In which Elphaba attempts to dream
It was at the pub one evening a few weeks in to the new term and after the fifth bottle of wine for the table (not very coincidentally about the time the conversation tended to drift from worthy political and philosophical concerns to the more mundane) that the subject of dreaming came up. Everyone still felt very philosophical, it was just that their arguments carried less weight and were considerably more slurred.
Avaric revealed he had dreamt of the perfect new shirt he was now intent on finding, truly believing it to exist in the physical realm. Nessa horrified rather than entertained the group with her latest near-apocalyptic visions of fire and brimstone, a tendency towards which only Elphaba had been aware of. Crope and Tibbett both claimed at least that their dreams were too saucy for the public though Elphaba teased them for dreaming of little more than shopping lists and just tarting it up in order to be interesting. Whenever Fiyero remembered dreams they were of home.
"I remember one last week," Glinda was saying. "I was shopping in the Emerald City even though I had stepped out of the dorm at Crage Hall. And my mother was there but then she left, or just turned in to Madame Morrible because then she was there too."
Poor Glinda was met with a selection of underwhelmed faces. Elphaba looked slightly more sympathetic but little did Glinda know she was just preoccupied figuring out her own response.
"Wow, Miss Glinda, that was... scintillating..." Crope scraped the barrel of humour.
"I don't think dreams have to be scintillating, they are a psychological tool for dealing with our everyday lives." Glinda considered, too late, that this statement may have betrayed a prior interest in the subject.
It also prompted a disjointed rabble of opinion and conjecture to break out amongst the group.
Outnumbered Glinda silently beseeched with widening eyes for Elphaba to help her, but Elphaba seemed determined to stay out of it.
"Elphie! What do you think?" Glinda had to resort to a direct plea.
Appearing to steel herself to enter the fray Elphaba said "I don't know. I don't dream."
Despite the gallant rescue Glinda was the first to turn on her. "You do, everyone does. You just don't remember them."
"I assure you, Miss Glinda." Elphaba said very deliberately. "I do not dream."
"You know they say psychopaths don't dream. Or rather, that Glinda is correct and they do dream but their dreams are so terrible they cannot be remembered." Tibbett offered helpfully.
Elphaba did not find it helpful. "I'm sorry, Master Tibbett, are you implying that I am a psychopath? I would have thought that were a dangerous thing to say... to a psychopath."
Glinda had not been entirely – or at all – truthful in the subject matter and frequency of her dreams, not feeling it necessary to inform the group – and one particular person – of the dominance of her subconscious hours by one Elphaba Thropp.
Last night, for instance, Glinda had a delightful encounter with Elphaba in a flower meadow.
Regularly she returned to Caprice in the Pines at Lake Chorge, her first summer at Shiz. It pulled her there with the gently tugging reminder that this is where things really started to change. In her dreams she could save herself well over a year and counting of time and just barrel straight in to Elphaba as she appeared by the lake house, knocking her down with kisses.
If not there then it were somewhere else, some time else connected with Elphaba. The day they first met, the day they first really spoke, the closeness they had built. That damn orange hat where in her dreams Elphie's reflection walked through the window and held her. Or some future time, a tantalising glimpse of happiness and contentment in Elphie's arms.
None of this bothered Glinda, not any more. At first, yes, it had. These dreams had been one of the first manifestations of her growing interest in Elphie, as friends and then as something more. They had been unwelcome in their surprise and intensity. However now she was more than happy to find that after dedicating all her waking hours to the quiet and covert study and adoration of Elphaba this would continue with such delightful homework. She was more than happy to be continually surrounded. Ridiculously more than happy.
So prompted by entirely selfish motivations Glinda decided to make Elphaba's dreamscape a project. The girl needed an injection of imagination and Glinda really needed to know what went on in that head after hours.
Glinda installed a notebook on Elphaba's bedside table that she was to write her dreams in immediately as she woke so as to better remember them. Elphaba didn't, because as she kept pointing out, she had no dreams to remember.
Glinda took to randomly waking Elphaba throughout the night, to see if she could be disturbed mid-dream. She could not and Elphaba's protests that this was not a failing of Glinda's but because she did not dream fell on deaf ears.
Glinda fed Elphaba cheese before bedtime to provoke nightmares that did not come. Elphaba put this down to the fact that someone who does not dream cannot therefore have nightmares.
Glinda installed a gramophone in their room in strict disobedience of Hall rules and played music all night long to prompt Elphaba's subconscious. Unsurprisingly, Elphaba did not dream.
"As you fall asleep you should try -" Glinda was cut off by Elphaba's groan.
"Please, Lurline, Glinda, enough. I do not dream. I have had enough of being Test Subject Thropp. You're not making me dream, you're just disturbing my rest."
Glinda narrowed her eyes at her friend, she was not convinced. "You should try," she continued firmly, "telling yourself a story or acting a play as you fall asleep. To jump-start it. Maybe when you do fall asleep it will continue."
"And what do you suggest I try to dream about? You know I have very little imagination."
"I don't think that matters. Just... replay the day or think about something nice."
That seemed to catch Elphie's attention. "If I could dream I should like a raunchy one, I understand those to be quite fun. Be a darling and put on that terribly short and frilly nightgown of yours, that should put me on the right track. Even if I don't dream I'll have a pleasant few minutes before I drop off." Elphaba grinned wickedly.
Glinda just gave a disapproving look that couldn't quite keep out a smile. She did not deign such blatant naughtiness with a reply, mostly because she wasn't sure she could muster her voice to more than a squeak.
Talk of dreams was suspended for some time, for all parties to recover their modesty.
In the opposite of the intended effect Glinda started having dreams about herself in short and frilly nightgowns and Elphaba in no nightgown at all.
One morning the next week Elphaba woke to find Glinda sat on her bed staring intently at her. "Gracious, Glinda!" She exclaimed in shock. "What on earth are you doing? Is something wrong?" Her mind swung frantically to concern.
"No," Glinda said, a puzzled little look on her face. "I've just been watching you sleep."
Elphaba propped herself up on an elbow. "Not this again. I thought we had let this go?"
"The thing is, when you sleep you go through sleep cycles."
Elphaba gave Glinda a cynical look.
"Yes, I have been to the library, contain your surprise. And one of these cycles is the dream cycle. You know REM? Rapid eye movement? You don't do it."
"Because I don't dream."
"Yes," Glinda said bluntly, not quite believing it.
Elphaba reached behind her to grasp something and then hit Glinda square on the head with her pillow. "I told you that weeks ago!"
