"Are people born wicked? Or is wickedness thrust upon them? After all, she had a Father…"
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Glinda walked into the Wizard's throne room some time after the witch hunters had left. She'd watched them march into the distance from the towers of the Emerald City, longing to fly to Elphaba's side to beg forgiveness and help her. But there was something she had to ask the Wizard first, something that had been preying on her mind."Your Ozness?" She asked from the doorway.
"Ah Miss Glinda. Please come in." He replied jovially. Glinda had to beat down a sudden urge to pounce on him and throttle him for being so happy when an army of killers was marching towards her friend with only one intention, and it wasn't to decorate her house unless it was with her innards.
"Thank you, your Ozness." She replied, smilingly demurely. "I've been wondering recently; are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?" There, she'd asked it. She'd gotten it off of her chest.
"That's – an interesting question Miss Glinda." The wizard replied, slightly taken aback at this show of intellectitude from his formerly submissive assistant. He leaned back in his throne and contemplated it. "I should say both." Came his eventual reply. "It could be as much an accident of birth, as a matter of upbringing. For instance a mother's love…" He rambled on.
"Their mother?" Glinda mused to herself, not really listening to the Wizards explanation of nature versus nurture. "Yes. I suppose she was the only one who ever really loved her." She absent-mindedly took out her keepsake of her verdigris roommate that she always fiddled with when she was thoughtful. Elphaba's little green bottle.
"What's that you've got there my dear?" Asked Madame Morrible as she entered the room.
"What?" Replied both Glinda and the Wizard, both woken from one reverie or another to look down at the bundle in Glinda's hands.
"Where did you get that?" The Wizard asked slightly hoarsely, reaching out a hand for it.
"What this? Oh it was Elphaba's keepsake of her mother." Glinda blurted out. "She left it under her pillow when she left and I kept it. Sort of a reminder of the good old days I suppose. It's really strange looking isn't it?" She handed it over to the Wizard, who took it as though it were a delicate bloom that would crumble under the slightest pressure.
"But…" He started, staring first at the bottle and then at something he took out of his pocket. It was an identical little green bottle; he held them both up to the light.
"I am a sentimental man. Who always longed to be – a father." He said slowly, half to himself. His eyes slightly misting over.
"So that's where she gets her power from, she is a child of both worlds. Or should I say 'was'." Madame Morrible cut in horribly.
"Oh my lord!" The Wizard exclaimed, suddenly horrified. "The witch hunters! We have to stop them!" He started for the door only to have Madame Morrible step in front of him.
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, you Ozness." She replied, sneering his title.
"But she's my daughter." He whined pathetically, pleading with Madame Morrible who remained unmoved. Then Glinda, who had remained silent, contemplating this sudden development, stepped forward.
"Move out of the way Madame Morrible." Came her voice, slightly harsher than normal, with something otherworldly to it. "Don't make me make you." Something intangible blurred the air between Glinda and Madame Morrible, who merely smiled. But there was not a trace of friendliness in her expression.
"A shot across my bows girl. Do you really think you can match my talents?" Something dark that gave the impression of grasping tentacles burst from Madame Morrible and struck Glinda, causing her to cry out and stumble backwards; only for her to get back up again with a steely glint in her eyes. Something silver soared from her outstretched palm and sped towards Morrible's face, only to dissipate as it was struck by a ghastly dark emanation from the older woman. "A pathetic show my dear. As I told you on your first day at Shiz: you just don't have what it –"
She didn't finish her statement because something else blurred towards her ugly hag face, lifting her off her feet to crash into the wall. But this wasn;t magic, at least not of the conventional kind. This was Glinda's backhand slap strengthened in the same way that a mother is when she her child protruding from beneath a fallen tree or overturned cart. This was the proverbial wrath of a woman scorned.
"Come, your Ozness." Glinda said calmly, grabbing the stunned Wizard's arm. "We have to go and save your daughter."