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Elphaba doesn’t believe in karma. If karma were real, most of Oz would’ve already been torn apart for how they’ve treated her. But if karma isn’t real, how else can she explain what’s happening to Glinda—and why it’s all happening in her general vicinity?
Glinda has been acting strangely all day. She slept straight through their first lecture, and when she finally stirred, she didn’t leap out of bed, fling open the balcony doors, and chirp cheerful greetings to the birds as usual. Instead, she groaned, shuffled to the bathroom, and dragged the weight of sleep with her like a heavy cloak. Even now, as they practice with Madame Morrible, Glinda isn’t herself.
“Focus on the glass of water. Explore its weight in your mind. Push your focus into it, feel yourself gripping it, and then lift. It will begin to levitate.”
Elphaba nods, turning her attention to the glass of water in front of her. Usually, Glinda isn’t one to shy away from commentary, especially once she discovered that Elphaba can block her out without breaking focus. But today, Glinda is silent. She rests her cheek against her fist, slouched unceremoniously in her chair, her usual poise replaced by a tired, detached air.
Elphaba steals a glance at her. Glinda’s eyes are shadowed with dark circles, though as her roommate, Elphaba knows she’s had more sleep this past week than in their entire time together. A faint sniffle breaks the silence, and Elphaba’s concentration wavers. She darts another look at Glinda, who rubs at her nose absentmindedly and sniffles again.
“Focus, Ms. Elphaba,” Madame Morrible’s calm tone pulls her back to the task.
Elphaba shifts her gaze to the glass on the table. The water is perfectly still, a single bubble riding lazily up the side to the surface. She closes her eyes, forcing her mind to envelop the glass, wrapping it in her will.
“Good. Now will the glass to float.”
Energy builds within her, surging toward the glass. It tips, trembles, and a ripple of water sloshes over the edge.
“Hh—!” Glinda’s breath snags noisily.
Her eyes snap open just as the glass wobbles precariously. Her hand darts out, catching it before it can fall.
Madame Morrible smiles lightly. “No worries, dear. I have a book in my office that may help with this. Stay here, I’ll be right back.” Her heels clack against the floor as she leaves, the heavy door thudding shut behind her. Elphaba exhales, turning her focus back to the glass of water. She closes her eyes, steeling herself to try again.
To her right, Glinda clears her throat.
Elphaba forces her energy to surround the cup. The water trembles, rippling faintly under her mental grip.
Glinda sniffles.
Heat prickles the back of Elphaba’s neck. She clenches her jaw, her concentration fraying.
“Can you stop staring at me? Please?”
“Oh, am I making you nervous?” Glinda’s tone is feather-light, but there’s an edge to it.
“No, you’re distracting me,” Elphaba snaps, opening her eyes to glare at her. “You’re making so much noise. I can’t think with all your sniffling.”
“Well, forgive me,” Glinda retorts, her voice dripping with indignation, “but that’s not exactly something I can control.”
“I’m just asking you to stop sniffling—”
“And I’m telling you, it’s not my fault!”
Elphaba shoots to her feet, her temper snapping like a taut wire. In two quick strides, she’s at Glinda’s side, yanking the blackberry-purple handkerchief from her blazer pocket and thrusting it toward her.
“Take this.”
Glinda leans back, nose crinkling. “I don’t want it.”
“You won’t stop until you blow your nose.”
“I don’t need to blow my nose!”
Their eyes lock in a silent standoff, the air thick with tension and irritation.
“Yes you do, I can literally see your—“
Glinda’s eyes flicker closed, a ticklish look drawing her eyebrows together. “kn’scht! scHht! izSCH—iew!” She snaps forward into her folded hands, the top-most button of her steele blue blouse flying open. Goosebumps prickle down every hot inch of Elphaba’s skin, anger mixing with something even more terrible.
Behind them, the glass shatters against the floor.
Water spills across the tiles, pooling into a reflective sheen. Elphaba catches her distorted reflection in it, her brows drawn tight with not irritation, but surprise. Her cheeks are red with blush. She exhales sharply, turning toward the door.
“I’ll get some towels.”
She tosses the handkerchief onto the table in front of Glinda without a second glance, leaving her to deal with her "business" on her own.
As she strides down the hall, heat churns in her gut, the incident looping relentlessly in her mind.
Her next class is one she shares with a familiar face. Fiyero is usually late, and today is no exception. His seat beside her remains empty until he finally saunters in, winking at her as he drops into the chair with his usual casual flair.
It’s a Linguification course, taught by the petite gazelle, Ms. Mikko. Two neat purple bows adorn the ends of her slender horns, sparkling lightly as she moves.
“Fiyero, just in time! It’s your turn to present to the class,” she says, her tone sweet with affection. Elphaba has quickly grown accustomed to the fact that since his arrival, he’s been praised for doing absolutely nothing and that is the way it will be.
