Satisfaction.

She's almost forgotten what that feels like, until now.

Elphaba looks at the monkeys, a smile in her eyes as she watches them fly away out the huge windows of the chamber, shrieking out happily in animal joy; finally, a small success. One, though, Chistery, the one the Wizard tricked her into granting wings, flaps closer to her and touches down near her feet. Her smile widens somewhat and he tugs lightly at the edge of her skirt.

"Go, fly! Chistery, you're free now, isn't it wonderful?" she says, pausing briefly to scratch the fur on his head. He looks away in the direction of the hallway. Her gaze follows the monkey's, and she catches sight of another monkey, blindly bumbling his way through the room, entangled in a sheet. It makes Chistery uneasy, but Elphaba doesn't take it the same way, like the monkey was hoping she would. He'd rather not be too close to it, and so he takes to the air, touching down on one of the Wizard's machines that powers the booming voice in the head of 'the great and terrible Oz'.

"Hello, what have we here?" she says, smiling just a bit in the sheet's direction. The clumsy animal underneath trying to make its ungainly way across the room amuses her a little. Leaving Chistery, she makes her way over to the 'monkey', and gently searches for the edge of the cloth to pull it off.

"No, please, you don't want to –" the Wizard calls from a little way away, but she doesn't hear him. She's too pleased with what she's just done; it's the first time she's felt this way in a long time, and she wants to enjoy it, if only for a very little while. She extricates the struggling thing from the sheet, and Doctor Dillamond emerges, shaking himself off. He blinks a few times, getting used to the light again, and looks up at her blankly, indifferently.

"No…it can't be…" she says quietly, her expression quizzical. She's never seen Dr. Dillamond on all fours before. She can't comprehend why he's acting so strangely. She wants to know what's going on, but at the same time she's afraid of what, exactly, might be the answers to the questions in her gaze.

"Elphaba, we just couldn't keep letting him speak out…" says the Wizard, trying to appeal to her reason. She shoots a glare in his direction and turns back to the Goat; she doesn't want to hear it, not now.

"Doctor Dillamond, are you alright?" she asks, bending her knees some to bring her face to the same level as the Goat's. He shies away a little, taking a few small, nervous steps backward. "No, don't be afraid. It's me, Elphaba."

The doctor bleats and lifts up a hoof, making to take another step.

"Don't you remember me?" The Goat looks to the side quickly, and then back to Elphaba. She doesn't want to believe what she now knows to be true, and looks for a way to falsify her conclusions, hoping with all her heart that she's wrong.

"Can't you speak?"

Dr. Dillamond remains on all fours and bleats again. That's not a sound Elphaba remembers hearing from the Goat. He would never do such a thing voluntarily. She should know; she'd spent so much time with him back at school. He'd been her only friend for a long time. He used to pride himself on his knowledge, on his impeccable speech, on being an Animal. Her eyes dart quickly to the Wizard and then back to Dr. Dillamond. Understanding begins to dawn in her mind. The creature looks up at her through vacant expressionless eyes. There is no recognition there. They are the eyes of nothing more than a goat.

He doesn't remember her.

He doesn't remember anything…

Elphaba is horrified. She turns her face back to the Wizard, who gives her a look that seems to be saying, :I told you you didn't want to take off that sheet.:

He's done this to the poor thing…he'll continue doing things like this to all the Animals of Oz… She shakes her head as if trying to ward off the truth. She is ashamed of the fact that she had once believed in that man so fervently. It's clear to her now that he stands in the way of everything she believes in, defies her and acts as if she's the one who's been doing things wrong in only trying to help the innocent. She knows him now to be nothing but manipulative and cruel, willing to persecute and repress and break the spirits of creatures exactly like him in most every feature except body shape. As long as the Wizard remains in power, there can never be such a thing as the equality and acceptance she craves for Oz.

The thought that she almost agreed to help him, and was even willing to become his colleague, sickens her like a physical disease eating away at her stomach.

She hates him. She will hate him for the rest of her life.

