(AN: Bleh, don't know what to say. Just enjoy this chapter...if that's possible)

(I had planned what happened back in The Witch's Saga. I knew she wasn't dead, but had to ease our readers into it to build suspense. It also leaves the possibility for other plot-bunnies, as you shall soon see [alliteration ftw] in this chapter!)


Of Glass and Life

"Did we ever leave?" Fiyero asked, looking about the room they were now in.

It was the exact same one they had escaped from when they were first here in Worms. The room hadn't changed, and they were here once again, three friends.

But it wasn't the same as before. Instead of Glinda, the friend was Elphaba's sister Nessarose. So much had happened since that one moment, it all seemed so unreal.

Just then, the door creaked open. Elphaba almost leaped off the bed and smothered Glinda with her arms.

"It's good to see me, isn't it?" she asked.

Elphaba was too busy sobbing, squeezing and even kissing Glinda's cheek to make a response.

"Elphie, are you alright?" Glinda asked, pushing the green woman off her. She nodded in reply, too shaken up to say anything.

"Oh, Elphie," Glinda laughed. "You're acting as if I've died!"

"Glinda, you silly thing!" Elphaba cried, throwing her arms back around Glinda's neck.

"Whoa," she said. "You've never been this emotional, Elphie. Is everything alright?" She then pulled herself out of Elphaba's grasp and took a look down.

"Oh, sweet Oz!"

"Wait a minute!" Fiyero interjected. "You know about this, didn't Gandalf tell us all that one time at..."

Glinda nodded. "But, oh, Elphie! This is so spendiforous!" She hugged again, then suddenly pulled away, a gasp on her lips.

"Nessarose?" she asked, looking at the quite-forgotten woman with reddish-brown hair. "E-Elphie, what happened? I thought she was..."

"Glinda," Elphaba returned. "We have a lot to talk about, you and I."

Nessarose began by speaking of her story, and how she had been turned into a horse and come into their care.

"I knew there was something oddified about that horse," Glinda said. "I just never believed..." She sighed, a smile on her face. "But I guess that's appropriate."

"What do you mean?" Nessa asked out of shock. "You have no idea what happened to me!"

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that!" Glinda apologized.

"What I would like to know, Glinda," Elphaba said. "Is what happened to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You escaped this castle and found your way to us!" Elphaba said.

"No I didn't," she returned. "I've been here all this time."

"Elphaba's right," Fiyero said. "You've been with us since Fire-Hill."

"What? I-I haven't the foggiest idea what you..."

"You were there with us!" Elphaba nigh shouted. "You slew the Chancellor, he..." She sobbed. "He hurt you! Don't you remember Oz? Everything we went through together? The Ozma? Shiz? Daisy? Azalea?"

"Me getting shot." Fiyero added. "I'll never forget that!" He rubbed his side, where an old crossbow bolt had been removed in Oz of the past.

Glinda was looking rather surprised at all this, then looked down at her hands. For a brief moment, a look of surprise and confusion was on her face, then one of fear.

"Elphie," she whispered. "I need your help!"

"What do you mean?"

"I..." she hesitated. "What I mean is that...Well, I know that I've never left the castle of Worms." She turned to the other three; they were like family to her, more so than Quelala and Gaylette Upland, back in the Upper Uplands of Gilikin, so far away...

"But I'm not so sure anymore."

"Explain."

"I've been having these dreams," she said, a hand resting on her pale temple. "I see...strange things. Worlds made of glass, of fire, of sand, forests of metal and wheels, and..." She sighed. "And Oz."

"Oz?"

"Well," she stated. "Two different dreams, but they both had to do with Oz. One, I'm in Quadling and everyone is coming to me for advice, for help with their problems. There's an Ozma back in Oz, and the Wizard has returned..." She paused, trying to consider all of this.

"And the third?" Nessa asked.

Glinda turned back to her friends.

"In the third dream," she began. "I'm in Oz again, but it's cold, harsh, so very different from the Oz we knew, much older, or maybe much younger...more...uncivilized. There's an Ozma in Oz, but the Wizard is not there...only a giant man, with red eyes..." She shuddered. "He knows I'm there, he speaks to me, calls out to me in my dreams."

"Were we there?" Elphaba asked.

Glinda nodded vigorously. Her hair seemed so strange, the braids jostling lazily with the shaking of her head: not at all like the bouncing curls.

"You and Fif...Fiyero," she finished. "But there was a horse as well."

