past him. More force than necessary, and she hears him wince behind her, and has to bury a wince herself, because this is the other difficult part of PE:
She has to make herself be ordinary, when her strength is anything but.
Today’s activity is dodgeball, and Galinda and her friends waste no time in their mutual decision to target Elphaba, specifically. If Elphaba’s refusal of—what, Galinda’s skincare products?—hadn’t done it, certainly Fiyero’s little stunt has just placed a target on her back as far as the other girl is concerned, although Galinda hardly needs to lift a finger to do it. Mostly it’s her two or three little cronies pelting Elphaba with as many attempted hits as they can manage. Elphaba artfully dodges as much as she can within reason, but must allow herself to bear a couple of strikes, just for the sake of not attracting any more attention than she already has today.
Fiyero, interestingly enough, seems to be eager to protect her. He keeps clumsily diving in front of balls that sail her way. He’s no help, but she can tell he’s trying to be. Really trying, in a way where he means it. Perhaps it’s guilt for causing this reaction in Galinda and her friends, or perhaps it’s a continuation of his stupid little charade of flirting with her. Either way, Elphaba doesn’t need it, and she’d like to tell him to stop, but today’s already been bad enough as far as making enemies at this school is concerned.
Galinda’s taller blonde friend does get in one good hit while Elphaba’s distracted by Fiyero—her ball bouncing directly against Elphaba’s temple and causing Elphaba to bite her tongue. The iron taste of blood erupts through her mouth. Without thinking, Elphaba grabs it, and whips it back in Galinda’s direction. It hits Galinda hard in the middle of the stomach and sends her sprawling back across the gym floor.
The coach blows a whistle. Elphaba blanches.
Another incident, and it’s only been a day.
Galinda lies hunched over on the floor, coughing and gagging. A crowd of students surround her.
“Take a knee, everybody!” the couch shouts. “I said take a knee!”
The crowd parts for him, and Elphaba takes the opportunity to follow close behind.
“Galinda,” she says, crouching down at her side. “Galinda, I didn’t mean to—I’m so sorry.”
Galinda locks eyes with Elphaba. “Get away from me,” she snarls. “What is wrong with you?”
“I’m sorry—” Elphaba repeats.
“Mr. Phan-Hall, Miss Minkos,” the coach interrupts, nudging Elphaba aside, “take Miss Upland to the nurse, please.”
“You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay,” the boy with the glasses—last name Phan-Hall—is repeating, as though Galinda is dying or bleeding out or something.
“Oh, I feel sick!” Galinda whines as he and the other blonde—Miss Minkos—hoist her up between the two of them. The short redheaded boy follows after them for a few steps until the coach calls him back:
“Mr. Woodsman, Miss Upland’s friends can take care of it.”
The boy’s face falls and he nods, shuffling back in the crowd of students. Only then does the coach level his gaze on Elphaba. Assessing, cool.
“You’ve got a good arm on you, Miss Thropp,” he tells her. “You should consider trying out for our softball team, you could make a great pitcher.” A beat. “You’re gonna have to sit out the rest of class, though.”
Fairly quickly, Fiyero finds a way to make enough of a nuisance out of himself to get benched, too. He takes a cautious seat at Elphaba’s side, where she refuses to acknowledge him. This time, he doesn’t push, flirt, or otherwise try to bother her, but it doesn’t escape her notice the way he keeps stealing glances at her and smirking.
Then:
“You should come by the Ozdust tonight.”
“I have no idea what that is,” Elphaba replies without looking his way.
“It’s only the most swankified place in town,” he says, and Elphaba scoffs despite herself. “It may be somewhat illegal and scandalocious, certainly, but they never check IDs, and they let everyone in. No cover on weeknights, either. It’s where most of the student body goes to hang out. Everyone will be there.”
“What if I’m not interested in doing anything illegal and scandalocious?” Elphaba retorts.
