Glinda's Last Train:
The blonde was half asleep while she sat there with her face pressed to the window as the train from the Vinkus headed on its way back to the Emerald City. Glinda the Good was plagued with nightmares as she slept in the compartment of the train. Nightmares of horribly real things that had happened to her and that she had witnessed. A bucket of water being thrown, torturous screams being heard, the endless crying all filled her mind with images that she would like to forget about but never went away. She was a haunted woman, Glinda with memories buried so deep in her mind that they were driving her into insanity.
Her tumble into madness all started on the day her fiancé was supposedly murdered and then with the murder of her best friend. It would come as an utter shock to all Ozians that these friends that Glinda had lost were the infamous Scarecrow who had traveled with Dorothy who she had figured to also be Fiyero Tiggular, and her best friend Elphaba Thropp or more commonly known as the Wicked Witch Of The West.
With them both dead, Glinda had nothing left to hold on to but the memories of them. So every week she sneaked out without her husband Chuffrey's notice, took the train to the Vinkus, and wallowed in self-pity for a few hours crying, and then would take the train back home before Chuffrey would question a thing. If he did notice her absence then he was a very good liar because he would not tell her so.
Tonight's journey was no different. She was traveling back home to Chuffrey even though she'd rather stay at Kiamo Ko, the place where her friend died.
Awaking from another horrible nightmare, Glinda jolted in her seat and nearly collided the side of her flawless face into the freezing glass of the window.
As her eyes adjusted, those blue eyes saw snow falling heavily as the train whizzed by the dark features of the landscape in the night. Glinda involuntarily shivered as she drew her dark brown fur wrapping around her shoulders and arms more tightly. Her black dress went down to her ankles and was very form fitting which was pleasing but the cold winter breeze cut through it like a knife making it unsuitable for this type of weather.
The emptiness of the other compartments was something that Glinda was used to on her late night trips to the Vinkus. She was usually the only one on this train.
Even so she heard the sound of footsteps, probably from the conductor coming her way. She looked over as she heard the sliding glass door open.
"Hello, Lady Chuffrey. How nice to see you again," said the conductor cordially. He was a nice man, never asked her why or what she was doing in the Vinkus every week, and he only did his job.
"Nice to see you too, Bert," said Glinda in a faint voice.
She looked at him and he could see something in her that he hadn't seen before. Glinda to him looked exhausted, though it was more than exhaustion that consumed her face and behavior. It seemed like she was ill the way she looked.
Her face was pale and drawn out with sleep-deprived circles around those beautiful blue eyes that shone with so much less than a faint gleam nowadays. She was thin, and though she had always been thin, she was much too thin now. Bert in that moment thought she resembled that of a skeleton, in her manner of thinness.
Her voice seemed distant and far off as usual but with more misery in it tonight.
And that hair, that golden hair that was a beckon of light for Ozians was dull and limp from all of the years of curling and straightening it.
"How are you tonight, Madame?" he asked as he took her ticket, punched it and gave it back to her.
"Just fine," lied Glinda as she tried to smile warmly at him, but she was too tired and weak to even try.
"I am glad," he said.
He was about to leave her compartment when she called out to him. Their usual conversations had ended earlier than this and Bert wondered what the public figure wanted.
"Yes, Lady Chuffrey?" he asked turning around to face her once more.
She seemed nervous about what she wanted to ask him for she bit those pale lips turning them into a brilliant red color.
"Bert, I have serious question to ask you." Her voice showed no signs of joking or of humor.
"Yes?" he said as his curiosity increased.
"If I were to tell you that I am not who I say I am or who appear to be would you hate me for it?"
The blonde looked at him expectantly, patiently awaiting his answer.
"Well," he swallowed, "What exactly are we talking about here?"
"Oh, never-mind!" she cried as her gaze turned towards the window again and she wrung her hands together in a sort of fit.
Her face was distant now and he could see her reflection in the glass with tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Lady Glinda, what is troubling you? Maybe I can help…" he offered, feeling sympathy towards the woman.
She sniffled and started to cry harder, more tears falling from those ocean blue eyes.
"No one can help me now Bert. I am a ruined woman. I deserve to just die," she wailed as she buried her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with grief.
"It's all my fault. Elphie and Fiyero are dead, and its all my fault!" she sobbed as she kept her face hidden.
Those names were unfamiliar to Bert but still he couldn't help but comfort the Good Witch.
"Lady Glinda I can assure that you are the last person to ever cause-"
"But I did," she interrupted him, lifting her head up to look at him but only to dissolve into tears moments later, "I killed Fiyero by my own damn selfishness needs and wants, and Elphaba died because I was too scared and too proud of my position to do anything. I didn't give anything up for them and I should have, and now look at me!"
Her crying had increased to a hysterical point as she breathed in heavy gasps as she kept dissolving into more tears.
"Sure I am Glinda the Good, Lady Chuffrey, Madame Chuffrey but do you know who I was before that? Galinda. Galinda Upland from the Upper Uplands who was friends with a girl named Elphaba and a boy named Fiyero. And now look what happened. Fiyero's dead and Elphaba turned out to become the notorious Wicked Witch of The West. And me," Glinda laughed madly at her own judgment of herself, "I am the perky public figure who everyone adores but no one knows. No one really cares about me, not even my husband. The two people that ever cared, that ever loved me are gone."
Glinda stopped talking and suddenly went silent as her eyes welled up with water again.
