Hello all. First Wicked fic, and we're gonna go with an 80/20 split favoring the bookverse, I suppose. Pre-Lake Chorge incident, just a two-shot. My attempt at teasing out a friendship reluctantly teased. Attempts at philosophizing, socializing, other... izing. Soul search and such. And there may be some hints of Gelphie in there, too, if you turn your head and squint. If that's not your thing, this reads pretty well as a 'maybe you're not such an awful person' fic.
Disclaimer: As if it needed saying, I don't own Wicked or any musical adaptions derived from said work. So have at it.
Elphaba Thropp thought.
Frequently, quietly, intensely, irreverently. The young woman held that thinking was equally as powerful as action. For action without reason spirals into absurdity, as her future-Eminence had witnessed on countless occasions. And thought, true, Ozness-to-goodness thought, was prerequisite to effective action. Though her roommate would say Elphaba was partial to loftacious, intellectualized thinking, the green girl was not above simple, more mundane considerations. She thought about events, yes, cause and effect, history and agency, legacy and heralds and the twisted, fallible present. Elphaba retained a certain… apprehension for thinking too deeply about people. Especially those thick or stupid or reckless enough to associate themselves with her person.
Elphaba wondered why she was thinking in the plural.
There was but one tally in the association category, and a forced, faint tally at that. The other few marks were little more than chalk residue, insulting in their insubstantiality.
So, several weeks into her second semester at Shiz, after that queasy, unsettling, electric graduation of indefinite change, Elphaba was not shocked that her thoughts turned to the motivations, qualities, and eccentricities of one Galinda Upland. Not shocked, but irritated nonetheless. She had better thoughts to think, but the blonde's naïveté had the peculiar effect of monopolizing her mind, diluting Elphaba's practiced cynicism to the point that she regarded the Gillikin girl with a curious affection.
Elphaba blamed proximity.
When she broached the subject with the aforementioned blonde, she had received a patronizing pat on a covered forearm and a dismissal. She was not completely comfortable with either.
"Oh, fie on that Miss Elphaba, you think too much!" Galinda had said.
"And you don't think enough."
"I can't quite blame you for your analyzations," Galinda started. "I understand that my actions don't warrant absolute trust, but I do hope to remedy your initial opinion of me."
Galinda drew cords of gold-spun curls over her shoulder and turned, wide faced and heliotropic into the spring sunbeams.
"Whereas my association with you is of little remark, your association with me elicits near scandal." Elphaba cast a careless glance to a gaggle of girls huddled underneath an adolescent elm. The Misses Milla, Pfannee, and Shenshen were regarding Elphaba and Galinda's conversation with unbridled mirth. They had given up covering their guffaws behind brittle paper fans sometime during the fall break.
"Well, you are rather unavoidable," Galinda said brightly.
"Unavoidable? Not filthy, grotesque, dreadful, repugnant?"
"I live with you Miss Elphaba, so avoidance is non-optional. And grotesque, maybe. But in a fantastic, bizarre sense, though not just for your shading." Galinda's face froze minutely, and she clutched her notebook tighter to her chest. Her smile reappeared as if it had never fled. "That is, not for your coloring. I would know whether you were truly repugnant."
Elphaba changed topics at her roomie's neutral responses.
"Do mind the door when you barrel in tonight," she said, not unkindly.
"Why Miss Elphaba, you do care!" Galinda threw a hand to her breast.
"I care about uninterrupted sleep. Which involves not being woken by some tipsy, bumbling twit hellbent on celebrating— what? The commencement of the weekend? It seems students need little reason to siphon wine down their throats like Munchkinland irrigation systems."
"Not all of us have the infallible coping ability you do, Miss Elphaba."
"And what is it you must cope with? You make it sound as though yours is a plight of the downtrodden."
"You would know all about that, wouldn't you? How it's all a vicious, inescapable cycle. Too much effort for too little reward. No credit, no acknowledgement, let alone gratitude, for all of your energies."
Elphaba was going to respond in the affirmative, sharply, spicily, but she held her retort at Galinda's tone. The blonde skipped off toward the terrible trio and added her soprano-like laughter to what Elphaba wagered was nothing more than daft, diaphanous diatribes of her character.
To think that those girls even chatted about her had Elphaba questioning her own self-absorption. The green girl thought (for the second time that day) she spent too much time around Galinda.
The green girl did not, however, remain in the courtyard long enough to see her roommate dismiss herself from the others' company and slink demurely over the gravel path, turning toward the biology lecture halls.
Elphaba could not shake the sound of Galinda's final afternoon comments from her mind's ear. Something in the timbre of her voice and the forget-me-not of her eyes stayed Elphaba's tongue and nagged at Elphaba's brain, even when Galinda came lumbering through their dorm room after midnight, all effervescent giggles and annoying disturbance.
