Elphaba's Birth in the Clock

While Frex is away, Melena goes into labor. Two midwives, a fishwife and a crone, attend to her, but they are interrupted by a warning that a drunken mob is looking for Frex. They flee with Melena in a hay cart, taking refuge inside the Clock of the Time Dragon itself. There, in the crawl space among the clockwork, Melena gives birth to a baby girl. When the midwives clean the infant, they are shocked to discover her skin is a pale emerald green. The baby, Elphaba, is also born with sharp teeth and bites off the fishwife's finger. The midwives, horrified, leave the baby with Melena and flee. Melena, in a state of shock and under the influence of pain-relieving leaves, struggles to accept her strange child.