Chapter 11
“Oh, thank Oz you found her,” Glinda said, running up to Fiyero in the dorm hallways. “She would have surely caught some disgustifying disease out in that cold.”
“And a good morning to you Glinda,” Elphaba said, now very awake and very much regretting her morning impulse.
Elphaba couldn’t say anything before the girl ran up to her, cupping her face and kissing her on either cheek. It left her stunned. This girl who truly claimed she was a terror of a roommate not to weeks ago was now showering her with kisses.
“Oh Elphie, can I call you Elphie?” Glinda said, though before Elphaba could respond with her distaste for the perky name, the girl continued. “I was so worried about you. I mean I was already worried about you, with how weird you were acting after that night at the Ruby Raven, but especially after everything in Dr. Mair’s class. I’m just so happy you’re up and about. But don’t run off like that again! You scared everyone, especially Rain!”
The name had Elphaba stiffen. Rain was here? Oh Lurine, she messed up if Rain had felt the need to come all this way. She wondered if Rain might drag her back to the Emerald City. That was wishful thinking of course, as it would be more of a reward than a punishment.
“Where is she?”
“I believe with Madam Margarette,” Fiyero said. “But don’t worry about Witch Rain right now. You need rest or you’ll get the bleeds.”
Elphaba replied with a sardonic laugh, as if she didn’t care at all about what might happened to her if she didn’t rest properly. Still, she didn’t fight Fiyero or Glinda as they walked her up to the room. Pfannee and ShenShen were at the door, whispering back and forth to one another. Glinda scrunched her nose, giving the two a look and motioning them to shoo. Despite the want for gossip, they would not find any here.
“Go be with your friends Glinda,” Elphaba mumbled. “I doubt I’m very good company right now…or ever.”
“I don’t care what kind of company you might be,” Glinda retorted. “Someone needs to make sure you’re resting, and we both know Madam Margarette would not take kindly to having a man in a girl’s dorm completely unsupervised.”
Her eyes shifted to Fiyero, and he gave a small chuckle in response. How many girls had he seen leave Avaric’s room in the morning? Not that he was counting per say, but the school wasn’t as strict about it as Glinda was making it seem.
“Well, I have no intention of letting you wander off again,” Fiyero said. “Though I might leave for a little bit to make you some of my mother’s famous Vinkun Stew. It’s a miracle medicine, I swear.”
Elphaba shook her head, as if to refuse. They were coddling her, talking about bringing her food. She felt like a sick child, the way they were caring for her. Then again, she when she got sick as a child her father ignored her, probably hopping she’d die. Her mother had been too drunk to actually care for her, and Nanny was often so busy caring for Nessa that she wouldn’t realize that Elphaba was sick at all till hours later. Even when she did notice and gave Elphaba medicine, coddling was not allowed, nor was there any time for it. Elphaba couldn’t remember the last time she told anyone she was sick anymore. She would use magic to reduce and mask the symptoms as best she could and would go about her day. Rain would notice occasionally, but unless Elphaba seemed as if she would collapse, she spoke nothing of it. Even when Elphaba was at such a point, she certainly wouldn’t allow Rain to make a big fuss of it, or allow any of the other girl’s in the tavern to go out of their way for her.
No words came out as Fiyero helped her down onto her bed. Her head hit the pillow rather quickly, and Fiyero made no attempt to retrieve his jacket from her arms. Instead, he pulled up the blanket to cover her exposed form. With a lone knuckle, he caressed the skin of her cheek. Her skin was cold to the touch, so much so that Fiyero thought for a second, he might be touching an icy glaze over her skin. He saw a slight flinch, but nothing so severe as it had been before, and on the second stroke of skin to skin, she leaned into the warm feeling.
“I’ll be back soon,” Fiyero assured her. “Don’t go melting on me.”
While it shouldn’t matter, while she certainly shouldn’t care whether he stayed or went, she did. It was a comfort to know he was there, that he care enough to be there. As did the perky blonde, who she could see watching intently from behind the Vinkun Prince. Slowly, he turned away and walked out the door, leaving Elphaba alone with Glinda.
