Angular by Chudley Cannon

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Notes: This works better, I think, if you take this part and read it as either a companion piece to the first part or the actual second half of a long oneshot. I don't know why I broke it up into two chapters, it feels weird to me. Oh yeah. And this was written, for the most part, prior to reading Son of a Witch. Which is not overly relevant, I don't think, but if, for example, you remember a part in SoaW where Liir laments over Elphaba's hatred of cupcakes and here I have her delightfully scarfing down cupcakes -- well, I didn't know about it when I first wrote it, you know?

Part II

3. Tributary Empathy: Elphaba

I did not have expectations.

I of course say this to mean that my expectations, as far as my roommate went, were limited. I knew that I should have one and my assumption was that she would be female and that was perhaps as far as my thinking on it went. I did not wonder as far as getting along or not getting along, helping one another with schoolwork or not. It was simply this: existent and female.

Galinda existed and was obviously female and, harsh and impossible to imagine as it is, I don't think she liked me very much to begin with. If I were the artless, inefficient type I would make guesses on this having to do with the color of my skin, but once I knew her a bit better I realized that this was an oversimplification that was unfair to her. To say that my roommate should dislike someone for one reason, and a reason as dull as unfortunate skin pigmentation at that, would be an insult. The interesting thing about Galinda was that she was so riddled with complexities that when they came together she seemed almost simple as a result.

But as I've said before, I never had any expectations when it came to her so she was never less or more to me than I needed her to be.

Then, of course, living with a person for a long or short time, certain things begin to be expected. Expectations become, I suppose, necessary. I expected that every night she would wash her hair and brush out the curls and every morning she would put the curls back in. I'd watch her, and I suppose this unnerved her. I know this because she had this to say about it: "When you watch me, it unnerves me so." It couldn't be helped, of course, because I'm very concerned with life cycles, or just life in general—but mostly, yes, the cyclical aspects of it. Life and death and the importance of the in-between, you know. With Galinda, a certain shirking of schedule was normal; she did not prefer to show up at her classes on time or take her tea at the same time everyday. Yet, every night without fail she scrubbed herself of what seemed to me to be cultural expectations, this slathering of make-up, the curling of hair. And every morning without fail she met the same expectations and the slathering and curling began again. I was helpless to curb my interest in it.

This particular night, as she sat up in bed brushing her hair and I sat up reading, Ama Clutch said as she went to pull the window drapes closed, "Well there's the lights on, Doctor Goat is at it again."

"What's he at?" I asked, glancing up from my book.

"What he's always at, I'd say, 'though I couldn't figure it out." She clucked her tongue a few times. Galinda looked over at me as if she meant to roll her eyes, but her gaze became caught elsewhere. Her eyes did not meet mine, rather they were off just a bit and I thought she might be examining my nightgown.

I glanced back up at Ama Clutch as she pressed her nose to the window and narrowed her eyes. "Well," she said quietly, "now isn't that funny?"

"What's funny, Ama Clutch?" I asked.

Hastily, Ama Clutch closed the drapes tightly and said in a voice that was strange, choked: "Oh, nothing, my ducks. I'll just step down to check and make sure everything's all right."

Galinda seemed to rouse herself into attention suddenly. "Make sure what's all right?"

"As long as you girls are abed," went on Ama Clutch, not hearing her. I frowned. She went around the bed and laid one hand flat against Galinda's cheek. "Good night, dears." She moved toward the door and flicked her eyes in my direction. "Into bed soon, not up too late," she added, and then opened the door and left the room.

With a disinterested grumble, Galinda went back to brushing her hair. I returned to my book. "Hmph," she said and then she said it a bit louder as though I hadn't heard her: "Hmph."

"What?"

"She forgot to stoke the fire, Ama Clutch, and it's going to be a cold night."

"It's warm in here."

"It is now, the fire hasn't gone out yet," said Galinda impatiently. "In the middle of the night it won't be so."

"Hmm," I agreed, but did not know what she wanted me to do about it.

She sighed heavily.

I stood from the bed. "Perhaps I'll add another log."

"Oh, aren't you nice, thank you."

When it was to do with something like that, I often felt as though I would be better off if I did start expecting things about Galinda.

Finally, she set her hairbrush down and I took this as my cue to set my book aside. I made to turn off my lamp, saying, "Bed, then?"

"Oh," said Galinda carelessly, "I hope it's all right if I leave mine on; I need to study."

