Chapter Text
“Can I be honest with you, Mister Lentex?” Glinda says, looking up at the polished brass ceiling of her office.
“Wh—certainly, Your Goodness,” he replies. She can imagine his confused blink as he stares at the curve of her neck, and can properly sense his unease as he wonders if he should allow himself the selfish conceit of desire or stick to the more respectable disdain for the woman who is slowly crushing his enterprise. That sort of magic is nearly unconscious now, and it makes her idly wonder if she could simply lean on his mind, here and there, until the purpose for this meeting departs him entirely and he finds his new calling as a subsistence fisherman.
But no. That would be too easy, and she doesn't de—doesn’t allow herself easy.
She gives a long exhale, drumming her nails on the table. “You’ve been talking for an entire hour,” she says, “and you’ve yet to touch on a single point as to why I should allow you to pollute the Munchkin River.”
She lifts her head then, tips it to the right in an image of innocent confusion as his face grows hard and red. Men are so loathe to be emasculated.
“We can revisit,” she continues brightly, “when you can offer the people of Oz something of use. There are many industries in our beauteous land, Mister Lentex, which employ the masses without poisoning our waters. You may want to try one of those for your next venturing.” She waves, dismissing him, and her monkeys creep down from their favored perches along the open windows towards him. He bows and hurries away.
“Thank you, Dorevan, Spottery,” she sighs when he vanishes around the corner. “Goodness, did he like the sound of his own voice!”
Her monkeys laugh that free and open monkey laugh which has grown so familiar to her.
“He was afraid of you, Your Goodness,” Dorevan rumbles, sounding immensely pleased.
“And us,” Spottery adds, giving her a toothy grin.
Pfannee’s head pops around the door as she opens her mouth to reply.
“Sorry to interrupt the celebration,” he says testily. “Glinda, did you just send the richest man in Gillikin away fuming?”
Good mood squashed instantly, Glinda stands and smooths her skirts. “The richest man in Gillikin wanted to dump thousands of liquid tons of noxious chemicals into the Munchkin River.”
Pfannee glances up, as if the universe could help him put up with her, then back at her.
“Right,” he says. “Fine. We’ll send him an edible arrangement.”
“Please do,” she replies, giving him a grin she learned from a Shark. “Ooh, yes! And include a card that says, You are the absolute most vileious creature in all of Oz. Love, Glinda.”
“Glinda…”
It’s that tone again, one she’s been hearing too often from him. A tone that says she’s pushing her luck about as far as it will take her once more. In the fifteen years since Elphaba’s death, she’s taken Oz from the twisted thing the Wizard made of it to a land Elphaba might’ve been proud of. The Emerald City sparkles and glows, full of Animals and humans and Munchkinlanders alike. Commerce flows freely, industry grows in Gillikin, farms flourish and new roads are forged in Munchkinland and the Vinkus respectively. And yet it seems, for every happy citizen, there is one with some bone or another to pick.
There’s always something, in Oz, and not even her popularity can stop that. Pfannee knows this, hence his ceaseless attempts to keep her on the right path.
“Oh, alright,” she concedes with a huff. “Send the arrangement. No card. And put him in touch with the chemists at Shiz. They might be able to figure out a way to use the byproducts of his beloved paint.”
Pfannee smiles at this, like her response has fully restored his faith in her, and disappears again. Feeling the warning pangs of a headache—they have only grown more common, lately, enough that she actually let a doctor near her—she forces her jaw to unclench and turns back to her monkeys, back in their perches and enjoying the Summer sunshine against their blue fur. She finds herself approaching them, reaching out to pat Spottery’s soft head. He lets out a happy chuff. He’s a young monkey, small and too young to remember the Wizard or Elphaba or how his kind entered Glinda’s service, but he seems to love her all the more for it.
There’s something…refreshing about his company. He can’t compare her to anyone. It might not even cross his mind to.
“Chistery incoming,” Dorevan calls, just in time for Glinda to be nearly decapitated by said monkey’s wing as he flies through the window. There’s a great commotion as he crashes into her vacant chair, wings going everywhere in his desperate attempt to slow himself.