“I am sorry, Elphie. I feel awful for how I treated you. It’s just, for the first time in my life, I was learning that I won’t always get what I want. Then you came along, and I watched as you were getting everything I wanted. A place in the advanced sorcery seminary, a prince’s attention, and you took my private room to boot.” She confessed to Elphaba and found she couldn’t find it in herself to stop.
“Then I thought if I couldn’t have those things, then I’ll get close to her, and find a way to user her to get them. Although that was a lie, to myself, I mean. Sometimes I didn’t know if I wanted to be you or wanted to be close to you. Whether I hated your smile for being slightly imperfect in an annoyingly cute way or found it cute. Or how I saw all you’re A+ graded work on the table and didn’t know whether to be impressed or indignant when comparing it to my own grades. Then there was that night at the Ruby Raven, and I felt something inside me that I had never felt before. Something heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time. If I had caught up to you that night… Elphie, I swear I would’ve kissed you!”
Glinda went silent, and it took her a minute to process what she had just said.
“Not like that!” she clarified in a panic voice. “I mean there isn't anything wrong if two girls...agh. I want Fiyero, he’s a prince, a perfectly charming prince.”
Elphaba could have laughed at how ridiculous the whole of Glinda’s confession was. She could have told Glinda to shut up and let her speak. Instead, she let her hand slip from under Fiyero’s jacket and motion her to come close. So, Glinda did.
When the blonde leaned down to her level, their eyes meeting in a mix-matched sort of way with Elphaba on her side and Glinda upright, she finally broke the silence.
“To me it sounds like you want Fiyero because you were told that would be the proper thing to look for in a husband,” Elphaba whispered, not because she was trying, but because as she grew more tired her voice struggled to keep an audible volume. “Now I’m not saying that means you have a crush on me or anything, but it would be a real shame to see someone with your cunning and charm to waste her life away trying to maintain an image someone else has for her.”
Glinda took a deep breath at the words. She knew what she wanted, didn’t she? She wanted to be a Witch like her Granny, the most powerful witch in the North. Then again, she grew up in social events being told ever five minutes that she was destined to do great things, being an Upland. That she had to be exceptional, had to live up to the family name. And Fiyero, she wanted that, didn’t she? A charming, kind man who was willing to be on her arm. Would she have preferred a princess on her arm? She had considered the notion before, in her high school years, watching the girls at the ballet. She had found a beauty in femineity that she never quite saw in men. The thought of kissing or sharing a bed with a woman seemed almost appealing. A woman couldn’t produce the next of the Upland line with her though, so a man would have to do.
Not that the thought of creating half a life around another person was something she wanted. Sure, it was something she expected would happen one day. She would meet someone who she felt was worth sharing everything from her body to her heart, and all her life with. And yes, Glinda had found people she truly believed she could not live without. She loved her friends, her family, and all the things that made her who she was today. She knew what love was, but never felt a surge of want, a need, never felt the passion others clearly had when they talked about being in love. It was why despite Pfannee and ShenShen’s constant berating, she never actually tried to date anyone.
“How do you do that?” Glinda said, voice hoarse and eyes watery and red. “How can you see me more than people who have known me my entire life?”
“Because I was you,” Elphaba said.
And it was the truth. She had spent the better part of her early years desperately trying to be what people wanted her to be. A good, invisible child. A protective older sister. A caretaker for her substance-addled mother. A punching bag for her rageful father. A thing for everyone to hurl their hate, anger, and frustration at. Something small to be broken in the service of making other people feel bigger.
She had believed for so long that if she played the role society gave her, that one day she would be rewarded. That her father would eventually come to see her for the amenable and obedient daughter she was. That her mother would eventually love her enough to put down the poppy milk. That all the older boys would find someone else once she was so shattered it didn’t make them feel powerful to break her down anymore. That someone would settle for loving an ugly, cursed, green thing like herself.
