this still doesn't make complete sense to me, and i have no idea where or how it could possibly fall into the storyline of either the book or the play, but it was fun to write.
and i like it.
and it wasn't meant to be glinda/elphaba, but i can see how someone could construe it as being such.
OH OH OH. and the song is FEATHERS by COHEED AND CAMBRIA.

history's made its mark in anger
as everybody knows, it's what we do

Glinda does this every single day. There isn't one that goes by in which she doesn't come into her room, sit on her bed (sometimes on the floor, if she's feeling particularly sorry for herself), and get out this little box. It's round, with little pinky-green flowers decorating the edge (you see, she'd tried to dye them a light shade of emerald once, but it hadn't turned out quite right). It's just like the one she gave to— she stops. She's not allowed to do this until the box is open. So she lifts the lid.

Her breath still catches in her throat every single time.

Memories and sounds and smells and feelings come flooding out of the pretty little hat box and into her mind. There's that day when they were assigned to the same room (courtesy of some freak misunderstanding or some genuine stroke of luck, because Glinda can never make up her mind)… there's that feeling she got when she finally decided that, yes, the green girl was her best friend… there's that smell of metal and magic and green, from the first time they came here to the Emerald City, and where her best friend finally found someplace she felt like she belonged… there's that feeling of worry and sickness in the pit of her stomach, when she watched her best friend (now only a green and black blur, due to the tears crowding her eyes) run from the carriage, because she wasn't coming back!

Glinda closes the box and her eyes. She always stops as soon as she feels the tears threatening her retinas. There isn't a day that goes by in which she doesn't think about her… but she never fails to be overwhelmed by this little ritual.

it's nothing new

-x-x-x-

the next chords struck are fault and failure
and we both know that finger points on cue

Elphaba has no rituals (well, none of that sort, at any rate), and she has no schedule for remembering. It isn't anything routine, and it certainly isn't part of hers (if you can call it that). She merely does this when she needs to, and now is most definitely one of those times. One of those times when she gets the broom out of the closet and dusts it off, mounting and willing it (with every fiber of her being) to fly. She glides over the checkered landscape of Oz and gazes down at the little cottages and villages, any one of which could be a place where she lived as a child. But now the view begins to change, the houses peter out until there's nothing but continuous farmland in all directions and then— there it is, out of nowhere.

Her breath still catches in her throat every single time.

The city glows from the inside, pulsing with life, even at this time of night. She flies lower and lower and lower, until she can smell the magic in the air, laced with dirt and grime and something much more sinister. This is where she is (or was, the last time Elphaba bothered to find out). The green woman lands on a rooftop, amidst some puzzling machinery (probably powering the building below her feet, she supposes). She knows no one can see her, as she is dressed just so that she will blend in with the sky, and even if someone were to be searching for her (no… no, no, no), it would be nearly impossible to spot her through the dim glow of the yellow lights below.

She takes a seat atop a glowing generator (or something of the sort), and makes herself comfortable. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she removes the letter from a pocket concealed in the many folds of her cloak. She doesn't bother opening it, as she knows every word by heart… a heart that hurts because she knew (and has always known), as soon as she opened it, that she would never be able to bring herself to write a letter back to her best friend.

Elphaba usually tends to avoid crying, because she hates the feeling of tears on her cheek, but she supposes that, for this, she deserves it. So she lets them fall.

there's blame for two

reviews are sex on ice.