Far safer, through an Abbey gallop

The Stones a'chase

Than Unarmed, one's a'self encounter

In lonesome Place

Emily Dickinson

The world, Elphaba Thropp had decided, was divided into two types of people: those who were good, and those who were clever.

And she was not good.

She had never believed she was. She could fancy herself clever if she chose, if she was in the right mood, but good? No.

Especially not for the thoughts that had been running through her head as of late about the girl she shared a room with. Those thoughts were not clever; they certainly weren't good. If she were cross with herself, she might have thought them wicked.

(And she was often cross with herself.)

But at present, her roommate was sitting in front of her vanity, running a brush through golden curls which had, Elphaba was ashamed to admit, caused her much envy when they first started living together. And although she was beginning to tolerate Galinda's presence after two weeks, there was a thrum of something else under that tolerance, something Elphaba dared not think about.

So she buried her nose in her books by Unionist ministers and shuttered the thoughts through the dark corridors of her brain, in the rooms and halls where all her other awful, wretched memories lived.

She didn't know why she tortured herself reading Unionist writings. If she were being honest she thought it a way of understanding Frex better, but then again, she wasn't sure she wanted to understand. Maybe it was more the knowledge as a weapon, ammunition against future arguments with her father.

After reading the same paragraph four times, however, she threw the book across the room in frustration, causing Galinda to turn and look at her.

"I've never seen you treat a book in such a way, Miss Elphaba," she said stiffly, though there was a smile edging at the corners of her mouth.

"A book has never angered me so."

"What angers you?" Galinda asked, turning back to her vanity, though she could still see her green roommate's sour expression in the mirror.

"A lack of understanding, I suppose," Elphaba muttered, retrieving the book from the floor and placing it on her small nightstand. "I get angry at what I don't understand." She pushed her glasses up her sharp nose. The confession surprised her—not that she hadn't known this about herself, she had, but that she was confessing such a thing to Galinda, of all people.

"If I got angry at everything I didn't understand, I'd be angry all the time," Galinda said flippantly, but again, there was that smile towards her green roommate.

Elphaba wished desperately to not see that smile aimed at herself, so she changed the subject. "Are you going out tonight?" she asked, indicating the care with which Galinda was applying a blue powder to her eyelids.

Please say yes, she thought. Please.

"Yes," Galinda said. Then, frowning, she turned back to her roommate. "You don't... wish to join me, do you, Miss Elphaba?"

Elphaba couldn't tell if that was fear or hope she heard in the blonde's voice.

"No," she said hastily. "No, I don't."

"I see," Galinda said, then fell silent as she leaned towards her mirror and swiped a coat of black mascara across her eyelashes. Elphaba watched—it was its own kind of sorcery, the make-up pretty girls used, changing their appearances with the blink of an eye. Elphaba, who had never wished to be pretty, still found such a transformation almost enviable, though she'd never admit that to Galinda.

She was staring, she realized suddenly, and she quickly averted her gaze, felt her face growing hot.

What did she care of what Galinda looked like? What did she care of how her hair caught the light from the oil lamp, how the blue powder made her eyes more striking—

No. Those thoughts were wicked, and Elphaba would not tolerate them.

Galinda stood up, smoothed her hands over her periwinkle frock that was far fancier than anything Elphaba could ever wish to own. "Do have a lovely evening with your books, Miss Elphaba," she said distractedly, and then left, trailing perfume in her wake.

Elphaba's thin fingers clutched at the spine of the book she'd unknowingly picked back up. Stupid Galinda and her perfume and her fancy dresses and her beauty—

Elphaba couldn't name the feeling coursing through her, and she didn't wish to. Instead, she hurled the book at the wall again and curled up and faced it, and it was this position Galinda found her in hours later when she stumbled into their room, drunk on whatever fruity drink Shenshen had bought her, thoughts floating through her head like soap bubbles too easily popped.

Soap bubbles. That's all her thoughts were, pretty little bubbles flitting through her head and just as insubstantial.

She was drunk. She knew that, she knew she should have said no when Shenshen offered her that third drink, but she just... couldn't.

It was easier to deal with, anyway—being drunk. Easier to deal with than where her thoughts had turned as of late. Those thoughts were not bubbles, they were thick and sticky like tar, black as pitch, and wouldn't go away no matter how hard she wished them to.

Galinda flopped back on her bed, closed her eyes. She knew she should say something to her roommate, apologize for barging in the way she had, but she couldn't bring herself to.

Two weeks and she'd barely spoken to the green girl, and—why? What was it about Miss Elphaba that made her tense so? The initial revulsion at her skin color was still there, if Galinda cared to think about it, but it had faded with time.

Maybe it was the damn superiority with which Elphaba carried herself, not that she would have ever thought of it that way. But it intimidated Galinda, the way Elphaba seemed to know every subject while Galinda herself was struggling still through basic spells. She had always fancied herself smart before Shiz, but now...

She, Galinda of the Upper Uplands, hated feeling inferior to anyone. Especially the artichoke. She hated not knowing the answers when called on in class, the twisted feeling of jealousy that sparked in her gut whenever Elphaba raised her hand.

Sure, she'd poked fun at herself earlier—and why had she told Elphaba that anyway, how wrong she felt all the time?

She wished she hadn't. It was more ammunition Elphaba could use against her, ammunition Galinda was sure she was storing away for a time when the blonde really irritated her, because that's what her friends did, that's what she would have done.

She wanted Elphaba to like her. She hated admitting this to herself, and even she didn't understand the full reasoning behind it, but it was true. She desperately wanted her roommate's approval, if only because Elphaba herself didn't seem to care a whit about what anyone else thought.

Galinda cared, however. She cared a lot.

But these thoughts were too much in her drunk state, she reasoned. She'd sleep them off and go back to hating Elphaba in the morning. What she needed was air. Fresh air to clear her head.

So she pushed herself out of bed, careful not to make any noise, and opened the small window that sat squarely between the two beds, leaned her head out, and took a deep breath.

And then-

The window had been closed. Elphaba had closed the window, when she was so insistent on leaving it open.

Had she done it for her? Had she done it because she knew how much Galinda hated it?

More likely she'd done it to avoid the rain. Galinda didn't know why Elphaba had such an aversion to water, and her roommate had never stated as much, but she'd seen it in the way she skittered from any drops, refused to touch her clothing until it was fully dry.

Perhaps that was it. Perhaps Elphaba had closed it for herself, not for Galinda—it couldn't have been for Galinda. It was a silly thought to think that it had.

Galinda sighed and drew her head back in, shutting the window before she retired to her bed.

If she hadn't been drunk, she might have noticed that the sky was completely clear, the windowsill dry, that no rain had come.