Work Text:
Ding DONG
“Good news!”
“She’s dead!”
Ding DONG
“The Witch of the West is dead!”
…………
Glinda floated over the rolling hills, green fields turning to carefully ordered stripes of colored flowers that were tinged pink through the bubble of her carriage. She’s all for grand gestures, most would say it’s an integral part of her personality at this point: her flair for the dramatic. And what’s more magical and dramatic than floating out of the sky like a benevolent iridescent fairy? At least, that’s how she felt when she built the flying contraption one painstaking spell at a time. But today? Today she would give anything for a simple horse cart. A bicycle, maybe. Something ordinary and easily overlooked; a mode of transportation that didn’t scream ‘here comes Glinda, Good Witch of the North!’
An hour ago, she’d stepped on the carriage and let the wind choose her direction. Great Oz, had it really only been an hour? The position of the sun and the small houses coming into view on the horizon proved it. It was only an hour or so by air from Winkie Country to Munchkin Land.
Glinda glared up at the sky. It was just as perfectly blue and cloudless as it had been when she’d heard the news. The sun glittered through her bubble to cast rainbows on the tiny figures running about below, but couldn’t touch the shadows wrapped around her heart.
“Of course this is where I’d end up.”
Glinda brushed a hand down the front of her pink chiffon dress. The fingers only trembled a little as they sorted out the folds. Perfection, pink, perky, and poised. That is what was expected, and she could give them nothing less.
“Look, it’s Glinda!” Shouted a voice from down below.
Her bubble had been spotted. She gritted her teeth. Showtime.
Taking her wand, (more of a staff at this point in order to channel the little magic she had as efficiently as possible,) Glinda tapped it on the floor and issued the command to land. Someone had to deliver the news. As a Good Witch of Oz, it was her duty. The Munchkins didn’t have a leader at the moment. Nessa had been flattened by that little girl with the speechless dog, the one who had…
Who had… to Elphaba…
Glinda slapped her cheeks. Hopefully the Munchkins would take the redness as a liberal application of blush, or just her normal cheery demeanor.
The bubble touched down on a raised platform in the center of the town square. A generous crowd had already gathered there. Judging from the dull roar outside, her news had preceded her. She gathered herself. There was no time to debate her words, no time to reflect on anything other than the expectant gazes fixed on her fragile shell. Spine ramrod straight, Glinda reached up and lightly tapped the bubble with her wand.
The crowd hushed as it popped in a shower of glittering droplets.
“Fellow Ozians…”
“Glinda, is it true?” Called a voice.
“Is she really dead?” Asked another.
Glinda stared out at the hundreds of hopeful faces spread out beneath her. She forced a smile on her face. “It is. She’s dead.”
The crowd cheered their approval. Families hugged, couples kissed, and banners proclaiming the news waved from every window with abandon. Buckets of confetti were tossed onto the streets where children ran about shrieking like certain winged monkeys.
Where had they gotten those?
Glinda eyed the waving strips of cloth stitched with green and hateful words. Elphaba’s likeness stamped and marred across the surface of many. She shook herself.
Focus, Glinda. You still have to give some sort of speech.
Glinda took a breath. “Let us be glad. Let us be grateful. Let us rejoicify that goodness could subdue…
Her chest ached. “The wicked workings of you-know-who.”
“Isn't it nice to know that good will conquer evil? The truth we all believe'll by and by, outlive a lie. For you and…”
“No one mourns the wicked!” Interrupted a Munchkin man.
Another nodded. “No one cries ‘they won’t return!’”
“No one lays a lily on their grave.” Chorused a group of women.
Glinda choked. Elphaba didn’t even get a grave.
“The good man scorns the wicked!”
The crowd nodded along. “Through their lives our children learn what we miss when we misbehave.”
The crowd broke into groups and began to dance around the square. They twirled around the road in choreographed unison, steps clacking off the yellow bricks in rhythm until the whole town rang in time to the bells in the chapel. Leaps turned into tumbles that pairs easily sidestepped. Twirls and lifts roiled like waves through the group. They danced with a certainty and grace born of practice.
More confetti was thrown, and posters of Elphaba in distorted poses were chopped down as the dancers whirled past. Her clawed hands and snarling face were trampled upon by the villagers' feet. Other images were thrown into fires, the painted green skin blackening and curling into ash as the fabric burned.
Glinda’s vision wavered. These were her people.
A child grinned as they set yet another image of Elphaba ablaze.
They should have loved her.
A cheer rose from the square as a large shape trundled in from the fields. It was an effigy. Complete with broom and that horrible hat Glinda had given her all those months ago, rendered in straw and wood over ten feet tall and smelling of fresh oil. It was rolled into places as the people sang and danced some more.
