Disclaimer: Mmm, do I own Wicked? Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe on weekends...

Note: You know what I love more than playing the role of a prostitute named Clementine Burns in my own play? Updating. Here yeh go.

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The very height of injustice was reached on a chilly, cloudless afternoon in a quaint classroom of Shiz University's literature department, and five girls were bursting to verbalize the very conviction. And yet, the brawn of authority was enough so to subdue each into silence likening that of a mouth sewn shut. They sat at four opposite corners of the room, the muffled sounds of complaining was quiet and did not travel across the high walls of cascade about the ceiling, although every few minutes, Professor Granovetter would raise his great deformity of a jutting brow to scan the girls inquisitively.

Galinda Arduenna sat nearest to the entrance, captivated in a great fantasy of escape, although the plan was not so diabolical. It was simply to scuttle away with intention to tend to her lacerated pride while Granovetter was busy marking papers and sipping from a large cauldron of tea. She sat slovenly in her seat in order to properly cross her legs beneath the adjacent desk, surprisingly too short for her knees, and twirled chunks of yellow curls between her fingers boredly.

At the other side of the room, Miss Shenshen sat with poised shoulders and a lowered head, perhaps in disgrace or slumber. Miss Milla sat near the front, evidentially fiddling with the material of her skirts and casting helpless looks back and forth like an athletic ball from one girl behind her to the next. A Gillikinese stranger Galinda had acquainted only the previous day was lolling her head from one open palm to the next with her elbows propped against the desk top, her magnificent rose and eggplant coloured skirts spilling from the back of her chair to expose an amount of ankle just shy of rudely.

It had been one of the many threats for detention, yet the first exploitation of one, with which the blonde found highly dishonourable for a teacher of literature; for what other use did literature possess than to preoccupy the dreary and aid those with memory loss?

Apparently, it also kept Galinda from lunch, which would have been her first meal of two days anyhow. The night before was spent in such good jest that the girl stayed up a blasphemous amount of time past curfew and slept in, scrambling for her first lecture while Miss Elphaba arrived from her second, barely casting so much as a glance to her flustered roommate. What's more, her rushed thoughts forgot to remind Galinda of the increasingly unfavourable temperature.

The others were adorned in petticoats, while the blonde refused to clutch herself by the shoulders, as one did when forced to sit in a cool, concrete entrapment and become consequently chilled to the bone. When a great thumping came at the closed door, Galinda let a spastic shuddering shiver snake down her body with an excuse of being startled, even if there came only two thumps, enough to indicate presence, yet not demand it; it was certainly the consequence of bringing a hard fist down upon the reinforced entrance.

Professor Granovetter wordlessly, without so much as a glance, pointed to the Frottican who sat closest to the doorway, indicating that it be her who connected them to an outside afternoon they had been depraved of for an hour and counting. Obviously, this man was pious when it came to literature.

The blonde did not see her queue to jump from her seat, having been concentrating on the ground. "Miss Arduenna," he boomed suddenly, still staring deeply into his cluttered desk, either preoccupied or attempting to conceal his Neanderthal-esque brow. "I would be much obliged if you would remove your skirts from your chair and see to the door."

With all eyes on her, the blonde nodded and shivered, scuttling towards the door and rattling its knobs as chilled fingers were apt to do upon cold metal. Outside, the unenthusiastic sun beat down upon Galinda's nose, sending a burst of warmth on her front, and reminding the girl that drastic changes in heat often burdened her with headaches.

Yet, she stood in the doorway and met eyes with no one, for the knocker had surrendered to an unmoving barricade and left, or was simply a prankster. The former proved appropriate, as Galinda looked down just in time to save a bright red apple from being trampled upon. It was placed neatly on a parchment, so as not to taint its flesh, which shone in the afternoon light like a ruby large enough to drive her father into impoverishment. The apple proved the fantasy ruby's equal in value to the girl, her stomach responding in a nasal whine. She looked around uncomfortably and retrieved it, the ripe fruit temperate beneath her fingers, begging her to be hasty and take a bite.

"Why are you so immobile child?" came Granovetter's gravelly voice. He had looked up from his work, accompanied by the stares of her fellow prisoners, so she pocketed the apple and turned around to face them.

"I thought perhaps that my shoe required buckling," she shrugged, handling the door and bringing it back to its socket.

The professor nodded severely. "The very epitome of survival. Sit."

And there the girls stayed for another prevailing hour, time dragging on by each clock-tick, which seemed to consume all of five regular clock-ticks that occurred outside the room. Galinda thumbed the fruit inside her pocket, not daring take a bite and render herself guilty; of what, she was not informed. She imagined its glowing colour, the juice within it spilling into her mouth once she took a bite.
Remaining, though, was who had set the apple down. Was it initially meant for Galinda? A rational explanation was that a student or faculty member was meant to deliver, and simply left it upon the doorstep with more productive activities to attend to. And yet, there was a lingering familiarity of those two abrupt knocks; the two which indicated an arm tightly wound, a brisk walk and unsmiling face.

By the time Galinda had arrived to Crage Hall was evening, having attended her last class of the day, shamed that the one in between was missed on account of her own foolishness. She had eaten the apple there, its succulent sweet scent and fresh taste enough to send her into throes of joy. Nevertheless, she ate it slowly.

Miss Milla had thrown her back against the wall as though the green girl were infectious, waiting until Elphaba had passed them before passing a snide remark. Galinda had kept walking, not noticing her roommate until Milla's back practically cracked the wall's plaster. Their eyes met, and Galinda could detect traces of sweat at her dark hairline, the whites of her eyes veined red, clearly dry from one thing or another.

When Galinda walked in the door, she was invaded by the pleasantry of a recently extinguished fire, one that must have been raging in the hearth for a while to have stewed such a lovely feeling in the girl once frozen. She slept exceptionally well, but Elphaba tossed constantly for the thin burns which tormented where sweat had pooled earlier, regretting her act of kindness with the resolve that kindness was defeating.

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It's a tad long and dialogueless for a drabble, I know, but it seemed necessary in respect to character analyzation. The dialogue and wit will return soon, just bear with it. In the meanwhile, how'd it go?