"I thought it was a good musical," said Elphaba as she left the theater.
"Me too, but I wish the end wasn't so sad," Glinda agreed as she wiped her eyes.
"But that's how the script was written," said Fiyero, with a shrug, face outwardly calm, cool and collected, though he had found the ending quite sad as well, he was just trying not to let it show on his face.
"That doesn't make it any happier," Boq replied. Like Glinda, he was still sniffling, though he claimed that it was due to a cold he had. Yeah right.
"But what did you guys think of us?" asked Nessarose, trying to change the subject before anyone started bawling again, including her.
"I wish they'd made me tougher," said Elphaba. "I'm too... pitiable."
"Well at least you didn't look like brat," reminded Nessa. "Sure, they did make you a bit too soft and sweet and they stripped away most of your grittiness, but I was nothing more than a love-sick fool! No character development beyond that of a possessive little girl! Didn't the writers remember? I did manage to successfully take over Munchkinland and free them from the Wizard's cruel grasp! That's not something I could've done if Boq had been the one and only thing that I ever based my life around!" the younger Thropp smacked the wheels on her wheelchair irritably as what had once been a simple criticism of how her character was played turned into something of a rant.
"Sounds like you were really crushed, Nessa," Glinda replied, then she laughed at her own joke, laughter stopping only when both of the Thropp sisters smacked her at the same time. "Ouch!" she yelped, genuinely offended. "Rude!"
"Well, maybe next time you won't resort to such lame puns then," Nessa pouted, seeming more offended by how stupid the joke had been than the fact that it was targeted at her 'death'. Elphaba, meanwhile, gave Glinda a teasing grin.
"At least we know that they got your character correct!" she said.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Glinda's eyes narrowed as she detected the sarcasm in Elphaba's voice.
"Oh, nothing except that they got the Dumb Blond trope of yours down pat!" Elphaba shrugged cheerfully, laughing when Glinda tried to smack her in return the same way Elphaba had done to her only seconds ago.
"Well, don't worry guys, my character wasn't exactly the best either," Fiyero sighed, interrupting Elphaba and Glinda's little catfight. Everyone else in their little party all nodded in sympathetic agreement. His character had probably been the most butchered. Along with hiring a Caucasian actor and taking his blue diamond tattoos out of the equation, this Fieryo character had resembled the arrogant, hotheaded Avaric.
The real Fiyero was calm, quiet, shy, and a bit of an innocent, according to the others, though that was hardly his fault! A lot of pop culture of Oz didn't make it out that far to the west, so it wasn't like he'd come into Shiz being ignorant on purpose! Though of course, no one was blaming him for this. They were just agreeing that he was probably the most naive of the bunch, yet their musical had turned him into the most sinful and corruptive. They'd turned him into Avaric, that rude and crude demon in handsome human skin.
And this was doubly disturbing to Elphaba because Fieryo was supposed to be her lover (or at least, her male lover. Everyone was in agreement that she was better suited to be Glinda's partner than Fiyero's) and Elphaba knew for a fact she'd rather jump out of the window of her tower in the Castle of the West than marry, kiss or have any sort of relationship with Avaric. So, to Elphaba, mixing Fiyero up with Avaric was problematic on multiple levels. She shuddered at the thought.
(The whole group was silently relieved that Avaric disdained the theater because, no doubt, if he had seen the musical, he would've bragged about being in it and replacing Fiyero up until his dying day. But since he didn't like the theater, he had not seen the musical, sparing everyone else from what would've been an endless round of bragging and jokes about Fiyero not having enough of a personality to even make a halfway decent character).
"I think my character was pretty good," said Boq at last. "I just wish that they hadn't vilified me like that. I mean, I understand that they rewrote me as the Tin Man and I can live with that, but I really hated how... mean they made me. I would never treat Elphaba like that!" he turned to the green girl, eyes pleading as though he were genuinely worried that his portrayal in the musical would change their relationship, but one look into Elphaba's kind and understanding eyes reassured him that she was still very much his friend.
"Yeah, they should've kept you down with a smaller role," Nessa agreed. "It would match your size fairly well!" she added, then she quickly wheeled ahead of the group before any of them could slap her. Boq, meanwhile, pouted, though it wasn't entirely untrue. He was even smaller than Nessa in her wheelchair. He was only slightly larger than the wheelchair's handles.