"Now?"

"Well yes, now, the exam's tomorrow isn't it?"

"What have you been doing all day that you couldn't have studied—"

"Well, Miss Pfannee and I took a walk along the canal—"

"Oh, yes," I said scathingly. "That does seem to be the most essential of tasks."

"—and my shoes got wet and I had to assure that—"

"Miss Galinda."

"Oh, Miss Elphaba, you don't mind, do you?"

Really, I was rather relieved that she was studying in the first place. An irrational fear that she would be placed on academic probation had dug itself inside my chest and refused to dig itself out. I slid down lower into my bed and said, "No, I don't mind," prompting Galinda to bestow upon me a relieved and pretty smile. I put my light out and rolled over to face the wall.

The fire crackled unremarkably and the muted, warm glow of Galinda's lamp was more comforting than I had guessed it would be; as was the shifting of her mattress, the shuffling of pages, the light, yielding sighs. I was not at all opposed to falling asleep in this particular environment.

"Miss Elphaba?"

I frowned. "Yes."

"What does obsolescence mean?"

I turned slightly, not opening my eyes. "It's… well, it's the act of becoming obsolete—or being obsolete."

"Oh. Of course."

I rolled over again and attempted to slide back into the comfortable, faraway, precipice-of-sleep sort of feeling.

"Well, what has it to do with Munchkin theory? The Munchkins aren't obsolete."

"Not yet we aren't," I quipped idly.

"How am I supposed to understand this at all?" the whining, plaintive wail came from the other bed. "These sentences are a mess of convolution if I've ever seen—"

"Bring it here," I told her abruptly, opening my eyes at last. I held my hand out and she was off her bed and at the edge of mine in a moment as I sat up, adjusting my mess of blankets and taking the proffered textbook.

I read the sentence over a few times, and then glanced at her, immediately flicking my attention from the light, expectant eyes. "Well, it refers to the obsolescence of full-sized Munchkins and the dominance of diminutive ones. I suppose the idea is that this points toward some sort of future upheaval, which sounds like nonsense if you ask me." I tipped the cover closed, looking at the title. "Why are you taking a Munchkin theory course anyway?"

She stared blankly at me and then shrugged. "My mother would like for me to be more culturally refined."

"Oh." I passed the textbook back to her.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well what?"

"What the dickens does it mean?" she asked impatiently. "You only gave me the words and I need the meaning."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"Well, please? Miss Elphaba, I am trying my very best to be better at this and you're making me feel quite silly to be trying in the first place."

That did the trick of softening me a bit—I cast my gaze down toward the book again. "Well, it's this old belief, as far as I know, that Munchkins are gradually shrinking or what-have-you—but that's always struck me as being rubbish, too—I mean, there's some sort of superiority complex among taller Munchkin families—"

"Like yours."

"Yes," I gritted out, "although the intricacies of my particular family should say enough about that theory, I think. But that's part of it, yes, my family being one of the oldest there is and people supposing there's some sort of correlation between height and class distinction."

"I am not sure I understand."

"You're lucky. Like most theories, it has its share of holes. Take your dear friend Miss Pfannee for one—a great deal richer than I and more than a foot shorter. It's the entire problem with attempting to generalize an entirety in persona. There's an enormous amount of falsities."

"Well," said Galinda thoughtfully, "your family is a great deal more powerful than Miss Pfannee's, isn't it?"

"In theory, I suppose," I said, the idea amusing me. "But then, it's not as though we can afford a summer home at Lake Chorge, can we?"

Galinda's expression plainly said that she did not appreciate my attempts at humor; moreover, it humiliated her. I bit down on my lower lip and tried to think of the best way to properly explain that teasing her grew out of a necessity that involved a younger sister of whom teasing was forbidden; you didn't tease Nessie, she was just so very pure.

But Galinda said, "Oh, Miss Elphaba," in a quiet, reproving and slightly thoughtful tone and I could not help but feel the slightest bit chastened.

"I apologize," I said to her and then added, "but there you are, a real life example to study."

She didn't appear to be listening, really, but she looked very much like she wanted to say something; she rid her lips of the words, a flush erupting across her cheeks. The stirring urge inside me was to watch it, so I did. After a moment, fingering the edge of the textbook and avoiding my gaze she said, "I was… touched that you would visit because you thought I had requested it."

"Tsk," I said, at a loss to say anything else. "Well, really, shouldn't it be Miss Pfannee who is touched, since she was the one who extended the invitation?"

