Okay, I'm sorry! I know that I shouldn't be starting another fic, but I just couldn't resist!
That aside, this fic takes place in an AU where Elphaba invites Nessa to the Emerald City instead of Galinda for reasons we'll see later. I'll be updating once a week, which means that, since I've already got the whole thing pretty much planned, and a few chapters already ready, updates should be pretty much 100% consistent! So I hope you enjoy!
"Why couldn't you have stayed calm for once, Elphaba?" Nessa exclaimed as she wheeled after her sister, trying to get her to look her in the eye. "You aren't helping anything by flying off the handle! If anything, you're just hurting your cause!" She managed to make eye contact with the green girl, and the two locked gazes for a second, neither wanting to admit that the other was right.
"So you're saying that I shouldn't do anything about this? I should just let him keep doing this to the Animals?" Elphaba countered. Nessa huffed, turning her head away. That was not what she had meant, not at all.
"You know that I didn't mean it that way!" She growled, turning to look at her sister once more, finding her tying to barricade the door with a broom. A broom. "Elphaba, that's not going to work! A single broom isn't going to keep out the Gale Force, Ozdammit!" She shook her head in frustration. Her sister swung her head in Nessa's direction, ebony hair flying, and her eyes narrowed.
"Then what do you suggest that I do?" She snapped. Nessa wheeled over to the green girl and leaned in so that she was level with her sister, who was kneeling on the floor, their faces inches apart.
"We have to be smart about this, Elphaba! You have to think. This," she gestured to the makeshift barricade, "isn't going to help us any. We have to outsmart them." She said, watching as Elphaba's eyes sweeped the room they were in, a closet-like room hidden in the maze of corridors that was the Emerald City Palace, searching for something they could use to escape. She watched the look in her eyes grow more and more intense, desperate even, as second ticked by, until they lit up with a certain light that Nessa knew had to mean that she had an idea.
"What is it?" She asked, maneuvering her chair out of her sister's path as she stood up.
"The Grimmerie. Surely there's something in here that can help. Anything." She said, picking up the ancient book and flipping through the pages.
"No, Elphaba. That's a horrendible idea! You saw what happened last time you used that thing!" Nessa protested. She had already seen dozens of Monkeys sprout wings earlier that day, and she really didn't care for anything else as strange as that happening, especially since she knew that spells from that book couldn't be reversed.
"Well, when you give me a better idea, we'll try it. But this is all we have." Elphaba responded, still flipping through the pages, before stopping on one page and looking up at the wall. Her gaze rested on the large window there. "Perfect." Nessa heard her whisper, looking back at the pages.
"What? The window? Elphaba, neither of us can reach that. And even if we could, we'd fall to our deaths!" Oz, why was today the one day when her sister had nothing but bad bad ideas?
"Not if we could fly." Elphaba said, looking to her sister. Nessa's eyes widened.
"No. If you try to give me wings like those poor creatures back there, so help me-"
"Not on you. On an object! I can enchant something to fly and we can leave through the window on it." Nessa considered the option carefully, and, while she knew there was a chance it could work, she showered her sister in questions and doubts.
"You can't possibly be positive that this will work. You've only tried that spell once, and the results weren't exactly stellar. So if you really think I'm going to get on an object that you enchanted, you're wrong. There is no proof that whatever you use will, A, fly at all, and B, even be able to get an inch off the ground with our weight on it." Elphaba looked at her sister in exasperation.
"Look, Nessa, I have to get out of here, and I'll do whatever it takes. You, though, you can leave here. You can go. Go back to Shiz. Go become Governor. Do what you've always wanted to do. You can have it."
"But so can you. Surely you can just go back. Just say that you're sorry, Elphaba. You can still be with The Wizard. Isn't this what you've worked for your whole life? All you have to do is apologize, and you can have all you ever wanted. All that and more."
"I know." The green girl said softly, and Nessa sighed in relief, happy to have talked some sense into her sister, but found her celebration to be premature when she continued. "But I don't want this. I can't want it. Not anymore." The two girls looked each other in the eyes again. "But you can go. So go. Live your life."
"I-I..." Nessa stuttered, unable to form the words that she wanted to say.
"Nessa, it's okay for you to go back. I understand. You have your whole life ahead of you."
"But so do you." Nessa said softly.
"But you can still follow all your dreams, Nessa."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I just can't.
"Can't or won't?" Elphaba began to sound impatient.
"I won't! I'm scared, Elphaba!" Nessa exclaimed, tearing her gaze away from her sister. "There. I said it." She whispered, looking into her lap.
Elphaba slowly made her way to her sister and kneeled so they were face to face. She gently took Nessa's hand.
"What?" She asked softly. She didn't understand what Nessa could possibly be afraid.