“What if I don’t believe you?” Fiyero says. Elphaba swivels to look at him and finds that infuriating smirk on his face again. “Come on, Miss Elphaba. Live a little.”
His hair is just so artfully tousled. It’s such a pretense, the messiness of his hair. It’s maddening, really.
Elphaba wants to tell him no, and furthermore, get stuffed. Instead, strangely, as if possessed, she finds her mouth shaping the words: “I’ll think about it.”
Fiyero’s eyes light up in delight as he smiles and urges, “Do.”
Elphaba turns and faces forward again, but she can feel Fiyero’s smirk still lingering in the air.
Irritating.
Elphaba’s last period of the day is computer science. She’s already itching to get out of this place as she sits down in the last available seat—in the back of the computer lab beside the short ginger from gym class.
At the front of the classroom—shocker—is Galinda again. She holds an ice pack against her stomach, and is regaling a whole new crowd of listeners with her tale of woe as though Elphaba’s not there in the room with them as well.
“And then she hits me, as hard as she can manage, and all for nothing! She frightens me, really, she does—the violence she’s capable of! I’d steer clear of the ogre as much as you can manage, truly. For your own safety, if nothing else. And who’s to say whether that skin condition of hers is contagious? She says it isn’t, but why would she tell anyone if it was?”
The ogre. Elphaba hangs her head. She’s been called worse, probably. But it still wouldn’t be her choice of names on her very first day.
The ginger is shooting her nervous sideways looks.
Elphaba’s had a horrendibly long day.
“What?” she asks, finally. The ginger startles, then puffs up his chest.
“You didn’t have to do that to her,” he tells her. “Galinda. In gym class. You hurt her.”
Elphaba’s brow furrows. She frowns. “She didn’t have to do that to me,” Elphaba argues.
“She wasn’t doing anything wrong,” he insists.
At this, Elphaba turns to face him. “She and her friends were hounding me all class. They wouldn’t leave me alone. I’m not allowed to fight back when I’m being harassed?”
The redhead deflates a bit. Stammers, “Well—well Pfannee and Shenshen, maybe. I noticed them being a bit… yeah. But—but Galinda didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Hm,” is about the most Elphaba can muster in response. She didn’t do anything wrong because she didn’t have to. She had the other two to do it for her. The ginger fidgets.
“For what it’s worth,” he admits, “her friends aren’t always the nicest. But Galinda is a good person. She really, really is.”
Elphaba looks him up and down. “It’s Biq, right?”
“Oh.” His face goes red. “Oh, um, no, actually, it’s Boq. Boq Woodsman. She calls me Biq. It’s like—a little joke we have, I guess.” He shrugs his shoulders all the way up to his ears, practically.
“Boq.” She pauses. “My name is Elphaba Thropp.”
“Nice to meet you,” he says. “I think.”
“Likewise, I suppose.”
The two stare at one another for one beat longer before class begins.
And then the bell rings and the day is over. Small mercies.
Elphaba still has to collect her textbooks from the library. Her hope is that there might be a different librarian on shift now that the school day has ended. If not, she’ll do her best to speak as little as possible to Dillamond and get out of there as quickly as possible with only what she needs and nothing that she doesn’t.
That’s her plan, anyway. But as with most of Elphaba’s plans, it finds itself pretty promptly derailed.
The path to the library cuts past the locker rooms. It just so happens that as Elphaba’s hustling past, boots squeaking on the linoleum and strap of her messenger bag clutched tightly in her hands, that a chorus of screams erupts, echoing off the high ceilings and the tile and spilling out into the hallway.
If Elphaba were smart, she may have just kept walking. Instead, it’s like second nature:
She doubles back and charges right in.
What she finds is the cheerleading squad in various states of undress but a unified state of sheer panic.
“What is it?” she asks, catching one of the cheerleaders by the wrist. “What’s going on?”
“She’s dead, she’s dead!” is all the perky redhead manages to say. “Oh, sweet Oz, she’s dead!”
