Only three people in Oz knew exactly how much Elphaba loved her sister. One lay under a house. One stood watching a figure in black kneeling at the house. One knelt at the house.
Glinda wanted Elphaba to die. Ever since she had decided to follow her heart, Glinda had been pushed into a position she didn't want. Well, she did want it. But not like this. She had even gotten Fiyero. But now she knew better. Elphaba had ruined everything Glinda had tried so hard to make perfect. Before the prefect world shattered around her.
But seeing Elphaba like this made it feel like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. She rarely shared this story later in life, and when she did, she did not tell the full story. Instead, she said that Elphaba threw herself at the ground and cried for a few minutes. But that wasn't the case.
Elphaba felt so divided.
On one hand, this was Nessarose. Nessarose, who had to sleep in a warm, comfortable bed "because of her legs". Nessarose who needed to be waited on hand and foot. Nessarose , who became obsessed with a boy, and then blamed Elphaba for his eventual demise. But more than anything. Nessarose was the one who stole her father's love.
But even this was too much for Elphaba to think about. Nessarose wasn't the sister Elphaba knew and loved. Nessa was.
Nessa sat through torture at the hands of her classmates, and then hid her crying from her sister and her father. Nessa was consoled during thunderstorms, and during the panic attacks caused by separation from her chair. Nessa offered almost everything she received to her sister. Nessa was the one who laughed with Elphaba when times were hardest. Nessa felt safe when she saw the flash of green out of the corner of her eye and knew Elphaba was there to care for her.
None of it matters anymore, Elphaba thought. The shoes are gone. Those wretched shoes that cost us both so much. The sheos that changes her sister Nessa into the power hungry recluse Nessarose. The 'symbol' of their father's love that cemented their downfall. I must find them. Or else there will be nothing left of her at all. Good or bad, she meant the world to me. And I have to preserve her memory somehow.