"I have lived my entire life with your help. You've always been there. Now, I'm just used to it. And if you left now, and I stayed here, alone, I wouldn't be able to do, well, anything. I am capable of nothing! You have been my legs since, well, since I was born! What would I do if I suddenly didn't have you? If I had to go through life at Shiz, and then in the real world, alone?" Nessa sighed. She felt so stupid, so hopeless, so pathetic. She swiped angrily at the tears that were beginning to fall. She felt truly powerless.
"Nessa, I never knew you... felt that way. But I know that you'll be fine without me. If anything, you'll be better off without me." Elphaba said.
"Better? What in Oz makes you think that?" She asked, her breathing shaking slightly.
"I'm the reason that you're in that chair! If it weren't for me, you'd be perfectly fine. You would need to rely on anyone but yourself." Nessa looked genuinely shocked.
"You? No, Elphaba! You didn't do this! It isn't your fault!" She stopped and thought for a moment. "Go. You're better off without me." Now it was Elphaba's turn to be surprised.
"Better off without you?"
"Yes! Look at our situation, Elphaba! I ruined your life! Without me, you wouldn't constantly be running around, doing this and that for your crippled sister." She said bitterly, spatting out the word 'crippled' for emphasis. Then they both looked at each other for a long moment. Neither of them had really thought about the other blaming themself for something about the other. It took a moment to sink in.
"I'm sorry you feel like that." Elphaba said, looking up after a few clock ticks when Nessa had yet to respond. She studied the look on her sister's face. She was thinking about something.
"All of your life, you've been helping me, doing whatever it is that I need." She said.
"I know, but that's not your fault, Nessa. I-"
"I wasn't finished." Nessa said.
"Oh." Elphaba looked down.
"You have done nothing but take care of me, help me. Now I'm going to help you. Take me with you."
That wasn't what Elphaba had expected. Not at all. "It will be dangerous."
"I know."
"There won't be any going back."
"It won't be easy."
"I know, Elphaba! Now we need to get out of here. Less talking, more doing."
"Right." Elphaba said, turning back to the Grimmerie. She flipped through more pages and looked to Nessa, a bit cautiously. "Nothing in here is going to work... unless we use that levitation spell."
Nessa sighed, but nodded. It was all they had, and she was going to stand by her sister, metaphorically speaking, of course, for once. She watched her sister begin chanting the spell, marveling at the fact that she could understand what was in the book in the first place. She supposed that she had never truly given her sister credit for her magical abilities. It had always been something that she couldn't understand, so she had just labeled it as a bad thing as not to let it bother her. It was much easier to instantly call something bad than to learn to appreciate or even like it.
"Did it work?" Nessa asked after Elphaba finished and the two looked around for a moment. Elphaba didn't need to answer though, as the broom that Elphaba had previously tried to use to barricade the door levitated, floating towards the green girl's outstretched hand.
"We have to hope this works." Elphaba said, once again moving closer to her sister.
"How are we supposed to do this?" Nessa asked.
"We... ride it?"
"How am I supposed to get on it?" Nessa frowned. "And stay on it?" She gestured towards her chair.
"That's the thing about this, Nessa." Elphaba said. Then she smiled. "You don't need wheels to fly."
Nessa smiled. Then Elphaba stepped over to her sister and gently lifted her out of her chair, supporting her by holding her above her waist. They managed to flip her leg over the broom so that she was straddling it. Elphaba then managed to get the broom to levitate slightly, enough for Nessa to remain on, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the broom hard enough to stay on, the tips of her toes an inch off the ground. Elphaba then hopped on herself and prepared to kick off, but the door burst open and several Gale Force came rushing in. Nessa felt her heart rate quickening as fear overtook her. What if they couldn't get it to fly in time? What if it didn't fly at all? What if it did fly, but they crashed or plummeted to their deaths? There were so many things that could go wrong, but they all escaped Nessa's mind as she felt herself rising, the soldiers below her growing smaller. Her left hand keeping its grip on the broom, her right arm moved to wrap around her sister's stomach in an odd sort of hug. Although she couldn't see it, she could just feel the smile on Elphaba's face.
A wonderful feeling came over her as she watched more soldiers pouring in through the doorway, each of them stopping and staring up in awe at the two sisters who now hovered far above their heads. Nessa felt her lips tug into a smug smile as they watched powerlessly while the two rose up slightly higher in the air and prepared to fly out the window, safely away from the threat of The Wizard and the Gale Force.
"Where to?" Nessa asked, leaning in so her sister might here her over the noise of shocked soldiers and palace servants who had by then wandered in, as well.
"The west." Elphaba responded simply. And before Nessa knew it, she was out the window and they were flying free over the city and, soon enough, the beautiful landscapes of Oz. "Be careful." Elphaba instructed when she felt the girl behind her shifting. "You don't want to fall."
Nessa smiled. "They'll never bring us down."
Credit for the cover goes to an awesome cosplay photo shoot of Act 2 Elphaba and Nessa!
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