He appeared at the Emerald City Palace with one goal in mind and only goal only to accomplish. He meekly greeted the ecstatic citizens who adorned him for the new heart-felt man he appeared to be instead of the cold blooded monster that he truly was. He barely acknowledged the smiles, waves and shouts of joy coming from the crowds as he made his way into the Palace with an escort. His limbs squeaked and creaked as he passed through the hallways and finally arrived at the door of the person he was seeking to talk to. The escort announced him and he was shown inside the room promptly afterwards. Upon seeing the woman he wished to speak with, the man felt a sort of coldness spread on the inside of his hollow body, something that felt like hatred or anger. The escort was dismissed with a faint wave of the woman's hand and then it was just the two of them.
His eyes flickered to her face and he saw the hurt and despair buried in it and only he knew what the cause of it really was.
"Oh how nice of you to come!" the woman greeted as she smiled graciously and got up from the chair. The white folds of her dress tumbled down in waves around her thin legs as she took a few steps towards him.
Upon observing her golden shimmering hair, her ice blue eyes, and her slender figure the man could only find a few differences between this woman that stood before him and the girl that she once had been. This woman that he was facing now was as glorious as any mortal could possibility be. She was as gentle and as beautiful as she always had been but there was something else added to her personality. It was something beneath her elegance and beauty that the man had experienced first hand and that was the root of the woman's wickedness. She wasn't as good and innocent as she appeared to be and the man had bore witness to the wicked deeds that the blonde woman before him had committed and he intended on using those to his advantage.
"I want to speak with you about something," he said at last as he looked straight into her swirling, shimmering blue eyes.
"Oh," that forced smile on her face faded slightly, "What about?" she inquired as she wrung her petite hands in anticipation.
"I want to speak about Elphaba," he said.
At the mention of the deceased woman's name the blonde woman flicked something terrible and dropped her guard. She allowed the sadness in her heart to spread to her face for just a brief moment before she forced it away again with another fake smile.
"I don't- how do you-" her voice cut short as she was clearly too shaken to form a complete response to the demand, "I'm sorry but how do you know about… her?" the woman sounded pained when she said her instead of saying the other woman's name.
The man shook his head in bitter regret. He should have known.
"Of course you wouldn't remember me," he muttered glumly, "You never cared about anyone but yourself Miss Galinda."
Her mouth suddenly dropped open, showing her teeth as her face turned a shade paler and paler with every passing second.
"No one's called me that since… since Shiz," she breathed in shock and in confusion. She tilted her head to the side, letting those blonde curl flounce and fall on one of her shoulders and she studied the man before her, "Do I know you?"
"Not now," he said with a sigh, "Not anyone." He turned away from her. His goal, he now realized, was probably never going to be accomplished and he turned to leave.
"Wait! Wait please!" she cried as a pale hand touched upon a tin made arm, "Please don't go. I do remember you now. It's Boq, isn't it?"
She said his name softly and with nostalgia laced in every tremor of her voice.
"It's not Boq anymore. I have no name now," the man made out of tin said harshly. The blonde woman next to him smiled watery as he tore his arm out of her fragile grasp.
"Well you'll always be Boq to me."
He snorted at her pathetic attempt to make him feel better, "Don't kid yourself. Once I leave here you don't think about me ever again."
Her eyes shone with unshed tears as she brought one hand up to her heart in what he could only call a sad attempt at trying to reconcile with him.
"Don't say that! Not now. Not after what we've been through. Just look at us Boq," she said in a wavering breath that gave him the clue that she was probably going to start crying, "We're the only ones left! We're the only ones that have survived since Shiz. The rest of our friends are dead so don't you dare think I won't remember the one friend that I have left!"
"Used to," he muttered and the woman only caught some of what he said.
"What was that?" she asked and this time she made sure to listen.
"I said that I used to be the one friend that you had left!" his words were horribly cruel and he saw that they made the petite woman's eyes leak tears of sadness and regret.
"W-w-what?" she croaked out, her shimmering melodic voice suddenly sounded out of tune to his ears.
"Why in the world would I be friends with a woman like you? A woman who is selfish and lies to all of Oz about who she was really friends with. A woman who's so ambitious that she will watch everyone she cares about die and suffer as long as she's up at the top!"
At this point the woman opened her mouth to argue but the man didn't give her the chance.
"You fly around Oz in your bubble spreading lies and smiling while you keep what you really think to yourself and you don't do anything to change it. You're a coward," he spat at her.
The color rose in her cheeks in anger, "I am not! Boq, I am not any of those things! I'm still Glinda, I'm still the same person I was back at Shiz, just a bit different."
"No," he said curtly, "No you're not. You are not Glinda, and you are not Galinda either. You are not even a fragment of those women. You are a sniveling, pathetic, lying excuse for the woman that you claim to be! I know how good you truly are, Glinda the Good! I know that you are the one who told Morrible that Nessarose was the key into getting Elphaba, that Fiyero was killed because you didn't stop the Gale Force, that Elphaba was murdered by that little girl because you didn't speak up for her in the first place!"
"Don't!" started the blonde in a shriek but she couldn't finish her thought because her head was madly spinning at the ghastly memories he was causing her to remember.
"And you did this to me, you led me on at Shiz and caused me to forever think that you had feelings for me and that they would be reciprocated. Then Nessa found out and she turned me into this using Elphaba's spell book."
She gasped as she heard this, "So that's what happened."
He nodded grimly, "And I know you have it."
His tone of voice was steely, hard, and as cold as ice. Frankly it scared the blonde ruler straight to her core. Never in her life had she expected to be intimidated by her old school chum but here she was.
