After puttering around at this off and on for over a year, I finally decided that Wicked's 10th anniversary on Broadway was as good an excuse as any to make myself finalize this and post it. I'd still like to write a continuation one day when I can make it work, but as is fitting, Elphaba's being stubborn about letting me into her head. :)
Thank you to all the productions of Wicked, their casts, the writers, and the lovely fans I've met through this crazy adventure I've been on for the last two years since Wicked came into my life. Happy 10th anniversary! Here's to many more!
"The last of your bags are being loaded, Madame Glinda," a page said, standing in the doorway to the Palace's main office. "Is there anything else we can do for you?"
Standing at the windows behind her desk, Glinda looked over at the eager young man. "No, thank you. See if Chistery needs any help. I'll be along shortly."
The page bowed and left. Glinda looked at the now-empty walls of her office and the clear surface of the desk. It seemed like only a few years ago she had walked into this room realizing she had taken over the throne of Oz. How had nearly thirty years passed so quickly? She did have to admit that she approved of the young woman elected to the position following Glinda's decision to abdicate in favor of an attempt at democracy. Still, it felt strange to let go and allow Oz to continue its future without her input. She supposed this must be how it felt to watch your children grow up.
After the shock of the change wore off, she was sure it would be a relief to be away from the pressures of the Emerald City. Her parents had years ago retired to their summer home and offered her the family home in the Upper Uplands. She was finally ready to take them up on it.
As the coach was readied outside, Glinda headed out onto her balcony one last time. She had spent many hours here throughout her reign seeking solitude and reflection. It wasn't the view of the city that drew her there, but rather the view of the fountain in the courtyard below.
Originally, she had wanted to fight its construction, but the citizens of Oz insisted there must be a monument commemorating the death of the Wicked Witch. So, designs had been drawn up and a place cleared at the front of the Wizard's (now Glinda's) palace, where everyone could see. The fountain consisted of a statue of Dorothy tossing a bucket which sprayed a continuous stream of water onto a caricature of the Wicked Witch. The constant spray of water over the past decades had begun to erode the stone, smoothing away the features of the Witch's face, as if she was slowly melting again. A green coating of moss the water had fostered on the statue's white stone added to the effect. The statue of Dorothy, free of the water's spray, remained unchanged by the years but for the contributions of passing Birds expressing their own feelings on the monument. The water-covered Witch, forever being washed anew, remained immune to these indignities.
At first, Glinda had hated having the statue right below her office. Hadn't it been enough for her to witness Elphaba's death in person without a daily reminder? She still had nightmares of seeing her friend fending off witch hunters like a trapped animal, Dorothy throwing the water with almost childlike ignorance of what she was doing, and that shocking moment of watching Elphie actually melt, screaming, into the ground. She tried not to think about the day, of her role in the actions that took place, but in time she had begun to see the fountain outside as her last connection to her old friend.
After the chaos following the Wizard's departure and Glinda's ascension settled down a bit, she had returned to Kiamo Ko to retrieve Elphaba's hat from her final resting place, only to find it missing. She had scoured the castle from turret to cellar, but neither she nor the winged Monkeys taking up roost there could locate it. Glinda hated the idea that perhaps one of the witch hunters had come back and taken it as a trophy or destroyed it separately. In that moment, Glinda had finally understood why Elphaba desired Nessarose's shoes so passionately, and regretted anew giving them to Dorothy.
There had still been the Grimmerie, she supposed, but that bore too many bad memories of the Wizard and spells gone wrong. The hat had been uniquely Elphaba's, and was a reminder of the day they first became friends. Lacking any other physical connection to the girl she once knew, Glinda looked to the statue below her office for a continual reminder of why she was there. The citizens of Oz would comment on how moving it was to see her sitting at her balcony, drawing inspiration on how to rule from the memory of that day. Little they realized how right they were, and yet from such a wrong angle.
She wasn't alone in her memory of Elphaba, however. Chistery accompanied her to the Palace with a flock of his winged brethren, ready to assist her as they had Elphaba. He continued his studies and, over the years, gradually regained his voice to the point that he could carry a conversation. In him Glinda found the only person she could talk with honestly about Elphaba and their shared experiences.
In the days following her rise to leadership, Boq showed up unexpectedly at her office. He admitted to her that since his meeting with the Wizard and all it entailed, he'd had something of a change of heart, as it were. With the clarity of retrospection, he regretted his role in Elphaba's death and what led up to it. He said that he needed to find his place in the world as he was now and understood that there was little chance of a future for the two of them anymore. Still, he said it with enough underlying hope that it was clearly a question. Glinda had no idea how to respond, but fortunately he took her hesitation as answer enough and said he would return to Munchkinland and see what options remained for him.
