Hello everyone! I've been reading Wicked fics for a while now but this is the first time I've shared one. It's a multi-chapter story I've been working on for a couple of years now and all of that time I've imagined what people would say about it, so I hope if you like it/find it interesting you'll leave me a message. It's musical-verse with a little book and Wizard of Oz for flavor. Enjoy :)

"I love you so much, Fiyero, you just don't understand: Being born with a talent or an inclination for goodness is the aberration." –Elphaba, City of Emeralds

Unnatural darkness fell over the Land of Oz. Its usual calm breeze was overcome by billowing winds, and even in the beautiful gardens of Munchkinland, evil hung in the air. Though most of Oz – including the frightened Munchkins that cowered in their houses – believed it to be so, the evil darkness and weather had nothing to do with the terrible Wicked Witch of the West. It couldn't have been; not only did she not hold the power or desire to cause the horrible things that had happened that day such as conjuring cyclones and murdering her sister, she also had been rather preoccupied with something else.

She was in the middle of a furious and rather immature fight with a fluffy, pink blonde.

Dark hazel eyes met blue for only a moment before the two women ran at each other angrily. Glinda grabbed the old, ugly hat from Elphaba's head and started beating her frantically with the fabric, and just as the other witch was about to tear at her extravagant dress, a voice yelled across the courtyard.

"Halt, in the name of the Wizard!"

They were roughly torn apart by a small group of soldiers. It took three to gain control of the taller, stronger woman, while one was enough to lift the petite off her feet and away from the alleged terrorist.

"Stop! Stop, let her go! Let her go, I almost had her!" Glinda yelled shrilly, wildly flailing her arms in the direction of her target, causing Elphaba to laugh amusedly despite the situation. One of the guards slammed the butt of his gun against Elphaba's face to silence her, and she felt her eyebrow split open and pain erupt from the spot. Even if the sky were clear and calm, Elphaba knew at that moment she would never see such spectacular stars like the ones that filled her vision again.

"Sorry it took us so long to get here, Miss," the guard holding Glinda said, finally letting his grip loosen on the Northern Witch and she spun to face him angrily.

"What? What do you mean?"

"I-I can't believe you would sink this low!" Elphaba hissed at her, pulsing with adrenaline despite her sickening dizziness as blood began to drip from her brow. "You used my sister's death as a trap to capture me?"

"No! I never knew this would happen!"

Glinda's desperate reply was drowned out as a shout filled the courtyard. All six heads turned as a man leaped off a rooftop of one of the miniscule homes and landed roughly on scuffed but expensive boots in the middle of them all.

"Let the green girl go!"

Fiyero's cerulean eyes flashed around determinedly as he pointed his gun to each of the uniformed men. He ignored Elphaba as she whispered his name in protest of having endangered himself for her, but for a moment, the prince didn't care. He then, in a rash decision that contradicted any brainlessness he had ever pretended to have during his life, pointed his rifle at the one person with whom he had the upper hand.

"Let her go. Or explain to all Oz how the Wizard's guards watched as Glinda the Good was slain."

"Fiyero, no…" Glinda whispered pleadingly.

"Let her go!" Fiyero ordered, and bent down to pick up the forgotten broomstick. The guards, seeing no other choice, released their struggling captive and he threw the broomstick into her hands. "Elphaba, go, get out of here…"

"No, not without you!"

"Fiyero, please don't do this..."

"Hush! Now, go!"

"Do it," Glinda spat at Elphaba and tossed her the hat in defeat.

Elphaba nearly disregarded them both, but the look that Glinda gave her showed that she wasn't afraid for herself. No matter what harsh words had fallen between them only minutes before, no matter what empty threats Glinda received from the man that had not chosen her, and no matter if they would never meet again in that lifetime, she wanted Elphaba to save herself. So, for Glinda's sake most of all in that moment, Elphaba ran.

She dove forward, nearly stumbling into a field of corn and glanced over her shoulder between the towering stalks in fear. But none of the guards were following her. They were instead staring intently at their captain determinedly and Elphaba couldn't help but stop and watch.

Even from her hiding spot so far away, she was able to see Fiyero look at Glinda for a moment and smile softly, apologetically, before he dropped the point of his gun to the ground. Elphaba's eyes widened in horror.

"Seize him!"