Slowly she backs away from the goat, gradually raising herself to stand upright and put her face on the same level as the Wizard. Her eyes narrow slightly, fix themselves on his. Her posture is at once both defiant and defensive. Her fists clench so tightly the nails dig into her palms and draw blood. Rage boils beneath her skin, claws its way into her throat and mouth, forming words there she cannot not hold back, and probably wouldn't have kept to herself even if she could've done so.

"We have nothing in common." she begins. Her voice wavers with the herculean effort of trying to keep it under control.

"I am nothing like you and I never will be…" Anger is taking her over. She fights harder to keep charge of herself, wipes the blood off her hands with her skirt. Her eyes blaze, boring into the Wizard's. She relishes the uneasiness growing on his face, and embraces the hatred coursing through her, enveloping her in its searing heat.

"And I will fight you until the day I die!" In her passion there is power. The goat between her and the Wizard backs away from them, looks from left to right in alarm and runs off, hooves clattering down the hallway; she has frightened the creature that was once a beloved teacher and friend. She feels sorry for it, empathizes, and inwardly wants nothing more than to cry for the goat that has lost so much. But right at this moment, tears, even tears cried for a friend, are not her top priority. Right now she means to go on upsetting the Wizard.

She likes this feeling of power; it makes her reckless.

Elphaba intends to make sure that he will never hold sway over her again. A slow predator's grin spreads over half of her mouth, tilting one side up into a half smile. She would gladly tear this man's throat out if it'd mean that the vindictive act would put a stop to his ruining any more lives.

Though she does not know it, he'd certainly ruined hers before it had even been granted to her.

Suddenly, the fear that had been accumulating in the Wizard's expression seems to melt away from him, and something like triumph enters into his eyes. For a split second it confuses her, and that's the only chance he needs to break himself free of her confining gaze. She watches him, as of yet unwilling to give chase. There are only so many places in the chamber he can run to.

He climbs into the huge golden head in which he'd first appeared to her, and through the magnified voice lent to him by the contraption, calls for his guards.

Elphaba's blood runs cold; she'd forgotten completely about that. She hasn't anticipated anything like this. The power she'd been feeling leaves her completely and she backs off, looking over her shoulder in a newfound panic like the goat she'd scared off a moment or two ago, embarrassed that she's let her guard down like this. She is helpless now.

The guards pound down the hallway, burst into the room – and the leader of the murderous little pack stops dead in his tracks. He looks at Elphaba with a gaze that holds something like pleased disbelief, glances from her to the Wizard, and almost smiles at her before returning his face to a soldier's tough, businesslike countenance. She doesn't know whether to be relieved and overjoyed or to fear for her life at the sight of the familiar face, his figure bedecked in the resplendent and decorated green uniform of the Captain of the Guard.

"Are you alright, Your Ozness?" Fiyero asks the Wizard, but still he repeatedly glances back to Elphaba. She cautiously calls out his name, trying to have faith that he'll not reject her, even as she is surrounded by most of his Gale Force comrades.

"I don't believe it…" he says, his voice going softer for an instant. She is slightly calmed.

"Oh Fiyero, thank goodness, I thought you were -"

"Silence, Witch!" he yells, with enough venom in his tone to do more than just shock her into silence. It terrifies her, robs her of much of the hope she'd gained at first sight of him.

One of the other guards says something to Fiyero about the goat-that-was-Dillamond on the lam, but he tells the guards to leave the goat alone for now to go get water, of all things, and as much as they can carry. They look at him in puzzlement, unsure of what he means. Fiyero loses patience and yells for them to just do as he says. The other guards leave; Elphaba thinks that they must be incredibly daft if they're actually going to try and carry water back here. Only Fiyero, the Wizard, and Elphaba remain in the chamber.

"Fiyero – " Elphaba says, trying to appeal to him and the friendship she hopes he still holds her in, if it's even possible for him to still think of her as a friend. Oz only knows the extent of the rumors he's no doubt been hearing about her ever since she last saw him.

