Have lots of fun reading :D
Chapter 1
50 years later
Crage Hall. Shiz.
The exhausting first semester came to a long awaited end. Though finals weren't over yet, Galinda Arduenna Upland of the upper Uplands couldn't care less. She was waiting for her special day with gleeful anticipation. Her 18th birthday was about to come and she was busy making sure that nobody would forget about it. She had planned her party long ago, and had invited all her new, wealthy friends from her first semester at Crage Hall. Of course, the festivities would take place at her colossal mansion in Frottica. The blonde spent her time thinking about every little detail: There would be a big and glamorous ball with lots of marriageable young men. Her ball gown would be the most beautiful, making her the most beautiful girl in all of Oz. She would walk down the stairs like a fairytale princess; everybody would look at her and admire her beauty. Of course, she would act as if she wasn't aware of that fact.
It would be her big day, and nobody was going to destroy it.
With this thought, she looked up from her notebook to the other, less pink side of the room. She definitely wouldn't invite one Elphaba Thropp. It didn't matter if she would be the next Eminent of Munchkinland or not.
The green girl in question was sitting on her plain bed, her nose shoved into an old book about the history of Oz. She had been sitting this way for hours, never moving one bit. Galinda hadn't even seen her use the bathroom once in the past few hours. They had an important test about the Great Drought the next day, which was why the green girl was studying, but Galinda was way too busy with her birthday party plans.
"Pink roses or white ones?" she pondered aloud, sinking into her countless piles of pink cushions.
"What about crepe myrtles?" asked the green girl dubiously, glancing up from her book to look doubtfully at Galinda.
Galinda huffed, annoyed, and sat up. "Creep what?" she asked obliviously, putting her notebook on her nightstand. The green girl didn't speak to her very often, and if she did, it usually wasn't a compliment or something nice. So every time Elphaba dared to speak to her, the Upland girl was more than slightly alarmed.
"The crepe myrtle was the symbol of the Great Drought," Elphaba informed her, amused by the confused look on the blonde's face. "Because it was one of the only flowers which survived without any water."
Though, for a short moment, Galinda tried to think about this, she wasn't able to concentrate long enough to actually form an opinion on this piece of information.
"Oh, whatever. I'll take both," she chirped happily and got up to tell Pfannee and Shenshen about her grand decision.
Elphaba just shook her head, pitying the man who would someday marry this girl, and returned to her studies. Unlike Galinda, Elphaba was perfectly prepared for the upcoming tests. She knew everything she had to know to ensure that she passed and was now going into detail. The green girl was exceedingly interested in the history of Oz and, although she would never admit it, she enjoyed reading ancient Ozian lore about fairies and witches. Witches were nothing special nowadays. Yes, sorcery was taught at Shiz, but still: the real witches, the powerful great witches didn't exist anymore, so it seemed. None of Miss Greyling's students could perform anything more impressive than basic domestic spells. They were able to levitate things and prepare breakfast, but in case of emergency, their magical skills wouldn't help them in any way.
The ancient witches, however, had the power to protect the people of Oz. They used their magic to build houses and grow corn. They made Oz a happy and peaceful land.
The green girl removed her glasses and gently rubbed the sore spot between her eyes. Elphaba Thropp was not one of those who believed in magic. Magic existed, nobody could deny that, but it was merely a trifling matter, and nothing people should waste their time with. In her humble opinion, the girls who studied sorcery did it for two simple reasons: to look smart without racking themselves and to party and meet some wealthy future husband. To corroborate this theory, one must simply look at Galinda Upland, who was the perfect example.
Chuckling quietly to herself, Elphaba went to the bathroom to prepare herself for the night. She had started to study very early in the day, so she was quite tired. Her roommate was still out and about, breaking the curfew again, when Elphaba reentered the dorm room. Though she somehow pitied Galinda whenever she sobbed herself to sleep after she got a bad mark, she still wanted to see when the blonde airhead finally realized the connection between studying and good grades.