"Well, think about it this way," Elphaba told the tiny Munchkin before he could get too affronted. "Even if you don't have big size, you certainly have big money! We all do!" and all the others brightened up as they realized that Elphaba was right. Since their musical had been such a hit, all of them were rolling in the dough, Elphaba and Glinda especially.
"What'll you do with your share?" asked Boq as the topic of discussion changed again. "I think I'll just make mine last as long as I can."
"I'll probably do the same," Fiyero agreed. "I think I'll send some of it back home and keep the rest of it here, for future investment."
"I think I'll buy a nicer wheelchair," Nessa added in her own two cents as she looked down at the one she was currently in. It certainly wasn't in any danger of breaking, but it was pretty plain and the wheelchair they'd given her character in Act 2 of the play had been quite fancy. Now, with all the money that she had, Nessa was getting ideas...
"I could use mine to build a fashion place!" Glinda said excitedly. "It would be a salon/clothing outlet!" Glinda spun around in her excitement.
"I think I'll donate most of mine. I have nothing else to do with it," Elphaba shrugged casually.
"Ever our selfless friend," Boq joked, bumping shoulders with Elphaba's hip in a playful demeanor.
Then the thoughts on Wicked returned to the conversation, but this time, it was about the songs.
"Did you like the music? My song was so catchy that I daresay it was the best!" cried Glinda as she began to hum her jaunty little tune.
"I don't know, 'Defying Gravity' is hard to top," said Nessa, not trying to downplay Glinda, but being quite convicted in her reply. It was her only regret that she, herself, really only had one song and it was one where she was whining and hurting Boq. It was a beautiful song, sad and powerful, but not very reflective of her character. Or at least, so she thought. But honestly, every song was wonderful in its own way. The composer, that Stephen Schwartz fellow, was like a wizard with music!
"How about 'For Good'?" Boq suggested. Everybody sighed and touched their hearts at once. What a bittersweet love song that one was!
"Oh, everybody was crying over that. Nobody likes a weepy song," said Fiyero, though nobody missed his voice crack.
"I enjoyed 'No Good Deed', it made me feel wicked," Elphaba said with a mischievous grin to lighten the mood. Glinda punched her playfully.
"You would go for the powerhouse song wouldn't you?" the bubbly blond girl joked.
"Well duh! That was all the composer gave my character!" the green girl laughed. "I mean think. I had 'Wizard and I', 'Defying Gravity', and 'No Good Deed'. My only calm song was 'Not That Girl' because even the other ones, mostly the ones I shared with Glinda, weren't soft either. Maybe they weren't power ballads, but there were still moments of intensity in all of them."
"Well, you do have a lovely voice," said Boq. "Maybe that's why all of your songs were so intense!"
The discussion carried on for a little while more until Glinda changed the topic one last time.
"Wanna go out to eat? I'll pay," she offered. The crew eagerly agreed and, 20 minutes later, they were all dining at one of New York's finest.
"That was wonderful!" Boq sighed as he patted his bloated stomach. He felt twice his size now! (Though not in the way he'd hoped).
"You only ate one course," Fiyero teased, but Boq was too happy to let that jab about his tiny size bother him at the moment.
"I don't think I'll be able to eat for a month," Nessa yawned contentedly.
"Yeah, this was probably so fattening and unhealthy," despite her words, Glinda regretted nothing.
"Remember who's paying," Elphaba teased. "While you get fat, your wallet will get thin!" she said.
"Oh, shut it Elphie," had been Glinda's reply as she flagged down their server for the bill. Then, once everything had been paid and everyone had made it home, things finally settled down. Soon, only Elphaba was still awake, even Glinda having finally passed out on their bed, everyone else having since fallen asleep in all their own apartments.
So Elphaba sat alone, her thoughts on 'Wicked' still filling her mind as she flipped idly through the TV. She was interrupted by a phone call. At this late hour? Strange. But Elphaba picked it up regardless and, when she hung up again, her thoughts on 'Wicked' had just changed into thoughts about an entirely new musical. The callers had been casting agents, asking if she wanted to audition for the lead role of their new musical movie. This one, they had said, would star another young woman outcast for her strange ability, though instead of just being a green-skinned girl with basic witchy powers, she would be a Norwegian queen with the power to control ice and snow.
AN: Just a silly little meta fic that allows me to jokingly have the book characters critique the musical, and of course, I needed that obligatory Frozen reference at the end, LOL.