Elphaba was melting now. It was dreadful, it was pain, and yet...and yet, what bliss! To be broken down into one's primary components. To be disintegrated. As The Wicked Witch of the West came apart, she had the epiphany that brought everything together, that she was sure everyone must have when dying in such a way; this wasn't the end. No. Dying was very much a beginning. To melt, to burn...and much like a pfenix, to be reborn from the ashes. This was the way it would go. Wickedness, much like Goodness, could not be destroyed so easily. Or perhaps, in the case of Elphaba Thropp, it was the other way around. She must have been good all along if it brought her the way it had. Followers of The Unnamed God often suggested that The Unnamed God gave no one more burden than they could handle, and it had to be true. In this moment, Elphaba knew that this was truth. She, The Wicked Witch of the West, the supposed hermaphrodite, the demon child born with razor sharp fangs, she, she, SHE knew that this was a test. This Unnamed God whom she could not believe in may not have given this test to her but fate, somehow, had brought her this great misfortune; she was going to deal with it as best she could.
"I'm melting, I'm melting, Oh, what a world!" Shrieked Elphaba in what must have sounded like agony. She muttered something that must have sounded like incoherent insanity spewed as she died something that must have seemed like death. It was, though, a spell to change from woman to pfenix.
Pathos m'geren sumtin m'lai
Pathos m'geren sum'tai
Path'ai m'tin geren sumtim m'lai
Path'ai m'geren tai laos.
The body of Elphaba Thropp now lay in ashes on the floor, as surely as if she had been cremated. And yet, the spirit of Elphaba had yet to leave, was waiting above, invisible to those in the room, flying about in high spirits at having passed the test fate had brought to her.
They need to leave, Elphaba thought to herself. I have fifteen minutes at best before I have to be in this body and if they get in my way...by God, I will take them down.
Slowly, all of the spectators and that mindless twat of a farm girl walked from the room, shaken up but triumphant. Only Glinda stayed behind---dear Glinda. Elphaba had never had a friend before Glinda, would never have a true friend after. Fiyero...he had loved her, true, but it had not been the same. She had been forbidden to him, as had he to her. They had loved the excitement, that was all. Elphaba was sure that he knew they could never have been friends. Not because of what happened...just because.