All that had changed when Elphaba pulled herself out of the river, somewhere deep in the munchkinland woods. Her survival instinct kept her conscious long enough for her to get to solid ground, but as soon as she was out of the river, she passed out. When she woke, she was dry, and like the water evaporated, it seemed too had her green tint and dark hair. It had washed away with the water of the river. Elphaba had thought she could go home head held high, that she had finally been rewarded by the Unnamed God. After all, the odd green swirls around her would be easy enough to hide. She stripped off the excess wet clothes as she tried desperately to find her way home. When she finally did make it out of the forest, and to the entrance of the chapel she knew her father would be at, given that the sun was just about directly over them. When she finally went in and heard his prayers, his thanks to the higher power he so cherished, she realized the truth.
“Thank you, and your Unnamed greatness.” Nipp had said. “You removed that cursed stain of a daughter, and cured Melena of her demons. You have given me a beautiful, smart, obedient daughter to take my place as Eminence of Munchkinland, and a healthy, perfect son to carry my legacy. I have stood through your challenges, and you have blessed me with such rewards.”
It was then Elphaba realized that was all she ever would be in her father’s eyes. That even if she returned home with almost normal skin, it wouldn’t be enough. Nipp didn’t want Elphaba to be perfect, he wanted her gone. Melena hadn’t been willing to clean herself up out of love for her daughters, but only when she found out she was pregnant with Shell, and feared she would birth another deformed child. No one would leave her be once she shattered and broke to their power, they would not give her peace. Not until they killed her and buried her cold corpse.
So, she ran. The first few miles she hid in undercarriages or wagons filled with goods. When she finally made it to a real town in Quadling Country, some traveling musicians took pity on her, letting her tag along with their group for a bit until they made it to a city. There she stayed for two years, mostly surviving by begging and stealing. That was until Tip found her. He had been traveling Mombey’s side show and circus featuring the Clock of the Time Dragon, and he brought her back with him after seeing the parlor magic, she had been using to distract people while she pick-pocketed them. Then Mombey’s illegally bought a juvenile Lion cub who had been as mistreated as the rest of them. Somewhere along the way, Tip, Lox, and her made a makeshift family. They were the only creatures in the world she allowed herself to trust. They never used her, never hurt her because they could, never expected anything of her other. She finally had the unconditional love she suffered so greatly for. All she ever had to do was believe that she was worthy of it, and not settle for the promise that it would one day come if she endured enough for the sake of others.
“The only difference between the two of us is that you were rewarded for following the status quo. All that following it did for me was cause even greater pain.”
In that moment, whatever image of Glinda as the silver spoon fed, spoiled, entitled, bossy princess of the Upper Uplands, was left died in Elphaba’s mind. It took Elphaba years of torment to break out of society’s hold over her. When she finally did, she had nothing else to lose. For someone like Glinda, every comfort, every bit of happiness she had ever known, every bit of acceptance and love, it was all reliant on her maintaining the wretched system in place. Either she pushed others down to stay on top or become the trampled on. She had everything to lose.
Elphaba felt something akin to pity when she realized it. She found herself thanking whatever cosmic force existed that she had unshackled herself before the chains hand molded into her very being, as they had for Glinda.
The usually perky blonde was had tears stains running down her face. The way her nose reddened, and eyelashes fluttered, it had Elphaba question how she could look so pretty even as she cried. Glinda opened her mouth to say something but chose against it in the last moment. Instead, she leaned forward, giving Elphaba the kiss she had threatened far earlier in the conversation.
“I don’t want a life partner,” she admitted. “Maybe a great love to celebrate my triumphs and mourn my losses with me, but not necessarily to share.”
It was a subtle difference, Elphaba realized. Most people would not understand it. Glinda didn’t want a life where the small things were dependent on another. She wanted someone to talk to when she succeeded or failed, someone who might comfort her through lows and celebrate the highs but not necessarily linger in the in-betweens. Someone who would be content with her doing the same for them. That was the love Glinda wanted.
Elphaba reached out again, her thumb wiping away the last lingering tear on Glinda’s cheek.
“Hold out, if you can,” Elphaba advised. “Your great love is out there.”
Glinda didn’t know how to tell Elphaba how true her words