Everyone Deserves A Chance to Fly

Elphaba had been naive. She realises that now as she stares — nothing short of horror twisting through her — at her mutilated best friend, writhing on the cold stone floor of the wizard’s palace, her pained cries echoing through the room. She realises that as she sees the passive face of the Wizard, and the glee in Madame Morrible’s eyes. 

It’s not easy to see properly though, not with the tears blurring her vision. She wants it to stop. She wants to be on the train again, a naive schoolgirl with the hopes of changing the world, her best friend by her side. 

She wants to turn back time, and she wants this nightmare to end. Instead, she’s forced to watch.

You can’t reverse a spell from the Grimmerie once it’s been cast. 

That was their answer when she’d begged, pleaded for a way to reverse the spell, to take away Glinda’s pain. 

Everyone deserves a chance to fly. The Wizard had said. 

But Glinda? Sweet Glinda who had been her first friend at Shiz, her first human friend ever. Glinda who had wiped her tears at Ozdust, and who makes her feel seen and beautiful. Glinda doesn’t deserve this. 

“Glinda!” The cry that tears from Elphaba’s throat when her friend’s form falls to the ground still and lifeless with the new addition of the bloodied wings on her back sounds the most inhuman Elphaba has ever sounded, and she thinks it’s fitting. Because despite all the times her father had called her inhuman, an abomination, this is the moment she feels it the most. This is the moment where she thinks Frexspar was right. 

Her feet carry her forward, collapsing beside Glinda, unable to hold her weight as she cries her friend’s name desperately. 

“Glinda.” She sobs. “Open your eyes, my sweet.” 

And she does. And Elphaba almost wishes she hadn’t. Her generally warm brown eyes are bloodshot and pained, her pupils dilated, almost engulfing the brown with black. She meets Elphaba’s eyes briefly before her eyelids flutter shut again, barring Elphaba from viewing them. 

“Well dear,” Morrible finally says. “The spell was a clear success.”

Elphaba turns to the woman whom she’d once considered a dear mentor, rage pulsing through her. “A success?” She whispers, her voice cracking. “A success?” She screams this time. “Look at Glinda.”

“Yes,” Morrible waves her hand flippantly. “A tragedy, but think about the possibilities. With your powers, and the Grimmerie's spells…” 

“No.” Elphaba’s voice is surprisingly steady. 

“No?” Morrible faltered. “Dear, you made a mistake. This time, just think about the monkeys while casting the spell.”

Elphaba opens her mouth to argue, but Morrible’s words give her a pause. “What did you say?”

“You’re not deaf.” Morrible rolls her eyes. “What — or who — were you thinking about while casting the spell?”

Elphaba’s mind flashes back, and she remembers. She remembers that she was caught off guard by Glinda’s encouraging smile beside her. It was so radiant and beautiful.

Oz! Shock reverberates through Elphaba. This was her fault entirely. She’d failed to cast the spell right, and Glinda had suffered for it. And she couldn’t fix it. She glanced at the girl’s prone form, silently apologising to her, although she doubted any amount of apologies could make up for what she’d done. 

“I can’t-” Elphaba shakes her head. “I can’t cast it again.” 

“Well then, I suppose she’s completely useless.” The Wizard said from his place behind Morrible. 

“Patience.” Morrible mutters to him, but Elphaba hears it. 

“You,” she snaps at Morrible, remembering the glee in her eyes, something Elphaba thought she’d imagined, but the puzzle pieces begin setting together now, the picture becoming clearer in her mind. “You enjoyed seeing her in pain, didn’t you? And you,” She looks at the Wizard. “You never meant to make Oz a better place, did you?”

“I am making it a better place.” The Wizard says. “Surely you can understand that the Animals cause harm-” 

Elphaba doesn’t care to listen. She makes a desperate grab for the Grimmerie, bolting out of the room. It isn’t long before she hears the pounding of feet behind her. Guards. 

Leaving Glinda in that room might be one of the hardest things Elphaba has done. But she is smart enough to know that she couldn’t carry Glinda out, and Glinda is in no state to walk on her own feet. And with the life Elphaba is doomed to live, Glinda will be safer and happier in this palace. 

When she chants the levitation spell again, she braces herself for the pain Glinda must have felt. It doesn’t come. The spell has failed her in a different way this time. 

The broom is a shock. It pokes her in the foot once the Gale Force soldiers break through her makeshift barrier on the door, and without much thought, pure adrenaline fuelling her, Elphaba mounts it, finding herself taking off across the sky, Glinda’s cries and Morrible’s announcement echoing in her head and behind her. 

Flying is a free, weightless sensation. It’s exhilarating and fun, and Elphaba finds her cursing herself because this is the type of flight Glinda deserves, not the painful, bloody wings she got. Why did the spell not work like this for Glinda? Why did Glinda have to suffer while Elphaba soars? 

Elphaba thinks about Morrible’s announcement. 

The Wicked Witch of the West. She’d called her. 

Elphaba can’t help but think she’s right. 

***

After the announcement, Morrible makes her way back to the palace’s main room where the Wizard paces worriedly. 

“What are we going to do now?” He asks agitatedly. Morrible just holds a hand up for his silence. He immediately shuts up. While the Wizard may have political power, Morrible has the true power among the two, and he knows it. 

“We may not have our spies.” Morrible’s eyes gleam as she takes in the broken form of her former student. Glinda — nee Galinda — Upland had only succeeded in annoying her, and proved to be of no use to her. Until now, that is. “But we have something of equal, if not more, value.” 

“And what might that be?”

Morrible knelt down next to the broken bird and stroked her blonde locks with a single finger. “Let’s just say I now have a new pet project.”