Dedicated to: Antiwicked because she is amazing,beautiful, strong and one of the nicest people I've met on this site. You rock girl!
Why did it have to be her? Why did she have to be the one to tell them?
Glinda knew why, she knew why from the very beginning when Elphaba informed her that he was dead. She was the closest thing he had to a wife. She was the last person to see him alive.
Glinda had to tell Fiyero's parents that he was dead. It was the only way.
Even still that didn't make this job any harder. She didn't want to just send a letter of condolences, no, that was the easy way out. Glinda had wanted to go in person, Lurline knows why; it probably was going to make her cry just seeing their faces when she told them the news but she had to.
Elphaba would be proud of her and so would Fiyero. Ever since their deaths Glinda had been taking small steps to do courageous things in their honor.
This was one of them. Telling Fiyero's parents that he was dead was not something that Galinda would have done, but Glinda cared too much to let anyone else do it.
Or at least that's what she told herself as she trudged up the rainy mountainside to the castle, the one that his family actually resided in.
Lowering the hood of her maroon cloak as soon as she made it to the castle, Glinda let her golden curls and silver tiara shine in the flashing lighting that scattered across the sky. She knocked on the wooden door three times and waited.
While standing there in the pouring rain Glinda recited once more the speech she had prepared.
Mr. and Mrs. Tiggular- no that was wrong.
Your Majesties, Mr. and Mrs. Tiggular- no that didn't sound right either.
Glinda could feel her mouth suddenly become dry and she inwardly began to panic. She was already stumbling over her words, and she hadn't even seen them yet!
Oh Oz, this was going to be a mess.
She had wanted to do this elegantly, professionally like any ruler should. But her feelings kept getting in the way.
She didn't want to feel so attached to Fiyero's death, or to Elphaba's either but she was in too deep. It hurt too much to even neither think nor remember the events leading up to their deaths. Especially since the blonde took it upon herself for the blame.
The door opened and out came Mrs. Tiggular all smiles and hugs. Glinda felt sick with just the woman's arms around her.
"Oh Glinda dear how nice it is to see you," trilled the older woman who still looked like she could be thirty. She smiled graciously at the blonde and noticed that she was soaking wet, "I can't believe you came here in this rain, quick come inside and dry off." She opened the door wider, revealing the grandeur of the castle and let the blonde come inside. Glinda scuttled in quickly and dried her eyes before the queen could see that she had tears running down them.
"Is Fiyero with you?" asked Mrs. Tiggular as they moved into the sitting room.
A large lump formed in Glinda's throat that she could not swallow no matter how many times she tried. Her eyes grew misty and she blinked furiously. She managed a weak shake of her head and Mrs. Tiggular looked sorely disappointed.
"Oh," she said softly, her eyes downcast. She sat down in an armchair and covered her mouth for a minute before speaking again. "That boy never comes around anymore, not since he got that big promotion and whatnot. He writes though, every week… except I haven't gotten a letter in the last few. Is he alright?"
The guilt felt like it was suffocating Glinda. Her hands started to shake beneath the folds of her cloak. She sat down nervously in a chair and took a deep breath.
"Baxiana, I need to tell you-"
"Oh, hold on dearie," said the woman quickly as she noticed her husband approaching with drinks.
"I thought you could use some hot chocolate, looks pretty cold out there," greeted Mr. Tiggular as he kissed the blonde on the cheek and handed her a steaming cup of coco.
"Aren't you sweet?" commented Baxiana as she took a sip of hers while Glinda refused her drink.
Her husband, Vladmir sat down next to her and looked at Glinda.
"So what news have you brought from The Emerald City? How's Fiyero?"
Glinda felt her heart racing in her chest. It was thumping wildly, her eyes felt like they were going to let loose an avalanche of tears, her hands couldn't keep still.
She looked at Vladmir and Baxiana and felt the urge to throw up. She couldn't do this. Not to them. They just looked so happy when they talked about their son. She couldn't crush that.
"Are you alright dear?" rushed in Baxiana, bringing Glinda back to reality, "You look deathly pale… are you sure you don't want that hot chocolate?"
Glinda blinked and slowly felt the color return to her face.
"Um, no, no thank you… I'm fine for now," she whispered. She bit her lip hard. Baxiana didn't miss a beat.
"Do you want to talk about something dear?"
She looked at Glinda with a sympathetic look in her eyes. Glinda nodded slowly and her bottom lip trembled harshly. She swallowed before she started. She realized a split second before she began speaking, that her speech would be too hard to talk about. She was going to have to be blunt about it.