Galinda glared at me. "Well, if I had."

"Yes, but you wouldn't have."

Galinda crossed her arms and gave me a sharp, icy look. "No, not with how you're behaving currently."

"Oh, what did I do," I snapped, "besides reveal the unequivocal truth that you—for no discernable reason—are trying to mask? I don't argue the point of what you and your friends find repugnant, I'd hope you would allow me a similar courtesy."

"I meant to say that it was a cruel trick she played and I hoped it would alleviate you to know that I appreciated the gesture you made."

It would have perhaps alleviated me to know it a while ago when it had occurred; at this juncture, though, it was just false, uneasy appeasement.

Yes, well, it was Boq really, I thought of saying; deflection was an extraordinary tactic as it allowed obtuseness where obtuseness did not normally exist. However, I only said, "The thought of you bored out of your lovely skull was painful. I thought I had to rescue you."

"You did, somewhat," she said with a slight, blithe smile. "It was bound to be an entire holiday of comparing dress materials."

"I do hope you mean that metaphorically."

"I fearfully do not. I only went because I had to attempt to exploit being invited over Miss Milla." She punctuated this with a self-satisfied smirk and an expectant and amusing expression.

Instead of laughing, though, I said, "Quite the social coup."

"Yes," she agreed without acknowledging the absurdity of it, "it was impossible to pass up."

"Oh, I imagine."

Perhaps my sarcasm was a bit too thickly laid on because Galinda flicked her eyes toward me promptly, a frown set upon her features so ethereally pretty it must have been practiced. "Oh," she said knowingly, "you think me vain and foolish. I assure you, it is all quite strategic."

"I—what?"

"A certain balance needs to be found between what one wants and what society wants one to accomplish. I think I'm striking that perfect balance, don't you?"

The room was a bit dimmer than it had been a moment ago. Galinda's lamp was waning, the acrid smell of oil in the air, and even the fire was going out just the slightest.

"I don't deny that I'm vain," she went on, "but I suppose I would be offended if you really find me as foolish as I suppose I come off."

"I don't," I said. "I don't think you're at all foolish."

"And I don't find you at all repugnant, so we're at evens."

"I suppose we are."

She smiled at me. "You have lovely, lovely hair." She lifted one hand as if to touch it and then snapped her hand back. I watched her and decided there was nothing at all that I expected when it had to do with her. She was silly and sort of brilliant, too, and certainly beyond expectations.

She arched and stretched, yawning. "And where the devil is Ama Clutch?"

"Oh." I watched her gather up the textbook and drop it on the floor as she climbed into her own bed. "I'm sure she'll be back with the tea by tomorrow morning."

"She had better be," yawned Galinda.

"What about your studying?" I asked her. She slid down into her covers and rolled her head lazily to look at me. Her expression was restrained—and so very blank.

"Well, that," she said, turning her lamp off. "I'm going to withdraw from that class. Goodnight, Miss Elphaba."

"Goodnight, Miss Galinda."

-------

A glass of champagne was shoved unceremoniously into my hands as we entered the Peach and Kidneys and I passed it along to Glinda, who drank gratefully. The red in her eyes was finally receding and a bit of color was returning to her cheeks, thankfully. Now was probably not the time to broach the subject of us visiting the Wizard, but I knew we had to. Perhaps I could go it alone, but Glinda had been at that bewildering meeting with Morrible, too—better not think about that just yet, don't try, shhh—and she ought to share my unnerved feeling. I wasn't about to bring along Nessa, she was far too delicate for that sort of thing, and besides, she wouldn't hear of it in the first place.

"Elphie, drink something, will you?" Boq rose from the booth, extracting himself from the tangle of Tibbett, Pfannee, and Crope, all utterly intertwined in drunken stupidity. "You look ridiculous just standing there—"

"Like a fantastical green storybook creature," interrupted Avaric with a drunk, lopsided smile.

"Yes, that."

"Yes," I said, sinking down into the booth next to Glinda. "Maybe one drink, but—"

And Glinda had already ordered me a sandwich (and was already doing a rather unfunny impersonation of my speech from a few weeks ago about one inviting illness when one drinks on an empty stomach), so I took the glass of champagne offered to me and drank from it wearily.

"What're you lot doing showing up so late anyway?" asked Boq. "What the hell could Morrible have kept you so long for?"