"Please, Lady Chuffrey do not cry. Everything will work out, I promise," Bert's response was not what Glinda was looking for but he did not know what else to say? What could he say to her now that she had told him that her best friend was the Wicked Witch who had been dead for seven years now?
"I'm not sure about that, Bert," said Glinda sadly as she watched him head towards the door.
He opened the door, left the compartment and headed towards the front of the train when he stopped. Lady Glinda had started crying again. At the miserable noise he felt pity on her and wondered if he should go back and say something to her. He wondered… but his pocket watch went off and he went to conduct the train into the station, his thoughts of comforting Glinda fleeing almost immediately.
As for the blonde, she tried to cover her sobs with her hand but it was too no avail. Usually when she got this upset or distressed she would find something to calm her down. But tonight there was nothing holding her, nothing holding her to Oz, to her life, to her will to live.
She sank into the seat in despair as she compensated on what her life had become.
First off she had no friends left. Everyone thought she was a mindless spine of a woman who only had control because of who she married and her infamous beauty.
Most of her family was gone, or they never came to visit. She was the last of her kind. She and Chuffrey had never did manage to conceive any children so there were no children to look after. Her husband preferred the company of his hunting dogs to her and rarely spent any time with her. He was too busy in his politics, gambling, and his hunting.
Her heart felt empty and aching, as it had been for the last seven years.
"Maybe, Galinda," she said to herself, "it's time to give up."
She had spent countless years trying to regain herself, trying to help Oz, and trying to make Elphaba's hopes and dreams for her live on but she had failed. Glinda had found out that government had its policies and restrictions as well, and she found that she could change nothing. All of her hard work was for nothing.
Glinda felt even more despair as she looked out into the night sky. What was awaiting her at home? Chuffrey, with his cold and cruel remarks about her past relationship with her two dead friends, the servants who talked about her when they thought she wasn't looking, a cold dismal existence with nothing to look forward to…
The train finally stopped and Glinda looked out to see a snow covered platform in her sights.
"All passengers may now disembark," came the conductor's voice over the loud speaker.
Glinda was the only one that disembarked from the train as far as she could tell. The familiar smell of the smoke greeted her as she stepped onto the icy platform. Once they made sure there were no more passengers, Glinda watched as the train pulled away from the station in the cold night air.
The empty feeling that Glinda had lingered deep inside of her and she had no will to call a carriage and go back to the house. Instead she stood near the tracks, taking in the smell of the coal-made smoke and of the bitter coldness the wind brought.
"I can't deal with this anymore, not with Oz, not with Chuffrey, not with this guilt," whispered Glinda to herself as she began to cry silent tears.
Though no one else was in the station she felt as if a million eyes were staring at her, hating her, and waiting for her to decide what to do.
Suddenly Glinda heard the noise of another train coming, and she smiled to herself as the inner madness she had built up over the years finally caused her to crack. She could hear it chug along as it came closer and closer to the station.
Glinda knew what would help her and it wasn't advice from someone.
It was death, sweet death that would end all of her problems.
Closing her eyes, Lady Glinda stood on her toes at the edge of the platform and just waited.
She could smell the smoke now as it filled her lungs, and she could practically see the train coming. It was coming so fast that it shook the platform and the ground underneath Glinda's feet.
She opened one eye and saw that the train was in the station now.
Just a few more seconds thought Glinda as she jumped off of the platform and onto the tracks.
"I'm sorry Elphaba, I'm sorry Fiyero but I just couldn't hold on any longer," she screamed as she fell face first onto the metal tracks.
The black locomotive was coming so fast now that Glinda only had seconds left.
But suddenly Glinda's senses kicked in and she opened both of her eyes in horror of what she was doing. The train was nearly on top of her now.
She shrieked in horror and fear and tried to get up off the tracks but her dress was caught in the metal.
"No, oh Oz what am I doing- no! This is- I have to live, I have to-"
The train's breaks screeched as they tried to stop in time but it was too late…
The snow covered tracks suddenly turned from white to a crimson red...
The next week, Bert parked the train in the station and waited for his usual passenger to come. He waited and he waited for her to show up and when she didn't he was surely disappointed. He called into the station and asked if they had seen her. The person on the other line informed him of the news. It seemed that last week after she had gotten off the train that Lady Chuffrey committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. Though he was saddened by the news, Bert carried on and took the train to the Vinkus where he had two strangers hidden in cloaks of black waiting for him where he usually dropped off Lady Glinda.
When they did not embark the train, Bert got out and asked them what was the matter.
"We are looking for someone," said a woman's voice.
"Who?" asked Bert.
"Lady Glinda," answered the other figure whose voice was distinctly male.
"Oh," Bert's expression softened, "I am sorry to tell you both this but Lady Glinda committed suicide last week by jumping in front of a train."
The woman seemed to stagger against the man and he held her close. Though Bert heard no sounds of crying he could have sworn he saw beads of water fall from behind the woman's cloaked and concealed face, with the sound of something burning or sizzling.
Bert then turned away from them and got back on the train; never to have any more passengers come on his night rides to the Vinkus.
As for the two people, every day and every week they waited outside the Vinkus station hoping and praying that the rumor of Glinda's suicide was some cruel and sick joke, that the three best friends could be reunited once more.
But Glinda never came off that train again, and she would never know that her two best friends, the only ones left who cared and loved her were still alive…
This lovely angsty fic is based off of Anna Karenina which I saw on Thanksgiving. I got inspired by the track called Anna's Last Train. I really love this one shot and I hope you do too. Please review?
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