"I said, silence!" he shouts back at her. The last shred of her hope bleeds away.

The Wizard, however, climbs back out of his head, yelling for Fiyero to stay away from her. She guesses that the man would probably want to keep her and use her for her magic rather than kill her, at least for a little while. She watches Fiyero advance, waits for him to take her prisoner, but is surprised when, instead, he stops the Wizard.

"Don't move, You Ozness," he says, aiming his weapon at the hapless old man, "unless you want all your guests to know the truth about the Wonderful Wizard of Oz." She sighs out her relief in a heavy rush of air; words can't begin to describe how thankful she is.

:Wait, guests: Elphaba thinks briefly, before remembering the party that is going on nearby, the party she'd thought would be the perfect cover for her to slip into the Palace and free the Wizard's flock of winged monkeys, which was the only thing she'd actually succeeded in doing in a long time.

"Elphaba, I'll find Dr. Dillamond later; now get out of here." Fiyero says, jerking his head toward the door. The Wizard backs up, closer to his giant head, and Fiyero finally looks away from the man. She steps closer to Fiyero, emboldened, and speaks up.

"Fiyero, you frightened me. I thought – I thought you might have…changed." A small tentative smile plays about her lips, and he's glad to see the softer, more peaceful expression coming into her eyes, but still he recognizes a great deal of anxiety there as well. Ruefully he wishes she didn't have to be afraid. He's missed her, more than even he himself is willing to admit.

He matches her smile with one of his own, only it's sadder, subdued. "I have…changed," he replies, :…though not in the way you might think.:

The short spell of silence doesn't last long; in seconds they begin to hear the amplifying sound of heels echoing off the green marble floor and walls of the hallway. Fiyero groans to himself. This is the last thing he needs.

Glinda trips her way into the room; running on those high heels of hers does not bode well for balance. "What's going on…?"

She pushes a wayward curl out of her face and huffs a little, trying to get her breath back, and nearly chokes on the air when she takes in the scene in front of her.

"Elphie?" She's bewildered by the sight of her fiancé training a gun on the Wizard, but happy to see her old friend. "Oh, thank Oz you're alive!" She wants to hug Elphaba, or at least get close enough to really speak to her. She begins to cross the room, but soon she realizes exactly where they are, and stops herself mid-stride.

"Elphie, you shouldn't have come! If anyone discoverates you –"

Elphaba opens her mouth, about to explain, but Fiyero won't let her get a word in edgewise. "Glinda, you'd better go." he says, stepping closer to Elphaba, keeping his weapon on the Wizard.

"Fiyero, what are you…?" Glinda is confused.

"Please, just go back to the ball."

Glinda addresses the Wizard, hoping to get a response, and possibly the explanation she'd tried to get before. "Your Ozness, he means no disrespectation." She looks from Fiyero to his gun to the Wizard. "Please understand, we all went to school together…"

"Elphaba!" Fiyero quietly calls her over. She comes, and when she gets near enough he reaches out, grabs her hand. Glinda notices; her face goes even paler than her normal porcelain shade. She doesn't understand, and it hurts her.

"What are you doing!" Elphaba whispers fiercely. She's dually afraid and intrigued by him, he who she has not seen in so long. She is a witch now – he can't actually want to risk his neck for her, can he? No, that would be too good to hope for. She tries not to let herself waste any thought on it; she can't exactly force anyone to love her. But, despite the effort, some things she can't help but want, even though she knows nothing will come of it. Then there's Glinda…she's loved Fiyero since they'd met at school years ago. And wasn't that ball outside supposed to be celebrating their engagement? What was Fiyero trying to do to her? Surely he had to care for her if he'd agreed to become her fiancé, didn't he?

"Trust me." he says, eyes both imploring and demanding that Elphaba do so. She grows nervous in the flash of a second; trust does not come easily to her, and the fact that he's already assured her he'll let her escape the palace does not exactly set her mind at rest. She's learned to mistrust those she'd once thought were friends. The Wizard and Madam Morrible have made sure of that.

