Note: This story is in fact seven years old. But having lost nothing of its relevance, I thought I could publish it as well. Fiyero's surname is written according to bookverse.
News Out of OZ
We interrupt our program for an important special report.
According to our latest information, 192 dead and 735 wounded are to bewail in the assaults that have been committed across the Emerald City last night. Details about the identities of the victims are going to be published at the top of the hour from the hospitals Wizard's Heal, Wizard's Solace and Wizard's Grace. We kindly ask our citizens with relatives missing not to turn to the inquiry desks in the hospitals. The news system is overloaded and large crowds of people have to be considered as potential aims for terrorists.
The Gale Force tells us that in this new series of assaults, several public buildings have been attacked, among them the Ministry of Love and Peace and the Ministry of Animal Security. We have raw evidence that the Minister of Animal Security is in a serious condition. Madame Morrible, the popular Minister of Information, was only able to avoid an attack due to a short dated visit of a theatre performance. Eyewitnesses speak of fire exchanges even near the palace. Our Wonderful Wizard is luckily unharmed.
Primary target of the assaults seems to be the high-security prison Southstairs, where heavy fights are continuing at the present. Thanks to the resolute intervention of our security forces, the terrorists are withdrawing. It is supposed that the terrorists planned to free anti-revolutionary followers and subversive Animals, to bring even more destruction across the country.
In his first statement from tonight,the Great Wizard of OZ heavily condemned the attacks and announced to seek revenge. The captured terrorists are currently inquired to learn about their instigators. With the arrest of Fiyero Tigelaar, tribe-chief of the Arjiki, in a hideout of the terrorists it seems possible that well-esteemed members of society could be involved in the assaults. The trace leads to the West. The Great Wizard of OZ promised brutal clarification of all coherences.
Tigelaar, who put up strong resistance against his seizure, was recently spotted in company of a mysterious woman. According to information of the Gale Force, this woman is tall and slender. Her most prominent feature is a striking green body painting which meaning is still unclear. She wears black gowns to disguise her identity.
We advise you to call the Gale Force at once if you cross paths with this woman! Don't try to capture her on your own. She is extremely dangerous and absolutely willing to resort to violence. Those who know about this woman or her whereabouts are also asked to inform the Gale Force. We point out § 35 of the Security Laws, whereupon people who support suspects have to envisage a death sentence.
We repeat, wanted for terror suspect is a green-skinned woman…
Glinda turned the radio off. Taking a sip of her recently forgotten coffee, she spit it right back into the porcelain cup after it touched her tongue. The coffee was long since cold and undrinkable. She took a deep breath to fight down the queasy feeling in her stomach. But the relief was short-lived. A cramp shook her until she lost her control. A moment later she ran into the bath and heaved up into the toilet.
It took some time until she was able to have a clear thought. Then, all she wanted was to become clean again. She washed the threads of sourly fluid from her chin and dabbed cold sweat off her forehead. Hesitantly she turned in the direction of the bedroom. The door opened with a quiet squeak from the hinges. Waiting in the doorframe she thoughtfully watched the woman who lay sleeping in her bed. The sunlight filtered through the windows like liquid gold and poured over the accusing green skin. Elphaba looked peaceful. She held no resemblance to the person Glinda had picked up off the street.
The carriage driver had beaten the horses with a vengeance when the first shots echoed off the walls. On their ride through the chaotic streets they had collided with somebody. Despite the urging of the driver to move onward Glinda had called for a stop. She knelt next to the sunk down figure on the cobble stones and pulled back the hood of its dark mantle. For a moment her throat restricted. It was Elphaba.
Glinda would have doubted whether it was truly her, had she not seen her green skin. Looking absolutely pinched, her cheeks were sunken in and her face looked even sharper than she remembered it to be. There was no talking to Elphaba, she seemed to be in a shock and as far as the Blonde could tell in the darkness, her form was smeared with blood. How often had Glinda searched for her in this maze of a city? Ironically, she had run right in front of her horse-drawn coach, in the middle of a square with people on the run. The shots neared.
