A Home to Live in
Elphaba stares into the night sky, tracing the constellations with her fingers in the air. The soft wind picks up the scent of fresh bread from the window below. The straw-thatched roof sticks into her back like little needles as she lay atop it, but she doesn't care. Times like this were one of the few she had to herself. And time to herself meant time to think.
When she “died”, there was nothing she could do but run. And there were very few places she could run to. Luckily, Oz is big, and Elphaba’s determination is bigger. So, Fiyero, as Prince Captain of the Vinkus, called in a few favors. Discreet ones, of course, but as one of the “saviors” of Oz who killed the Wicked Witch of the West, no one would deny him whatever it was he sought for. And in this case, it was a home. An old shoe shiner, whom Fiyero would have never paid any mind to in any other circumstance, muttered a tale about abandoned old Kvon Altar, on the edge of the Vinkus. Half fact, and half fiction, but promising nonetheless, an abandoned town meant nobody to shriek, nobody to point, nobody to sneakily turn on the faucet hidden behind them.
It was enough of a promise to hold on to, and to Elphaba’s surprise, it later proved to be a real home. Not a house, but a home, something she never really had. Houses, she had lived in. Or rather, survived in. A house was a place you slept and ate in, and looked over your shoulder, whether at your leering father, or looming storm clouds that Elphaba would swear it felt like someone was watching. No, a home was a place you really lived in, and until now, she’d never had a home.
Well, maybe there was one other time.