"A black one?" Nessa asked.

"Yes." Glinda nodded again.

"It was me."

Glinda wrapped her arms around her shoulders, looking quite cold. And that even though she was clad as most of the women in the castle were.

"Glinda, what's wrong?" Elphaba asked.

"I...I don't know!" she fearfully whispered. "Every time I have those dreams, I-I get so cold, so weak! I feel so drained, as if I'm just half of myself!" Elphaba sat down beside her and placed her arm around Glinda's shoulder. She stopped shivering so violently.

"Thanks."

"It's the least I can do for my best friend."


Several days passed. They were still officially guests at King Gjuki's castle, yet they were not allowed to leave. Guards were posted outside their door, and they were allowed no visitors other than Glinda and Gudrun.

One afternoon, Glinda and Elphaba were looking out the window of the green woman's room.

"Do you have it with you?" the blond asked.

"What?"

"The Grimmerie!"

Elphaba reached into her bag and presented it, having been quite forgotten ever since...Oz.

"Fiyero kept it safe," she said. Glinda took it from her hands.

"You've been reading?"

Glinda nodded.

"But you didn't have it with you," Elphaba said. "The..." It seemed so odd, yet what other explanation could there be?

"The other Glinda had the book, she gave it to me." She looked the Grimmerie over carefully. "Is this a fake?"

"No," Glinda shook her head. "It's real enough. I sent that one to you for safe-keeping. You wouldn't believe it, one of these friar-people wanted to burn it!"

"We can't have that happen," Elphaba shook her head, leaning the book upon her knees. Just then, Glinda noticed her hand slide down to her side.

"Elphie, what is it?"

"Nothing," the green woman lied. "Just back aches."

"That wasn't your back, Elphie. Are you..." She gasped.

"No, it's nothing." Elphaba shook her head. "It's gone now."

Glinda kept her eyes trained on Elphaba, watching for any other suspicious behavior.

"How did you know, by the way?" Elphaba asked.

"What?"

"You said you've been here all this time," the green woman astutely deduced. "Yet you somehow know that there was another Glinda..."

"Why would you say that?" Glinda asked suspiciously.

"Because you told me that you sent this to me," she tapped the Grimmerie with her green fingers. "For safe-keeping. Yet you've said that you never left Worms."

"Elphie, I don't want to talk about this."

"Why not?"

"Why do you want to talk about it, Elphie? It doesn't matter anymore!"

"Oh, I think it does matter!" Elphaba's voice rose. "I think I have the right to know why my best friend let me think she had died when she was actually alive!"

"Hurts, doesn't it?"

Elphaba rose to her feet, taking a step back from Glinda. It didn't seem like she was even looking at the same person she knew and loved.

"What, did you think you could get away with that?" Glinda returned, rising up to her feet, staring the green woman down. "All the worrying, all the sleepless nights, all the tears - did you really think you could just show up and wish that all away?" Elphaba saw an angry look in the little blond's eyes, like the reflection of a fire in the hall of glass mirrors.

"No one is above retribution, Elphaba Thropp, not even you!"

At that moment, Elphaba saw stars and suddenly her whole world was black. Pain stabbed at her from all sides, but with no light, she could not see who or what was attacking her or causing the pain. Suddenly the darkness was banished and she found herself back in Shiz. The light was there, beaming out for everyone to notice her - but it was not as she had seen it before. For every light, the darkness is always there: no matter how bright the light, there must always be a darkness.

The years passed by like a swift breeze, all the while the light grew stronger while the darkness grew faint and dim, though not wholly vanquished. It seemed to be in check, the power of the light overcoming the darkness that possessed it. The light had moved from the halls of Shiz, out of the Land of Oz all-together, and was once again in the dark world of Midgard. The light had turned to glass and shattered in four pieces. The light was faded, made less; the darkness now had precedence. Two of the pieces of glass were still bright with the memory of the light, but the last two gave Elphaba reason for alarm.

One of the pieces of glass seemed wrapped in a conflict against the light and the darkness. Neither seemed to gain the upper hand. The last piece, however, was wholly consumed by the darkness.


Glinda's anger dissipated like a sudden burst of spring rain. The green thing had collapsed to the ground, and she was the only one there. With fear in her heart, she knelt down at Elphaba's side and lifted her head into her arms. Nothing, no response came from her. She looked around, for some kind of sign of attack or injury that might have caused Elphaba to faint. A dark stain she saw upon the floor, though it was not like the ugly, dark crimson of blood.

