Chapter One

Happily Ever After

Dear Glinda,

Do what you have to, regardless, my sweet. The last thing I want is for you to be shunned, as much as I may miss you, it's not safe. Besides, you wouldn't be able to bring your wardrobe with you if you did and we both know you couldn't live with that.

Tears stained the page as Glinda read and reread the letter signed with her favorite letters rolled into a single name, Elphie. Her breath hitched in her throat and she tried her best to swallow another sob. Her blue eyes were highlighted by a red background. Her hands were shaking as she held just one of few letters over a desk. The room was frigid as ice and silent. She was in the library of the castle - the only room she could find that wasn't within an earshot of the Celebration of the Wicked Witch of the West's death. The irony. Tears dropped off her water striped face only to disappear in the blue of her dress. The puffy edges of the dress huddled around her as she sat, as if to comfort her in a nest of sorts. The surrounding library swallowed her whole and she couldn't help but wonder what it would've been like to show Elphaba the castle archives.

"Miss Glinda?" It was the guard posted outside of the door, "it's time."

Glinda huffed a shaking breath in, as if to pull all of her emotions back up. She wiped her red face of it's streaks and stood up, somehow finding strength enough for her legs to carry her. She sniffed and folded the letters back up, slipping them into the hem of her dress. She smiled at the guard and told him she'd be right out. She had much to tell Oz and she was without words to describe everything that happened in so little time. First of the so called Wicked Witch's death and then of the wizard's leaving and Morrible's emprisonnement. Elphie's words repeated themselves in her mind.

Promise me, Promise me, you won't try to clear my name.

It was a promise Glinda now regretted. Without anyone in Oz to protest her truth, how could she keep such a secret? But how could she protest Elphie's dying wish? Would the people of Oz still hate Elphaba if they knew? Could she make such a radical change, now being the ruler of Oz? How could she run a country when she could hardly stand up for Elphie, oh dear Elphie. The thoughts crossed her mind and shook her head, almost as if she could shake the thoughts out of her mind and never think of them again. Glinda left the library with an echo as the door slammed shut in the vastness of the castle halls.

Two guards escorted her down the hall, both of which had masks which covered the entirety of their faces, masking even their race from her view. Glinda couldn't help but wonder if that's how it should be in Oz moving forward, as if race did not exist and each species was made the same. She would surely lift the Animal Bans and ensure they be treated just as equal as every other race. As she walked, her silver heels clicked against the stone floor and it was the only sound made between the three of them. As they closed in on the balcony she would address the public from, Glinda decided that she would do only what Elphie would if she were still there. She would protect the citizens and tell them the truth. She would from that moment earn the title Glinda the Good. For Elphie's sake.

Glinda approached the glass balcony doors and she could hear the chanting, singing, and carrying on. Her heart sank. Even if she did tell them the story, how could they understand that everything they have been told of Elphaba Thropp is a lie? If that's a lie, they are bound to wonder why which would only lead Glinda to tell them about the Wizard and Morrible. How could she possibly go about it? She never wanted to be a politician. Popular, sure. She wanted to matter to someone and now she was cursed with mattering to everyone.

The two guards opened the doors on either side of the blonde and Glinda fixed her tiara a top her head as she stepped forward. The guard on her left handed her wand out to her and she thanked him, then peered upon the Emerald City before her. The crowd faltered slightly and the cheers quieted. One gilikenese man announced her to the crowd and said, "Look, it's Glinda!" And it was quiet. Another in the crowd, asked, "Is it really her? It is, it is her! Glinda! We love you Glinda!"

Glinda smiled down on them and transported herself in a bubble to come closer from the height of the castle. She slipped down to them and floated about. She smiled, despite every piece of her body despising the physical motion which did not properly reflect her feelings. Her heart felt as if it was suffocating in her chest when she saw the pitchforks in their hands, torches lighting the path. She smiled and put on the facade she had for the past few years of her life, "it's good to see me isn't it?" A few answered honestly and Glinda continued, "No need to respond, that was rhetorical."

Elphaba's words repeated themselves over and over In her head.

Promise Me…

"Fellow Ozians." Glinda swallowed and used her best proclamation voice, "Let us be glad. Let us be Grateful. Let us rejoice to find that Goodness can subdue the wicked workings of, you know who." She took a breath and all eyes were sticking to the bubble as it moved across the sky, "Isn't it nice to know - that good will conquer evil. The truth we all believe'll by and by outlive a lie for you and-" Her words were cut off by a woman in the crowd, cheering vein-fully.