Elphaba’s heart leaps into her throat. She skids around the corner, and:
A blonde head, slumped against the wall. Galinda. She’s got a short little cheer skirt on but no shirt, just a bra, and for the barest shred of a moment, Elphaba panics like it’s her fault; like that dodgeball she’d thrown earlier had been the thing to do the poor thing in. Perhaps she’d really meant it, about it hurting. Perhaps she’s been bleeding internally since sixth period, and now—
But then Galinda’s eyelashes flutter, and she whines faintly between closed lips, and a pair of girls are fanning her on either side, besides, and Elphaba’s eyes travel a bit further.
Sprawled across the floor, the body of a girl Elphaba doesn’t recognize. Long, straight brown hair. Cropped tee and jeans. And, yes, the distinct pallor of bloodless death.
Still, Elphaba pushes past Galinda and the pair of cheerleaders trying to rouse her again to kneel beside the girl—the body. Fingertips seek her pulse, and find none, but come away wet with blood.
Elphaba gasps, brushes the girl’s hair aside to get a closer look.
On the side of her neck, right where her pulse should be pounding: two puncture wounds.
Hell and fucking Oz.
Behind her, Galinda groans more loudly.
“What happened?” she mumbles.
“You fainted,” one of the other cheerleaders tells her, and Elphaba’s entirely focused on the dead body in front of her, but she does spare a moment to think, of fucking course she did.
Weak constitution. Naturally.
Behind her, Galinda starts crying.
“Sweet Oz,” she weeps. “This is the worst day of my life! What did I do to deserve this? I can’t believe I’ve seen a dead body —the trajectoration of my life has been forever changed. Oh!”
“She’s dead,” Elphaba declares, even though she’s already been told this. She stands up and whirls to face the panicking cheer squad. “Did any of you see what happened?”
“She fell out of Milla’s locker when Milla went to get her cheer uniform,” one of the cheerleaders squatting next to Galinda says.
“And has anyone thought to find a phone and call 9-1-1?” Elphaba prods. The cheerleaders all exchange looks. Galinda’s still pale, fanning herself with a hand. She’s got her face all screwed up like she’s trying very hard not to vomit.
“I’m going to be sick,” she whispers, and Elphaba rolls her eyes. “Oh, how awful! Oh, how dreadful! I’ll never again be the same girl I was this morning! To wake up with innocence and go to bed having come face-to-face with death—”
“Can one of you get her out of here?” Elphaba demands, gesturing at Galinda, and Galinda must not be so completely overcome, because she does manage to give Elphaba a nasty glare at that, before she drapes a hand over her forehead to continue her Oscars campaign for best dramatic actress. “And can someone please call 9-1-1? Do any of you happen to have a cell phone?”
“Galinda does,” another cheerleader pipes up, and Elphaba grinds her teeth.
“Galinda,” Elphaba addresses her directly. Dark eyes snap open, bore into Elphaba’s. The back of her hand remains delicately draped over her forehead. “Call an ambulance.”
“But, my minutes—”
“Oh, Oz, who cares about your minutes? A girl is dead,” Elphaba reminds her, and Galinda pales all over again, makes a face like she’s sucking on a lemon. “Call somebody.”
Elphaba starts backing away, out of the locker room. Suddenly, she has a burning desire to speak to that old goat of a librarian again.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Galinda asks, scrambling after her.
“To tell somebody about this,” Elphaba shoots back. “Galinda, call.”
Elphaba knows there’s no running allowed in the hallways, so she adopts a pace that falls somewhere between a brisk speedwalk and a jog. She bursts through the doors to the library.
“Dr. Dillamond?” she shouts.
“Yes? How may I—? Oh .” He pokes his head out from behind a shelf. “It’s you.”
“Someone’s dead,” Elphaba says, still breathing hard. “A girl. In the locker room. Dead. Drained of blood, with two little puncture wounds right over her carotid artery. Any idea how that might have occurred?”
