"Yero, I don't know about this," whispered Elphaba worriedly. Her emerald skin looked pale, resembling a leaf of sage. Her bony fingers grasped the suitcase. Elphaba's sharp fingernails dug into the worn leather of the handle.

     "She'll be fine," insisted Fiyero, a strikingly handsome man in his late thirties. If a person passed by him, he or she would have never suspect that he was once made of straw. One arm wrapped around Elphaba's shoulder. In one swift motion, he kissed her forehead. Her black hair smelled of coconut oil, and the familiar scent brought a smile to his face. "Besides, with your smarts and my dashing good-looks, she'll be a class favorite."

     His blue eyes winked at her. In return she slapped his chest.

     "I'm serious. You know how awful it was for me to go to school. And since she has my . . . coloring, I know--"

     Fiyero spun her around to face him. Her diamond-shaped face was etched with wrinkles, but that didn't affect her beauty, nor did her keen nose or her mucronate chin. Her nonpareil features were what made her resplendently beautiful. Sable irises looked into his.

     "That was only because you didn't have a supportive family. The Unnamed God knows how I would've turned out if I had a pompous, bothersome, overly religious sister like yours and a father who--"

     "Is this supposed to make me feel better?" she questioned, her black lips already twitching into a smirk.

     His hands rose in self defense. "I have a point, I swear."

     Placing one of his lifted hands to her face, he caressed her cheek. "I'm just saying, Mona wasn't brought up like you were. She had two loving parents who were always there for her. A father who doesn't display her flaws," he looked into her eyes with devotion before he continued, "and a mother who is loyal, caring, and smart."

     Fiyero leaned in to kiss his wife. Umber skin clashed with emerald. The two entangled into a passionate kiss. Elphaba's colorful scarf fluttered to the floor of their kitchen as they--

     "Mom, dad, have you seen my--" a tall, lanky shamrock-colored girl stopped at the bottom of their tiny staircase. "Really? I'm going off to boarding school for three years and you leave me this to remember you by? Ew."

     Fiyero chuckled, putting his chocolate colored hair back in place. "She also has your sassiness. That'll win her a few boys."

     Mona rolled her eyes. "I'm going to school to learn. Not to flirt, Dad."

     He shrugged in reply. "You never know who you might meet." He gave her a playful wink.

     "What were you looking for, Mona?" interrupted Elphaba as she picked her scarf up off of the floor. She shot Fiyero a miffed glance.

     Mona's mouth opened to say something when Elphaba's eyes shot down to her uncovered green toes. "Where are your shoes? You can't leave here without shoes."

     "Really, Mom? 'Cause I was kinda thinking that I was going to go to my new school with no shoes at all. You know, try a new style," she snorted sarcastically.

     "You become more and more like your mother every day," Fiyero laughed, looking at Elphaba. He turned his attention back to Mona. "I think I saw your shoes by the front door."

     Padding of bare feet on wood was heard as Mona ran to retrieve her shoes. Fiyero heard a muffled thanks as she ran passed him.

     Fiyero gyrated back to his wife and shook his head. "You're too tense today, Fae."

     A green hand began to rub her temples. "I know, I know," she sighed. "I'm just paranoid. I can't shake the feeling that this is a bad idea."

     "Nonsense. Mona was born for this opportunity."

      Elphaba's back tensed and her eyes closed in exasperation. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

     Fiyero was about to comfort her more, but Mona entered back into the kitchen, now with black boots covering her feet. The teenager stopped in front of her parents. Tap, tap. Up and down went her foot, waiting impatiently. "Mom, my suitcase."

     "Oh!" Elphaba scrambled to give her daughter her belongings. Their green hands exchanged the luggage. The older woman's hands brushed against the admiral blue diamond tattoo embedded into her daughter's skin, an early birthday present giving to her by her father, as she let go. Elphaba recalled the first time she saw the diamonds on her husband. He, being the prince of Arjikis, was expected to have intricate designs on his skin.

     Mona gave her mother a polite smile as she drew her hands back. Gravity took it's toll on the weak girl, and once she was without her mother's strength, her arms dropped to the floor.

     "Need some help with that?" her father said, picking the suitcase up like it was filled with feathers instead of a three years supply of clothes, books, and anything else Mona didn't want to leave behind.

     He carried the hefty case to the front of their small home, setting it on their warped, pine porch.  The house wasn't much. It's foundation was created on a muddy hillock in the Dark Woods, a village off the edge of Oz. The area lived up to its name; their small town was surrounded by beanstalk-like woodland. Green here. Green there. The surplus of green made Mona feel welcome.