"No one mourns the wicked!" She was cheered on by the crowd. "No one cries, they won't return!" Other joined in with their own accounts of the Wicked.

Glinda tried to rear them off the terrible thoughts, tried to tell them about how lonely a life in Wickedness must be. Then another in the crowd asked Glinda, because surely Glinda the Good would know, why wickedness happens. The voice in the crowd, while Glinda couldn't quite pinpoint where it came from, sounded afraid. Glinda couldn't think of the best way to answer the question, but to returned it with another question, "That's a good question. Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?" All of a sudden Glinda felt the lies built up beneath her words and she wanted to leave. She wanted to start over. She had just promised herself not to lie to this crowd and here she was, pretending everything was fine. Could she ever break this facade? Could she defy people looking to her to make everything seem okay?

"So if there are no further questions.." Glinda finished the speech as quickly as she could, mentioning Elphaba's family, then returned to her bubble and to attempt an escape.

She began floating away when once again, a voice reached her ears, one that she guessed game from a young Quadling, "Glinda, is it true you were her friend?"

"Well, you see, um.. Yes." Glinda hardly had time to think about the words before they were coming out of her mouth. Gasps let out in waves through the crowd. Glinda could feel the piece of her who cared what they thought - the piece that once called herself Galinda - begging to come to the surface. At the same time, she felt that if she was going to revert to her previous self, then maybe she didn't deserve to be Elphaba's friend at all, "It depends on what you mean by friend. I did know her. That is, our paths did cross...at school." The crowd was still gasping and gawking at her, "But you must understand, it was a long time ago and we were both very young." The crowd was still quite, as if they were all five again, waiting for her to tell them a bedtime story. All at once they wanted to know and Glinda wanted to tell them.

So she did.

She told the crowd of Emerald City everything she could think of from the moment she met Elphaba Thropp, her roomate at Shiz university, to saying goodbye to Elphaba Thropp just hours before they gathered in the square together. She told them about Dr. Dillamond and the research he had dug up about the same sentience existing between Animals and Humans. She told them about going to see the Wizard and the Wizard not being at all who they thought he was. She told them about Madame Morrible and her offer for Glinda and Elphaba to be spies. The story took so long that the square had become a sitting location for them to stare at Glinda as she sat on the edge of a water fountain, recounting her past. Tears stung the edges of her eyes when she recounted Elphaba leaving Emerald City when the Wizard cast her out. A bear cub child reached out a paw and placed it on top of her hand and Glinda thanked him silently. A guard moved to push the cub away, but Glinda stopped him and shook her head.

Through the entire tale, the crowd quietly listened to Glinda and Glinda wondered if there was a reason they were inclined to. She recounted being forced to address Oz and encourage the Wizard's choices against the Wicked Witch and the Animals. She even told them of her engagement to Fiyero, which was a political marriage that she suggested simply to avoid the attention that was being placed on Elphaba. Then she told them of the end of her story, returning to Emerald City after her visit to Elphaba. When she addressed him and requested to know about the green bottle Elphaba kept under her pillow. When she requested that the Wizard leave with Dorothy and when she had Madame Morrible taken to prison. The only piece of the puzzle she left from the story was Elphaba's allergy to water, choosing to keep the horrible, painful details of Elphie's death from all of their thoughts.

When she was finished, the crowd only mumbled small condolences, as if realizing the error of their ways. One boy asked why she let Dorothy leave if she was the one to end Elphaba's life. With tears in her eyes, Glinda told him that violence would not justify anything and that Dorothy was a pawn in a much larger game. There was a few other questions in the crowd, but over all Glinda felt the shift. A burden lifted from her shoulders as she noticed the sympathy in their eyes. They had accepted her truth as a reality and felt bad for Elphaba's surprise. It was as if the crowd agreed on a moment of silence for the life they had lost.

Glinda cleared her throat and wiped her eyes clean, the only moment she didn't care about the makeup leaking down her cheekbones, "I think that this means that it's time for a change." She announced, her voice breaking though it still reached the farthest citizen from her, "I am starting with lifting the bans on Animals." The crowd agreed solemnly and she saw the family of bear cubs nearby, lifting their heads with a new kind of happiness, that is what Glinda thought was happiness from their expressions. She still wasn't very good at reading Animal expressions, "I'd also like, if you'd have me, to take a clean slate with you. I'd like for everyone to acknowledge the truth and I'd like to give the public a chance to voice their opinions about everything happening in Oz." Her speech continued and the citizen of Oz turned their sorrow into excited glances toward the future.

