Chapter 6
There was a commotion at the men's dormitories on the second day of the second month of the semester. One of the single rooms, which had up to that point been unoccupied, was being moved into. By all accounts, it was the Arijikian prince. This of course, had most of the students in a tizzy. Shelter Thropp on the other hand, had very little interest in the entire situation. He had met the prince a few months prior. By all accounts he seemed to be a fine man and a good son. Nothing about him had particularly caught Shell's interest though. That made it particularly annoying that their rooms were across the hall from each other, and so all of the previously mentioned commotion was brought to his door.
He peeked into the hall once or twice, watching as a few boxes were carried into the room. Honestly, he had been expecting far more given the status of the Vinkun royal family, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense that a nomadic culture may not put as much stock in material clutter as a status symbol. When the prince himself finally did make it to the room, he seemed rather mundane.
. Last time he saw the man, he was wearing an Arijikian uniform. The King had worn traditional garb, with golden embroidered vests, over white linen dress shirts. The pants had been airy and open at the top, and slimmed only about halfway down the calf to make room for the leather boots the man had worn. Additionally, he had some odd headwear, a hard cylinder of sorts that had a tassel connected to it. The one king wore followed the blue and golden colors throughout the outfit. The Queen wore a smaller version that sat upon her hair, with golden embroidery running through it and coins sown in such a way that they hung off the edges.
Shell had assumed the prince would wear such clothes casually as well, now that he was away from whatever military he had been representing. Instead, he wore a long-sleeve white shirt, layered with a red vest kept together by three golden buttons. Tan Jodhpurs and a pair of leather boots with laced on the side completed the look. It was sophisticated and yet it didn't stand out in any significant way.
"Am I really that much of a curiosity?" the prince said, snapping Shell out of his trance.
"I'm sorry, what?"
Fiyero shook his head, a laugh escaping his throat.
"All anyone's done since I've arrived is stared at me," Fiyero explained. "Like I'm some oddity to be studied."
"There is a total of ten Winkie students in this year's class, all of which are from the emerald city and here on scholarship" Shell said. "You are an oddity."
"Winkie," Fiyero mumbled under his breath, saddened more than anything else.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," Fiyero quickly replied. "I'm just wondering where the dining hall is. I've barely had anything to eat today."
"I can take you," Shell said, "Let me just see if my roommate is up. We usually get breakfast together."
Shell closed the door quickly, circling around the odd wall in the middle of his room. Weird as it was, Shell was happy for it, as it made a natural barrier between his and Avaric's side of the room. That, in addition to the curtain was enough of a barrier where shell could manage to ignore whatever Avaric was doing with the girls he brought back to the room. Once he passed through the curtain, he headed straight for the bed, and didn't hesistate to roughly shake the sleeping man.
"What is wrong with you?!" Avaric yelled, throwing his pillow at the man.
Shell blocked the pillow with his forearm, letting it fall back on the bed. Without saying much of anything, Shell grabbed a shirt and pants and threw them at Avaric.
"The new Winkie prince moved in across the hall from us," Shell said. "We're heading to breakfast."
Avaric looked at him, about to say something, but seemed to think twice about it. He merely blinked, waking up and processing the information all at the same time.
"Okay," Avaric said. "But it's your turn to pay."
--
Ten minutes later, the three were walking down the brick path through the quad. Avaric studied the prince. He had spent his life learning to watch the upper class, to study what they found acceptable. Fiyero didn't seem to follow any of what he was usual of the upper classes in the rest of Oz. He carried his own bags, deferred to other students walking by, and generally seemed rather relaxed in such a public space, as if he didn't care that the world's eyes were on him.
"Have you spent much time outside Winkie Country?" Avaric asked, trying to break the quiet between the men.
He didn't miss the small grimace on Fiyero's face, though it was only for an instant. A splendid smile replaced the
"A little. My family traveled from time to time for diplomatic reasons. I spent a few weeks in the Emerald city a few months prior, after my sister was-"
With enough force to knock the air out of his lungs he ran into something, or more accurately someone. On the ground was a girl dressed in Emerald green, which seemed to be a theme in the rest of Oz. Quickly she scrambled to pick up her book and what were now loose papers.
"I am so sorry," he said, but she paid him little attention.
"Is this how you go through life, knocking people over and barely noticing."
"I assure you I certainly notice," Fiyero said, reaching out to help the ruddy-haired girl up.
He was met with another blow, this time from the girl's shoulder.
"Don't touch me!"
He stumbled back next to Avaric as the girl stood up. She swerved around clearly ready to give the three of them a piece of her mind.
"Do you know who this is, Elphaba?" Avaric said.
He wasn't willing to tolerate someone he deemed as 'lower' insulting the 'upper class.' While he certainly thought Elphaba was pretty, and rather smart, she certainly was no one of note.
Brushing her curls out of her face, green eyes and tan olive skin, littered with freckles came into view. She certainly knew who he was, Fiyero thought, and he certainly knew her. She bit the inside of her cheek, obviously holding back some choice words as she looked over the three of them.