The men jumped at their opportunity and the three that once held Elphaba grabbed their ex-captain and threw him forcefully to the ground.

"No, wait, what are you doing?"

The leader stood and watched for a moment as his men kicked and beat the man that freed the fugitive from their possession. The soldier's face was cold and emotionless as he raised his spear and plunged it into the prince's bruised body, and just as fast as he released the deathly blow he yanked his weapon back and impaled the prisoner once again.

"Stop it! In the name of Goodness, stop!"

Glinda the Good had regained control of herself too late but stood nonetheless in front of the executioner, preventing any more violence from occurring. She spun, knelt at Fiyero's side and lifted his head into her lap, unable to stop the tears from dripping onto the shirt of the man she clutched so desperately.

"Don't you see? He was never going to harm me!" Glinda told them shakily. She stroked his hair and forehead lightly as Fiyero's eyes met hers.

"Glinda, I'm so sorry…" he whispered as he reached up and brushed the tear-soaked, pale face of his once-betrothed with his trembling fingers. A line of crimson blood was left on her cheek, mixing with her glassy tears as she nodded to him.

"I know…"

"Tell us where the witch went!" the guard interrupted, jamming the dull end of his spear unto Fiyero's stomach, to which he grunted in response, stubbornly spitting blood onto the Gale trooper's black boot.

Glinda looked over her shoulder to where the so-called terrorist had run previously and met Elphaba's gaze. In the Gale Force's second of distraction, Glinda's face hardened and she gestured her delicate hand pointedly, ordering Elphaba silently to run and save herself, to not let Fiyero's sacrifice be in vain.

So she forced herself up to her feet – though she couldn't recall she had fallen to her knees in the irrigated mud – and watched Fiyero close his eyes and take his last breath before she turned and fled.

She didn't know how long she ran, how many miles of crops she trampled as she distanced herself from the only two people she had ever truly loved in her life. She never even realized rain had begun to fall from the sky until she was soaked to the bone and shivering cold.

An abandoned, rotted shed appeared in front of her and Elphaba entered it, collapsing and gasping for air. Her body screamed in pain, but she hardly noticed her fatigue or the broomstick and hat that were still gripped tightly in her shaking hands. Instead, the only thing she felt was her heart throbbing in her chest and echoing painfully in her ears, along with the urge to be sick.

Fiyero was dead. Dead. He had given up everything to save her life, all at the expense of his own. If only she had stopped him in the Emerald Palace from rescuing her, wanting to go with her, damaging his relationship with Glinda, maybe she could have changed things. She could have stopped–

What? Him loving her? Giving up his perfect job and perfect life to be with her? Elphaba realized she wouldn't have been able to. She learned long ago none of that ever made him happy and that he was a terribly stubborn man who did anything to get his way, even if it meant breaking the rules and sacrificing himself to do it. But knowing that did not stop her agony.

He was dead and it was all because of her. Just like her mother's death. Her father's too, from shame, if her sister was right. Oh, Nessarose, now her too, she remembered, and buried her face into her hands with a woeful moan.

She never knew if she cried as she sat there and wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth; she never knew if tears had run down her cheek or if it was just raindrops falling through the sparse and useless boards that made up the roof of the shed. She just knew that she had never before in her life felt so alone, and so…so evil; that maybe everyone had been right about her being wicked all along, and that the pain in her chest that felt as though her heart was ripping in half was a worthy punishment for all the terrible things that happened because of her.

What haunted her most was how she stood there and did nothing as Fiyero's life was taken from the world. She was the Wicked Witch of the West, the most powerful and feared being in Oz, yet she stood around and watched as her life fell apart. She could have used her magic, somehow… She could have pulled out the book from the satchel that always hung at her side and saved him...

Elphaba mentally slapped herself. The Grimmerie! How could she have forgotten it? She pulled it out of her bag roughly, dropped in her lap and began to flip through the pages furiously fast. She didn't know what she was looking for– a spell to turn back time? No such spell existed. To gain revenge on those who killed her lover? She knew she didn't have such cruelty in her. So what, then, could she do?

She stopped suddenly and read over the mysterious language, so focused she didn't care about thick, black raindrops that dripped from the rotted wood overhead onto the paper. The title at the top read something that translated loosely into "relinquishment".

