The castle was cold and deserted. The inhabitants had left long ago, taking the warmth with them. Glinda stood in the foyer of the castle, the spacious room echoing her footsteps.
As if in a haze, the blonde's footsteps lead her to the room where her best friend had stood before her death. It was empty, like the rest of the castle, save for a black pointed hat. The same hat that had started the unlikely friendship, and showed Glinda what real love was.
"Elphaba?" Glinda called as she stepped forward into the room. As expected, there was no reply, but Glinda had hoped that this would be a sick joke and that Elphaba would pop out yelling "surprise!" When no such thing happened, and Glinda held the hat in her hands, only then did the harsh reality of the situation come crashing down with its full weight.
Elphaba was gone.
Munckins cheered when they heard the news . The Wicked Witch of the West is dead! She would never be a bother to anybody ever again.
Preparations for the celebration were already underway. Munchkins were running around to help with decorations, rushing by with boxes of food, and shouting for information about the entertainment. The mayor wanted to have an official celebration for what they were calling "the end of a dark era."
Glinda watched all of this from her apartment, the second-story view making people watching easy. All day, people had been wishing Glinda a wonderful day, joy coming from the death of the most important person that used to be in Glinda's life. It made her head swim and her stomach ache.
The mayor had asked Glinda to give a speech at the celebration, saying things like how Glinda was the beacon of hope for Munchkins during their hour of need. Glinda had sat at her table, staring at the blank paper, not sure how go about keeping up her image in such a sad time.
Looking around the room, the blonde woman notices her liquor cabinet. It was stocked full of various alcohols that visitors and well-wishers had given her. She was never one for drinking, but she could recall that drinking was supposed to help take the edge off of one's emotions in times of distress.
Glinda walked over to the cabinet and popped the cork off one of the wine bottles.
The air was thick with the smell of alcohol and food. People everywhere were laughing, singing, dancing, and completely enjoying themselves. Glinda smiled to herself, the room was tilting at a fun angle.
The blonde woman had downed 3 bottles since yesterday, building her intolerance for the liquid fire. As the celebration was in full swing when Glinda showed up, she was able to down three glasses of some colorful drink that the bartender was serving. Glinda giggled as a couple of guys gave her the once over, teetering over in their area.
Suddenly, the music stopped, and the mayor asked the Glinda come up on stage. A bright light washed over the tipsy woman. She shielded her eyes with her hand trying to see where it was coming from. Hands where grabbing her, pushing her towards the stage despite her pleas for them to stop touching her. The hands made the room tilt even more.
Glinda quickly found herself on stage and looked out to all of the smiling faces. They soon blurred.
"I..." she started, but as Glinda had drank herself into a stupor instead of working on her speech, she had nothing prepared. The Munchkins still smiled up at her, but now a few started to look at each other, wondering when she was going to start.
"When I first met El," Glinda had to stop and swallow some of the sadness that was threatening to choke her all of a sudden. "When I first met the-the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought her to be a horrible and nasty person."
"Here, here!" Someone from the back of the crowd shouted. The room let forth a great cry in agreement. Glinda smiled uneasily, scrambling for something to say.
"B-but, begin the person that I am," a holler from the crowd, "I thought that she can't be all that bad, so I gave her a chance. And-and it turned out," the blonde woman faltered as tears threatened to spill. Glinda proceeded on, keeping her voice as steady as possible. "As it had turned out, she was just that, terrible...and...nasty."
Glinda started to wobble at the end of her speech, reaching out for something to hold onto. The mayor moved forward to help steady her, facing her towards the crowd to show that he had her.
"It's alright folks, Glinda has just had a few drinks too-" Glinda threw up the contents of her stomach on to the onlookers that stood in front of her. "...many."
Glinda stood under a street light, the noises and lights from the party in the building behind her. The people who had stood too close to the stage when Glinda threw up, where in shock, and one girl had to be walked to the bathroom. But other than that, everybody had laughed it off, people offering towels and dumping buckets of water over the unfortunate by-standers. They said that it was okay since Glinda had probably just drank too much from celebrating the death of the Witch.
The blonde woman now looked up at the sky, wishing that it would rain so that it could wash away all of her humiliation. The world was still tipsy but being outside did help her head. Glinda decided to walk home instead of calling a taxi. Her place was just a few blocks over anyway.
30 minutes later and Glinda still wasn't home. Were the buildings always so dirty? When did that strip club show up? Why were those people eyeing her?
Glinda took a quick turn down a nearby alley to avoid the unsavory people that were looking at her.
The alley was dirty and grimy. Trash littered the ground and a hobo was sleeping on the ground on top of a cardboard box. The blonde woman stepped as delicately as she could with the alcohol in her system around the sleeping man. He snorted and turned in his sleep.
Before Glinda could feel sorry for the man, a door in the side of one of the buildings opened up and a bald man wearing sunglasses looked at her. Or rather, he looked in her general direction, she couldn't really tell with the sunglasses.
"Hey, are you here for fairy dust?" The man's voice was a deep baritone, striking a small spark in the pit of Glinda's stomach. She blushed, having felt the same spark before back in Shiz with Fiyero. Maybe he could...