"I do, in fact," Elphaba said. "And after everything I think he more than most would be against trample over people."
Any other day, Elphaba may have simply walked away. Of course, this morning she had woken up to Glinda screaming over the news that a prince would be attending Shiz. Which followed by Pfannee and ShenShen coming over to help her with her make-up and clothes. At which point they found multiple opportunities to make not-so-subtle jabs at Elphaba at Elphaba's clothes, comment on how awful her biology diagrams were draw, and make fun of the blanket she had spent hours making by hand. 'A goat could do a better job, and they don't even have hands to hold the needles,' was a particularly harsh one that came to mind.
When she finally left for class, she could barely leave the dorms with how crowded it was. She ended up being late, which led to a disciplinary slip from Madam Maragarette. Yes, she could challenge it, and certainly planned to, but it didn't help her mood. After all that, there was Elphaba's classmate's miscast spell which led to her chair disintegrating underneath her. She ended up hitting her head against the cold tile. Despite being able to heal the wound with relative ease, Margarette insisted she go to the infirmary. After waiting so long that she missed her class with Professor Dilla, the bear nurse thought she was merely trying to get out of class, since the wound had long since been healed. When Elphaba argued back, she was given yet another disciplinary Slip. So now, she was wasting her study hall to challenge a set of stupid disciplinary slips instead of finishing her classwork so that she could actually sleep off the headache that had only been growing with every passing second.
And it was only ten in the morning. She could only imagine the rest of the day wasn't going to be much better, and Fiyero had only served to prove that.
"I wasn't intending to run into you," Fiyero said. "And I do apologize for causing you to fall."
The harshness in Elphaba's face fell away, the furrow of her brow and tightness in her jaw relaxing. She knew she was being irrational, cruel even. Every little thing seemed to be building up, from Glinda to schoolwork and truthfully, she was rather homesick for the Emerald City.
"I should go," Elphaba said, willing enough to admit to herself that she was overreacting, but not enough to apologize for the outburst. "I need to get to the main office before it closes for lunch."
Elphaba didn't wait around for any of the men to say anything before rushing off toward the main building. The three watched her, Avaric applauded and Fiyero concerned.
"The main office doesn't close for lunch for another two hours."
The two men turned to Shell, who didn't seem at all phased by the interaction.
"Just pointing it out."
The three made their way to the dining hall, which was still serving breakfast. Fiyero wasn't used to the self-serve situation the university had set up, and so he discreetly watched Avaric and Shell till he understood the basics of it himself. Most of his life, his mother cooked, or he cooked. Scrow, unlike the Arijikians didn't have permanent land for their tribe, and so even the royalty didn't have anything like chiefs or bakers. Fiyero's mom abhorred the idea that of someone else cooking for her children or husband, and his father had very little care to fight it.
"Do you know Elphaba?" Avaric asked as they sat down.
"We were briefly acquainted," Fiyero said.
Avaric scoffed.
"Still doesn't give someone like her the right to talk to you like that. She thinks too highly of herself."
Pausing to take a sip of his water, Avaric waited for a response from the prince. In all honesty he had been hoping to talk to someone about Elphaba, especially after she had brushed him off so thoroughly the week prior. She thought herself to good for him, or anyone really, from what it seemed. From what ShenShen had told him, she spent almost all her time alone, reading, studying, eating, and when she did have to interact with people, she seemed none too happy about it. She probably thought she was a bigshot, being one of only three students to be in Madam Margarette's advanced sorcery seminar, as opposed to magic 101. It was all going to her head, or at least, that's what Avaric assumed.
"People like her?" Fiyero asked, suddenly rather uncomfortable with the line of discussion.
"A city rat," Avaric said. "She got potential to be something more, she's certainly smart enough, but it doesn't give her the right to turn her head at her betters."
Fiyero took a deep breath at Avaric's words. Shell, despite his absent mindedness, could tell Avaric had screwed up.
"She has a reputation on campus," Shell tried to soften the blow of Avaric's words. "Apparently, she's not an easy person to work with, or talk to, or be around in general. At least that's what Glinda told Ness."
"I don't care for Rumors, I tend to judge people on what I see of them myself," Fiyero said. "And from where I am sitting, she isn't the one thinking unreasonably highly of themselves."
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Fiyero fully expected Avaric to push back to say that he didn't understand. Some people were just 'born better.' He had heard it all his life, especially when it came to those born in the Vinkus. Instead, the two seemed to fall in line without so much as a hint of resistance.
"I didn't…I'm sorry I spoke so out of turn," Avaric tried desperately to clean up the mess he'd made. "Of course, people are people, regardless of their blood."
Shell just gave a small shrug, as If the topic meant nothing to him either way. Fiyero didn't feel like making his hallmates hate him in a few hours of his arrival, and so, for the time being, he let it go. They changed the conversation to what classes Fiyero was in, and what to expect of the teachers.
All the while, the image of Elphaba, the way her eyes burned, haunted his thoughts.