A beat of silence. So quiet here in the library, after the clamor and chaos of the locker room.
“Oh, my,” Dr. Dillamond says.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Elphaba says, and resumes her pacing. “I know what you’re going to say. But it can’t—I can’t—”
“Can’t what?” Dillamond asks. Elphaba turns to him, eyes desperate and blazing.
“Please tell me it’s something else,” Elphaba begs. “Please tell me it’s not what I think it is. That it’s—it’s some horrendible accident with a carving fork, or a pair of knitting needles, or—anything else.”
“Miss Elphaba,” Dillamond says gently. He takes a step towards her.
“No—no.” Elphaba takes a step back. She’s breathing too fast. She shuts her eyes, swallows tightly. “I said I wasn’t going to do this any longer. I promised my father no more incidents.”
“You are the Slayer,” Dillamond says, and there it is. Spoken aloud. Elphaba bites the inside of her cheek. Shakes her head.
“Was,” she corrects. “I was the Slayer. But I quit. I’m done.”
Dillamond’s brows draw together. “You—quit?”
“Hm.” Elphaba nods once, resolute. “I quit.”
“Miss Elphaba, you can’t—”
“I can, I have to,” Elphaba insists. “Find a different girl! It can’t be me anymore, it ruined my life. My father—his position—”
“You have an extraordinary gift. A talent,” Dillamond interrupts gently. His voice is soothing, despite a slight rasp to it. “And you are, at present date, the only person alive with such a gift.”
“I don’t want it,” Elphaba says. “I didn’t ask for it.”
Dillamond’s eyes are sympathetic. He tilts his head sideways a bit. “I know. The Slayer never does.”
Quiet, for a moment.
“But regardless, you have it,” he finally continues. “So the question is: are you going to use it to make good, Miss Elphaba? To help people? Or are you going to let your talents go to waste? I’ll have you know, this is the third teenager to die or go missing in Shizdale in the past two months.”
Elphaba doesn’t realize she’s crying until a tear runs over her cheek and starts to creep down her neck. She paws at her eyes, turning away from Dillamond in embarrassment.
“It’s hardly a simple duty,” he tells her, all empathy. Elphaba sniffles quietly. Paces over to the desk to grab herself a tissue.
“I can’t let my Father down again,” she says. “I’ve already—so many times.”
“I’m terribly sorry, my dear,” says Dillamond. Elphaba takes a deep breath, composing herself, and turns to him.
“You knew I was coming.” She looks him up and down. “Would that make you my new Watcher, then?”
Dillamond nods once. Elphaba thinks of her last Watcher—of sweet, gentle Ms. Dulcibear; her kind eyes and her strong arms and the way she always called Elphaba Little One; of her dead, broken body in the Emerald High courtyard—and lets the grief wash over her all over again.
A hand on her arm startles Elphaba. She looks up to find Dillamond studying her carefully.
“Miss Elphaba,” he says again.
“I’m sorry,” Elphaba says.
“Nonsense,” Dillamond replies. “How can I help?”
Elphaba steels her resolve. “You can help me catch this vampire,” she decides. “And then you can never ask me to do something like this ever again.”
Dillamond inclines his head, half a nod. Elphaba takes a breath.
Elphaba feels rather ridiculous.
She’s not the type of girl who gets invited to parties, much less goes out to clubs on a weeknight. She wouldn’t even begin to know what to wear.
But if this vampire is hunting teenagers—which Elphaba can only assume it is, first because of the body found at the high school and the two apparent deaths preceding it, and second because vampires always seem to be hunting teenagers—then this Ozdust place Fiyero mentioned seems like the place to go.
She wears a dark gray flannel over a white tee and black jeans. Still with the boots. She’s not terribly skilled at makeup, but she has an old pencil eyeliner, a tube of clear lip gloss, and some volumizing mascara stashed away somewhere that, while all probably horrendibly expired, still works. It seems as good an outfit as any, but standing in front of her bedroom mirror, she begins to second guess. She takes her glasses off, but immediately replaces them again when her vision goes that small touch blurry. She’d rather be bespectacled than miss something.