"Please do not mention her name," murmured Glinda, closing her eyes briefly, "or I shall retch."

"Attractive," I commented.

"Very," agreed Boq with an amused smile.

My sandwich was plunked down in front of me and the server gave our table a hateful look. I had an inkling of an idea that we were being a bit too loud ("we" of course referring to the boisterous singing duo of Tibbett and Avaric), but what did they expect from drunken university students? I reached for my champagne to find that Glinda had consumed it.

"Oh, we'll have the ale!" Boq shouted to our server. "It's far cheaper."

"We drink nothing cheap tonight," said Avaric and he halted his song to raise his glass in a toast. "Just because Morrible—"

"Ugh," said Glinda.

"—was too tight to give Ama Clutch a proper send-off doesn't mean we'll be."

"What's this 'we'?" muttered Shenshen. "It's your money, Avaric."

"Well, okay, but I'm not toasting alone." He pulled his coin purse out and dumped the entirety of its contents on the table. "You!" he shouted, pointing to our disgruntled server. "A salver of saffron cream, now."

"I'm not sure we have any—"

"This is an embarrassing amount of money," wheedled Avaric with a charming smile. "I am sure you have some."

This appeared to do the trick, and as she made off for the cream, we lifted our glasses in toast to Ama Clutch. It went on for quite awhile, shared anecdotes from the other Amas, Glinda, and I—even a few from the boys about her ability to be scarce when socializing was in order—and then the saffron cream was here—"scraped out of the bottom of the larder," the server gritted out with a queer smile and Tibbett picked his song back up. The Peach and Kidneys began to empty as our crowd got rowdier, but no one seemed to mind; indeed the saffron cream and champagne made us all a bit oblivious to anything.

Glinda had curled herself into a ball at my side, head slumped against my shoulder as she idly engineered the progress of a saffron cream replica of Shiz University that Crope, Shenshen, and Fiyero were erecting. "No, no," she slurred with a half-hearted gesture, "the roof on Crage Hall slopes lower; the pediments couldn't possibly support that." She brushed her cheek against my arm, smiled blearily up at me, and then closed her eyes.

"Elphie," prodded Boq from across the table, "are you listening to me?"

"No," I said honestly.

"I said don't let her fall asleep, she'll cheat us out of sharing cab fare if we have to carry her."

"Oh." I chuckled. "All right. We could always leave her here, though; they might be gentlemen and send her back to Shiz in a packing crate."

"That isn't funny." Boq frowned. He was hit in the side of the head with a spoonful of saffron cream. "Jackass," he grumbled at Avaric.

"Usually it would be," I said, offering my handkerchief. "What's wrong with you?"

He shrugged, wiping his face. "You ought to—" He broke off, staring helplessly down at Glinda, perhaps to determine how asleep she was. "You ought to be nicer to her."

"I was only kidding. I am nice to her, I'm rarely as accommodating with anyone else."

"Appreciate her more, then."

I snickered. "I do. I'd say it's a bit difficult to appreciate her as much as you seem to, but—"

"Oh hell, that isn't it, I'm not in love with her anymore." I couldn't tell if he was flushed from inebriation or frustration, but perhaps it was both. "I just mean that—this may surprise you, Elphie, but Glinda is probably the first person to not only accept you for your imperfections, but like you for them as well."

"What a thing to say," I said in a surly tone, taking an awkward sip of the bitter ale in my mug. "Like I said, I appreciate her."

"I didn't mean it like—well, hell, I like you, imperfections and all. I just mean that Glinda…"

"I heard you."

Boq gave me a look that suggested I was being difficult. Pfannee, sitting at his side, wondered aloud, "What's wrong with her?" and cast a subdued, curious look toward Glinda.

"I do hope you mean other than the recent death of her Ama," I said mildly, "unless you've really forgotten so quickly."

Pfannee flushed a bit and replied coolly, "There are other things that have garnered my concern."

"What's that?" asked Boq. Despite myself, I glanced down at the face nestled against my sleeve.

"Just her overall strangeness, you know—she's so quiet, isn't she?"

"Well," I said off-handedly, "bless her for not jabbering on all the time like some people."

"That was directed at me," sniffed Pfannee.