How long have they been planning this?!
She didn’t get much out of Elphaba when it came to her upbringing. She’d heard Elphaba’s confessions about her father’s hatred, and how it had driven him to poison her mother until Nessa had come too early and crippled. How he’d blamed her for that, and every other flaw in his life. But Glinda had never thought to ask how the other Munchkins had treated her.
Well, she had a pretty good guess now.
The kindest person she’d ever known. A little sharp, definitely greener than most were used to, but smarter than most of their professors combined and powerful enough to make the Wizard himself tremble. People cursed her and belittled her, yet, she’d be the first to lift you up if you slipped and the steadiest shoulder to lean on if you felt a little lost. Glinda would know.
That was the leader Elphaba could have been for the Munchkins. She was the first-born of the governor, by rights she should have been their leader after finishing her studies at Shiz. Nessa never should have taken control after his death.
But they chose fear and hate long before the world called her ‘wicked.’ Didn’t they? Glinda thought as the Munchkins kept dancing.
How many hours had the women in their colorful skirts with smiles stamped across their faces labored over the stitchery on those banners that were burning away? How many men had it taken to cut down the trees that formed the towering legs of her friend’s effigy? How many here had spent nights by the fire cutting confetti, practicing their dance steps, or testing their voices for this very day? All bound together by their hatred and fear of a woman who came from their very blood.
She stepped off her carriage and walked slowly down the steps of the podium. The Munchkins bowed to her as she went. Glinda patted shoulders, held hands, smiled at children, and nodded to each and every person she passed. For once, she was glad her bubbles were made of soap.
“And Goodness knows,” Green shadows flickered over the faces graced with ordinary brown hues as another batch of confetti was thrown.
“The wicked's lives are lonely.”
Green hands holding a lunch tray on an empty table. A green face buried in a book tucked in the back of the classroom with vacant chairs all around. Two green legs thrown over the edge of a balcony as all of Shiz rushed towards the docks in party dress.
“Goodness knows, the wicked die alone.” Glinda’s voice shook.
She’d seen the puddle. Viscous with soot and ash, the burnt ends of Elphaba’s broom resting in a pool of water that spread over the cobbled floor of the castle tower. That hat floating in the center of it all. It hadn’t looked like the remains of a person . It certainly didn’t look like her remains. For the first time in her life, Elphaba hadn’t sported a speck of green.
It wasn’t fair.
Glinda didn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. But the Winkie guards, the monkeys, even that girl and her merry band of misfits all confirmed the story. They’d seen water splash and the witch scream, her body sinking into a growing pool until nothing remained.
“It just shows when you're wicked…”
Glinda reached the base of the towering effigy. Stared up at the twiggy talons and jagged bark teeth the Munchkins had so painstakingly crafted into a twisted likeness of ‘The Wicked Witch.’ It was the only way Oz would remember her.
“You're left only, on your own.”
Each word was sandpaper on her tongue.
“Yes, Goodness knows the wicked's lives are lonely. Goodness knows, the wicked cry alone.”
How many nights had Elphaba cried? Over her childhood? Over their short time together? Glinda shook at the memories of all she’d done to the poor woman when they’d first met. Elphaba must have cried, but she’d done so in silence. Glinda had only caught her once. That night at the dance where she refused to be cowed by an ugly hat and a mocking crowd. It hadn’t been the hate that caused her tears, though. Glinda had only noticed the tears tracking down Elphaba’s cheeks when their hands touched as they danced together. She remembered the way those taloned fingers had gripped hers. Anxiously, but gentle at the same time. As if they feared she’d melt away if they pressed too hard.
“Nothing grows for the wicked, they reap only what they've sown!” The crowd chanted.
A torch was pressed into Glinda’s hand instead.
She watched the flames lick up the wood for a second. Gold and red and hungry as the eyes of the Munchkins around her. Her action was clear. The expectation set. Glinda glanced one last time at the wooden monstrosity that bore no resemblance to the woman she’d known. Every kind line turned twisted by wood and the little minds dancing around her.
Let it burn.
She tossed the torch on the pyre. The oil soaked base flared at once and she turned her back on the crackling roar of fire and Munchkin. Glinda fixed her eyes on the pink base of her carriage instead. She picked her way back through the crowd, the little magic in her veins thrumming in time to the rushing pulse of her aching heart. The destination didn’t matter. She just needed to be up and away from this place. Even if she lived a thousand years, she didn’t think she’d ever find the will to return.
Are people born wicked?
Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?
In Elphaba’s case, Glinda knew the answer.