She pulls her favorite leopard print silk scrunchie off her wrist and goes about tying up half her microbraids.
It’s just her luck that her father should enter her room as she’s finishing up.
“And what are you all dressed up for?” he asks, leaning against her doorframe with his arms crossed. Elphaba glances up.
“I—um.” She’s never been a spectacular liar. Still, lives may be at stake, so she tries.
“Just a, uh… study group,” she tells him, then turns to face the mirror again, cheeks burning. She can see the deeper green flush creeping up her neck. Her father must be able to as well.
“I thought you were finished with your homework,” he says. Caught, immediately. Elphaba turns back to him.
“I am, I just…”
Frexspar Thropp raises one eyebrow at his daughter. Elphaba swallows nervously.
“I was invited out,” she admits. “By another student. He told me—well, I thought—”
“He?” Frex’s face does something convoluted—confusion, disgust, confusion again. It shouldn’t sting, it shouldn’t, but it does. He says: “Out? It’s a school night.”
“Yes,” Elphaba agrees. “It is. But—but I shouldn’t be out too late, and—”
“I should think you shouldn’t,” Frex interrupts, “seeing as you won’t be going out.”
Elphaba’s stomach sinks.
“No, I won’t have my seventeen-year-old daughter off gallivanting with random boys on a Monday night. What do you think he wants with you, anyway, Elphaba? Really.” Frex gives her a once-over. “A teenage boy looks at a girl like you and sees one thing and one thing only.”
Elphaba crosses her arms across her chest. Looks down and away. Frex looks her over again.
“Take that makeup off. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Yes, Father.” Elphaba slumps. With a sharp exhale, Frex departs again down the hallway. Elphaba follows him to the doorway, peers after him, then quietly shuts her bedroom door and locks it. Shoves her desk chair under the handle for good measure.
Her Slayer stash lives in a shoebox under her bed: stakes, garlic, holy water. She stashes a stake up the sleeve of her flannel and pockets a vial of holy water, just in case. Then she slowly, carefully climbs out her window, quiet as she can make herself so her father doesn’t hear. The second story jump would break most people’s ankles, but not Elphaba’s. She lands stealthy as her cat, and hurries off into the night.
She hears the Ozdust before she sees it. The pavement seems to pulsate with the sound of the live music. True to what Fiyero said, the bouncer lets her enter with little more than a glance, asking for neither an ID nor a cover charge.
Inside, there’s a live band on stage playing something loud and grungy. Elphaba immediately spots Fiyero laughing in a corner with his two buddies from gym earlier. She ducks her head and tries to avoid catching his eye, but his eye is quicker than she anticipates, and before she can slip away, he’s launching himself up off the worn couch tucked into the corner (a couch you couldn’t pay Elphaba in real Ozian dozllars to sit on; goodness knows what’s happened on that couch in a place like this) and grabbing her gently by the wrist.
“You came,” he says, a bit breathless and, wow, so tall—she hadn’t really registered how tall he was, earlier. “You look—”
Chuckleheads One and Two are laughing on the couch again, and Elphaba feels a burning heat creeping up her neck as she wrests her wrist from his grasp.
“Ignore them,” Fiyero insists. “Avaric and Feldspur are—well—”
“Fiyero, darling.” Elphaba recognizes that soprano trill immediately. She whips around and finds herself, once again, face to face with Galinda Upland. Galinda freezes. Her smile tightens at the corners. “Oh. Elphaba. How very nice to see you here. I wouldn’t have expected to find you in a place like this.”
There’s something underhanded about the way she says it, even though on the surface it’s not exactly a hurtful thing to say. Still, Elphaba’s hackles go up.
“I see you’ve recovered well from your trauma today,” Elphaba replies coolly. Galinda’s eyes flash, though the smile doesn’t flicker.