He hums, pushing himself to his feet and ambling to the front of the room. As he busies himself setting up for his presentation, Elphaba’s thoughts begin to wander.
Her mind drifts back to Glinda—her tired, shadowed eyes, her shiny, damp nose, and the way she pitched forward with such demanding sneezes. They weren’t much in the way of sound, but they jerked her forward as if each sneeze were starting at her toes and working its way out. Elphaba had tried to focus on the glass, closing her eyes and willing it to move, but all she could focus on was the noises Glinda made.
Glinda’s body was betraying her with unapologetic illness, noisy and unrelenting. Karma. Why did Elphaba have to endure the torture of her cold too? Karma.
“I must admit,” Fiyero begins, his voice hoarse and strained. The room falls silent, all eyes snapping to him. “I’m feeling a bit under the weather, so your patience will be greatly appreciated.”
“Oh, Mr. Tiggelaar, you sound dreadful,” Ms. Mikko exclaims, her concern evident. “Would you prefer to wait until you’re feeling better to present to the class?”
Fiyero shakes his head, offering a weak smile. “No, no, I’m fine. I’ll rest plenty this weekend.”
Elphaba’s stomach twists uncomfortably, heat flaring beneath her ribs. It coils and rolls, traveling downward in a maddening loop between her thighs and belly button, like a relentless yo-yo she can’t control.
Maybe karma is real. Maybe she’d done something to deserve this particular brand of torment.
Her fingers curl tightly around the edge of her desk, bracing herself in anticipation.
Fiyero muffles a cough into his elbow before clearing his throat.
“Okay, this is ‘Censorship: If We All Die, Why Does It Matter What We Say?’”
A few chuckles ripple through the room, and Elphaba fights to suppress a smile tugging at her lips.
He navigates through the first half of his presentation with only minor interruptions—a cough here, a pause for water there, and the occasional swipe of his blazer cuff against his nose. But as he delves deeper into his rhythm, his nose becomes a noticeable problem.
Elphaba catches the exact moment the tickle starts. His nose scrunches slightly, a subtle, almost endearing twitch as he tries to quell the sensation without using his hands. A wet sniffle follows, and he brushes his thumb against his septum, an action both casual and futile.
Rather than push through it as she expected, Fiyero pauses mid-sentence, throwing up a hand. “Oz, this cold. Excuse me—I’m going to sneeze.”
He steps to the side, out of the way of the board, as if to shift the attention back to his presentation. But no one looks at the board. All eyes remain glued to him, and Elphaba feels a little less guilty for openly observing him.
Fiyero rubs a finger under his nose, his sniffling punctuated by shallow breaths as his chest rises and falls. His eyes flutter upward, catching the overhead light, but the sneeze refuses to cooperate. The prolonged anticipation makes it worse, the tension in his features building as he battles with the elusive sensation.
Everyone leans in, captivated by the rare glimpse of vulnerability from Fiyero. All eyes are glued to him. It may be the first time Elphaba feels like she fits in at Shiz.
Fiyero takes a gasping breath before pitching forward into his elbow. “—h’TSSSschu! hh’dzSSCHu! Oh Wizard above— hh’djSCHhu! snf!sNF! I apologize,” he says, his voice thick with congestion. “The sneezes had me in a trance this morning. I thought I was past it, but I guess it’s back.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Ms. Mikko says sympathetically, clasping her hooves together. “We’ll reschedule the remainder of your presentation for Monday. Class dismissed for now. Everyone, please remember to wash your hands and hooves—and be safe this weekend.”
Elphaba doesn’t wait for her to finish. She’s out the door, her footsteps echoing in the hallway.
If she left behind a stray textbook or two, so be it. She could make do at the library. Anything to escape the suffocating air of that classroom. The tension, the proximity to Fiyero, the way his illness lingered in every word and gesture—it was unbearable. She needed to be free of it, free of him, if only for a moment.
Thankfully, Boq and Nessarose are in the library, their presence pulling her from the whirlwind of thoughts and feelings threatening to consume her. But even their chatter and the gentle rustle of turning pages can’t seem to clear her mind.
She can’t stop replaying the scene from earlier: Glinda, looking so impossibly tired and sweet, perched nearby while Elphaba worked. The delicate knit of her blonde eyebrows just before a fit of sneezes overcame her. The vocal inhale, startling and soft, that sounded like something far more raunchy than just a sneeze.
Elphaba shakes her head to clear the image of Glinda, but Fiyero is there to take her place.
Fiyero, with the disheveled pop of his blazer collar as if he’d rolled straight out of bed. The gravel in his voice, roughened by a morning spent coughing. The unapologetic way he announced his sneeze to the entire class, nostrils flaring impossibly wide, and then wider like even after they reached the maximum circumference, the tickle was bad enough for them to tremble further. His hair, flopping into his eyes with each sneeze, snapping him in half at the waist.