Years later, when tensions rose between Free Munchkinland and the portions of Oz under Glinda's reign, Boq returned to her as a liaison. He told of how he had returned to his family and, after some difficulty, been accepted into Munchkin society again. Living a simple life, he had let go of his hatred and frustrations over what would never be. He was able to use his fame and connections to soothe relations between the two regions and settled into a diplomatic position, also serving, when necessary, as a metal bodyguard for Glinda, which seemed to at last satisfy his lingering crush on her to some degree. Glinda was glad to have another confidant who knew the truth of the old days, and they found a new friendship as adults, free of their adolescent dramatics.
Strange how Glinda, ever renowned as the most popular woman in Oz, wound up spending most of her life with a winged Monkey and a man of tin as her only genuine friends in the world.
Her reign had been challenging and lonely much of the time. Though there were glamorous balls, she rarely had time to enjoy them as they often were merely a setting for diplomatic conversations. In addition to dealing with the day-to-day issues of Oz, she spent her free time poring over the Grimmerie, struggling to make sense of the symbols within. She had never enjoyed homework in school, and this was certainly more difficult than anything Shiz had assigned, but Elphaba's last act was charging her with the book, so she pressed on, puzzling through the incomprehensible text. She knew she could ask Madame Morrible in her cell for help reading it, but she didn't want the woman to know the book was still around, much less so nearby. That seemed too much temptation for escape. So, Glinda spent many long hours into the night struggling to translate the strange symbols in the book, while nearby Chistery fought his own battle to regain the language he'd lost.
Over time, she did gain some proficiency with the spellbook. Most of the spells she was able to translate were fairly unhelpful, but when Oz was once again struck by drought, she drew upon the weather spells she'd seen Madame Morrible use so many times. The resulting rain had replenished the farmland in Oz, but had also spawned several floods, tornadoes, and other disastrous side effects. The people of Oz, unaware Glinda had caused these phenomena, thanked Oz for Its mercy and cursed fate for its cruelty. Glinda had then decided she wasn't willing to deal with the consequences that accompanied such power and that the best thing she could do with the book was keep it out of the hands of anyone who might abuse it. Truthfully, she found there were few challenges in her reign that couldn't be resolved with some thought and charm of the non-magical kind.
The book was now tucked safely away in her personal travel bag, ready to go with her to her parents' house to remain in concealment. She didn't know this new girl enough to trust her with its potential.
In the square in front of the palace, a group of children ran by in a game of tag. Glinda smiled to see that among them romped a Tiger cub and a lanky Colt. It had taken a very long time to get humans and Animals to intermingle peaceably again. While she had redacted the oppressive laws as quickly as she could figure out a way to spin it to her people, the Animals were not ready to trust again so quickly. The humans, likewise, were slow to let go of the prejudices instilled in them by the Wizard.
Glinda had to go out personally to speak in different towns throughout Oz and encourage the Animals in hiding to return to urban areas. The Animals she did meet generally kept to themselves or greeted her with disdain, unconvinced of the motives behind her invitations. She was speaking at a town in Gillikin one day when a group of rebel Animals challenged her, calling her no better than the Wizard for keeping the winged Monkeys as slaves. Chistery had tried to speak on her behalf in his broken language, but they figured he had been coerced to say so.
The crowd had gotten incendiary and Glinda had been genuinely afraid for her safety. In those days Boq was still in Munchkinland and the royal guard were unlikely to be able to hold off a mob. The guards had begun looking for a safe route to her bubble when a voice rang out above the crowd that reached into her memory and drew her instinctively to attention.
The rest of the crowd seemed similarly affected. The group of animals parted to allow an elderly Goat to come to the front, leaning on a Kid for support. Despite his frailty and whitened hair, she was rocked with recognition.
"Dr. Dillamond?"
The Goat smiled at her. "Ah, I'm glad to see someone still remembers me. I certainly do remember you, Miss Glinda." He enunciated the modified pronunciation of her name with a wryly amused tone. "Although you've grown up quite a bit since I last saw you.
"You see," he said, addressing the crowd, both human and Animal, "back before the Wizard's bans on Animals, I taught at Shiz University, and Miss Glinda was one of my more…memorable pupils. The girl I knew then, for whatever youthful vanities she had, always had her heart in the right place. I cannot think the woman I see now is any different."