"Fiyero, have you misplaced your mind?" Glinda asks, her voice escalating, disbelieving. She does not trust what her eyes seem to be showing her. Fiyero was hers! They were already engaged! And Elphaba – what was she doing here? What was Fiyero doing with her? Sweet Oz, had they…?

"What are you doing?" Glinda's stomach roils; she's frightened of what the answer might be.

"I'm going with her." he replies, squeezing Elphaba's hand. Glinda blanches. He wasn't honestly going to ? She doesn't understand, and it shows.

Elphaba, on the other hand, only looks from Fiyero to Glinda. She's in the dark. She doesn't really know what's happening. Everything's going so quickly, and since she's trained herself so well to turn only to herself for the answers, this lack of control frightens her. She can't tell if Fiyero really means to help her or if he's trying to lure her into a false sense of security. After all, he is the Captain of the Guard. She can't afford to put it past him. And the look on Glinda's face…a happy reunion this meeting isn't. The blonde looks at her with utter revulsion on her face. Elphaba's stomach hurts; she hadn't wanted this. She hadn't known about this. She wishes fervently that she'd never come back to this place.

"Wha—what are you saying? You mean all this time, the two of you…behind my back…" Glinda stammers. Her voice crackles slightly; her throat is tightening up. Tears sting in her eyes. But no, she won't cry. She has to save face, preserve her dignity. A breakdown now won't get her anywhere.

"No, Glinda, it wasn't like that!" Elphaba cries in a sad attempt to explain. She doesn't know what to say. She knows of nothing that will get her friend to believe her. She wants to jerk herself away from Fiyero, but at the same time…she doesn't. Instead, she tightens her grip on his hand, ignoring the way her palms sting where his skin meets the tiny nail-cuts in hers. Dimly she's glad that at least they're not bleeding anymore; she didn't want to get her blood all over his hands.

"Actually it was…but it wasn't…" Fiyero says, looking from Elphaba to Glinda. This is hard for him. He'd always been able to talk his way out of things before. Why couldn't he do so now?

Glinda's face flushes with heat. He is lying to her. She's sure of it. They both are. She looks at Elphaba with anger and bitter disbelief beginning to burn through the hurt.

"Elphaba, lets go…let's go!" Fiyero says, growing desperate. They're running out of time. He pulls on her hand; he can hear the guards returning. He can't let them get to her. And…he doesn't think he can stand to face Glinda anymore. True, she is his friend, and far closer to him than the majority of the people in his life, but…he just can't make himself love her like she wants him to.

Elphaba hesitates; a short blaze of fear darts across her face and then pained indecision takes its place. Her eyes lock briefly with Fiyero; his gaze pleads with her to come with him. She hates to leave Glinda like this. It isn't the way she'd wanted to meet her friend again after so long. And now…if she escapes the palace, with Glinda's fiancé, of all people, she'll be leaving Glinda with nothing to do but to hate her, just like everyone else. Elphaba knows full well that she shouldn't go with Fiyero, but at the sight of the furious hurt on Glinda's face something inside her dies, begs her to give up on the old friendship; there will be no reconciliation. At least, not now. It reasons with her that if she remains here much longer, she'll be caught, and certainly nothing will get accomplished through that.

Reluctantly she turns her back on Glinda. Fiyero pulls on her hand again, steering her down the right hallway.

"Fine! Go! You deserve each other…" Glinda cries after their retreating backs. She draws in a shaky deep breath and gradually her composure returns. It's a good thing it does; she has to face the Wizard now. It wouldn't do for her to speak to him with her eyes all swollen and red. She pushes emotion away for the moment; she'll come back to it later, or rather, it'll keep coming back to her until she gives it some attention. Right now, she has other things to attend to before she tends to herself. After all, she 'couldn't be happier', and her people would be waiting for her to put on a brave face for them once she returns to the ball. She might as well steel herself for it now.

:You couldn't be happier, Glinda…that's what they want to hear. You'll just have to give it to them.: