This rush, this thrill comes from somewhere without her: the wind whispering in her ears and abetting the unruly locks in their escape from beneath her hat; the solid clutch of wood; the knowledge that from this moment on her name will forever be whispered in hushed reverence. She feels invincible, wild and free; limitless.
Rationality cautions, echoing the words that even now still infiltrate her thoughts: I hope you don't live to regret this. But the buoyant intoxication overtakes her, blocks everything else out. The altitude dizzies her yet onward she presses, higher, higher. Soaring above Oz, she knows that she will never forget this feeling, that she never wants to give up these newfound wings to fall flightless back to the ground.
As if determined to oppose her whims, the wind drops, and with a lurch of the stomach she dips low over the twisting noose of the Yellow Brick Road. In a more lucid state of mind she might have noticed the places where weeds spurt up through the cracks, where bricks are missing, worn away in disrepair or dug up by midnight trophy-hunters; but in this blissful haze she hears only the nervous lowing of livestock as her shadow passes over them, sees only the startled Munchkins spilling out of their cottages, pointing and shouting.
Glinda the Good, flanked by fiancé and mentor, smiles and waves with practised ease, gazes upon her adoring citizens with faintly misty eyes, one hand draped daintily over the edge of the basket. The Wizard's balloon continues its stout amble across the sky, a gaudy bubble trailed by undulating tides of jubilant cheers.
That's it, she murmurs thoughtfully. A bubble.