A/N: This is going to be a ten-part drabble series, based off prompts from the RENT song 'Seasons of Love'.
In Daylights
***
Galinda Upland knew little about travel or geography, having done neither very often nor very efficiently, but she knew much about sunshine. On days when the parlours of her home had become constricting and claustrophobic, she would feign a headache and excuse herself from company, trudging upstairs to her perfectly decorated bedroom and lock the door behind her. She would make certain that no one was calling after her, then ease open the window of her room and climb quietly down the wall-clinging ivy, her bare feet springy against the lush Gillikin grass. Loosening her clothes and stripping to just a slip, she escaped into the sun-kissed deserted grounds of her home, spending entire afternoons in a haze by a small river just alongside the family vineyard. Head thrown back to catch the sun, a smile offered toward the heavens, she often wished that her 'friends', those poor beings stuck in the parlour, would join her. But for them to see her bare attire, her dirt-stained feet and frizzed hair, would be unacceptable. Just picturing the face of one of the boys her mother every so often brought around, if he were to see her in her current state, made Galinda giggle softly. So she lay, alone and happy in the glaring sunlight, day-dreaming of the days when she would leave her small country town for the excitement of the larger city.
And here she was. Truly alone for the first time in her short life, sharing a train compartment with a snoring Goat, on her way to Shiz! Yet all the excitement and promise she expected to feel was substituted instead with a mere longing for the sunshine outside of the carriage, which shone tauntingly through the dark window, warming her pale face. Today would have been a river day, as she called her secret outings, but instead she was cornered in a train compartment, a stiff black scarf wrapped around her throat and a shimmering white dress hugging her, too hot for the spring day.
Sitting in the tearoom, a rose-patterned saucer and teacup balancing precariously on her knee, she reflected how this felt little different to being stuck in her parlour back home with one of the nervous boys (her mother never did manage to find one who Galinda found an interest in) and one of her silly society friends. There were the high and mighty rich girls, already bunching together for safety from the less rich and therefore less desirable girls, who had entered the University through skill rather than family connections. There were the eager academics, those girls without lipstick or trim on their dresses, who listened intently to every word squelched out by Madame Morrible. There were the outcasts, those who seemed to have ended up in the school quite by accident, as though they had wandered in that morning and decided to stay. And then- a thankful surprise and break from normalcy, there was the solitary girl who sat alone in the back, head bowed and hands folded. From Galinda's viewpoint she looked dark-skinned, but as she leant forward into the light, presumably to catch something said by the carp-like woman, a green tinge appeared on her exposed cheek.
There was no gasp from the blonde girl, no shock or pity. She stared openly at this Elphaba, her newly acquired roommate through a twist of fate Galinda was surprised she resented little, and thought longingly of the green plains of the Gillikin grasslands.