     The tall girl stepped out into the chilly outdoors after her father; she took a seat in a decrepit rocking chair next to the door.  With a tender smile, Fiyero returned to his worrying wife inside.

⁂

     Mona's diamond-shaped face stared up at the overcast sky from the uncovered porch. Clouds overlapped each other, giving the celestial sphere a slate color. As she looked up, her nose filled with the sharp, natural scent of pine. The smell tickled her nose and filled her mind with memories of towering trees, umber-colored bark, and crocodile like underbrush.

     It reminded her of the time she got lost in the forest when she was nine. Five years had hence passed, but it still remained fresh in her green little head.

     Her dad had been chopping lumber for a new addition to their house--a little shed off the east side--and he had decided to bring his daughter with him, thinking an extra pair of hands would be good.

     However, as soon as they reached the trees Fiyero wished to chop, Mona snuck off, wanting to explore the vast new world. Of course, only being nine and having terrible coordination, she had tripped half way through her adventure, scraped her knee, and wound up crying alone in a clearing.

     There she stayed for what seemed like hours--which was closer to five minutes--and fretted over her dirt covered cut on her hairy little legs.

     "Snap!" went a branch nearby. Little Mona, being the cool, collected girl she was, prayed to the Unnamed God that she wouldn't die.

     "You look ugly when you cry," an unknown voice commented. A boy, a little bit older than Mona, stepped out into the clearing. His tawny skin was covered in dirt and grunge, and his poorly cut dark brown hair stuck up in every direction. Mona didn't know hair was capable of defying gravity.

     She used her arm to wipe her tears. "I'm not ugly. You need to get your eyes checked."

     "My eyes are just fine. You're the one on the ground crying like a baby whose been deprived of milk."

     "I wasn't crying." Although in truth, she was. But she wasn't just going to admit that. Especially not to this random boy in the woods. "I was just . . . watering the ground. I think I saw a sapling around here somewhere. You know, just saving the planet, doing my thing--"

     "Awe, isn't that cute. The little weed is helping her kind." The boy simpered as he spoke. Mona shot up off the ground into a standing position. All traces of tears were gone, and her face was apparent with repudiation.

     "I'm not a weed!" Her squishy fern-colored face was pale with anger. Black nails dug into her skin as she clutched her hands into fists.

     Arms crossed, the boy sneered at her. "Weeds are green. You're green. Weeds grow on the ground. You were on the ground. Weeds are ugly. You're ugly. Simple logic, really."

     "I am not a weed!" She stomped up to the boy. He was a good five inches taller than her, but she stuck her neck out and stood on her tiptoes to try and match his height. Her blue eyes glared into his azure ones.

     "Are too," he shot back. "Nothing more than a pathetic, tiny, worthless weed that no one likes. Everybody hates weeds, and everybody hates you. I know what they say about you. 'Look, there's that green girl again.' 'I hear her mother is the devil's spawn.' 'Poor child. I bet she's cursed.'"

     Before she could think twice, her arm swung up. Green knuckles slammed into his right eye. The punch wiped the stupid smirk off of his face. One hand flew up to cover his face. Eyes wide and lips apart, he gawked at her action. "Would a weed be able hit you?"

     He said nothing and continued to cover his eye.

     With a flip of her raven-black hair, she stormed off in the direction she thought her house was. Ten steps in she heard the boy whisper faintly, "The village is the other way."

     Stopping in her tracks, she circled around and stormed away in the other direction. As she passed the boy, she avoided eye contact. 

     "Flynt," she heard him say.

     "What?" she asked irritatedly, wanting to get the impudent boy out of her sights.

     "My name is Flynt."

     Mona lifted her chin. "Well, Flynt, you're a jerk." Then she continued toward the village.

     Her father welcomed her with open arms and lectured her on not running off. Mona had just rolled her eyes and nodded her head, already knowing she'd do it again. Her adventure was spoiled by a certain someone, after all.

     Returning back to the present, Mona unconsciously gazed at the woods, wondering where that boy was now. She hoped he had learned his lesson.

     Shaking her head, she excused the ideation from her mind. She was a foot taller and three shades greener now, and it was time for her to clean out her head. Time to let go of the memory of the boy with the dirty mouth.

     Night approached the Dark Woods quickly, and soon enough the village had fallen quiet. Mona waited patiently for the Stymph to come pick her up. Every four years, one or two came to pluck kids from their homes, and this year was Mona's year. Mona, having finally aged into the category, was an immediate candidate to be one of the chosen. So here she was, ready to be swooped off to a castle in a land far, far away.

      'If the place really exists,' she thought.