And some weeks later, looking back on that exchange, Elphaba thought she had never heard Galinda sound more authentic, more unaffected. Because during their conversations, which were lasting longer, growing more frequent, Elphaba would be struck near dumb. For amid the mascaras and rouges and girlish laments of this season's lace shortage in Shiz boutiques, Galinda would say something genuine. Thought-provoking. Pensive lightening that sizzled Elphaba's mind in something that was not quite astonishment, but it certainly wasn't expectation.
Two weeks after forming a nonantagonistic relationship with the blonde, Elphaba had a thought:
Galinda is capable of thinking.
And Elphaba, being the self-recognized intellectual challenger that she was, set out to make her roommate think more. And Galinda, being the self-absorbed princess of pastels and flirtation, did not make it easy.
"What are you reading?" Galinda asked.
"A proposal for new Glikkun Mining Safety Procedures."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Your interests stretch to the geological. How like moss to attach itself to the rock face."
"Without these methods your earlobes would be positively naked. What are your thoughts on the safety restrictions?"
"My ears were never my best feature," Galinda tutted, tucking and untucking ringlets of hair behind the curved cartilage. "But I suppose a bit more sedate skin exposure is not a bad thing?"
Elphaba went back to her book and resolved to try again another time.
"So?!" Galinda squealed, some nights later.
"So…"
"Your thoughts, Elphie! On the ensemble! I take little stock in what you say about style, but this is too delicious for you not to have even the slightest opinion."
Galinda gave a twirl in front of the looking glass and the material ballooned then deflated. She rotated her hips from side to side, the hem doing its best to keep up with the waistline of the garment. Elphaba cocked her head. The bottom of her roommate's pleated skirt seemed to be playing a futile game of tag with the top. It was both depressing and uninteresting.
"Very nice, I'm sure."
"Elphaba, really! I cannot for the life of me comprehend your indifference."
"What differentiates this ensemble from every other in your wardrobe?" Elphaba asked. "You want my opinion? It's loud like its wearer, and airy like her mind. It should reveal an appropriate amount of shin or décolletage to attract an unsuitable, brainless, trust-fund suitor for the girl intent on swooshing her hemline all the way to Quox."
Elphaba pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a straining index, determined to not look up again until she heard her dorm room door bang shut with a boom of superficial fury.
"Ehhem."
Nope.
Galinda coughed. "Eh hem."
Elphaba could not seem to concentrate on the words, so she decided to focus on the font. Some bold serif that was running right off the page.
"I said 'eh heeeem', Miss Elphie!"
"I heard you the first time," Elphaba almost sing-songed.
Almost.
"For your information—" Galinda started, stalking toward her roommate's bed in less than a huff but more than a tizzy. "— the piece is loud because it takes its coloring from the dies extracted from the Rostamen Lillium, a plant native to the Quadling swamps. It was harvested and transplanted to Gillikinese flower farms during the reign of Ozma the Librarian. And no, there were not… casualties or victims or… exploits of the Quadling ruby extraction debacle, so just hold your tongue, you lime humanitarian wannabe!"
The green girl had nearly cut off the blonde, but snapped her jaw shut at the rebuke.
Galinda continued.
"The pink hue fading onto the lily petals of the flowers reflects the ruby deposits immersed in the swampland. Hence, the pinkiness of the dress. It is airy because the cambric is fashioned after braided Vinkus tribal wear. Did you know there are distinct braids and weave patterns for the different clans? And that the skirt is modeled after the voluminous dresses of the windmillery women in Munchkinland?"
"Are you finished?"
"No."
Galinda's voice held the spite that Elphaba seemed to speak with on a daily basis. It was disconcerting, hearing her clipped tone pouring out of a foreign, perfect mouth.
"It was handmade in Gillikin. But it is not haute couture, nor is it seasonable. It is not special, in any way, other than my knowing that when I wear this piece, I take a little bit of Oz with me no matter where I go. Not to mention that the ribbing is basically a raimentary application of Neo-Tipperian period architec—"
"Raimentary is not a word."
"And you are not— you're just a, a… mean— mean, green… thing!"
"That's a good one. Perhaps you should write it down. Best not to forget your better insults."
"Elphaba, how could you!"
Elphaba's brow V-eed sharply down like the severe slopes of Kumbricia's mountain pass.
"Galinda, the dress is nice. So very pretty. And you are pretty in it. You're pretty in everything. Though I know you don't need me to stroke your ego. What's this really about?"
Galinda had turned back to her glass at the small corner vanity, trembling in indignation. She eyed Elphaba in the reflection.
Like that unsettling afternoon on the grounds several weeks back, Galinda's face took on a countenance alien to her practiced expressions, those chipper and beguiling looks devoid of any real meaning. Through the glass, the once-removed of viewing, Elphaba thought she saw all shred of duplicity fall from Galinda's face.
The blonde chuckled desperately.
"It's about the dress," she said.
