Come What May
By: Rowan Cross
Note: My first Wicked fan fiction. I haven't got the characters memorized yet, but I think I did okay. Please leave a review.
It was unsettling to burst from the almost mystical (it's all pleasure faith, she reminded herself) room containing the wizard into the harshly lit offices. Glinda couldn't repress an almost hysterical giggle, both of excitement and relief.
"Elphie," she whispered, after the glare she had received from the social secretary, "you are too terrible."
Her friend gave her the strangest look and then said, quietly, "I'm glad I can provide you with vicarious thrills."
"Oh, come now, Elphaba," I insisted, as we pushed open the doors of the castle, being checked by the guards. Even this was thrilling. I remembered at home a Giliknese noble girl bragged about "slumming" in Emerald City. Glinda supposed this is how she must have felt, being mistaken for a commoner.
When they were clear of the castle, she continued, "You're a cynic, you couldn't have expected to convince the wizard to change policy. At any rate, we have a good story to tell the boys when we return to Shiz."
"No," Elphaba said faintly, looking absolutely . . . well, Glinda would almost use the expression green. " but, I needed proof."
"Proof? Proof of what? Please try to make some sense." She had placed one foot on the step of their carriage, but Elphaba grabbed her wrist and pulled her down. Crying out, scandalized, she said, "Elphie, please, I'm not used to being man handled."
"Listen," her voice was urgent, pleading, wanton even, and for the second time (that day and in their life) she saw her friend want something. Though what the green girl wanted, she could not fathom, "my father..." she pauses, looking confused for a moment, or as though she understood something suddenly, "even he realized that when making changes, prayer and planning wasn't everything. He would always tell me that first you should pray to the Unnamed God and then take action, letting him guide you."
It was the longest she had ever heard Elphaba speak. The girl's dark eyes were bright and shining, and her chest heaved with passion. Although it frightened Glinda, it also appealed to her; she loved Elphie for it. The fear was controlling though as the driver shouted for them to "get on or get lost".
"Well, that's wonderful and all, Elphie," the blonde whispered vehemently, "but what in Lurline's name does that have to do with us?"
Elphaba tugged her arm, pulling the girl around the corner of the building, putting her hands on both her shoulders. "You foolish, foolish girl. Our prayer was going to the Wizard, and it did not produce results. Meaning the next reasonable step is action."
"Fine." Glinda said, not thinking her friend was making the least bit of sense, "We'll plan our next step on the long ride back to Shiz."
"What if I told you there was a way we could skip the long ride back to Shiz?"
"Oh? Have you found a way to magically get us back to Shiz without the rides? Or perhaps I could magic a broomstick."
"No, no." Elphaba said, grumbling, "Those are just as miserable as the carriage. I mean that we can stay here."
Elphaba had made an allusion earlier about Glinda's state of mind and how she swung between being a great thinker and society girl. On the ride over here, she had separated them into two people. Glinda was the thinker, and Galinda was the society belle. They both still existed, of course. Only, now, Galinda was the one to retreat into the closed closet and Glinda took over the everyday activities. It didn't matter though; as Elphaba had told Boq, she loved them both. Galinda came out at full force now.
"What's here."
Elphie was tempted to say, "Me." but settled for a less daring, "Friends."
"I have friends at Shiz!"
"You have," she grew agitated, "contacts at Shiz. They're nothing more than contacts. You're not like them, Glinda, you can't be friends with people who aren't on your level. You and me . . . we're the same."
"We most certainly are not!" Shrieked Glinda, or it was Galinda right now, wasn't it? She began to cry, much to the horror of her friend, "You ask too much, Miss Elphaba, you ask too much." Oh, and how the reversion to old formal names stung, almost as much as the salty tears did when Elphie wrapped her arms around the blonde and the liquid soaked through her thin gray dress.
"Oh, Glinda!" Her voice was thick, as though trying to hold back the flood of passion as to not scare her, "You saw Doctor Dillamond! He was a great thinker, he was. You saw it, and it awoke something in you. Your . . . oh, I don't know. Sense of justice? If that's the treatment such a respected Animal receives, can you imagine how they will treat those lower than him?"
"That," stated a terse voice, "is not something to be discussed on the city streets in broad daylight."
Elphie released Glinda (who did not protest) and spun to meet the voice that had spoken. It was a male, clearly, from the octave of his voice, but his body was concealed behind layers of traveling cloaks. A billowing turban concealed his facial features. It was suspicious, but he could easily be from the West, the Vinkus.
"I believe, young emerald lady, you need some guidance."
"I can buy a map, thank you." she said curtly,
Laughter came sparsely from within the fabrics and he says, "My, and witty. How your eyes shine with the passion of youthful outrage! What are your plans, child? Or have you none? Are you simply too blinded by your righteous anger?"
Elphie considered her options before turning to Glinda, using a sort of self-induced tunnel vision to deal with each problem one at a time. "Look here. I'm going to go talk to this guy. The carriage is about to leave. You make your decision, either by action or inaction, ironically. You can get on the carriage and return to Shiz or you can be here when I return."
Glinda scarcely had a moment to thing about before a bemused cab driver was asking, "Well, young miss?"
"Oh," she said, drawing out the word in a near moan, "fine, go on, then."
He shrugged and urged the creatures pulling the cab forward. She wondered briefly if they were horses or Horses and how she felt about that. Finally, after a moment of pondering, she figured she best ask Elphie when she got back, since she seemed to be such an expert on Animal rights.
After a moment, she began to feel useless. She decided to find them shelter, at least for tonight. Despite how illustrious some of the dark, limestone green, towering hotels looked (she spent five minutes looking at Ozma Towers, longing already building in the pit of her stomach). Finally she found a small inn near the center of town, but down an indiscreet street. She chose it because it reminded her of Elphaba, a light, springy green, solid, but elaborate.
Glinda beggared with the owner for several moments. Although after what had happened to Ama Clutch, she was reluctant to make up stories, she knew it may be the only way. The first part was true. She was Gilikinese, descended from the Arduennas of Upland. Then the story got a tad . . . well, fantastical, let's say. She told him that her parents had sent her to the city to visit with relatives. Seeing he was of proud Gilikinese blood, she commented that they were part Munchikinlander, and how unreliable they were. Finally, she concluded that her mother would be ever so thankful if the man would put her up, just for the night. The man stared at her for a moment, working his slightly buck teeth before informing her that she could bunk in the old part of the inn.
When Glinda traveled back to the spot the cab had left her in, she saw Elphie looking around with a hardened expression on her face. She jumped up and down, extending her arm until she spotted her.
"Oh," Glinda thought her friend looked too thankless, "you're still here."
"That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"We need to–."
"Find shelter? Already done. Small inn, not even a quarter of a mile from here."
"How quaint, but we need to be discreet."
"I know, Elphie. There's more in this head than blonde curls, you know."
Her face softened only the slightest, "I know, Glinda, but if you throw the smartest person at Shiz out on the streets of the Emerald City, they wouldn't know what to do."
The room turned out to be acutely small and short of cozy. There was only one bed in the room, as the innkeeper had assumed the daughter of Arduennas would not be having guests. It was gusty, and the girls pulled together to keep warm. Elphie especially got frightened when it began to rain and she folded herself awkwardly into the protection of Glinda.'s body. Once again they claimed to themselves it was for protection, though, secretly, they both took a different sort of comfort.