This is my first Wicked fanfic, as well as my first on this site, so please be kind if I am not too sure about what I am doing around the site. I love nice reviews and constructive critism. Surprisingly, I am not a huge fan of flaming. This story is based on the musical and it is set about 16 years after where the musical lets off.
Disclaimer: I do not own Wicked, or any of the canon characters. They belong to Gregory MacGuire and Stephen Schwartz.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ayenna stared at the blank, gray wall of the orphanage where she had spent of her life. She glanced down at her half-packed threadbare bags, gave her head a little shake, and started to pack again. In the land of Oz, if you were human, you were considered an official adult as soon as you turned sixteen. For Ayenna, that meant that she could leave the Oz Home for Parentless Children today, since it was her sixteenth birthday. Although she had always dreamed of leaving the orphanage, now that the time was finally here, she was scared. What would she do with her life outside of these dreary walls? Everything had been provided for her in the orphanage, and she wasn't sure if she would be able to support herself.
"Oh well," she whispered to herself as she finished packing and gathered her few belongings. She left her room and went into the entryway of the orphanage where a wrinkled, kind-looking old woman stood waiting.
"Oh my dear, we shall miss you!" the woman cried, burying Ayenna in a tight hug.
"I'm going to miss you too, Mother Francis," Ayenna said, returning the hug.
"Is Ayenna leaving?" asked a young boy with red hair as he came out of the kitchen into the entryway, followed by all of the other orphans who had just been eating their lunch.
"Yes, I'm afraid so, Trip," the old woman replied.
"No!" Trip and the others chorused as one.
Ayenna willed herself not to cry. She would miss all the children terribly, but she would miss Trip the most. The ten year-old had come to the orphanage when he was a toddler, and Ayenna had connected with him and had practically raised him. He thought of her as a mix between a mother, big sister, and best friend. It would break both of their hearts for her to leave, but she had no choice. She dropped her bags and rushed over to him, taking his tearstained face in her hands. She wiped away his tears and kissed his forehead tenderly.
"Enna!" he said, calling her by the nickname he had made up for her, "Don't leave! Please?"
"Trip, I have to leave. You know I do. But I promise, I will never forget you. Do you understand? One day I will see you again, no matter what."
"No you won't," Trip said, his voice steadily rising, "You'll forget all of us and get married and live happily ever after. You won't need us anymore." He jerked away from her and ran, pounding up the steps to his room.
Ayenna couldn't stop a tear from rolling down her face, but she quickly brushed it away. All the other children looked at her with wide eyes, several of them were crying as well. Ayenna remembered what it was like to be in their position, watching one of her friends who had grown up leaving for good. She hugged each of them in turn and hugged Mother Francis once more. Then, before she could change her mind, she gathered her bags once more, opened the front door, and walked out. She didn't look back, not even to see the crying boy looking out his bedroom window, willing her to come back with all the mind power he had in his scrawny, ten-year old body.
Ayenna thought over what she would do now for the hundredth time. She would walk to the Emerald City since it was the closest town. She had some money from doing odd jobs around the orphanage, so she could pay for lodging for a few nights. She would get settled in, and first thing in the morning, she would go looking for a job.
As she walked along, she thought back to what Trip had said about her marrying and living happily ever after. She couldn't help but doubt that she would ever be married. After all, she had never even been considered for adoption because of her green skin. She would probably never be considered for marriage either. Besides, she didn't believe in happily ever after. Although she had always been loved by everyone at the orphanage, she still felt very out of place there. In addition to her green skin, she had found at a young age that she could sometimes make strange things happen, just by pointing at them or thinking things. She had never spoken of it to anyone for fear of further exclusion. She also never used these powers if she could help it. She kept hoping that if she ignored them, they would go away.
Before too long, Ayenna got off the dirt path she had been traveling on in favor of a road of paved yellow bricks. Everyone knew the Yellow Brick Road, as it was called, led to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz had once lived, and which was now the home of the woman who had ruled for about sixteen years now, Glinda the Good. Although rumors tended to be slow to reach the orphanage, that one had arrived quickly. The wizard had been taken away by the same miraculous contraption that had brought him to them. Sadness had followed that announcement, but the rumor of what had happened just before that had been even quicker to reach the orphanage. The Wicked Witch of the West had been killed. When that news had arrived, there had been celebrating throughout Oz. Everyone had praised the good witch Dorothy's name. Of course, all that had happened before Ayenna's birth, but people still talked about it often. Ayenna realized that she was around the same age Dorothy had been when she performed the miracle. Ayenna had always dreamed of doing something that the citizens of Oz would all recognize her for. People said that she had been green, the only other person that had ever lived in Oz, that Ayenna knew of, that shared her green skin, besides the elves. Now that she was dead, Ayenna really felt like an oddity.
Ayenna pushed her thoughts from her mind and concentrated solely on the view in front of her. She came over the crest of a hill in the yellow road and found herself looking at the glittering spires of the Emerald City. She had only been here once when Mother Francis had brought them all on a trip to see Glinda the Good give a speech. She had only been six at the time, so the speech had been rather wasted on her, but she had remembered the beauty and freedom the city inspired in her. Her walk sped up with eagerness, and a few moments later, she was entering the Emerald City through the front gates that at one time had been guarded, but now that the Wicked Witch of the West was gone, they were wide-open to anyone who wished to enter. She craned her neck to better see the gleaming green buildings and all the equally colorful people.
However, she hadn't gotten very far into the city before she was stopped by a scream. She spun to see the middle-aged woman who was screaming, was pointing at her