Her stomach was twisted into such knots, like someone was wringing out the lining of her body with strong hands.
"Fiyero- Fiyero's dead," she sobbed as she looked at both of them. She didn't see them start crying because her own tears already horribly obscured her vision. She only heard them.
Baxiana slid into Vladmir's arms while he just stared at Glinda, shocked.
"H-h-how?" whispered the queen in between gut-wrecking sobs.
This was it. The moment that Glinda could be brave and tell the truth. She sucked in a mouthful of air to calm herself enough so that she could answer her.
"It was the Gale Force, they beat him up and tied him to a pole in the fields. I-I wanted to be the one to tell you- I was there- I saw it happen," she broke down in the middle of her explanation and blubbered the rest, "I didn't mean to… I didn't even know that they were coming… and then they just dragged him off- I tried to save him-" She trailed off in sobs. Her hands clenched around her body tightly and she bowed her head down as she lost control of herself for those brief moments. When she looked back up at his parents, her eyes were glistening but they did not shed tears.
"I don't believe it," rebuffed Vladmir, "It was the work of the Wicked Witch and you're just lying to us. His men would never do that to him, he was their captain. The Witch is to blame, admit it Glinda!" he exploded and Glinda didn't blame him.
"I'm not lying, I promise. It wasn't the Witch!" protested the blonde. She had hoped to make them see that Elphaba wasn't all that bad. That The Gale Force was the real culprit.
"Darling, she said she was there. I'd believe her if I were you," came Baxiana's quiet reply.
"No," shouted Vladmir, "I don't believe a word of her lies. Fiyero was a good man, he was my boy… my son…he was my only son…they wouldn't turn against him like that!"
"They would if the Wizard told them to," snapped back Glinda. She was angry, angry that this man didn't believe her when she so desperately needed him to.
"Get out of my house," he growled, his actions and harsh words accredited to his deep grief.
Glinda stood up silently and nodded. When she got to the doorway of the room she paused.
"I am so sorry for your loss. Fiyero wasn't just yours to lose but he was also mine."
She closed the door behind her and walked out of the castle. Tears were now free to fall down her face. And fall they did. Faster and faster down her face until she had to stop walking and curl up on the ground underneath a tree to avoid having more moisture on her face than necessary. The rain still pounded on, mixing with her tears.
She buried her face in her knees and sobbed. That was the hardest thing she had ever done. To tell somebody's parents that their child was dead was something that she wished on no one. It was unbearable, to see the pain of loss hit them so quickly. Glinda felt horrid about how she left them but they needed to grieve, and grieve alone.
Losing a loved one, friend, or lover was so hard. And you will always find someone else to love, someone else to be your friend, or someone else to keep you company at night and to share your life with but never the same person twice. That's the thing about death that makes it so unbearable and so tragic.
Glinda sniffled as she realized this, there were so many people in this world, in Oz but no two people were alike. And that's why it made losing friends like Elphaba, Fiyero, Boq and Nessa so hard. Glinda could never talk to another person about being popular and get the same reaction from them as Elphaba had given her. She could never listen to anyone else prattle on about the Unnamed God exactly like Nessa could. She could never call someone Biq and have them correct her as many times as Boq had. Nor could she ever nickname someone Fifi and have them grin at her like Fiyero would have.
With her own revelation done and over with, Glinda felt surprisingly better. Even though their physical beings were not with her, at least she had their spirits and personalities with her, in her heart and in her memories.
She smiled warmly to herself as she walked back down the path in the rain because she knew in time that the Tiggulars would come to the same realization as she just did. And so would everyone else who had ever lost somebody.
It was okay to be sad and to grieve but Glinda had to keep going, keep pressing forward no matter how she felt. Life could be beautiful; it was always beautiful even when Glinda thought it not.
She had to keep going and live her life, if not for herself but for them, for all of them.
Glinda didn't want to be another body in a casket, she had worked to hard, struggled for too long to just let her life slip away like that, especially if it was ended by her own hand.
She was going to enjoy her life, keep her chin up, and smile because she knew she had guardian angels surrounding her that would always want to see her living her life to the fullest and not be one of them.
"I promise, I'll do well by you all, I promise," swore Glinda at the sky as it cleared up and the sun shone down on her like a spotlight. She could see them all smiling at her and she smiled back.
In the end, it really was going to be okay, she thought as she took one last glance at the castle… it really was.
I feel like I went on this really long inner rant in this story. I hoped it turned out okay. It made me cry too, when I was writing it.
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