The sun finally began to dip below the hills just outside Kiamo Ko. Elphaba, who was perched upon the stone windowsill, watched the last scratch of sunlight melt into the horizon. The cold, grey stone lost its brightened tint and died like every night with a harsh and ugly paleness. The green woman inhaled the bitter scent of the dried landscape but found no relief in the lack of calm nor the action. How she craved for a change of scenery. A trip out to Quadling Country. Maybe Rush Margins. But at last she would only grip the chipped broom handle, wringing her calloused hands against it impatiently. It wasn't as if she was waiting on anyone here. All of Fiyero's family had perished mercilessly because of her existence. Much like Fiyero himself…
There was however something different tonight. She had taken her broom out. She had bother to dawn on her traveling cloak and ruffle the collar to cover the evergreen of her neck while her raven hair camouflaged her face. Elphaba knew the exact reason that had caused such a need for escape. It was a phrase that this morning was lost in Chistery's gibberish. Through the years he had indeed improved but with virtually no one to talk to, he wasn't learning anything new. Liir had followed the soldiers upon her "death" and sometime later had made a quiet retreat to the afterlife. That was years ago. It appeared to Elphaba that as soon as she had chosen not to travel anywhere following the third anniversary of her death, that everyone locally was slipping out of her grasp. Not that she wasn't expecting it and not that she particularly cared, it was simply coincidental if she believed in such coincidences.
But the phrase Chistery had nonchalantly repeated over the hours on his chores. "Hold out…"
Amongst all the madness in his words she had unmistakably heard him say it. Moments after the shock had past when she had heard it for the sixth time, the monkey proclaimed a name that she so missed the ring to. "Glinda, Miss-miss Glinda. Hold out."
This was the statement that gnawed at the emerald woman who hadn't heard of the blonde in quite a few years. She remembered the celebrations of her death, at the beginning she want to know the information of her demise. But the maybe another part yearned to see her old roommate past what was depicted in the churches. She had for many had for many reasons never asked for Fiyero to spill the blonde's life no matter how it dug into her stomach. After their kiss in the Emerald City she simply wanted ti swallow the feelings that resurfaced with every dreams of their travels together. Finally it clicked in her ever working mind.
She must be speaking in her sleep. Elphaba could guarantee she had never spoken of her time with Glinda but somehow the monkey knew the exact words that pulled at her heart. Upon this realization she came upon another. She needed to see Glinda again. Needed to know she was not decaying as she had feared these many years. The last glimpse she had captured of the woman was her descent into Munchkinland to once more retell the story of the Wicked's death, a story that Elphaba herself found very enlightening. Saint Glinda on the third year appeared to be worn. Her face was caked in make up that not many would notice. Her voice had pitched to cover the shake and unnerved feeling of sadness. Had Elpahab no recounted the lies the old Galinda would tell she would have never noticed these signs. But hidden amongst the shadows of the crowd she watched the aging woman twist under the scrutiny of the public while they tossed buckets to the sky and flooded the memorial fountain with a green dye of some sort.
Indeed Elphaba had worried for the blonde but not so much so as to give away her current state of life. No matter how dull that life now was. Shad managed over the dreary time in Kiamo Ko aid in the Animals freedom secretly and luckily those same Animals had kept the Gale Force at bay. It had been quite some time since she had even laid eyes on the green and gold uniforms which were astoundingly easy to spot in the mid day sun.
Silently she slipped back inside the tower, her ratty skirt catching the edge of the stone sill. It was so thin with time and wear that it took no effort for it to rip. A grunt of pure frustration from Elphaba roused Chistery from his small curled position beside the doorway leading to the decaying staircase back into the main hall. The small unnatural monkey shook himself to, in a sense, bust away the weariness sleep had filled his aging limbs with. The stone flooring did not twist or shift well under neither his wings nor the impossible to control tail in which he now had a habit of stroking. He waddled the short distance to his mistress and waited at her feet for some form of acknowledgement, to which he received none.
No, Elphaba was focused off in her mind as she scanned the darkening sky. Her bare and cracked feet padded against the cold floor as she paced before the window her broom firm in hand. She mumbled incoherently the impossible thoughts that swam in her mind. Was she willing to risk this for a glimpse of the woman? What was this life but a cage? She had lost all true sense of time and social standards (to which she had few anyway) while she resided in Kiamo Ko. Though what was the point her upholding to social law now? Any being in Oz is immediately threatened by her presence and since her death that fear has grown ten fold. Finally she shook the questions from her mind.
"We're leaving…" she spoke flatly to the monkey without breaking contact with the horizon. And in that moment, emerald met with Western sky.