"It was directed at no one, stop flattering yourself." I looked away. I felt a fair bit more annoyed with her than I usually did, although I couldn't decide whether it was annoyance over the idiocy of using quiet pejoratively or the bristling concept of talking about Glinda right in front of her. At any rate, I turned my attention toward Nessarose, tipsy as ever. She managed a fair approximation of ladylike fervor, her legs crossed primly even as she was slumped against the back of her chair. I chuckled but it ended itself far too quickly as my gaze strayed down toward her shoes; my throat burned a bit but I attempted to forget about it, jealousy was unwarranted—and ignoble, too, for that matter—I didn't give a damn about her shoes.

"You don't need them, you know." Glinda was yawning against my arm, speaking drowsily. I glanced down at her to see that she had followed my gaze. Her eyes met mine and then she averted them, focusing instead on the Shiz replica, the caved-in exterior of the east tower. "You're distinctive all on your own."

"I don't see why she needed any more distinction." Our voices were quiet as we leaned in close, the noise of our companions becoming indistinct droning. "After all—"

"She has no arms," finished Glinda and I was grateful because I wouldn't have said it. I swallowed again and wished I could swallow back pettiness.

For it was petty and I could see that Glinda knew it as well. She yawned once more. "They're only shoes, Elphie. They're her only defense. You have your own defenses, you have loads of them."

"And you have loads of platitudes," I muttered and then, as an afterthought, "Thank you."

"Don't thank—"

We were interrupted by the pub's manager, who came by with a fierce scowl and told us that we were making far too much noise; "It's late besides, you ought to get the hell out, all of you."

"Oh hell," slurred Avaric, rising unsteadily, "after all that damned money I put down. I could've bought an entire district with it and I settled for your shitty saffron cream."

We filed out into the cold night, wet and slippery from previous circumstances, but thankfully not raining. I moved to help Nessarose down off the curb, but Nanny was already holding her steady so I held my hand out to Glinda and she took it; she stepped into the street with me and her eyes slid uncomfortably low, she swayed dangerously close and laced her fingers with mine. I pressed my hand against the small of her back to keep her steady, watching the dim lamplight slither down her glistening curls until it settled at our clasped hands.

In that light, the frightening cool moistness in the air, she was capable, proficient—she appeared to know exactly what she wanted. She pulled me closer and refused, for once, to avert her eyes from their steady training on mine.

I pulled away from her quickly, feeling strange and lost, entirely out of sorts. I tried to listen to the others—Avaric had an idea, he was saying so—ignore Glinda's dangerous expression, the hungry look in her eyes, the soft, pale blur of her skin—"Who's man enough for the Philosophy Club tonight?"

No, no, no. I didn't care to think about that or Glinda or whatever that was. That wasn't me, I wasn't confined to emotions like that, I was the one who was yearning for a purpose. I maintained a safe distance from Glinda and let the others deliberate; reminding myself that the important things amounted to Doctor Dillamond's lost work and the principle of things, always the Principles of Things.

I knew then that I would go to the Emerald City and speak to the Wizard. And I knew that Glinda would come with me. I'd expected all the wrong things out of her, of course, when I probably shouldn't have expected anything at all.

4. On Pursuit: Glinda

"Oh, darling, you'll be so rich you won't know what to do with yourself," said Chuffrey, kissing me on the forehead. I smiled radiantly as only a virgin on her wedding night can, a virgin who had just married one of the richest and most influential men in all of the Pertha Hills. I was so happy and it was easy to be, for I didn't have a heart, not with me. Peculiar thing, how one could go to the Emerald City as a young university student and have one—and return to school without one, but that's how it had happened.

So I smiled and Sir Chuffrey and I chatted about love and marriage, how the two went hand-in-hand. I knew it was not lying. I knew it was not my fault.

I cried on our wedding night and Chuffrey found this charming, I'm sure. I did not sleep that night, the open window of the finest suite in the finest hotel in the Emerald City was too tempting. I lay in bed and thought and thought.

I did not think of her everyday, only occasionally. There was talk of Animal riots and I wondered if it was her doing. I hated them, Animals, I hated her for caring about them. I hated every year since I last saw her, every second in fact, where I began to feel my carefully constructed cleverness dissolving. She had accepted me when I thought, she liked me that way. The rest of the world did not. I was a Sorceress and public figure and Brain did not immediately require Power or Wealth or Influence.

It was a sad day when I realized my thoughts had permanently left me, when I stood next to Chuffrey at one thing or another and the men were talking work and I could not voice Opinion. Not only because propriety dictated a seen-and-not-heard approach to matters of politics, but that my rusty and out of use mind found it impossible (and affronted that I should even try) to formulate Opinion. "How do you feel about the taxing of Munchkin irrigation farmers?" I'd ask myself desperately. I did not know. I had forgotten how to look at it as more than a fact.

