Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked and I think it's the greatest, I just always hoped that Glinda would work it out eventually.
A gravestone stood in the middle of the dark woods. The inscription only read "The Witch of the West is dead". On the gravestone lay a single white lily. Crouched on the ground, wrapped in a brown shawl and weeping, was Glinda the Good.
She knew, she knew deep down in her heart that Elphaba was good and yet somehow she had been killed with a bucket of water. It didn't make any sense. How could someone die because of water? Unless they drowned in it of course. But Elphaba didn't drown, and her sole was certainly not unclean. Pure water should not have melted her. And yet, all of this making sense, surely Elphaba was still alive? And if Elphaba was still alive then where in Oz was she? Why hadn't she told her best friend that she was ok? It didn't make any sense to poor little Glinda and she wrapped the shawl tighter around her shoulders in the growing frost of dawn.
Glinda thought to herself as she made her way back to her lonely room, in her lonely palace, that there could only be two possibilities. One: Elphaba was still angry at her for kind of being responsible for her sister's death and therefore she was giving her the silent treatment. Two: Elphaba was in a place where she couldn't contact her, and that would have to be a place, outside of Oz. A place, beyond the rainbow.
Well, if Elphaba was beyond the rainbow then Glinda was going there too. She didn't care if Oz needed her, Boq and the Lion were perfectly apt at ruling in her stead, and besides, she of all people knew that she was just a pretty face. Besides, she hadn't been able to make head nor tail of the Grimmerie and apart from cutting a lot of ribbons and kissing a lot of babies she didn't have all that much to do in her role as Glinda the Good.
So, she decided then and there to find her best friend so that they could be reunited once more, because, in all honesty, Glinda had been nothing but sad since she lost Elphie.
Unfortunately that little girl had already left and she had taken the ruby slippers with her and the Wizard had also scarpered in his magic balloon so Glinda was going to have to find her own means of transport. She only hoped a bubble was capable of transcending the boundaries of space and time. She was sure it would be adequate, after all, they were very pretty. The only problem was they were terribly small and cramped and left hardly any room whatsoever for packing any sort of belongings. She barely had room for her dress, though, as an afterthought she wondered if a set of travelling clothes may have been better suited to the journey. In the end she managed to carry the book in one hand and her wand in the other and she fashioned some pockets into the basket under her skirt to carry a little food and water, because, Oz knew how long she would be gone.
She bid her people adieu and they wept accordingly, but she did not waver, she had her mission and no amount of tears would keep her from finding Elphaba. Then she swept herself up into a bubble and floated into the sky.
She stopped at the castle first to look for clues. She hadn't been to that dreadful place since Elphaba's death, or lack thereof, almost a year ago now. Ivy vines had crept up the walls and almost hidden the stone from view. She had a dreadful time trying to rip away the vines from the door but eventually she managed and after smoothing down the crinkles in her dress she pulled on the handles.
The door didn't budge; of course it didn't budge it was huge and heavy and old and hadn't been moved in a year. Glinda started to despair before she realised that she was a witch and thus didn't have to do anything but wave her wand.
"Open door!" she said firmly and confidently.
It still didn't budge. She tried again.
"Open door!" she yelled.
Nothing. She never could quite get the hang of that wand. She gave the door a few good kicks and tried to think of something else.
She looked above her; fortunately it seemed there was no glass in any of the windows, so all she had to do was climb up the ivy to the nearest opening and slip inside.
Glinda hitched up her petticoats and tied them about her waist as she grasped the vines above her head and pulled herself up the wall. She got about halfway to the window before she realised that it would probably have been a better idea to fly up in a bubble. But this wall wasn't going to get the best of her now and she scaled the rest determinedly and collapsed in through the window.
Once inside she wondered what on earth she was looking for. She found all sorts of strange things like a giant crystal ball and a mortar which smelt like it may have been home to some sort of drug. It wasn't until she found Elphaba's cape lying on the ground that she thought she might be on to something. It was full of holes and covered in dirt and dust but as she lifted it off the ground she noticed that something was beneath it. A trapdoor. Glinda let out a little squeak and sat down suddenly on the floor.
Elphaba was alive. The trapdoor was proof that she had faked her own death and was now living as a fugitive. How had she done it? How could she have managed it all by herself?
And then Glinda realised. Elphaba hadn't been alone, and she wasn't alone now, she was with Fiyero. Her Fiyero. Glinda found herself wondering if going after her best friend was really such a good idea after all. Perhaps she didn't want to be found. Perhaps she didn't want to see the girl whose fiancé she had stolen and whose heart she had broken.
Glinda conjured another bubble and floated back down to the ground.