“Hardly.” Galinda tosses her hair over her shoulders. She does that a lot, Elphaba notices. “I was craving a bit of normalcy after such a horrendible experience. I’m scarred for life. Momsie and Popsicle are worried sick about me, truly. They want to put me into counseling.”
“Uh-huh.” Elphaba narrows her eyes. Galinda narrows hers in return.
“Galinda,” calls one of the chucklefucks from the couch, shouldering past Fiyero to get to her. “You made it!”
Galinda’s smile does flicker here. She’s quick to paste it back on, though, holding the boy at a reasonable distance by the elbows and pretending at an air kiss on each of his cheeks in the Gillikinese style.
“Avaric,” she says.
“I hope you’ll save at least one dance for me,” he says. Galinda’s answering smile is more a baring of her teeth than anything.
“I was going to fetch a cola for Fiyero and myself, but perhaps later I’ll dance, if I’m feeling up to a dance. Maybe even with you. We’ll see.” It’s a diplomatic answer, kind of. Her focus is entirely on Fiyero and Elphaba again. “Fiyero, dearest? Come along, now.”
Fiyero turns to Elphaba. “Would you like to—?”
Galinda clears her throat pointedly, twining her arm through his and dragging him away before he can finish asking the question. Elphaba and this Avaric boy watch them go.
Avaric looks Elphaba up and down. “So, what’s the deal with the green?”
Elphaba blinks at him. “The deal?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets, toeing at the floor. “I thought it was some kind of makeup thing—some trend from the Emerald City, or something. But Galinda said it was a tragic, untreatable skin condition that makes your skin like a toad’s, or something.”
Elphaba scowls, whips her head to look for Galinda again but can’t find her. Turns back to Avaric.
“It’s neither,” she says. “I was born like this. It’s just… green. Not a condition.”
Avaric seems to take this in with an air of disinterest.
“What’s the history between Galinda and Fiyero?” Elphaba asks—emboldened, perhaps, by the noise in here making her thoughts rattle around in her skull, because it’s the kind of frivolous, gossipy question Elphaba almost never asks. Avaric takes a drink of something —ostensibly blue Gatozrade, but really, who’s to say.
“They’ve been dating on and off since the eighth grade,” Avaric answers. “They broke up over the summer, I guess.”
“Hm.” Elphaba finally spots not Galinda, but Fiyero—towering above a lot of the crowd in here. Galinda must be with him.
Oz, what is she doing? She’s meant to be hunting vampires, not a pair of preppy, popular blondes. She means to ask something else of Avaric, but when she looks, he’s already gone again, shouldering through the crowd away from her. Ultimately for the best. Elphaba takes the opportunity to climb the rickety stairs to the venue’s mezzanine.
From up here, Elphaba can take a bird’s eye view of the entire space. And—yes, there is Galinda, and she is with Fiyero after all. She, too, has changed between school and here: she has on a hot pink baby tee and a jean skirt that defies Elphaba’s understanding of skirts since it manages to be even shorter than the skirt she’d had on at school. She has butterfly clips of pink and orange pinning her hair back from her face, and she looks like she’s arguing with Fiyero.
Avaric interrupts the pair of them. He slings an arm over Galinda’s shoulders, but she shrugs it off with a dramatic huff of annoyance Elphaba swears she can hear even over the din. She slips off through the crowd, leaving Fiyero and Avaric behind.
Focus, Elphaba.
Ms. Dulcibear used to emphasize honing her senses . Elphaba’s always been better, though, at simple observation. With her focus off the petty high school soap opera playing out below her, Elphaba lets her gaze drift, searching for the out-of-place and the anachronistic.
Irritated with herself, she finds her gaze drifting back to Galinda, those butterfly clips. She could scream; her focus is all over the map tonight.
Until she focuses on the person Galinda is talking to. A tall man—Galinda has to crane her neck up a bit to meet his eyes. Dark hair. Elphaba can’t make out his face, but what she can make out—the suit jacket; the grass stain on his shoulder.