The prince of Winkie Country, helplessly at the mercy of his cold before an audience, and the heir of the Upper Uplands, earlier that day, surrendering to her own fit of desperate vulnerability in private for Elphaba alone.
Elphaba grips the edge of her textbook, her knuckles pale against the worn cover.
Her stomach flutters.
She can still hear it: Glinda’s little sniffles. ‘The sneezes had me in a trance...’ The words replay, vivid and uninvited, as though the two of them are competing for space in her head—so weary, so achingly human.
It’s hot in the library.
“Elphaba, are you alright?” Nessa’s voice cuts through her onslaught of thoughts, pulling her out of her stupor. Elphaba blinks, realizing she’s been staring at her closed textbook for Oz knows how long. It’s unlike her to zone out, especially while studying, but her thoughts feel jumbled, tangled in a mess she can’t quite sort out.
She forces a chuckle, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck as she flips the textbook open. “Huh? Oh, I’m fine. Sorry. Just... thinking about an upcoming quiz, that’s all.”
Nessa hums, her eyes narrowing slightly as she twists her pen between her fingers.
Boq, sitting across from them, leans in with a frown. “Your hands are trembling, Elphaba,” he says gently, “and your neck and ears are red. I hope you’re not catching that dreadful cold going around.”
Nessa’s lips purse, her concern etched plainly across her face. “Oh, poor Boq just got over it,” she tuts, her lower lip jutting out in sympathy.
“I did!” Boq chirps, his voice bright despite the clear remnants of his illness. Now that her attention is drawn to him, Elphaba notices the cracks on his lips, dry and chapped as if he’d been parched for days. The underside of his nose is raw and angry, its irritated redness nearly matching the fiery hue of his hair.
“It settled right in my head,” Boq continues, oblivious to her growing discomfort. “It was awful. I couldn’t sleep a wink because I was sneezing so much. Luckily, I didn’t have to miss much school to recover, though.”
In a past life, Elphaba must have done something truly horrific to deserve this torment now. Karma, she thinks bitterly, her mind cycling through every torturous moment of the day.
Fiyero’s sweet, hoarse voice announcing his sneeze like it was some grand event. Glinda’s incessant sneezes, oblivious to her own misery, seemingly content to let her body betray her with every sound.
Her collar feels too tight, chafing against her damp skin. Sweat beads along the back of her neck as heat floods her face, rushing down her chest, coiling tight in her stomach like a spring wound to its breaking point. It’s too much—far too much.
She shoots to her feet, her movements clumsy and abrupt.
“I have to— I forgot I was supposed to— uh... See you both later!” The words tumble out in a jumbled rush, and she doesn’t wait for their responses.
Her focus narrows as she bolts for the exit, counting each step as though it’s the only thing tethering her to reality.
One, two, three...
Eleven steps. That’s all it takes to reach the library doors and burst through them, finally free of the heat pressing in on her from every angle.
It’s almost laughable at this point. When Elphaba shoves her bedroom door open, desperate for some reprieve from the torture of her day, she finds Glinda and Fiyero sitting on Glinda’s bed.
Elphaba freezes in the doorway, clutching her satchel tightly to her chest as both pairs of eyes snap to her.
“Elphaba, there you are!” Fiyero greets, tugging the blanket more snugly around his shoulders. “Please shut the door—you’re letting the cold in.”
Glinda waves her closer. “Thank Oz you’re here. Do you have any tea? I’m all out.”
“And maybe a thermometer!” Fiyero chimes in.
Elphaba stares at them, fumbling for words before stupidly choking out, “Are you alright?”
“We caught whatever’s going around. I feel positively dreadful,” Fiyero groans, rubbing his eye with a fist and sniffling thickly. “How you’ve managed to dodge this is beyond impressive.”
Glinda suddenly grips Fiyero’s arm, her breath hitch-hitch-hitching as her shoulders rise and fall rapidly.
“Don’t tease, Galinda—you’ll make me need to sneeze,” he warns.
“That is certainly not my fault,” she retorts, just before pitching forward with a flurry of quick sneezes, each caught delicately in the folds of her cream-colored handkerchief. “hH— KsHh! ‘tsscht! -izsst! eH’Shh—iew!”
“Bless you.” Fiyero rubs her shoulder sympathetically.
Elphaba feels like she’s both suffocating and burning with desire at the same time.
“I have to— I just—uh. I’ll be right back,” she stammers clumsily, dropping her satchel as she stumbles toward the bathroom. The door slams behind her, and she locks it quickly. It takes everything in her to steady her rapid breaths.
Through the door, she hears Glinda blowing her nose.
“She’s acting strange,” Fiyero says.
“Absolutiously,” Glinda agrees.
“Hm. Maybe she’s a germaphobe.”
Elphaba rests her hot face against the door, silently praying to Oz that her karmic streak will end soon.