“Chistery!” she cries, dropping to his height as he finally slumps to the ground. “Are you alright?!”
“Your Goodness,” he pants, his bicolored eyes huge. “Munchkinland. Quickly…I must show you.” He gestures with a curled hand. “Bring the bubble.”
The bubble in question is a far cry from the contraption engineered for her by the Wizard all those years ago, though it retains much of the same exterior appearance. The bubble is actually magical now, though the airworthiness (and speed) are aided by the continued presence of mechanical components. They fly over Oz so swiftly Glinda can hear the wind screaming even through the sound-dampening bubble. The flower fields and sleepy hamlets which make up Munchkinland slip past beneath them, its residents sheltered tidily in the lie she has maintained for them.
What she doesn’t see is whatever all this fuss is about, only a crowd of inconsolable monkeys in the otherwise-empty field Chistery takes her to. She sets down in the thick of them, dissipating the bubble and being instantly inundated with the sound of two dozen screaming simians. It takes Chistery snapping and snarling and pounding his chest for them to quiet and let her through, wings hurriedly tucked away to reveal a black form, slumped in the verdant grass.
The sight brings her instantly to her knees, her heart paralyzed for so many seconds she has to claw at it to get it to beat again.
“I-it can’t be,” she gasps, vision blurring. “It can’t be.”
But somehow it is. Glinda’s finger tips barely brush against the familiar tidy braids, the round glasses, then, ever so lightly, over the green skin. It would be more bearable if she’d been set on fire, or buried under a thousand stones, or thrown in chains into some dark ocean. As it is, her skin burns, her chest aches as if she is being crushed, her limbs feel utterly leaden.
“Elphie,” she breathes.
The freckles are all in the right places, even if there are only half as many as the last time Glinda committed the face to memory. The soft, round cheeks are exactly as she remembers from her now far-off school days. She is young, impossibly so, even—somehow—for a woman who’s been dead for fifteen years.
Glinda grasps her shoulders and gives her a shake.
“Elphaba,” she says firmly, in the voice she uses for her magic, but Elphaba doesn’t stir. Her head lolls, and there on her neck, under where her skin just barely quivers with her pulse, Glinda sees it: black streaks climbing like spidery vines over the familiar green of her throat.
“Magic, my lady?” Chistery asks very softly. She still startles.
“Yes,” she answers, tripping over the word. “A curse. Help me get her in the bubble. I need to consult the Grimmerie.”
They race back to the Emerald City, thankfully still visible as a black speck against the sunset, sweeping into her rooms through a rear-facing balcony that keeps them out of public view, at least for the most part. Elphaba’s dead-weight (how she hates that term) is cumbersome, but Glinda and the monkeys manage, laying her on the bed. The Grimmerie flies through the doorway and into her outstretched hand. Spottery, thoughtful as he is, busies himself getting Elphaba’s boots off.
“Monkeys,” Glinda says as the pages of the Grimmerie flip back and forth, faster than any human could possibly turn them. “Don’t let anyone disturb me.”
“Yes, Your Goodness.”
At her age, Glinda is loathe to find a new limit to her perpetually-insufficient magical education. It is especially frustrating here, now, leaned over her best friend, trying to save her from whatever deadly spell is killing her.
There are forty-two healing spells in the Grimmerie, covering everything from sunburns to fatal poisonings. Of those forty-two, only five concern themselves with magical “ailments”. Glinda blows through four of them in an hour.
Laying a hand on Elphaba’s black-streaked, heaving chest, Glinda gives a second’s wry acknowledgement to the universe’s sense of humor. Of course it would send her another Elphaba, all to make Glinda watch her die again. Classic.
But she isn’t a helpless pawn anymore. The words of the Grimmerie come easily to her now, and the black veins on Elphaba’s neck glow gold as the gylphs on the ancient pages as the magic begins to take effect. This spell is a poem, longer and wordier than the many others Glinda has learned, calling on gods and saints whose names survive only in this ancient tome.