He approached her, meeting her eyes steadily for all the rheuminess of his own. "It would have taken a very unusual person to defy the Wizard's law. And it would take a very strong person to keep their morals while working within the system."
Glinda felt her eyes tearing up and hoped the others couldn't see it. Dillamond must have, or sensed her mood, because he nodded with satisfaction and gave her a smile before turning back to the crowd.
"I know it is difficult to trust again after all that has happened, but peace has been offered. Equality is possible again. We don't need to forget what was done, but it is impossible to move forward into the future…"–He glanced back at Glinda.—"…if we insist on harping on the past."
The tension of the crowd unraveled slowly, then. The Animals backed off in deference to the elderly Goat. The humans huffed and murmured a bit, but Glinda descended the platform and took Dr. Dillamond's hoof in her hands.
"It is so good to see you again. I thought you'd been killed!"
"But for an old friend, I might have been," he said, squeezing her hands in return. "If you don't mind, could we find somewhere to sit? My bones get weary easily now."
"Of course! Please, come join me for tea."
The crowd issued startled exclamations as Glinda led the Goat and Kid into a private café suite, an honor any of them would have paid a fortune to receive. Already she could hear the clockwork turning as their mindsets struggled to incorporate this new reality and she smirked. Sometimes it paid to be a trendsetter.
They settled into the suite and Glinda ordered tea with saffron cream. The waiter was clearly torn between awe at attending Glinda the Good and veiled revulsion at serving an Animal, but he held his tongue and did his job, so she said nothing.
When he left, Glinda relaxed for the first time in a long while. "You have no idea how happy I am you're here. It's like seeing a ghost!"
"My dear Miss Glinda, it is a genuine pleasure to see you as well," he said, taking her hand in his hooves. "You're causing quite a stir in Oz, I hear. Word even reaches our little groups out here in the hills."
"Well, I'm so glad you were here today, and not just because I'd probably be dead without you stopping them." She noticed anew the Kid sitting at Dillamond's side. "Oh, I'm sorry! I haven't even asked your name."
The Kid looked at her with a bit of nervous surprise and bleated.
"This is Freydin, one of my current students, I suppose you could say. He was born under the Wizard's laws and never learned to speak. Not yet, at least."
Glinda was taken aback. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
Dillamond waved the apology off. "You couldn't have. Besides, what matters is you addressed him directly. You'd be amazed what effect that can have on a person."
Glinda sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Well, at least something might. It seems nothing else I've done has made much progress."
"Such things take time," he assured her. "You're asking the world to change. You know very well how hard it is to convince even one person to do that."
The tea and cream arrived with complimentary honey oat rolls. She couldn't tell if the oats were intended as a subtle jab at the Goats or a genuine attempt to accommodate them, so she let that go too. Situations were so difficult to interpret these days.
When they were alone again, Glinda leaned in closer. "I have to ask, what happened to you after they took you away from Shiz? Where were you all these years?"
Dillamond sighed. "I suppose I was fortunate. They could have had me killed as an example, but the Wizard wasn't so crude. He kept me prisoner in the Palace, made sure I was caged, so I never could speak out again."
Glinda felt her heart clench. "I was in the Palace many times. I never saw you."
"No one ever saw things the Wizard didn't want them to," he assured her. "Fortunately, an old friend of ours found me."
Her heart tightened further and she looked down at her tea. "Elphaba."
Dillamond sat back with a slight smile. "You're the first human I've heard call her by name in a long time."
"I think I'm the last one who knows it," she said, her voice as bitter as the tea she had forgotten to sweeten.
"I only saw her briefly when she freed me, and I wasn't very coherent at the time." He frowned. "The way the humans speak of her, it cannot be true, can it?"
"Of course not!" Glinda exclaimed, her long-hidden anger finally allowed to show through. "You knew Elphie; she wasn't a monster. Those people just believe anything they're told!"
Dillamond nodded, fiddling with a roll. "I suppose not all of them had the chance to get to know her as we did."
"They had the chance. They just never tried." And I nearly didn't either, she mused. There but for the grace of Oz…
"And she truly is dead?" Dillamond asked quietly. "The Animals swear she is still alive in hiding, but I've heard humans saying she melted."
Glinda gripped her tea cup as her throat tightened. "It's true. I was there."
Dillamond shook his head, clearly wishing she was wrong. "She actually melted? Was she truly so different?"