From that day on, Oz changed drastically. Glinda opened the doors of the castle for any grievances that Oz may have. She appointed counselors from even the farthest regions in Oz to represent themselves in Emerald City. She created a democracy for change. A statue was created in Elphaba's honor and despite Glinda's opposition, the citizens of Oz built a statue in her honor as well. Over the years Oz became a world of happiness and freedom. Glinda kept her reign over Oz in the best way she possibly could while keeping a promise to herself to be Glinda the Good. For five years, Glinda kept to herself and as proud as she was about the changes in Oz, she still grieved Elphaba's death. She grieved Elphaba's death until a day five years later, when a familiar face demanded Glinda allow her entrance to the castle.

Glinda was in the library again, which is where she spent most of her days, reading texts she knew Elphaba read in their years at Shiz. A few days after Elphaba's death and a day after the green girls vigil, guards brought her boxes of Elphaba's items. Books, spells, her hat. Glinda kept all things in her own memorial of sorts in the library, piled on her desk.

"Miss Glinda?" A guard asked and Glinda turned around to greet him. The guard was a mix of Vinkus and one other decent. He was a new boy to the guard, whom must've been only a few years older than the service of becoming a man in the Winkie Country. Glinda remembered Elphie telling her something of the warrior tradition that Vinkus had for them to spend a night alone with only a musical instrument to use to speak to the spirits. Glinda wondered if, with this mixture of races, he had been through such a tradition or if it was only saved for Vinkus warriors or royalty. He was a new member of the guard and though Glinda now made it her job to know everyone's name, his name was still alluding her.

"Yes, sir?" Glinda asked, a smile pulling at her lips, despite her request to be left alone when she is in the library. She figured he had not heard that yet in his training.

"Miss Glinda, I am so sorry to bother you but they asked me to retrieve you. T-There's a v-visitor." The boy scratched the back of his neck, his olive skin shining in the window light.

"A visitor?" Glinda requested, furrowing her brow, "From where?"

The guard licked his lips, "Forgive me, Miss Glinda, I don't recall. They told me to tell you her name. It was.." He thought for a moment to remember, "Dorothy."

Glinda rose and followed him immediately realizing the urgency of their visitor, "Show me."

She followed him down the hall, her simple green dress floating lightly behind them and the pink flower jumping with her steps. The guard in front of her wore the new uniform, less clunky and less authoritative. It was a gentle green outfit with a patch that told everyone that they were apart of the guard, but not quite made to intimidate a crowd. Glinda was proud she had designed it herself.

They reared the corner of another long hallway and entered the grand entrance to the castle, the one used to host citizens of Oz and hear their grievances. The grand doors were on her left when when they walked in and from them, a green carpet lead up the grand staircase, which split into the two halves of the castle, the east and west. On the landing between the west and east staircases was a long table and chairs around it, which the castle counselors used during the days they hosted the court of grievances. Just inside the doors, being held back by two guards on either side of her, was Dorothy in the flesh. She was fighting them to let her go and telling them that she knew Glinda - that they were friends.

"Let me go!" She screamed. When Glinda entered, the guards looked to her for approval. Glinda nodded just once and they released her. Dorothy, plaid dress and all, stumbled across the green carpet. She hardly kept her ground as she stood, glared at the guards, then looked back at Glinda. "Oh, Glinda." Dorothy smiled and walked up to the blonde, emphasising the ruby shoes highlighting her feet. Nessarose's shoes.

"Miss Dorothy." Glinda smiled cordially and raised a brow.

Suddenly Dorothy's eyes changed and her face turning from excitement to worry, "Oh, Glinda, I came back because I am worried. Glinda, she's back. The Wicked Witch is alive!"

Glinda furrowed her brow and her heart skipped a beat, "Miss Dorothy, what are you talking about?"

"She's back Glinda! She's changed but she's back! I saw her with my own two eyes, I did!" Dorothy continued, frantically.

Glinda tried not to get her hopes up, knowing she heard it with her own two ears. It wasn't possible. "Where?"

"My world, Miss Glinda. She's in my world."