Please work, she prays. Please. Please.
The glow fades as soon as the incantation is done. Glinda tugs Elphaba’s collar open to examine her neck and chest. There’s no sign of the darkness that had marred the lovely emerald skin, only the lightest spotting of freckles. Glinda imagines the girl undoing a button or two of her Shiz-blue blouse, letting the sun leave its mark on her collarbones while her airheaded best friend goes on about something utterly irrelevant.
“Chistery,” she croaks, knowing he waits quietly somewhere behind her.
“I’m here,” he replies.
“I,” she clears her throat before continuing, “I want you to find Dulcibear, please. I can’t stay with Elphaba day and night, but someone needs to watch over her until she wakes.”
He nods, but doesn’t leave immediately.
“Do you have any idea…?” he asks after a moment’s silence. His voice never lost its hoarseness, not even after years of speaking.
“It was a powerific curse,” she says. “It fought me to the very end. But I was able to undo it, so it’s not from the Grimmerie. Beyond that…” She shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine, Chiss.”
He makes a sound of grave displeasure, echoing her thoughts, and departs with a sullen nod of farewell. Alone now, Glinda turns back to the new occupant of her bed. Pinched look of pain gone from her features, Elphaba sleeps soundly, the skin between her brows perfectly smooth under Glinda’s needy thumb. She could be an angel, she is so beautiful.
Glinda kisses her temple, breathes in the familiar pine-and-parchment smell of her, and doesn’t let herself cry, even when a sob claws its way up her throat so violently it nearly squeaks out of her.
“Hold out, my sweet,” she whispers, and lets her sleep.
Dulcibear and Chistery arrive past midnight, though Glinda is, of course, still awake, going over the day’s reports again to try to occupy her restless mind. She expects Dulcibear to rush right past her, looking for the girl she raised, but she stops, stands to her great height, and wraps Glinda up in a soft, furry hug.
“You look tired,” she rumbles.
“I’m exhausted,” Glinda mumbles in return, the familiar bearish scent of her seeping tension from her neck and shoulders. “S-she hasn’t woken up yet.” Her voice nearly cracks, but she forces it steady.
“Nothing to worry about, dear,” Dulcibear soothes. “With what she’s been through, I’m not surprised she’s still asleep. Get some rest while I fix things up here. I’ll come get you if anything changes,” she adds at Glinda’s inhale.
“Thank you,” Glinda rasps. There’s no trace of unsteadiness to her gait, nor a weary slump in her shoulders, but she feels as if she staggers into her bathroom anyway, barely reacting as a pair of Birds swoop in to undo the ties of her dress and the corset underneath. She dozes off in the tub, the disorienting blur between life and dreams filled with soft green skin and the twist of grief in her guts.
“Your Goodness,” Spottery whispers, rousing her. “We moved Elphaba to the day bed. Come and sleep.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Glinda mumbles, accepting her robe from him.
“It’s easier for Dulcibear to care for her there,” he replies. “At least, that’s what she said.”
“Okay,” she says, too exhausted to point out that Dulcibear had just played him like a fiddle.
She sleeps again. The coldness of an empty Kiamo Ko greets her there, but when her eyes open to the blackness of her bedroom, she can still smell Elphaba on the pillow.
The morning’s mail is delivered by Chistery, who has set an impassable boundary around Glinda’s tower at her instruction. At the top is a letter from the governor of Munchkinland. Grinding her teeth, she tosses it into her ‘important’ pile and sorts the rest accordingly. Harvest season has begun in Gillikin country, and is but a few weeks away in Munchkinland, which means the traders of the Vinkus are similarly rushing to prepare their wares to trade for precious food. The projections look good, but Glinda makes a note to needle the governor of Munchkinland about the state of their grain mills, provided it has not been addressed in the envelope glaring up at her from her desk.
