A/N: This idea randomly popped in my head after watching Stranger Than Fiction (an amazing movie to watch, especially if you personally write). It's quite odd, more than a bit morbid, and a bit AU, but I strangely like it. Musicalverse Glinda after Elphaba's death. Different from the usual angsty weak-Glinda stuff I write.
Red Dawn
"She was my best friend."
It had been seven days since Glinda the Good had declared those damning words. The hours since then, slipping away like grains of sand in an hourglass, had only helped to feed the burning fire of the Ozians' sense of betrayal.
Last time they had been this ablaze with madness, a simple bucket of water had drenched the flames, letting them die down to embers. But the ashes had lain there, still smouldering, needing only time and fuel to reignite, fuel that Glinda had so willingly provided.
A high-ranking official and sympathiser to the Wizard had forcibly taken charge shortly after Glinda's disgraceful announcement. He took particular delight in being the overseeing official for this momentous event- an occasion that would surely guarantee his new status as leader.
The straw was packed tightly, forming a semicircle around the Good Witch of the North. Glinda herself was fixed to the stake behind her, hands chained painfully above her head. Edouard, the new Ozian leader, observed her curiously. Surely she should be frightened? Regretful? She only exuded a discomfiting aura of peace, creating an eerie sensation.
"Heathen! Fiend! Witch!" someone cried out from the horde of people gathered around.
Glinda's face twisted, contorting into a melancholic smirk. "I agree," she said plainly. "For after all, you did call me the Witch of the North, did you not?"
Her rhetoric only made the crowd angrier, some calling for Edouard to quiet her.
"Why did you do it?" he asked, completely impassive.
A slow, sad grin formed on her face, causing a small sense of pity to arise in his stomach, immediately dissolving with her words: "She was my best friend."
The crowd started booing. Edouard raised a hand coolly, sending them into silence once more. "The Wicked Witch is dead. Why condemn yourself to support a corpse?"
Glinda flinched. "We'll all die eventually," she said, her words not much louder than a whisper, yet echoing amongst the square: all of the Emerald City was hanging on her every word, gleefully watching the demise of their once-beloved idol. "I realised that too late to stand by my friend as I should've in her life. It's ironic, really, for we all know that. We will die eventually. Some die young, some old. Some are surrounded by their friends and family as they pass, some are bitterly alone. Some die peacefully, some standing up for what they believe in, some cowardly." She paused, looking Edouard forcefully in the eye. "Some die exalted, some hated. I'd rather be remembered for Glinda Upland, Elphaba Thropp's best friend, traitor to Ozian society than Glinda the Good, loved yet pitifully alone." She smirked defiantly.
"Poetic," Edouard murmured, motioning to the guards as he moved off her podium. "Yet an end is still an end."
Glinda chuckled disdainfully as a guard struck a match, holding it to the straw surrounding her. As the fire caught and burned, her mind drifted elsewhere, drowning out the cruel cries and acrid scent of burning flesh.
"We'll be friends forever, right, Elphie?" a young Galinda asked, giggling as she wrapped a golden curl around her finger.
The taller girl smiled, stretching out onto her back to look up at the clouds above them.
"To whatever end."