(AN: Okay, I thought I'd never get this far. Even when I was coming up with the ideas for where we have come to, as early as The Witch's Saga, I didn't believe I could have made it as far as this: eight pieces and a ninth one in the works!)

(A few housekeeping tips and then we'll dive right in. If you have not been keeping up with the Ozian Adventures, I suggest you begin, starting with Another World Another War by LittleGreenFae, continued in FotR: Another World by me unto this one. Pairings are Fiyeraba, Bessa and Glinda/OC [if I so choose], setting is post-musical. While this story is not necessarily a cross-over, very little of the action takes place in Oz proper, as our characters have been on the run/whisked away from Oz. There will be references to other things from the other stories, and therefore let me state that I do not own the following things: Wicked, Lord of the Rings, Soul Calibur or any other licensed names, places and such from their separate fictions. I recommend that you review as often and as frequently as possible: as this series was started because the original author gave me permission to continue the story she could not complete, I welcome your suggestions. They might just find their way into the scheme of things in this story.)

(Title of the story, of course, comes from Wicked the book, and title of this chapter comes from the song by Orchid, as I was listening to Orchid during the brainstorm session where I came up with some of the ideas for this story.)

She Who Walks Alone

Oz. Little could she believe that, barely five months ago, she was standing in this same spot, within Kumbricia's Pass, looking out at a very different Oz than the one she had grown up in and called her home. She had not really been there, only a duplicate, a schism of her consciousness in a magically-formed body: it looked, spoke, acted like her and had all of her memories. But that was all in the past, the distant past as it was: that duplicate had been destroyed and, by and by, its memories and what it had experienced returned to her.

Now she stood, Glinda Upland, looking out once again upon Oz. It was exactly as she remembered it: to the right, in the East, the Yellow Brick Road wound like a yellow snake across the green of the lands all the way to the emerald haze of Oz's capital: the Emerald City. She had come to the right date, though she feared she was unable to accomplish such a feat. Elphaba had always been the more powerful in magic, but Elphaba was dead, cut down by her own hand, or so some might say. Glinda would not say such, for she refused to believe that the green-skinned woman who had faced death at her hand was her beloved Elphaba Thropp.

Oz already seems a little less colorful, Glinda thought. Without her greatest daughter.

She looked down at herself. She wore the white dress, made by the tailors of Worms when she lived among them, and shoes of that kind as well. Whatever had happened to the Elvish boots, she knew not. In one hand she held Elphaba's broomstick and in the other, her hat. On her back was the black cloak she herself had given Elphaba in the attic of the Emerald Palace, so long ago it seemed like a legend of Oz's beginning. Her crystal, given to her by one of her other duplicates, had broken upon her arrival in Oz. Now she was here, blind and alone, in her own homeland, though she could see.

She had a task to complete.

In the swampland of Quadling, the Southern land of Oz, Glinda the Good held rule. She was a Gilikin sorceress, formerly known as an "Ambassador of Goodness" among the people of Loyal Oz during the reign of the Wizard. Unlike the Wizard, her magic was real. A great palace she had magicked into being, that floated with the swamp. She was fair and kind to all, even the Quadlings, red-skinned marsh-people who were considered sub-human by the rest of greater Oz.

But she wasn't real. Anyone who knew the real Glinda Upland, or "Galinda Upland", the person who had been given the meaningless title "Glinda the Good", knew that she was a much different person. She was naive, but not good. Manipulative, not fair. And she was selfish more than kind. High society and parties were what she had cared for, and the marsh-people simply didn't exist in her narrow world. Furthermore, Glinda Upland was blond, not a red-head.

To the people of Oz, however, this mattered not. When a red-haired woman came floating down in a bubble out of the sky one day, dressed in a beautiful ballgown and wielding a wand with a snow-flake tip, they called out to her as though she were Glinda. She had even managed to convince the skeptics that she was Glinda. She then moved her palace from the Emerald City and settled in Quadling country, where she held rulings as Oz's de facto ruler.

This "Glinda Upland" sat in her bedroom, brushing out her long, beautiful red hair and humming a song about popularity. Every little quirk was counted for, memorized and repeated in order to make the disguise seem good. It fooled everyone in Oz, everyone except her. She knew that she was not the real Glinda Upland, she knew that, one day, her time would come and she would disappear for good. It made her afraid and sorrowful: afraid because of what might happen if there were no Glinda Upland in Oz, and sorrowful because of reasons she knew she should not be having. She would be sorry to go because she had seen so much, experienced so much, and once her time came, all of that would be gone.

There was no knock on the door. She heard a noise at the window, which she never closed since it looked out only onto the swamp, and turned to see who was sneaking into the room of Glinda the Good. Her blue eyes exploded in shock as she saw the form she thought she would not be seeing for a good long time. It was the form of her master, her creator, the one who had brought her into being and gave her this commission.

"It's good to see me, isn't it?" the real Glinda Upland greeted.

(AN: Very very vague first chapter, but I hope it catches your interest. Lots more exposition in the next chapter, so if you missed anything, don't worry.)