Elphaba can’t say for certain that he’s the vampire. But to say that he’s a vampire seems like a pretty safe bet.
She pushes off from the railing and heads back downstairs to deal with it.
Only when she gets downstairs, she can’t find Galinda or the man she was talking to. She does, however, run directly into Boq.
“Boq.” She grabs him by the shoulders. His eyes are wide and startled. “Have you seen Galinda recently? Did you see where she went?”
“Yeah, she went towards the back hallway with the bathrooms—” he starts.
“Thank you,” Elphaba says. She doesn’t mean to bodily toss him aside, exactly, but if that’s what she ends up doing, she also doesn’t feel particularly riddled with guilt.
She slips fairly easily through the crowd. The back hallway is shadowed and several degrees cooler than the rest of the club, stacked with retired furniture and discarded boxes of junk. The perfect place, she thinks, for a vampire to lurk.
She slides the stake out of her sleeve and into her hand. Slow, careful tiptoes. Held breath.
A door creaks open, and Elphaba lunges. She flings the body against the brick wall, arm pinning them across the shoulders, stake poised and ready to strike—
“No, no, no!” Galinda screams . Her hands come up, a weak defense of herself, and Elphaba immediately steps back as though scalded. Galinda blinks. Fear morphs into outrage with a speed Elphaba hasn’t seen before. She smacks Elphaba on the shoulder—once, again, and then again. “Hell and Oz! What is wrong with you? Are you trying to kill me? You’re actually trying to kill me!”
“No, I—” Elphaba stammers. “I thought you were someone else!”
“So you were hoping to assaultify someone else in a dark hallway?” Galinda shouts. “You’re wicked, Elphaba Thropp! Truly wicked! Oh, and just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse! Oh, oh, oh.”
Galinda shoves past. Thoroughly humiliated, Elphaba does one last visual sweep of the hallway—no vampires—and stuffs her stake back up her sleeve. She follows glumly behind Galinda, who did not wait for her.
She’s prepared to call this night a bust. She slinks over to the bar to get herself a soda and finds herself seated next to Boq again. He’s got a cheek perched on a fist, staring wistfully into the distance. Probably at Galinda again.
Elphaba’s mind starts churning: she’s going to have to sneak back into the house without attracting her father’s attention, which might be slightly more difficult. And that’s if he hasn’t somehow already discovered her gone, at which point she’ll be grounded. Galinda has probably gone from hating her to loathing her, and it’s not as though Elphaba’s often been well-liked at school in the past, but she does feel the need to briefly lament the social suicide she’s just committed. She lost track of the vampire, the whole reason she came to this place in the first place, so she’s failing as a Slayer again. And on top of all that, she still has to go back to school tomorrow.
“Hey, Elphaba, do you know those people?” Boq asks, nudging her shoulder.
“I don’t really know anyone in this town,” Elphaba points out, but looks to where Boq is pointing:
It’s Galinda, Avaric, and Fiyero. And that guy from earlier, and another girl who must be a vampire, too.
It sends an electric zip of alertness up Elphaba’s spine. She straightens up.
“Elphaba?” Boq asks as she slides down off her stool.
“Have a nice night, Boq,” she says absently.
The little group of five begins moving through the crowd, and Elphaba does her best to follow behind, but it’s like they sense her there. They lose her quickly. Elphaba has to muscle her way through the dancers. It feels like swimming through molasses.
By the time she makes it to the back door of the club and pushes through into the cool night air, the vampires have disappeared. So have Galinda, Fiyero, and Avaric.
Boq stumbles out the door behind Elphaba, panting.
“Wait,” he says, breathless. “Where did they all go?”
Elphaba doesn’t reply. She slides the stake back out of her sleeve again, closes her eyes for a moment, and hones her senses. For a moment, nothing. Then, something.
She follows her instincts.