Yeah, yeah, I have 373 words of the next chapter of Horrible written, but this idea came to me just begging to be written. I'm pretty pleased with the result.
He wakes up to the chiming of the Emerald city's morning bells drenched in cold sweat. For a second he does not know where he is, blinking at the green ceiling noting the difference between its lurid colours and the rich greens of his dreams. He groans, not wanting to face the harsh reality of his comfortable life but not wanting to close his eyes and let his visions haunt him once again. He gets up and pulls on his uniform for lack of anything else to distract him. He washes his face and arranges his hair in the mirror, searching desperately for the boy who cared about his appearance, although he has long gone, those days had been shallow, uninteresting but they had also been less painful and pain is all he seems to feel now.
He enters his study while dawn is still breaking, checking if he has received any new leads. He pockets the least reliable for use when leading the search and his men, and memorises the ones he believes may contain a factor of truth in them for later use then burns them on the fire he always keeps roaring, it would do no good for others to find the information.
Leading the soldiers requires brains that only she ever saw he had. It is a balance of allowing the men to search in places that they believe she might be hiding and keeping them away from any that he believes she might be hiding in. He fakes evidence, footprints, movement even, to send them in the wrong direction constantly fearing that she will be found.
There are days when this fear consumes him, that he leads his men instead on a raid of an Animal village. The images of the copses they leave behind never truly leave his mind but he knows it would be one hundred – one million – times more painful to see her lying dead in front of him the fire in her eyes permanently extinguished. He knows she would hate him for this but at least this way she can still hate him – every day he experiences these horrors is another day in which she lives – wherever she is.
He returns to the palace in the early evening, the streets are almost deserted, the shutters of every window in the city firmly closed. The Ozians are far too afraid to leave their houses at night, constantly fearing that a green-skinned, awkward, schoolgirl will appear out of thin air and attack them; it would almost be amusing if this very fear had not ruined her life.
He catches sight of a wanted poster. They are plastered everywhere now, almost more so than the propaganda about the Wonderful Wizard, yet he still cannot control the anger that they stir up inside him. The woman in the picture is not the Elphaba he once knew, but an artist's impression of the witch, he cannot recognise any features in the witch's crooked, curved nose, her dagger-like chin and her sickly green skin that remind him of the sharp tempered girl who cared too much to be allowed to be free. He tries to remove the image of the fake-witch from his mind but it becomes harder every day, he can no longer really picture the girl that he once saved a Lion Cub with, it has been too long and he hates them for it. He wonders why no one has questioned the lack of real pictures of her, maybe they don't care, or maybe there's some new rumour stating that she does not appear in pictures.
The rumours. He cannot bear those. The stories spun about a very real girl making her no longer seem human; she got enough of that in her previous life. He remembers the looks of hurt that flashed in her eyes when she had been insulted at Shiz, when she had been made to feel subhuman, and he knows it must be so much worse for her now. He remembers his own insults that he had carelessly thrown at her, back when he had been another person, and wishes more than anything that he could take them back. He wonders if she still thinks about him as he does her. Wonders if she knows how much he's changed. Wonders if she even knows he's on her side.
He meets up with his girlfriend to dine with her and some other nameless, important, idiots. He remains silent unless directly addressed, barely managing to keep his veil of polite formality, and leaves the table as soon as he is allowed to.
On other days he is dragged off to some ball or formal occasion where he will listen to his name being endlessly praised for doing things he wishes he did not have to do and dancing with a girl that he knows he should respect more. He attempts to lose himself in Glinda's arms but the balls and dances he once lived for are now an unnecessary intrusion on his life. He watches, helpless, as the pink skin turns into one of green beneath his eyes only for it to disappear a moment later. He hates Glinda for not being her, then hates himself for thinking this and then hates her for making him imagine this and he finds he cannot bear it. He excuses himself in the middle of a dance to escape the feelings that overwhelm him only to find her in the middle of the floor, defiantly wearing her pointed hat, dancing to music that only she can hear.
Sometimes he wishes he had never met her. That he could have remained the careless playboy that he was forever, never knowing that the world could contain such passion, such beauty, such depression. It would almost be worth it, he thinks, if he could enjoy the false smiles and not be tormented by the knowledge of what happens the ones who see through them.
Other times he dwells on the consequences of his mistakes as a boy. Why had he run away like a coward on the day with the Lion Cub? Why had he not told her his feelings as soon as he realised them? How had he not realised that one day it might be too late?
He wishes with all his might that he could have been with her the day she first defied gravity. He would have come with her, he was sure of it; he would have known everyday if she was safe and she would have always known that he lov-liked her (for he can still not admit to himself his true feelings when already his wound from losing her is so raw). It is at times like this that he hates Glinda, he cannot see how she left her, how she could have chosen what was easy over what was right. But deep inside he hates himself more because, no matter what he tells himself, he is still not certain that he would not have made the same decision.
If he manages to escape the dull formality of a ball for the night he returns once again to the search. This time, however, he does not cover any real evidence. Free from his men he searches for her desperately, urgently until far after the clocks strike midnight. It is at times like this when he wonders if there is any point in leading his men on false trails as the search for her seems just as hopeless without them. He walks until he falls down exhausted, simply gazing at the moon, hoping to see her shadow pass over it, to somehow call to her, to see her, to make sure she is real and not someone his memories made up. He does not know what he will do after that, only that when she is near surely everything will be right.
He leaves his hopeless fanaticises to trudge back up to the palace, tired and wet. Sometimes he spends an hour or so in his study, bleakly reading over any new leads and convincing himself that he may one day see her again, or he writes her a letter trying desperately to portray his feeling for her, begging her to come back for him. After he is finished he tosses it in the fire, unable to keep incriminating evidence, and also in some childlike hope that somehow she will be able to read them – like Lurline was able to read his Lurlinemas lists – and then finally retires to his bedroom.
His dreams are constantly haunted by her. Sometimes it's memories, the moment when he first met her, when he nearly hit her with his carriage and all he could do was make an insulting remark, when she entered the Ozdust ballroom, head held high, with the ridiculous hat on her head, at the train station, him wanting to tell her everything, Glinda's presence preventing it… Other times she is teasing him, inches in front of him, yet every time he tries to reach for her she moves further away. The worst are the dreams of her capture, her lifeless form being displayed for all to see or her being burnt at the stakes – screams forced from her mouth – all her confidence replaced by fear.
He wakes up to the chiming of the Emerald city's morning bells drenched in cold sweat. He wishes this day will be different. He knows it won't.