More like water.

"Oh, sweet Oz!" she breathed.


It was many hours after mid-day. The night had long since fallen upon the city of Worms. In her room, the only room they had, Elphaba was quite shut away. With her was her sister Nessarose, Glinda, Gudrun, and a mid-wife that Gudrun had managed to procure. Outside the room, Fiyero paced before the guards, wracked with nervous anticipation. All he could hear were screams coming from the room, and it tortured his heart to hear her cry out as such...

And not be able to help her.

He had remained here since Elphaba had been taken away into the room: around one o'clock. It was almost midnight. His body screamed at him, in a horrifying and dissonant harmony with Elphaba's cries: he had to sleep. But he would not, nay could not let himself sleep. He had to see this through. Even in Oz, in Gilikin high society, still-births happened. But even worse, they were not even in Oz anymore. The way these people lived made even the poorest, most ignorant Munchkin's living quarters look like a mansion, a paragon of cleanliness and virtue.

"They are in the hands of the LORD," a holy man, one of the friars who stood at the door with Fiyero, said to him. "The woman and her child."

That seemed to be the only answer that made sense. Maybe that's how it worked: when the world and all that was in it had failed them, the One who they had forsaken was always there, ready to welcome them, no matter what they had done.

The doors opened.

"What is the time?" the mid-wife asked.

"Two minutes to midnight!" the friar said.

The mid-wife turned to Fiyero. "Come here, prince. Your troll-wife awaits you."

He didn't like that term. But then again, she had seen Elphaba, when nobody else had. Even the King and Queen had not seen her as she was now, outside of her shrouds. He knew that the hurtful names would come, but so soon? It seemed to add insult to this tense moment.

Fiyero followed the mid-wife into their room. Two of the maids she had brought with her were washing blood-stained sheets. Next to the bed knelt Nessarose, looking quite disheveled, her reddish-brown hair falling out of its bun and hanging wildly around her head. Glinda was at the other side. There was no sign of Gudrun.

In the bed he saw Elphaba, her green skin glistening with sweat. Her hair was lying loose and matted about her head, drenched in the same sweat that was upon her head. In her arms was a bundle of clothes. Fiyero's heart skipped a beat.

"It's a boy." she said. Fiyero had never seen Elphaba seem so...lovingly.

In the bundle that was nestled in Elphaba's green arms, he saw a cute little face with bulging eyes hidden beneath heavy lids. A smile split Fiyero's face as he saw the little thing, so much of himself upon that tiny face.

A tear streaked down his face.


Glinda was quite happy. Hours upon hours of fear and anxiety and pain were finally over. She had grown especially fearful when the mid-wife appeared. She almost balked at seeing Elphaba and her green skin. Glinda thought she heard the mid-wife whisper instructions to her maid-servants as they entered the room.

"If that brat-ling looks anything like the mother, kill it. We don't need a changeling in our midst."

What did this mean? Whatever it meant, Glinda was fearful of whatever might happen. At finally two minutes before midnight, the deed was done. The bloody being was finally pushed out from between Elphaba's legs, and almost nine months of turmoil were over.

She noticed that Gudrun had finally left the room, walking out to the balcony of the room. Glinda waited until Fiyero and Elphaba were in each other's arms, with Nessa looking with love at the little baby. She walked out to the balcony, following Gudrun. She was humming a tune, then broke out into words in her native tongue...

Mondlicht, Sie halten mich nachts sicher
Und ich weiß, dass du hier bist, wenn ich falle

She turned around to see her young friend walking up to where she stood.

"Sorry," Gudrun blushed. "It's an old song about love and change. It's just so strange, to me, how the ways of the world change. Your friends, they're so young, yet they're already father and mother to a child. One day, they will be much older, as old as my parents, and that babe will be a man someday."

It was enough to make Glinda's head spin, just thinking about all of this.

All of what had transpired between her and Elphaba seemed totally forgotten in the midst of this new development, the birth of this healthy young boy.


(AN: I've had trouble getting to writing anything, but I hope this is working for you.)

(The words are the chorus from the song "Leaves Eyes" by Leaves Eyes. It's quite lovely, and it seemed to fit with what happened in this story.)

(A little tension, but that also is intentional. It's significant for what will happen later on, I assure you. If you can guess what I've been dropping hints about through this and the last chapter [as well as throughout The Witch's Saga], I will dispense virtual sweets of your choice!)