     Sure, stories had been tossed around here and there, but they were nothing more than a hearsay and idle talk. Rocking back and forth in the gentle breeze, Mona wondered what it would be like if the place actually existed. What would the school be like? And who would the other Chosen One be?

     'Oh well,  I'll know soon enough.'

     Thirty minutes passed. Forty. Mona could feel the eyes of her parents staring at her as she sat alone with her suitcase in her lap. They were going to wait up for her, just in case she didn't get taken.

     When the girl's patience had run low, she turned her head back to her home, ready to throw in the towel. However, as she reached for the wooden doorknob, a flapping sound caught her attention.

     "What the--"

     In one sudden swoop, she was elevated off the ground. Clutching her suitcase to her bosom, she watched her home became smaller and smaller. The chipped brown paint on the paneling became a hasty blur, and she could barely make out the stone chimney atop the gray asphalt roof.

     The last thing she saw was her mother and father bolting out of the cottage. The front door left swinging as both their faces stared up, watching their only daughter be flown away to an unknown location.

⁂

     Shoulders shuddered from the cold. Legs dangled in the air. Mona was already one hundred percent done with the school's transportation system.

     If they were going to haul kids from their comfy beds or whatever, they should at least accommodate their boney school buses with something a little more comfortable than a bird with no internal organs or skin.

     The giant skeleton bird flapped it's wings in an unsettling, rocky motion, giving Mona a sense of annoyance and sea sickness--well, air sickness.

     As they swayed back and forth in the starry sky, another eggshell body joined them. This one also was sporting a student from the school's fall fashion line.

     The soon-to-be student turned his attention to his green flying partner. His face contorted with incredulity.

     "What?" she demanded. She knew that look better than anyone else, and the meaning to having it. "Have you never seen a green girl before?"

     Without missing a beat, the scrawny boy replied, "Yes, actually. I have. The last time I saw one, though, she punched me in the face."

     It was now Mona's turn to be in disbelief. She gawked at him from her position in the sky.

     "Wait. You're--"

     "Flynt? Yes, I am. I see you haven't changed a bit. Still look like a weed."

     Five years and he still hadn't learned his lesson. Why, if only she could get her foot high enough, she could "accidentally" kick him from the stymph's grasp and watch him fall to the ant-sized ground below.

     "I could always punch you again," she retorted instead.

     As they were carried, Mona watched as forests and kingdoms passed below. 'There's Oz, with it's emerald castle,' she pointed out to herself. 'And Camelot. And--'

     Eyes squinted, Mona tried to place the two castles in the distance. She'd never read about them in any of her almanacs. The two were far too close to be from separate kingdoms, but their exteriors suggested that they had diverse leaders.

    One castle glittered in sunlight, despite it being close to midnight. It looked like a giant piece of cotton candy, with it's blue and pink glass turrets. In contrast, the other loomed, blackened and jagged. Sharp spires at least ten feet tall ripped through active thunderclouds.

     "Ah, home sweet home," Flynt remarked.

     One of Mona's bushy eyebrows cocked. "Which one?"

     "Isn't it obvious? The School for Evil," he said, pointing to the brooding black castle.

     "Wait, those are the schools? There are two of them?"

     "Obviously. Why would there be just one? So Nevers could mingle with Evers?"

     "Nevers? Evers?" Mona's eyebrows creased, now suddenly realizing she knew nothing about her new school--er--schools.

     He shot her an irritated look. "You don't know anything, do you? That pathetic girlish one over there is the School for Good. Thats where the Evers learn how to be sissies. And this bad boy over here is the School for Evil. That's where hellishly handsome boys like me go. They call the students there Nevers. Capiche?"

     Despite Flynt being hellishly handsome, Mona believed his every word. Because from what Mona had heard, there was only one school. The school where all the great authors went. Authors who wrote the most beautiful, thrilling fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast and Peter Pan. But from what she could see, there was obviously more than one school.

     What else didn't she know? And why were the schools divided with the words "Evil" and "Good"? Did one school focus on happy endings, and the other didn't? Countless questions swam through Mona's head.

      As she pondered the names of the school, the both birds flew towards the castle shrouded in thunderclouds.

     "That's weird," Flynt said out loud. "I know you're green and everything, but you seem like you'd be good. So why aren't you being flown to the School for Good?" He gave her an inquisitorial look.

     The stymph holding on to them loosened their grips. As Mona fell, she heard Flynt say something along the lines of, "Wait, you're a villain, too?" Her eyes widened as she fell towards a sickly-looking moat, an aghast scream escaped her mouth, mostly because she was terrified she was going to fall to her death, but also because she realized something.

     This wasn't a school for writers. This was a school for characters.

     And she was a villian.