Hazel eyes narrowed in confusion. What exactly did it mean by that?

She didn't care what it meant; with Fiyero dead, her sister dead and her only true friendship broken, her heart felt a sudden and overwhelming void with their absence. They were the ones who motivated her to continue her life, and without them she had nothing to push for and nothing to live for. So she began chanting and demanding what she wanted from the spell.

"Sele na eth lene anuka then, sele na eth lene anuka then… Take from me, give to him. Take my skin, the blood from my veins, use what life I have left in my body to restore Fiyero… Give life to him, and give me what I deserve…"

She waited for something, anything, to happen to her while she sat there. Entire minutes went by but there was nothing. Angry and defeated, she slammed the book shut and rubbed her hands against her face in frustration.

"What good is this chanting? I don't even know what I'm reading!" she mumbled aloud.

Elphaba pulled away her green hands and realized that slick, glistening blood shone on one of her palms. "'Blood from my veins'…" she repeated, her anger dissipating into awe, staring at her hand in hope that it meant her spell worked. Elphaba rubbed the tips of her fingers against each other, examining the blood that coated them, before she reached up and touched her eyebrow once again. She winced at the stinging caused by her touch, then cackled bitterly as she remembered the blood was from when she had been struck by the soldier. With everything else on her mind, she hadn't even given a second thought to the small gash…

She put the book back in her satchel and retrieved her broom and hat before getting to her feet. Even if she planned on resting, she would never have been able to get any in that useless structure, so she made the decision to keep traveling, to get as far away from Oz as she possibly could.

Just as she stepped out and towards the edge of the acre of corn however, she felt strange sensations rushing through her body. She leaned against the thick post of a fence and tried to take a deep breath. Was she so desperate for that spell to have worked that she was beginning to imagine things?

The witch stumbled away from the picket and risked stepping forward onto the Yellow Brick Road to gain a sense of direction. She couldn't be too far from Colwen Grounds where her sister had lived in the old family estate; she was sure she had run north, but she was still at the edge of the Corn Basket, where it ended at the Road. Her head spun. That hardly narrowed down her location— she could be anywhere within dozens of miles between Colwen Grounds and where the yellow bricks stopped…

Elphaba took a long, slow breath as she tried to find her bearings, looking for any familiar sights, but everything was becoming blurry. Was the rain getting worse? No, it wasn't… Her world began spinning and she reached out, trying to find anything to steady her, but she couldn't see…everything was so hazy…

An unnatural heat started spreading through her body without any specific origin and she felt her muscles in her limbs flare with hot, burning pains. Her face was flushed with heat and began perspiring profusely along with every other inch of skin. She fell to her knees and dropped the broom and pointed hat onto the soggy brick, gasping and wheezing, all the while trying to comprehend what was happening. She attempted to get back onto her feet so she could run back to the safety of the fields, but her foot slipped on the slick brick and she fell forward.

She couldn't breathe; the heat was too much. She was suffocating. She reached up with trembling hands and undid her heavy cloak, dropping it to the ground. It wasn't enough: her skin was still boiling, so she blindly reached for the fastenings on her dress and tried to wrench it off, leaving her in her thin underclothes – nothing but a tight shirt to bind her chest and ripped leggings – as she fell fully against the ground.

Elphaba screamed madly as a sudden and terrible pain spread across her face. The cut on her eyebrow felt as if it were being torn open, ripping open half of her face. Blood pulsated from it, rushing over her eyelids, but she forced the heavy lids open and saw a light somewhere ahead. She crawled forward to it, not caring the consequence, for whatever could happen to her couldn't be worse than this...

The witch reached forward towards the glow, her hand shaking uncontrollably, but froze in fear upon seeing the skin in front of her. Something was on it. A creamy golden color was spreading, seemingly sticking to the green of her flesh, and she tried to wipe it up with her other hand, only to worsen it. She frantically scraped and rubbed at the foreign color on her skin, frightened of whatever was engulfing her, but her panicky efforts continued to be in vain.

A burst of light erupted above her, and for an instant she forgot everything as she looked up at the stormy sky above. Her mind went blank and all the promises of seeing her life flash before her eyes, however lonely and miserable of a life it was, were broken. A bolt of lightning shot down and struck her chest, leaving her dead in the middle of her homeland with heavy rain hammering against her lifeless corpse.