Glinda dragged her into the coach to dink her to the safety of her city estate. She supported her when they got off the coach and managed to ascend the staircase with her. Undressing her from her moth-eaten, worn-out robe, she washed the blood away with oil. It was another kind of irony how easily her mate's body was revealed to her now, when all she had gained years before were short glimpses in the darkness. But the situation allowed no naughty thoughts. All that filled her mind was the incredible fear that Elphaba had been hurt during the collision with the coach, or that somebody had attacked her in the riot on the street. But the blood vanished without residuals from the green skin. Elphaba wasn't hurt.
When Glinda cleaned her, Elphaba began to speak, scattered sentences without cohesion. The Blonde lay down next to her in the bed and hold her tight until she was asleep.
Outside windows rattled and harsh voices resounded. Glinda prayed that her staff would defend the house. What had she gotten herself into?
When Glinda was still contemplating what she had heard on the news, Elphaba came slowly to consciousness. She took a fleeting disorientated look around the large room and its antique furniture. Her first thought was to get up, but she was so exhausted that her head sank right back into the pillows and fell to the left. That's when she noticed Glinda. Both were unable to break the gaze.
"They are searching for you." Glinda crossed the room and came to a stop in front of the bed, arms held protectively around herself. "Is it true that you are involved into what happened last night?"
Elphaba's eyes fixed on the ceiling in defiance and shame. Her voice had a dry color and was brittle like winter leaves. "I failed. They gave me a mission. One single mission after all the months of training and preparation. And I would have fulfilled it gladly." A flame flickered for the fraction of a moment in her. "I was send to kill Morrible! But I was not able to carry it out. I couldn't foresee the children coming to greet her in front if the theatre and stand in the line of fire." She looked at Glinda. "They were spoiled little brats like you – necessary victims, that is what they told me. But I couldn't dare to kill someone like you."
Glinda felt a new wave of nausea rise up inside of her, but she was empty by now, there was nothing left in her body or soul. "Are these your noble aims? Just look at yourself! Did you leave me… us… for that?" She realized Elphaba had tears in the corners of her eyes. Tears she hadn't shed when she had left her on that day in the Emerald City. It made Glinda feel satisfaction. She wished Elphaba to feel the burning pain. "You are not better than the Wizard himself!"
"You don't understand me…"
"I don't even wish to understand you!" cried Glinda and tears equally flooded her eyes. "The Unnamed God alone knows what you have done. What happened with Fiyero? Are you aware that they are going to kill him?"
Elphaba draw her green hands to herself with a start and looked at them in dread. They were clean. They shouldn't be clean. "Yes."
"You are lucky if I don't call the Gale Force right now." Glinda breathed heavily. "I want you to leave…" she continued silently.
Elphaba looked at her like never before. Full of despair, she repeated her words from the palace but said more. "Please come with me! I'm not myself without you!"
Blue eyes glistened back to her coldly. "You are totally out of your mind to even ask me something like that. How dare you? Why didn't you give me this chance after we had met the Wizard? When you just put me into a coach and send me back to Shiz? Without a proper goodbye, without a clue where you were, whether you were well and what you were doing? I didn't matter at all to you!" Glinda worked herself up into hysteric sobbing.
"I know it was wrong. But if you could forgive me, I would try to do better this time. Let's start somewhere new, where nobody knows us."
Glinda looked at the woman whom she loved above all. She would have liked to ignore it, but she couldn't. "Everybody knows who you are, Elphaba. And now just leave me alone, please."
She didn't watch Elphaba go. When she heard the click of the door, she sank into the place where Elphaba had slept before and pressed the pillow against herself. It had taken on the unmistakable scent of the Green. In that moment she had a foreboding that she would never see her again.
She wrapped herself in Elphaba's blanket and found it still warm. The warmth slowly began to seep into her body. Why was she suddenly feeling so cold? After some time, she couldn't feel Elphaba anymore. Silently she cried herself to sleep.