Hi! This is my first ever fanfic so I'm a little nervous about posting it. Feel free to give me feedback as I'm in no way an experienced writer. I don't own Wicked:( but I hope you enjoy :)

Mourning

A tentative green hand reached out for the stone; it was rough against her fingers and seemed to shoot an icy shiver through her body (wether it was from the stone itself or her own fragile emotions she could not quite tell). The sun was settling under the horizon, giving the sky a wonderful glow, just bright enough to make out the few metres in front of her.

There was moss. Not a lot but enough to obscure the words on the stone so that they weren't quite legible. Still, Elphaba thought it cruel to remove it. It was almost a guardian, cushioning the grave in magnificent hues of red and yellow and...and green

It didn't take more than a few second to decipher the words. They were engraved in an elegant italic writing that swirled and looped in an almost mesmerising way.

She felt another shiver emerge as she read:

MELENA ERELLE THROPP

BELOVED MOTHER, DAUGHTER AND WIFE

TO THE GOVERNOR

Those words would stay with her. It didn't matter that there weren't many of them because now she had seen them. At last. She didn't move, her fingers gently clutched the rounded edge of the gravestone. And she was still. And silent. And she thought of nothing in particular for an uncertain while before she was interrupted.

"You alright there?"

She pulled her hand rapidly down to the ground. It was a raspy man's voice coming from behind her. Not in front, Elphaba reassured herself, as she did not have the courage to look up. He was behind, he couldn't see her skin.

"We get a lot of mourners here" he continued "but most don't stay as long as you"

She didn't respond. What was there to do?

"I'm sorry" returned the man after some time "I didn't mean to interrupt."

The sound of his retreating footsteps was a relief. They were harsh and loud against the winter mud and it occurred to Elphaba that she had not heard him coming. She twiddled her fingers impatiently as the footsteps faded, urging herself not to dare turning her head as the man left. Frustratingly, however, his steps stopped suddenly only a few seconds later. He must have worked at the graveyard. What a disheartening job, Elphaba thought. It must be torturous to have to watch countless families having to face the mortality of their loved ones.

And perhaps of themselves.

Elphaba pushed the thought aside. She needn't worry about that. She knew would die someday and there would be no one to mourn her. But that didn't matter. She didn't matter, her mother did. Not that she could remember her, but she had found one day a faded photograph in her Father's office. It was of herself as a baby, wrapped up securely in bundles of blankets and gently held in her mother's arms whilst she gazed down at her hideous young child almost lovingly. No, it was lovingly, adoringly even. Perhaps the only person who had ever truly loved her was laying lifelessly beneath her.

Elphaba thought of her mother's delicate featured rotting away under the soil. She didn't try to suppress the thought because it was a fact. Her mother was dead and she was kneeling at her grave. There was nothing to be done, nothing could be reversed so she needed to accept what she had done. Of course, she hadn't intended to but intentions meant little once you'd killed somebody, especially when that somebody was your mother.

So she sat, still and silently on the ground and she mourned through the night.