This was her fault, most certainly, and I hoped she was off doing something illegal, I hoped she became arrested. I wanted to visit her in jail and hate her, to hurt her, to insult her, to call her all those derogatory terms I had dreamt up the first week I knew her.

I knew on many levels how unlikely this scenario was. I traveled to Munchkinland to see Nessarose, to reminisce about old days, to soliloquize about new, to slip in a have you any Idea where you sister has taken off to?

We had tea, chatted about this and that—what's it like being a famous Sorceress, how is it ruling over all those Munchkins, you look well, you look young, that sort of thing. When an hour or two of unmentionable conversation ran into a self-imposed lull, I posed the question: "Nessie," I said, using her pet name to endear her to me, "did you ever see our dear Elphie again?"

It was startling, frightening to see her face darken so quickly, fine eyebrows drawing together. "You mean the sister who left me?" she asked quietly.

I said, without thinking, "Nessa, she left the both of us."

"Oh, yes, that," muttered Nessa. "I'd nearly forgotten how you were in love with her."

Denying it, I was sure, would have made for strangled words and flushed cheeks so I attempted a laugh, a light, careless laugh. Nessarose, though, did not pair social graces with everyday expectations and was not about to let me laugh the situation into nothingness. I cleared my throat.

"I don't know what—"

"You've had many years to come to terms with it, Glinda," she said curtly, "and I can't grasp the idea that you haven't."

"You misunderstand the thing with Elphie and me."

"Elphie, Elphie. Even when my father was the most detached, the most estranged, he still called her Fabala. Isn't that funny? As though to mitigate a feeling too complex, more spiteful than a man of such faith is allowed."

I frowned. "Or perhaps it was a bit of him loving her when the rest of him didn't know about it."

Nessarose smiled, but it was not nice. "Perhaps that, too. Is that what this is? The remnants of a fondness you're unable to repress?"

I chose to ignore her. It was a visceral reaction; I'd spent years in my head, making excuses for Elphie and why she had done what she'd done, for our relationship, for the eccentric nature of my attachment to her. By this time, I suppose, I was quite out of excuses. And Nessarose still retained the perceptive, unflinching scrutiny she'd had when we were in school—how very alike she and Elphie could be, I'd always thought so.

"Nessa," I said quietly, "I came here to—"

"You came here to command my attention so that you could swing the conversation about to my sister," she snapped. "It's what you've always done. You couldn't be alone with me for very long before you were interrogating me about her."

Yes, well, that was her own antecedent turned on its head; Nessarose was eternally the center of attention for most, but not when it came to me. My own personal feelings for Elphie aside, Nessa was too difficult a concept for me to grasp. Not that her sister hadn't been as well—oh no, Elphie was the most difficult of concepts, but there was nothing in Nessa that made me want to work at translating her.

And perhaps I understood it better now. I understood Elphie's perception that she was constantly in the shadow of Nessarose and I understood Nessarose's perception that she was forever in the shadow of Elphie. Terrible, cyclical nonsense. They were both important and unimportant in their own rights; it saddened me to think that I was perhaps the only one to see that.

"I thought I'd bring you a gift," I said suddenly and Nessarose looked at me. For a brief, still moment she looked just like her old self, a college girl whose serenity was often baffled by her inability to understand things. I could sympathize with that. We both had the same inscrutable icon—Elphaba, Elphaba, Elphaba, bright of mind, dull of purity.

"What's that?" she asked.

I nodded to her shoes. "I suppose I could do a little something. What's the use of being a Sorceress if you can't do things for a lark now and then?"

The enchantment was a modification of one I'd learned in school and never had much use for. I suppose it wasn't very difficult to do but I'm the first to admit I'm not very good, so it must have been; to this day I'm still not sure how I pulled it off, although perhaps concentrated willingness counts for something.

"There," I said softly. "How's that?"

As I watched her rise and stand without any help, I was fully cognizant of the subtle mockeries of my own feelings. Oh, it wasn't a selfless act and I was terrible for it, terrible for my single-minded devotion to what I couldn't have. Elphaba, that is. I wanted her as much as she'd wanted Nessarose's shoes and it was silly and small-minded and petty, but it was all I had.

