So, this is something I've been thinking of for a while. It's a departure from my usual Bessa fics, but I thought I would give it a go. Hopefully I've done ok in this new territory, writing for Glinda! I thought of this when listening to Memory from Cats, so some of the inspiration comes from that. Hope you like it!
A solitary figure walks aimlessly through the streets. No matter the time of day or year she repeats the same routine, retracing the same steps, as though this focused action is the only thing keeping her going, keeping her sane. If you were standing close enough to her you would hear that as she walks she sings; strange tunes which hold the key to her past...
...Goodness knows the wicked's lives are lonely...
She was great once, and she still carries about her an aura of someone powerful. She was beautiful too, and would be still were it not for years of neglect now showing all too plainly in the untamed hair and tired eyes bearing dark shadows. Atop her head of tangled greying gold curls she still wears a crown, a tragic reminder of what she once was. She won't remove it, though it has no more meaning now than a cheap trinket, for it reminds her of the past...
...Popular, I know about popular...
If the girl of twenty years ago looked in the mirror and saw the woman of today she would not recognise herself, and if she did she would recoil in horror at what she saw. She often asks herself how she became what she now is. How did such a promising young beauty with all of Oz at her feet let herself wither and decay into this tired and ragged woman? She knows the answer to the question lies in the images that haunt her even now; a face the colour of the Emerald City she now lives in, a pair of jewelled slippers on the striped stocking clad feet of a girl in a wheelchair, a child in a blue check dress emerging from a house that fell from the skies. The images flicker continuously in her mind, but she struggles to force them away, back into the past, so that she is no longer sure if these now fading memories are real, or simply figures brought on by some impending madness. All she knows is that when she does allow herself to ponder them she is overcome with a mix of guilt and despair and can do nothing but cry...
...No one mourns the Wicked...
She knows that people talk about her as she passes them by. She knows that they whisper and laugh and stare, sometimes with pity, sometimes with disgust. They look on at her without any sense of shame or embarrassment, without even attempting to hide what they are doing. Sometimes she thinks she sees a familiar face in the crowds of people, and for a second she is brought back to her youth. She once found herself walking behind a young captain, a military man, just like the young man who once held her heart and so cruelly let it go. As she looked at him she was flooded with memories of a ballroom full of sequins and glitter, of her prince holding her close, of the two of them dancing through life. She had been so naive then, full of hope and wonder. Nothing mattered outside that ballroom as she danced the night away...seemingly danced her young life away...in a carefree happy dream. How she longed to be transported back to that time. So lost was she in these memories that she reached out to this man, but was quickly brought back to reality as he pushed her away with a sneer...
...Don't wish, don't start, wishing only wounds the heart...I'm not that girl...
As the daylight fades and people return to their houses she is left to wander the streets alone. She pulls her coat closely around her shoulders to keep out the cold and as she does so she reveals a flash of the once beautiful, yet now worn and bedraggled, blue ball gown that she still wears; another vague reminder of what she once was. The streetlights flicker on around her and the cold moon shines bright as she meanders through empty streets, left with only her thoughts for company. She never imagined it would end this way. She always believed she was destined for greatness, but a life filled with wasted love, lost friendships and dangerous ambition has turned a young girl with hopes and dreams into a fragile and fading star...
...look what we've got, a fairytale plot, our very own happy ending...
...Those words had been bittersweet when she first spoke them, and as she sang them to herself this time round they seemed to hold a new sense of poignancy to Glinda the Good, grown old and yet still steadfastly refusing to let go, to give up hope, and still haunted by memories of her youth. She smiles as she thinks of the girl who spoke them so long ago, and is filled with a sudden sense of warmth and purpose. The girl may seem like a long distant memory, but she feels like she owes it to her to keep going, to keep striving for the greatness she once longed for, and most importantly to keep this memory alive.