Wicked, a wicked fanfic

Title: Wicked
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Not mine in any form or fashion.
Author's Note: Nessa-centric with hints of Boq. So, everyone should also read the manga Uzumaki which is about an infection of spirals in a city. For the love of all things green, please read, enjoy, and review.

Wicked

Nessarose Thropp had admired her sister from afar while she sat in her chair trapped by the brakes in the back she could not reach. Her nine year old mind had wandered far and wide as she sat there by the window trying desperately to be anywhere but sitting. Her nine year old mind had wandered to the vanity where Elphaba's emerald fingers spun the green bottle against her equally emerald palm. Dancing across her face, the light spun off and onto Elphaba's high cheekbones and straight nose. Elphaba's eyes were stuck on the bottle, and Nessa's eyes were stuck on Elphaba. The older sister did not notice the younger's scrutiny from the window, but Nessa noticed the diagonals of the neck, the line of the shoulders to the arms, the stiff posture of the spine, and the unbending legs. Elphaba was straight laced and rigid; she was the perpetual continuous line of working order and perfection. Lines, oh, lines went somewhere. They stopped, and then they started, and they stopped and then they started, and then they went on forever. Useful in everything, Nessa eyed the inflexible lines of the walls, the desk, the bed, and the garden paths. Looking out into the garden, she caught sight of her own reflection in the mirror.

The lines ended at the tips of her hair as each strand curled in upon itself. The soft curve of her hips and curved line of her spine at the small of her back mocked her as her eyes locked on to her own reflection. The curl of her hips at an awkward angle grew only more pronounced by the lack of muscular tone on her legs, and the painful tangle of calves beneath that—the bone twisting the left food inward as the right leg was straight. Her delicate fingers gripped the handle of the chair tighter as she stared at the spiral of the wheels. When they moved—Oh, when they moved—she hated it. She hated the perpetual pinwheels and their spinning and spiraling as she wheeled in waves around the furniture. No straight lines because of the ungodly cautiousness of the chair maker in his efforts to make a thing that moved without moving any faster than a small child on stilts. Oh no, Nessa had to twist her way through the streets with her fingers curled around spiraling spheres as she wheeled her twisted body hither and thither. Her body spiraling in upon itself as she went everywhere and nowhere, accomplished nothing, as she fell into the straight shadow of her sister. As her nails bit into the flesh of her palm, Nessa glanced down at the crescents of blood on her skin.

Ozma, even her fingernails curved.

And so, thirteen years later, Nessa had suffered through the strings of the corset as it pulled at her spine and forced her body to straighten. She'd suffered through the cold, sharp metal of the splints as they pressed her legs up and in to bend the bone into some semblance of normalcy. She'd suffered through the never changing spirals that her chair created wherever she went, and, very gingerly, she'd learned to ignore the tight circles she had to use to turn the sharp, straight corners of the world. She despised buttons, and when Boq had all but volunteered to rid her of them, she had let his fingers pull at the straight lines of the clothes she'd chosen. Her hair still intertwined with itself, and, as the years went on, she hid it from view in a bun at the back of her neck, but out of sight.

Staring into the mirror at the straight laced, twisted body of the Governor of Munchkinland, Nessarose Thropp frowned at herself as a strand of hair fell onto her cheek and curled around her neck. This talk of her sister was tiring, and she grew weary of it. In her first year of reigning she'd increased the economy, but the only word she had heard was the knife edge straight word 'Wicked' whispered in the company of the servants. In her first year, she'd opened up a school for the orphans of the country, but the only words she heard were the words of her sister's doing. Nessa's accomplishments were not on the lips of the people, and that would not do.

Nessarose Thropp would not live in the shadow of her sister any longer. If her Elphaba could be wicked, so could she. She would surpass the perfect with her imperfections. To be wicked you had to twisted, and there was no one else better suited for such an undertaking than Nessarose Thropp. It was in that year that she had the yellow and red brick roads built, spiraling out into the world to slowly encompass every part of it. Straight bricks in a circular path, for Nessa could never separate herself from her sister.

Elphaba may be the Wicked Witch of the West, but the sun rose in the East and was awaited by everyone with trepidation and consternation of what the new day was to bring.