"Really?"
"Really."
Elphaba did not release the reflection from her stare. "I guess…"
"Yes?"
"I guess I expect more from you, sometimes."
Galinda's eyes watered and narrowed and her lips pursed. She turned to look out the window.
"You can be so cruel, sometimes."
"Symptom of my condition."
"Lacking a so-called 'normal' skin tone does not exempt you from basic human decency."
"But lacking a soul does."
"What?" Galinda asked, meeting Elphaba's reflection once again. "Everyone has a soul."
"I am insulted that you would throw me in with 'everyone'."
"You are not soulless."
"You just commented on my penchant for cruelty. And honestly, I don't know that I'm being so unduly cruel much of the time."
"You have heart! You have passion. The only thing I've learned in life sciences this year is that you care," Galinda challenged.
"I don't necessarily think caring is a prerequisite for possessing a soul. We call murderers soulless. And they certainly care that they are not apprehended. Also, think about this: a heart can be touched, can be dissected. It is anatomy, but anatomy romanticized, pardon the pun. What's this nonsense about someone 'warming your heart'? I should hope that your heart is warm, or else I would be concerned with my ability to speak with corpses. Care and love and passion have a sort of… anatomical correlation."
"But faith doesn't."
"Who said anything about faith?"
"That's what many link the soul to," Galinda said plainly. "Faith in the Unnamed God, or Lurline, or—"
"You're starting to sound like my father."
"It doesn't have to be faith in religion! Faith is intangible, like the soul. There is no… rendering, you see, like the heart? The soul is frustratingly incorporeal. But there is the symbolic heart, the one schoolgirls doodle onto the backs of their notebooks—"
"That you doodle onto the back of your notebooks."
"And then there is the anatomical heart, all chambers and icky strings and walls and floppy, black-blue-red fasciae."
Elphaba was mildly amused that Galinda knew so much about the heart's physical appearance. But Galinda brought them back to the original matter:
"Don't you trust— don't you have faith in anything?"
"I don't…I have faith in fact. In science," Elphaba said.
"That is weak faith."
"That is substantiated faith."
"There's no such thing as substantiated faith. It's a contradiction. Don't you concede that magic is real? That there are things inexplicable in the universe?"
"Again, I should hope so, or your sorcery specialty would seem even more pointless than I already find it."
"You know what I think?" Galinda asked.
"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."
"I don't think that refusing to accept a soul discounts the presence of a soul. Deny it all you want, Elphie, but you can't magick it away just because you wish it wasn't there! Acknowledging your soul just makes you vulnerable. It cripples you in a way that you've seen physically manifested, in your father, in your sister. It makes you weaker. I know it does, for me, anyway. I care too much to the point of obsession, often about things that I could give a fig about in two weeks' time."
Galinda stopped talking to the mirror and turned on her stool to face Elphaba. The green girl was hunched over with her elbows on her knees, legs crossed under her and a feeling of buzzing pleasantness pinpricking her skin. From dresses to arguments to philosophy? This was Elphaba's kind of night.
"Is there nothing that you have faith in?" Galinda asked again.
Elphaba played with the fraying ends of her drab wool blanket. "I don't think so. Not like you mean."
"What about…" Galinda was floundering now. "What about a person? Surely you have faith in someone?"
"No. Of that I am sure. I cannot even trust myself."
"Then you aren't the woman I thought you were," Galinda said.
And even coming in Galinda's flawless voice, the words wounded her. She did not betray any puncture, any assault, for years of taunting and teasing and tearing away of hope had left her stolid. Duplicity suited emerald just as well as blonde.
"I thought you braver, and stronger, and, and… more, than that, Elphie."
Elphaba almost didn't want to say it. Almost.
"Well," she split her book again, returning to her marked page. "Shows what you get for putting your faith in people."
Galinda's lids slid shut in defeat, and she returned to her looking glass. She petted her curls into place, stood, twirled, twisted, jingled, shone, and buffed until the campus clock struck half seven.
"I'll be out with Missess Milla and Pfannee. Their Amas are escorting us to dinner with Avaric and the dandies. I suppose it would be fruitless to ask you to join us?"
"Will your conversation include the fate of my nonextant soul?"
"Doubtful," Galinda said.
"Then I fear I must pass, Galinda dear."
Galinda nodded and bid her good evening, slipping out the door in a rustle of pink skirts.
Elphaba was too busy pondering her soulless existence to notice that Galinda had taken her notebook with her. And she was too concerned with Galinda's preoccupation… bordering on insistence of her soul's presence to recall that Ama Clutch had met with the other Amas to escort the young misses to the Peach and Kidneys at half six, not half seven.
Galinda, meanwhile, was on the gravel path to the biology hall, pausing and cataloguing parapets and balustrades in the hostile twilight.
Reviews and critique always appreciated. Even if it's to the effect of 'you're trying too hard'.