-------

I had a strange feeling every time I visited the Emerald City now, perhaps because I was there so often and there had been such a reprieve between my first time there and my second time. My first, I was a schoolgirl and I was afraid and it had seemed very large and impossible to navigate and very green, as well. Now, I think, it had well-worn paths and a tight, conciseness to it and perhaps I was biased, but it seemed as if the greenness of it was a bit muted now.

When I voiced this idea to Crope over tea, he said, "You are biased," so that must have been that.

I wouldn't call my marriage to Chuffrey a loveless one, because that would be too clichéd for me to bear it—there was love. Now. I supposed I just couldn't properly explain what sort of love it was and I felt this had a lot to do with how many times I'd encountered the different interpretations of that particular word in my life.

Love, that is.

When I was a child, I had been very much in love with the man who fixed our food because he had been very handsome in that sweeping way that poor men had, with hair that hung in his eyes and a smile that was more self-conscious than charming, really. But it was the hair, I think, dark and prominent, that I really loved. I was a child, but it started everything, this fascination with hair that followed me throughout my entire life. I fell in love all the time because of that. Hair. Male, female, dark, light—if it was beautiful, I was in love with it and I very rarely developed any attraction to the person the hair was attached to.

I felt at first that Elphaba had swindled me because her hair was so lovely. It was the first and last thing I noticed about her—and you may call me a liar, for surely, her skin was the first thing I noticed about her, but I assure you that it was the very startling second thing—and now, still, when my memory of her features was blurring, the precise shade of her skin not very rigid in my mind—I could remember perhaps every strand of her hair.

Chuffrey was bald. I mean, I was genuinely fond of him, though.

And I enjoyed being rich and I enjoyed it all. I enjoyed entertaining the idea that I had enough money and influence that if I wanted to track her down, I could hire the right people to sniff her out like a dog and deliver her to me, bound up, perhaps gagged. And I'd only punish her for a little while. Mostly, I'd just be happy to see her.

I could not find it in me to actually do it, though, because there was that small, terrible chance that it wouldn't work and if that happened I was not sure what I would do.

It was a painful, clinging hope that had been keeping me alive for years.

At any rate, by the time the house fell, I hadn't been in the Emerald City for years and it, like Elphaba, had erased its image from my mind. I had found pockets and corners of Munchkinland just darling—perhaps I was seeing it correctly because Nessarose, for all her fervor and obligations, had never seemed to care an ounce what Munchkinland was really like. But I liked it. The architecture was self-effacing in places, like it was much too shy to even make an effort at being gaudy, and that was appreciated. It was a rustic, tragic place and I adored it and it became even more so when the house fell.

And when the house fell I just knew she'd be there. The moment there was news, I could almost feel her. Her features came rushing back to me, the timbre of her voice, the sharp, unconcerned charm she had that made me shiver.

"Who knows of this unrest," I wrote in my letters to Chuffrey. "It seems unfitting for me to leave just yet—an explosion could erupt at my heels."

In truth, I was waiting for her. And if I had ever bothered to even utter her name around my husband, he would have surely known just that. But I had never mentioned her for fear that just the way I said her name would reveal what I felt for her.

Perhaps it was horrible of me, but I reconciled my feelings about Nessarose's death very quickly because of this. Well, I had to! Imagine, all those Munchkins rallied around dear little me and that poor girl, frightened that she'd gone and committed murder—which, really, she had—and so I had to get past it, I had to say to myself, "Well no, I suppose she wasn't as wicked as these bitter Munchkins make her out to be—a bit eccentric, yes, a touch tyrannical, maybe a streak of callousness—not exactly wicked, though," and then decide that it was a lot easier to think of her a Wicked Witch who had died rather than a close, dear friend who had died, a last link to Elphie departed.

Eccentric. Who was I to say? I felt old and I felt faded and I felt eccentric—senile—mad—panicked—there were murmurs of Elphie's return long before I saw her—"She's with her father now, I think"—"I suspect she'll take over things here, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that"—"Have you noticed she's still green as sin? Goodness, I'd forgotten about that."

It was strange, finding myself in the midst of a place that remembered and knew Elphie from a time before even I remembered and knew her. I thought I had come to grips long ago with the fact that life did not begin and end with Shiz University, but perhaps I hadn't quite.

I toiled and fretted, bouncing from pretending I'd forgotten her to reeling her in as efficiently and charmingly as I imagined myself capable. But as she strode toward me to meet me on the overgrown lawn, I could not be anyone but myself—silly, flighty, absent of maturity.