"I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't seen it happen. The girl, Dorothy, threw water on her and she just…" Even now, she couldn't bring herself to describe it in detail. "Maybe it was the magic. It changed her somehow."
Dillamond sighed. "That is a genuine tragedy. She was such a promising young woman. I can't believe it ended that way."
Glinda stared at her reflection in her tea, seeing a girl many years younger. "A lot of things went wrong."
Dillamond nodded, then straightened up, adjusting his glasses. "Well, at least we still have you to carry on the good fight. I can't say how proud I am of you and all you have accomplished."
She huffed, wiping a tear from her eye as she pulled herself back to the present. "Thank you. Some days it doesn't feel like it's all that much."
He put a hoof over her hand. "I know it is frustrating, but don't be discouraged. It takes a long time to redirect the current of history. You may not see it yet, but change is happening. Across Oz, Animals are coming forward and finding their voices again."
She looked up, hopefully. "So those who did lose their voices are able to regain them?"
"In time. I was fortunate. I was free for a long, long time before they caged me, so I remembered quickly. Freydin and his generation don't remember the world before the Animal Laws, so it's harder to imagine a life like that. Therefore, it is up to us to teach them."
She smiled at him and the Kid who had watched the whole exchange in mute, but rapt fascination.
Glinda had lived up to his wish, seeing to it he was reinstated to a tenured position at Shiz and the faculty and student admissions reopened to Animals of all ages. This provoked immediate complaints from the human population about her affirmative action movements and accusations of Dr. Dillamond giving Glinda his support in exchange for his position. It made her want to tear her hair out to see every good deed misinterpreted. She suspected if she went back to being more manipulative, they'd sing her praises.
Still, all the public relations nightmares and aggravation was worth it to see the young Animals like Freydin return to the Emerald City. Freydin did eventually learn to speak and even came to work for the government as a representative in the newborn elected Cabinet.
For all that they rejoined society, the Animals still kept a degree of wariness around humans. Glinda could tell they spoke more guardedly even to her and Chistery and she had a distinct sense there were probably things the Animals kept private within their own communities. Still, it warmed her heart to see that whenever the anniversary of Elphaba's melting came up, while the humans held parades and festivals honoring Dorothy, the Animals donned green and black. At least Elphaba's memory lived on in a positive respect for the people she had cared about most.
Over the decades, Oz had settled at last to a sort of baseline squabbling closer to what Glinda recalled from her youth. Finally, she felt free to leave it to someone else and step back. She had had enough of being in the public eye to last a lifetime.
The familiar clang of tin on jade tile preceded Boq as he came out to the balcony and stood beside her. "Your bubble is ready. We've managed to keep the crowds back, but I don't think you'll get away without a farewell speech."
She chuckled. "You'd think they'd be glad they don't have to listen to me anymore."
"You know they won't let you go so easily. Chistery is going to take the coach a convoluted route just in case your public gets a little too adoring. So far, no one knows exactly where you're retiring to yet."
"Hopefully we can keep them from insisting on a housewarming party for at least a few weeks."
He looked over, concern radiating from him. She still marveled how expressive a metal face could be. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you today? I can leave Cherrystone in charge and—"
"I will be fine," she assured him warmly. "You have an inauguration to oversee. Once that's settled, I'd rather you catch up with Chistery to make sure nothing happens to them along the way. A lot can happen on the Yellow Brick Road."
He sighed. "Whatever you wish."
"Don't sulk. You'll rust that way."
He huffed, but with a smile.
They stood quietly for a time, enjoying the rare moment of peace in the Palace. The only sounds were the distant susurrus of the city and the spray of the fountain.
Boq nodded at the statues. "That feels like a lifetime ago."
"It was," Glinda sighed, feeling the years between herself and the overwhelmed girl who had ousted the Wizard. "The majority of the people waiting out there weren't even born when Elphie was alive. The Wicked Witch and Dorothy are just a story to them. And someday, that's all we're going to be too. They'll remember Glinda and the Tin Man, but no one will be left who knew Galinda or Boq or Elphaba…" Or Nessa…Or Fiyero…
"One day, perhaps that will be true," Boq said, "but they'll remember what you've said and all you've done. And for today, they want to see you in person one last time."
"Right." She drew herself up and straightened her tiara. "Let's make this one they'll remember."
Glinda the Good took up her wand and went to meet her obligations, walking away from the ageless Dorothy and faceless Witch for the last time.