Chapter 13
Elphaba lets out a deep sigh as she flips through the pages of the Grimmerie. She’s been like this — hunched over the ancient magical book — for the past hour. Three days. It has been three days since they got here, four since they’d rescued Glinda.
She hasn’t dared enter the room in which Glinda resides, choosing instead to communicate through and with Corvex, and the brief moments when Fiyero slips out of the room.
So far, they’ve learnt that she’s harmless to everyone but Elphaba, she barely eats, and she talks even less.
Needless to say, Elphaba's already thin patience is frazzled. Not that she can do anything about it. After Fiyero talked sense into her, she’s certainly not leaving. However, her past two days have been spent perusing the Grimmerie for something, anything that can possibly help.
Deep down, Elphaba knows she won’t find anything. What’s happened to Glinda is not just the effects of magic, it goes much deeper than that. But it’s the only thing she can do, otherwise she feels so useless, her skin begins to crawl.
The door creaks open and a bowl of porridge is set down in front of her. Fiyero’s blue slacks appear next. She glances up, surprised. “Sleeping?”
Fiyero shakes his head. “Catatonic.”
Elphaba sighs again, her eyes prickling with an all too familiar sting.
“Found anything?” He asks.
Elphaba shakes her head. “The grimmerie is… complicated.”
“How so?”
“It’s sentient.” She explains. “And ancient. It works in ways that are unknown to me even after two years of its company. But… I doubt it has anything that can help properly. Glinda’s been, and this is the best word I can find for it, brainwashed.”
Fiyero’s eyes widen. “I guess that would make sense. But what exactly…?”
“Me.” Elphaba answers quietly. “That’s her target. To her, I’m a threat which is why she attacks me.”
“So we just have to make her believe you aren’t one.”
She lets out a quiet, sardonic laugh. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Isn’t it?” Fiyero frowns. “We just have to show her.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Elphaba groans. “Without knowing exactly what Morrible did, we don’t know how to work around it properly without triggering her. And right now, I’m a walking, green trigger. It’s kind of hard to show I’m not something when I can’t even show myself.”
Fiyero’s shoulders slump, disappointment taking over his face. “So we’re back at square one.”
“Not exactly.” She hums. “She responds fairly to you.”
“But how can I show her you aren’t evil?”
“Be creative?” Elphaba guesses uncertainly. “You could talk to her. Just get her to respond more.”
“She doesn’t though.”
“Fiyero, it will take a lot of time. I’m not saying this will be easy. But I need your help. Glinda needs your help. Please.”
“After the speech I gave you, I would be a hypocrite if I ran away.” Fiyero runs a hand through his hair. “I already know it’s going to be hard Elphaba, but I’m not going to leave you two again.”
“Again?”
“I could have done something when you two got on the train. I could have joined you or pulled you off or-”
“Fiyero, none of this is your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
“Still,” he argues. “when I was in the palace, I could have tried harder to get to Glinda. Maybe then, I could have helped her or prevented this.”
“It’s not your fault, Fiyero. If you’re going by that logic, the blame falls on many people. It falls on me for fleeing when Glinda was right there, in pain.” Elphaba lets out a shaky breath. “That was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” She clears her throat. “But it’s no use dwelling on the past right now.”
Fiyero nods, determinedly. “Glinda needs our help.”
“Right.”
Fiyero looks up as though an idea struck him. “What about a transformation spell?”
“What about one?”
“Can you do one?”
Elphaba hesitates. “I’m not very good.”
“But you can do it.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “It’s been useful in some cases.”
“Great!” Fiyero grins. “That way, you can be in the room when I talk to her.”
“Fiyero, I’m not sure.”
“It’s our best shot right now. And I don’t see you coming up with any ideas.”
Elphaba buries her head in her hands. “You’re right. Just…” She acquiesces after a few silent moments, her voice muffled by her hands. “Give me some time.”
“I’m not asking you to be there all the time.” He runs a hand through his rumpled hair. “It would just be nice. And it’s sort of a workaround, as you call it.”
“When did you get so smart?” She smirks.
“I don’t know.”
***
Transformation isn’t exactly Elphaba’s strong suit. It’s a spell she’s tried before, but one look in the mirror, at her very not green skin has her startled back to the verdant hue. She looks so much like Nessa and, from her hazy memories, her mother.
Elphaba sighs for what feels like the millionth time since that day, casting the spell once more, avoiding her reflection this time.
Tentatively, she opens the door to the room, her eyes immediately falling on the figure lying on the sofa, looking so tiny it makes her heart ache.
Fiyero looks up from his position at the corner of the room where he’s mindlessly twirling a pen in his hands, eyes widening for a split second before giving her a weak smile.
Glinda’s hauntingly empty doe eyes meet hers, taking her in. Elphaba tenses, waiting for an attack or something. Instead she just turns away, looking at Fiyero. “Who?”
“Glinda this is my friend, Fae.” Fiyero hastily introduces.
Elphaba licks her suddenly very dry lips. “Hi.” She gives a short, awkward wave, then curses herself. This is Glinda, for Oz’s sake. Sure, she is different in many ways, but she’s still Glinda, her best friend. There’s no need for Elphaba so damned awkward.
Glinda doesn’t respond, her attention returning to her lap as she stares almost beyond it.
Elphaba glances at Fiyero who gives her a helpless shrug, mouthing a ‘talk to her’.
Elphaba swallows and nods, opening her mouth a couple times, but unable to come out with anything. “You have beautiful wings.” She finally manages to say.
Glinda looks up at Elphaba again, her doe eyes somehow widening until they are the sie of moons. “They’re useful.” She mutters.
Elphaba frowns. “You know they’re beautiful, don’t you?” She suddenly has the — very irrational — burning need to get her point across.
Glinda gives a small shrug in lieu of an answer.
“They are.” Elphaba says pointedly. Then she takes even more of a risk. “What is that?” She points at the emerald collar, clamped around Glinda’s neck.
“I misbehaved.” Glinda shrugs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It makes Elphaba’s blood boil.
She shakes herself out of her anger. “Would you like it off, my-” She stops herself before the nickname slips out. Glinda, thankfully, doesn’t notice, her eyes wide once again, staring at Elphaba in amazement. “Only Morrible can remove it.” She croaks.
“May I?”
For a moment it seems like Glinda won’t answer, or might turn away and deny her, but instead she nods.
Elphaba reaches into the object’s energy, feeling the magic imbued in it. Every living being has magic, whereas inanimate objects can be imbued with it. This collar has been imbued with some powerful magic. Elphaba recognises Morrible’s signature and style in it, and for one of the few times after her betrayal, is glad she was taught by her. Because she knows Morrible’s magic and, after a few disconcerting efforts, with a click, the collar unclasps before unceremoniously, and heavily clattering onto the floor.
When Elphaba opens her eyes again, she finds a sheen in the brown eyes that stare back.
The whispered ‘thank you’ is extremely silent, but Elphaba hears it clear as day, feeling the familiar sting return to her eyes.
The moment is shattered when she glances down at her hands and sees the green creeping through her brown skin, spreading like some sort of fungus.
She’s out of time.
Murmuring a quick excuse, she rushes out of the room just in time for her hands to turn green and when she glances at the mirror, her verdigris stares back.
Chest heaving, breaths short, and decidedly very green, she heads back to her room unable to get the image of the haunted sheen in Glinda’s eyes out of her mind for the rest of the day.