"Oh, you came, I knew you would," I found myself crying. "Miss Elphaba, the last true Eminent Thropp, no matter what they say!"

And we found ourselves at a chapel, and Elphaba nodded to it and referred to it as her father's old stomping grounds. She shifted; she was tired, like me. She'd never admit it as weakness, but I knew she was, just as I knew we were both old and that I would never admit it.

"I think I'll look up Boq while I'm here," she said, casting a compliant and uninterested eye toward the architecture of the chapel. "He's still in the same place, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's—not too far down the Yellow Brick—perhaps a few day's walk."

She didn't appear to be listening to me. "It's strange. You know, I didn't live here very long, I remember a bit of it when Nessarose was born although I was barely three. I spent most of my growing up years in Quadling Country. I spent years and years in the Emerald City, too. But if you dropped me down in any of those places, I'd most likely find myself lost. Here—I can find Colwen Grounds with my eyes closed."

"Perhaps it was more important to you than you choose to remember."

"Perhaps it's the mortality rate," she quipped. "Turtle Heart, Nessa—Father soon."

"Elphie," I admonished, "that's terrible."

She nearly smiled. "I missed that."

"Missed what?"

"Having you as my moral conscience."

"I'm not sure soulless people are provided moral consciences."

She cocked her head to the side. "I suppose that explains mine being in the form of another person."

She looked the same as always—which was sensible because she'd never been her age to begin with. If I looked at her too long, her features were too prominent, too familiar, so I looked away as I always did—as I had years ago—I didn't want her features committed to memory.

"I don't know that you ever stopped me from doing something I'd set it in my mind to do," she began thoughtfully.

I felt cold suddenly, familiar abandonment lacing through my insides. "No," I said carefully, "I suppose I did not." After a moment, I looked at her again. "I don't know that I could've been anyone's moral conscience, Elphie, I was never terrifically moral."

She shrugged. "You were a figurehead, then. Boq said something a long time ago—I remember this as clearly as I remember most things. I assumed he was being an asshole—entirely warranted, I may have picked an argument with him."

"What was it?"

"Oh, some claptrap about you accepting me when I made it difficult to—or, really, it wasn't claptrap, was it, I just pretended it was. And I thought how terrible, how true. And how obtrusive of Boq to point it out."

I lacked the necessary aplomb and finesse required to pull off an indifferent expression like the one I wanted. I looked down, studying the limp and restless hem of Elphaba's dress as it skirted feebly around her ankles. "I suppose Boq always had a bit of… something to him, didn't he?"

"Yes, he had," she agreed. "He was always rather perceptive, I thought, although he could be quite imperceptive when it suited him."

"Well, most can."

I wasn't sure really why I said it—except that is a lie, of course, I knew exactly why and it was for this very reason that I was shivering when it wasn't cold, forcing myself not to look at her very long. Everyone must have known how I felt about her, it seemed. Everyone had known, everyone knew, Boq knew, Nessarose had known. I had never possessed the skill Elphaba had in masking her emotions and it was my fault that mine were so easy to see—and perhaps it was all for the best. Perhaps it was all for the best that Elphaba was intelligent and adept and clever—and wholly incapable of seeing what was right in front of her.

It hurt, of course, but it had been hurting for many, many years and this was nothing new.

We began to walk again, across a little bridge, where the midday sun had strewn itself sloppily about the prettier aspects of the landscape. Elphaba was silent and pensive; it was easy to transport myself years into the past and pretend that we were idling away the time before class, content with our lot and not at all shrewd with silly maturation.

I told her about Dorothy, I told her about the shoes, I told her to calm down and get over it, they were just shoes, really. Had I known that it would have upset her so completely, I never would have handed them along to Dorothy, of course; Elphaba was fraught with the anxiety and paranoia I had always loved her in spite of—or for, perhaps.

A part of me was glad, though, said it was good that I'd given them to Dorothy, it was good that Elphaba didn't have them. A part of me thought it was fitting that she should desperately want something she could not have because I had been doing it for years.

But another part of me was sorry for it. I watched her during the memorial service and was sorry. And as she left Colwen Grounds a few days later, looking worn and ashen, I was so very sorry that I choked out, "Oh Elphie!"

And she didn't turn, and that made me the sorriest of all, for we never did see each other again.

End