In worse news, the construction of the railway into the Vinkus has been delayed once again, this time by a cave-in that killed a half-dozen railroad sectioners. Any other day, this would be enough for her to holler for Pfannee to haul the head of Oz Rails into her meeting chamber for yet another browbeating. As it is, she curses under her breath and finally grabs the governor’s letter, opening it with unnecessary violence.
Your Goodliness,
As requested in your previous message, I have attached the latest assessments of grain processing capacity in Munchkinland. They are predominantly favorable…
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she mutters.
…but there is one mill in Wend Hardings which will only be operating at 20% capacity by our current estimates.
“And there it is.” Glinda sighs and shoots a resentful glare at the door Pfannee usually enters through.
“He’s still out there,” Dorevan tells her. “He argued with Chistery for about a third-hour and then locked himself in his offices.”
“Thank Oz for that.” Glinda stands and beckons him along, stepping carefully around the monkey barricade outside and striding down the hall to Pfannee’s rooms.
“Your Goodness!” his assistant squeaks. She is a ruddy-haired Munchkin, stout and overdressed in the way of the Munchkinland nouveau riche. Glinda stares at her, trying to remember her name.
“Aleen,” she says after an awkward clock-tick. “Is he in?”
“Yes, Your Goodness. Right this way.” Aleen trips over her own shoes as she hurries to open Pfannee’s door.
“Ah, there is the most brilliantificous Eminence of Oz,” Pfannee exclaims as she enters. “Your monkeys wanted to rip my ears off this morning for trying to see you.”
“Don’t insultify them,” Glinda says tightly. “It’s unnecessary.”
Pfannee keeps the same banal smile, but his throat bobs with his swallow. He cuts his eyes between Aleen and the exit, dismissing her, and waits for the door to click shut behind her before he speaks.
“What are you hiding in there, Glinda?”
“Nothing.” His eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. “None of your business,” she amends in a snap. “Pfannee, you have to go to Munchkinland.”
“Me? Why me?” He accepts the slightly-wrinkled letter she inadvertently crushed in her grip, skims it, then looks over it at her. “The mill in Wend Hardings is—”
“The second-largest grain mill in Oz, yes,” she says impatiently. “I need you to go in my place, Pfannee. I’m busy.”
The verb need is usually all it takes to have him leaping to his feet, and while he does sit up straighter, he continues to study her.
“This could derailicate the entire harvest,” he says, “but you’re too busy to see it resolved yourself?”
“Pfannee,” she warns as he stands, primly adjusting his jacket.
“You sly fox,” he exclaims. “You’re in love!”
She goes rigid. “What?”
He lets out a delighted giggle at her expression. “I can’t believe it! It’s been years!” She is suddenly getting crushed against his side. “Is he handsome?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh, alright. What does she look like, then? Blonde? No, no, you’ve never liked anyone blonder than you. Dark hair, then.”
“Pfannee. Munchkinland.”
“Dark hair and…green eyes?” he muses, ignoring her.
“I am not in love,” she snarls, wrenching away from him. She clutches the edge of his desk to keep herself upright, her throat constricting until she feels her eyes sting. “Nor am I ever again going to be so.”
He stands wide-eyed and spooked.
“I…I was just teasing,” he says when the silence drags on too long.
“It’s not funny,” she replies flatly.
He has the sense to look contrite. “I’ll leave at once for Munchkinland.”
She nods once. “Good. Send a Bird once you’re there.”
Ignoring Aleen’s chirped goodbye, she hurries back into the safety of her rooms, sagging against the door and covering her face with her hands.
“Am I in love,” she whispers to herself in disbelief. “In what fucking world?”
The mere idea seems absurd. Oh, she tried, years ago. She let herself be wined and dined by a handful of suitors from different parts of Oz, to keep up appearances, and perhaps in some naive hope that someone might fill the abyss in her heart. It didn’t work. None of them were half as charming as Fiyero, not a tenth as magnetic as Elphaba, or remotely as kind as either of them.
Loneliness is the price of the choices she made. She’s gotten used to it.
Dorevan pats her knee, but says nothing. Her monkeys know when she needs a few moments of silence. Right now, she could use an eternity of it.