A/N: Meh. This is very drabble-y and not altogether plot-heavy, I'm afraid. I'm trying to get back into fic now that my O-Levels are over, so hopefully I'll have something more worthy to post soon. Anyways, enjoy.
Bookverse.
She was really just so irritating. For someone as hideously malformed as she was, she certainly seemed to think a mighty lot of herself. Strutting about campus in that infuriating superior way of hers, clutching those textbooks with such holier-than-thou authority... Well, it drove Galinda quite to the point of distraction. And even though everything would point to the contrary, it seemed as though Elphaba looked down on the other girls. As though she were worth more! Her, with her three starched frocks and calfskin lace-up boots! Her, with her non-existent social life and rumour-ruined upbringing!
Her, better than them?
Ridiculous.
Still, there was something in Elphaba's knowing smirk that made Galinda's blood boil. Every time she laughed too loudly or flirted too openly and she caught Elphaba's eye the repugnant green monstrosity would have that little, almost malicious smile on her face, and it made Galinda feel like a child caught in the act of something embarrassing.
Still, it was ridiculous.
"Honestly, Galinda darling, who cares for its opinion? I mean, after all, it's green."
"Exactly, Pfannee," Shenshen replied, leaning forward over the lunch table that the four of them- Galinda, Shenshen, Pfannee and Milla- shared. "She'll crawl back into whatever hovel she disentangled herself from once school is over. And I'll wager that you never lay eyes on her again."
"Though if you did," Milla piped up, "You'd be sure to recognise her, at least!"
They laughed, and Galinda forced a smile onto her face. They were right, of course.
Still...
"I don't expect I'll see you at the poetry reading, Miss Elphaba?" Galinda asked, an eyebrow cocked in the direction of the green woman.
"You don't expect? Well, perhaps not then. I wouldn't want to exceed your expectations." Elphaba replied, her eyes not staying from the leaflet paper on her knees.
"Well," Galinda breathed, already feeling that odd mixture of intense awkwardness and anger bubbling up within her, "I just never saw you for the type to enjoy verse." She chastised herself for her schoolyard tone- why was she explaining herself?
"That's an interesting observation, seeing as you think I do little but read books."
It was the verbal equivalent of a slap, and, as usual, Galinda found herself lost and exasperated in a roundabout conversation in which she had no stable footing. It took all her might to refrain from stomping her feet and clenching her fists.
"Books! Yes, hundreds of books!" she steadied herself. "Books of science and religion and politics, yes! I've never seen a book of poetry or, Oz forbid, a novel, in that library you keep beside your bed."
"Well then perhaps you weren't looking hard enough. Perhaps I'm not quite as one-dimensional as you believe me to be, Miss Galinda."
"And perhaps I'm not either!" she snapped back in retort.
They didn't speak for the rest of the evening, and Galinda was still fuming as she left the dorm in her finery.
And yet, she couldn't place the source of her irritation. When she argued with Elphaba, when she nearly screamed across the room, there was an exhilaration that she'd never experienced before. If she didn't despise the woman so she could almost have described it as fiercely jovial.
Fiercely jovial, exhilarating, breathtaking abhorrence.
Abhorrence, that seemed to be the right word. Passionate, obsessive abhorrence. Yes.
Her heart jumped into her throat as Elphaba's head appeared at her shoulder at the conclusion of the first Quell. Her first, fleeting emotion was hard to place. Her second was easier defined: mortification. There were boys here, boys from Queens! She could hardly be seen socialising with such a scab of a girl, her green features clashing so horridly against the maroon of her sack-like garment.
"What did you think? It was rather clever, wasn't it? The ambiguity of the upper versus lower class letters in 'animal'?"
Elphaba spoke quickly, her sentences liquidising into one long, indistinguishable word. She was obviously quite passionate about what she was saying, enough to come over and speak to Galinda, simply because she knew no one else well enough. Perhaps this was some sort of ill-timed apologetic attempt to make up for the squabble they'd had earlier. At another time, Galinda may have welcomed the conversation, but as it was she blushed a deep rose and tried desperately to look in another direction.
"I mean, the rest of the verse seems waffle, and then she throws out a sentence like the last-"
"Shh, yes, I'm trying to listen." Galinda whispered loudly, ignoring the fact that Morrible was no longer speaking and everyone else was discussing the poem around them.
A minute or so passed before the carp-like matron resumed her speech. Elphaba seemed to have exhausted her supply of non-sarcastic comments with which to mortify Galinda, and instead fell back into her drawn-up chair in contemplative silence.
Later, once Galinda had had her fill of textbook conversations with the spotty boys from Queens, and the sky had darkened, she found her way back to the dormitory with a frown on her lips. Elphaba had disappeared as soon as the last word had been recited, slipping from the stuffy hall with confidence that she wouldn't be missed.
"Thank Oz its gone," Shenshen seemed to visibly exhale from relief. "I thought I would positively die if it'd sat with us any longer, as though we were friends."
Galinda murmured her agreement. It was an interesting concept though, hypothetically. Being friends with Elphaba, that is. Having actual conversations that didn't involve insulting one another or talking about the dormitory bathroom schedule.
But, ridiculous.
She pushed open the dorm door and stepped lightly inside, quiet in case Elphaba had taken an early rest and was sleeping in her bed. However, she entered into a room of black, empty but for the resident clutter that sprinkled it. Elphaba's bed was fresh and made, and there seemed to be no sign of very recent occupation. It seemed Elphaba hadn't gone back to the dorm after her flight from the reading. Galinda felt oddly disappointed, as though she'd been cheated out of something.
She completed her nightly routine with less than her usual gusto, realising dully that she had no one to perform for when Elphaba was away. In fact, this was the first time in memory Elphaba was out past eight o'clock. Just as Galinda felt a small inexplicable panic start to grip her, the door was pushed open and Elphaba jerked into the room in her stiff, awkward manner. Galinda stood too quickly, failing to hide her enthusiasm. Elphaba, puzzled by Galinda's concern, merely put her tote down and left in silence to change into her night clothes.
"And where did you go?" Galinda asked as they were lying in bed later, unable to hold her tongue. She spoke off-handedly, but it was a poor facade.
"Out." Elphaba replied stonily. Galinda assumed that all previous chummy feelings had vanished.
"I gathered that, funnily enough. Where out?"
"Out where," Elphaba corrected. "And I was speaking with Doctor Dillamond, if you must know."
"The goat?"
"The brilliant scientist, yes."
"Oh."
A minute or so passed.
"Why?"
Elphaba moved in her blanket to face the blonde.
"Did you listen to the poetry at all, or were you too busy concentrating on matching with the drapes?"
"Of course I listened," Galinda lied. "It was all a bit wishy-washy though, wasn't it?"
"Wishy-washy propaganda, that's what it was. Dillamond was pretty upset. As was I."
Galinda was slipping into that hole again, the conversations that she couldn't follow, couldn't steer back to safety.
"Are... Are you going to do anything about it?" she asked uncertainly, thinking that this was the right thing to say.
Even in the darkness, Galinda could tell that Elphaba wore a grim smile. "We're certainly going to try."
They lay back in silence. Galinda thought that as exhilarating as arguing with Elphaba was, having a conversation with her was a hundred times better. All the animosity between them had left for that moment, and the tense atmosphere, they knew, had nothing to do with hate.
"I don't hate you, you know." Galinda said to the roof above her bed.
Elphaba, for once, had an answer as simple as Galinda's statement. "I know."
And from there, Galinda could see that, ridiculous though it would seem in theory, a friendship was ready to be forged.
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