"Hey, lady. You going to buy some dust or not?" The man's tone had grown impatient. Glinda hesitantly stepped forward, moving carefully up the small and slick stairs to the doorway. The man stepped to the side and made a mock sweeping motion with his arm. The door lead to a hazy room filled with people laying on couches, some with white rolls in their hands, others with syringes sticking from their arms, and some with what looked like power around their noses.
The man with sunglasses lead her to a man in a lab coat sitting on a stool behind a counter. He was holding a needle up to a bunsen burner's flame. He ignored the two of them until he was done inspecting the needle, setting it aside when he was satisfied with it.
"What can I help you with?" He smiled a charming smile that seemed so out of place in the hole in the ground that was surrounding him. He sized Glinda up, starting at her feet then slowly moving up her body. When his eyes met hers, she felt that spark burst into a flame. It was strange, she had only felt this way with Fiyero when they were an item and even that had fallen apart when he decided that he loved Elphaba. Maybe it was the alcohol.
"Hello there. What do I owe this visit?" The man's voice dripped sugar, his eyes going back to roam over Glinda's body. It made her shiver, from disgust or desire, she didn't know.
"I'm..." The blonde faltered, not sure whether or not she really wanted to take part in what was clearly an illegal establishment. But what did she really have to lose?
"I'm here to buy some fairy dust." The man smiled wider, his mind racing with how to make the beautiful woman in front of him his next strawberry(1).
Glinda was shaking as she stood on the stairs of the doorway that she had first visited a few months ago. The hobo that used to be here was gone, having died of hypothermia a few weeks back. With the coming of winter, the wind had picked up, whipping not only Glinda's hair but also the trash that littered the ground. After nearly being hit in the face with a crusty looking chip bag, Glinda hurriedly knocked on the door again.
"What do you want?" Vergil, as Glinda had learned was the man in the sunglasses name, asked. He took one look at Glinda and stepped aside, now used to seeing her as often as three times a week.
The place was empty today. Nobody was lazying about on the coaches and the hazy was actually gone for once. Michi, the man who runs the place, smiled as Glinda approached.
Glinda was nervous. Her money flow had been running dry and she needed more of the drug they called fairy dust. It made her forget about her life after Shiz and almost made it seem as if Elphaba was still with her.
Michi smiled his signature smile. He could tell Glinda was running out of money. It wouldn't be long now before she would have to offer other services to pay for her dosage.
"Why, hello Glinda. How are you on this cold winter day?" Glinda looked miserable and she knew it. She had only enough money to pay for half of the dosage and even then she knew she would need more. She tried to give a small smile.
"I want to buy another dose but I...only have enough for half." Glinda stared at the floor as she winced at how meager she sounded. She had never sounded like that before Elphaba's death.
Michi wrapped his arm around Glinda, resting it against her elbow. "Well, that won't do, now will it? If you come with me to my back room, we can discuss other ways for you pay me besides money." If Glinda had looked Michi in the face, she would have seen the dark glint in his eyes.
Glinda laid on the floor, feeling broken and dirty. Michi stood in front of her, zipping up the fly on his pants. He reached over to his desk and opened a drawer. Inside he pulled out a small bag and dropped it next to Glinda.
"Here you are Glinda. One dosage just as promised. Whenever you need another hit, just come in to the back room." Michi smiled to himself, glad that he was the one to break Glinda the Good and reduce her to a lowly whore. He opened the door and walked out.
With her shaky hands, Glinda started to pull her clothes back on, trying to focus on the task at hand. Something wet slid down her face. When she touched it, and felt more of it coming down, she realized that she was crying.
With her clothes in a somewhat normal fashion, the blonde woman picked up her small bag and silently cried as she walked home to her empty apartment.
Glinda looked at the brandy bottle on her table. It was tipped over and empty. Next to it on the table were various other liquor bottles that had once occupied Glinda's alcohol cabinet, now all empty. It had been a week since the blonde woman had been to Michi's, and she didn't plan to put herself through that again, even if the fairy dust did help stop the visions, memories, shame and pain. Glinda could do that herself just fine with alcohol. She didn't need anybody, just Elphaba. And if Elphaba had left this world then Glinda would follow her.
The gun sat on the table. A revolver, kept in the family as an heirloom from back when Oz was just starting. The chamber held six bullets, but Glinda needed only one.
Picking it up, Glinda weighed the gun in her hand. It was like a dead weight, but that was to be expected of a very old gun. Pulling the hammer back, Glinda glanced outside her window. A storm had started, the wind banging at the walls and the thunder making itself heard to all. It seemed like a perfect night to leave this world in such a violent manner.
Glinda swallowed as she raised the gun to her head and placed it above her ear. She would have placed it in her mouth, but she didn't want her last few moments to be with the taste of gun powder in her mouth.
Closing her eyes, Glinda could feel the fairy dust start to kick in, mixing in with all of the alcohol in her system. The room started spinning, faster and faster, until nothing was distinguishable anymore. Glinda felt ready to be sick and was about to put the gun down to throw up when she felt a hand on hers, the one holding the gun.
Looking up, the blonde looked into the eyes of Elphaba, who was smiling that secret smile that she only let Nessa and Glinda see.
"Come on Glinda. Fiyero is waiting for us." With that, Glinda pulled the trigger and everything went black.
1. A strawberry is someone who trades sex for drugs.
I originally planned for this to be longer but I got tired of working on this, and my friend really wanted to have her request.