"I do," she said hesitantly, "Why do you ask?"
"I require a spell from it that I want you to perform," he said sharply as his eyes scanned the room searching for the infamous book. He spotted it by the bedside table, and the woman followed his gaze.
"It can't turn you back, Boq, Spells are irreversible," echoed the blonde woman. She heard those words so many times back in her youth.
"It can and it will," he threatened. At this, this threat, the woman shrunk back a bit.
"I won't do it, Boq. You can't make me," she said resolutely. She held her ground as she stuck up her chin in determination.
He suddenly pulled out the axe that he had been purposely hiding behind his back and swung it at her, stopping just a mere centimeter above her throat. She had jolted back against her desk at the sight of it and was now staring at him in absolute terror. Fear was shining in her eyes and she held one hand over her face as if that would help her.
"Go ahead," she whispered softly, "Do it. It would be a blessing." Tears rolled down her face as she waited for him to go ahead and slice her throat, killing her instantly if he hit right.
He was about to do it, he really was. He was about to slam his prized axe into the luscious throat of Glinda The Good until her head fell to the floor, separate from her body when something stopped him.
He saw a flash across her face of the person that she had once been. A flash of Galinda or maybe even Glinda but whoever, whatever it was, it left his hollow body aching and guilty as ever.
He was not a murderer. He claimed to be malicious and brave in the face of danger but really he had just been bent on revenge. He had never directly killed anyone before. Frankly he didn't have the guts for it, not even now when his body was all tin and he had no internal organs.
He slowly lowered the axe away from her pulsing neck and slammed it down hard on the ground, muttering to himself as he turned away.
"Please go through with it," she suddenly begged. Hysteria was in her eyes and written all across her face, "I can't go through another day living this lie of a life."
He turned and looked at her. Desperation was engraved into her glorious features and he felt pity on her.
"I'm not a murderer," he said hollowly now knowing that this was true.
"If you won't do it then I will," she said as she glanced at the axe longingly. Her eyes were hungry and anxious for Death.
He suddenly realized why he didn't connect with her the way he used to. This woman in front of him was not who she once had been. She was not Galinda, nor Glinda, and not even Glinda the Good.
She was a woman who was utterly devastated and lost by the death of her best friend whose name just happened to be Glinda.
And he himself was just a lonely heartbroken man who had been a victim of a senseless and heartless accident whose name had used to be Boq.
"Glinda…" he said, addressing her by name. She seemed to not even flinch at the sound of her own name. Her recent brush with death had completely consumed her and now she seemed fixated on killing herself.
He sighed as he watched her move towards the axe slowly, her eyes glowing. He knew if he was to stop her then she would loathe him entirely. He could see that there was nothing more in this world that she wanted than Death. Ever since Elphaba died, it had always been what she had wanted.
"If you do it," she said as her fingers lightly touched the handle of the axe, "Then they won't think I'm some suicidal freak and that way they can kill you too if that's what you want."
Her face was filled with glee as she looked up at him and waited for his answer.
"I can't," he repeated, "I'm not a killer."
"Not even for me, Boq?" she asked in a child-like voice. It was uncannily like the voice she had used to speak in at Shiz, the one that was not filled with experience and wisdom.
He had to think about it for a while. He couldn't, shouldn't kill her. It was wrong to do so. So very wrong. But could he really live with knowing that he had let her kill herself?
"Not even for you," he said with a guiltiness spreading in his hollow body, he hadn't even thought that he had that emotion anymore.
If she was disappointed with him she only showed him briefly with that glint in her eyes.
"Yes of course," she said shaking her head, "How silly of me."
She looked at her old school friend with a bargain just short of escaping her lips.
"If I give you The Grimmerie, will you let me keep this?" her fingers danced across the handle of his axe as she looked at him.
If he said yes, he would be getting what he came her for and knowing let a woman kill herself shortly after his near departure. If he said no then he would be suck living the miserable life he did now with no chance of ever trying to change it.
"Of course you can keep it," he said softly.
She faintly smiled at him and she strode over to her bedside table, retrieved The Grimmerie and placed it his hands.
He held the book in his grasp and on any other occasion a smile would have appeared on his face. But he knew what he was doing as he went for the door. He knew he was letting Glinda kill herself and to hell what may come of it.
"Goodbye Glinda," he said as he held the book to his hollow chest. His
He glanced back at the blonde and shook his head. She was trying to look like she was thinking about killing herself but failing.
"Goodbye Boq," she said softly as she watched him leave, "And thank you."
He shut the door behind him and walked out of the palace with a heavy heart. He didn't turn back around when he heard a little later on the screams of Glinda's maids upon finding her presumable dead body. He didn't even look back when he heard a boatload of footsteps running towards her room. He didn't even flinch when he heard the servants scream and yell for help.
He kept on walking and he kept on walking until he reached a river near the side of the Yellow Brick Road. Without even looking at The Grimmerie (he knew Glinda was right about spells being irreversible) Boq walked straight into the river and filled his hollow body with enough water so that he sank to the bottom. He stayed down there until he rusted completely solid and began to decompose.
So this was what the legacy of Elphaba has befallen Oz, he thought grimly as he rusted away to nothing, the only two people in existence left that knew her and they both kill themselves.
It was something short of a horrible children's fairytale ending. But there was no happily after ever oh no, this was the ever after of the Witch's friends. And those associated with a Wicked Witch do not have happily ever afters. Not even ever afters.
They just have afters.
I've had this on my computer for a few months now and completely forgot about it until today. So I finished it up and this is what happened. I really liked it and I thought it was interesting. And I promise I will upload to one of my mutichapter stories soon.
Bubble
