A/N: Here we are: Chapter 10 at long last! I hope the plot's moving coherently enough so far, and I hope you enjoy! So, read and review ladies and gentlemen, and as always, constructive criticism is welcome!

Disclaimer: I do not own Wicked or Oz, and never will, etc...

Glinda was just about ready to collapse by the time she and her bodyguard had arrived at her new room: quite apart from the long walk from the dungeons to the guest chambers, she was still feeling battered and worn out from the previous evening's fighting. The fact that the only sleep she'd had since then had been magically-induced didn't help much.

All she wanted to do at that stage was to lie in bed, with the covers pulled as far over her head as they could go, and forget that the last few days had ever happened. And when she saw the luxurious apartment that the Nomes had prepared for her, the desire for sleep became almost overpowering: everything in the room had been selected for comfort, from the enormous four-poster bed to the ridiculously cushioned chair. Even the carpet looked thick enough to sleep on.

There were only two things stopping her from climbing into bed and dozing off at that moment: the first was the question of where the Nomes had gotten the furniture from. From what little she'd seen of them, the Nomes didn't seem to require much in the way of creature comforts, and if they did, it didn't seem likely that said comforts would match the average Ozians. So, either they'd simply purchased them through perfectly legitimate trade, or Glinda was honestly entertaining the idea of sleeping in a bed that had been looted by the Nome invaders. Probably dragged out of the house while the owner was bleeding his last on the ground outside, she thought wretchedly.

The other thing keeping her awake at that point was the question of where the Nomes had taken the Grimmerie; but as Glinda looked across the room, she found it sitting on the mahogany desk across from the bed. A scrap of parchment had been left on the cover, presumably for her to find; all it read was "Good luck in your studies." Glinda sighed, sat down heavily in the chair with the Grimmerie open in her lap, and wondered where or how she was supposed to begin.

She'd heard the Nome King's request: it was utterly insane, and more to the point, she likely wouldn't even be the first in line to make his wish come true. She was an understudy, emergency backup, a safety net in place to make sure that the whole plan didn't go tumbling to its doom the moment the first option failed... whatever the first option was, anyway. But what if she was to carry out the final stage in his plan? Would she have learned all she'd need to know by then? She'd certainly have to step up her studies and work like mad if she ever hoped to make the deadline.

It'll be worth it, she told herself, it'll be worth it.

From behind her, there emerged a strange rumbling sound; she turned in her seat, and realised that it was the Bodyguard gently clearing his throat: "If you would pardon the interruption, Miss Glinda... His Majesty the King entrusted you with the duty of bestowing a name upon me."

Glinda sighed deeply; she didn't want to shout at him, even if he was becoming annoying, even if he was a representative of the King who'd just obliterated the capital of Oz and was carrying out the wholesale destruction of the rest of the country, even if she just wanted to close her eyes and sleep for a hundred years without this stone flunky bleating for favours...

Her annoyance must have shown on her face, because the Bodyguard immediately bowed his head as if in contrition, and said, "If you do not wish to do so immediately, it can be postponed until later..."

"No, it's okay. It's just..." Glinda tried to prioritize all the problems that were facing her at that moment, and eventually settled on, "I don't know any Nome names."

"It does not matter, Miss Glinda. Any name bestowed by authority is good enough."

Glinda thought on this for a moment. It seemed at first that naming this strange character would be the least difficult thing on her growing to-do list, but on closer inspection, it was something of a puzzle. She obviously couldn't just give him any old Ozian name, and giving him the name of a friend would be just plain inappropriate. So, that left descriptive names: what name would adequately describe the Bodyguard?

The word "Bland" swam temptingly through her imagination, and she almost smiled. What could describe him apart from that, though? He wasn't quite as tall as the Nome soldiers, and his build was downright spindly compared to them, but other than that, he wasn't much different from them. What name would work?

With tiredness setting in and running low on ideas, Glinda's mind picked a word out of her memory at random: she didn't know where she'd heard it- maybe it had been at school, maybe it had been overheard on a train somewhere- but she knew it had something to do with stone or rock.

"How about Basalt?" she suggested.

"Basalt," said the Bodyguard, rolling the word in his mouth. "If that is the name you choose to bestow upon me, then I accept it. Thank you, Miss Glinda. Eternal thanks are due." Somehow, the newly-christened Basalt managed to convey gratitude in an otherwise toneless voice.

Glinda's eyelids fluttered; too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours: she'd helped her successor take the throne, she'd been hurled out of a tower, she'd seen the Emerald City fall to an army of stone men, she'd duelled their King and been captured in loosing, she'd been subjected to all manner of strange and terrible revelations, and now that she'd given a name to an emotionless bodyguard, all she wanted was a few hours of natural, uninterrupted sleep before she went back to trying to do the impossible.

She turned to Basalt, who was now asking her if there was anything she needed. "I'd like some time alone before I get to work," she said wearily.

"As you wish, Miss Glinda. Should you require any assistance, simply call my name." And with that, Basalt vanished into the back wall of the room, leaving Glinda alone in her private suite.

Somehow, she thought to herself, I get the feeling that the situation can only get worse from here. But it's all worth it. It's all worth it...

Glinda was still thinking these words when she fell asleep in her chair less than a minute and a half later.

Flying high above what had once been the Land of Oz, Elphaba found herself wondering if Mombi had confessed a little too easily. After all, with the rest of her repulsive "collection" (along with her original head) in danger, wouldn't someone of Mombi's temperament put up more of a fight?

And even more worryingly, Mombi hadn't been too surprised to see Elphaba alive; either Mombi just didn't care that much- which certainly seemed possible- or someone had told her that Elphaba's death had been faked.

But who would have told her? The only person still alive to tell was-

Fiyero.

Fiyero couldn't feel pain anymore, so he certainly wouldn't have said anything if the Nomes had tortured him. But Elphaba had heard of certain esoteric forms of magic that could easily uncover a living being's deepest, darkest secrets, spells that could tear the memories from Fiyero's head and print them on paper- spells that, for all Elphaba knew, the Nome interrogators had in their repertoire. Perhaps, while searching for the kind of state secrets that only the King of Oz would know, the Nomes had accidentally unearthed the truth behind Elphaba's apparent death. So, knowing that she'd eventually try to rescue him, they'd warned Mombi.

In other words, Elphaba was almost certainly heading into a trap.

But what choice do I have? She thought, her psyche bubbling like a cauldron. I can't just leave Fiyero and Glinda in captivity. And besides, what's the alternative? Fly home, try to forget that the Nomes are sweeping across the country, and hope that they don't have me assassinated as a threat to their plans?

She smothered an expletive, and tried to focus her attention on the charred countryside below; she was over Munchkinland now, and she had several hundred miles to fly before she came anywhere near the Nome Dominions. Then again, Elphaba thought darkly, the way these Nomes are claiming territory, I'll be in the Nome Dominions before I leave Oz.

Oddly enough, she'd only caught occasional glimpses of the Nomes on her journey so far, most of them as they were leaving the overturned cities, having finished demolishing the houses and burning the bodies. Every so often, she'd see one or two of them hauling away piles of stolen goods: jewellery, ornaments, furniture, whole libraries of books; all of them dragged away as the departing Nomes burrowed back underground. But whatever they were doing, for whatever reason, they always left... usually just as Elphaba was considering flying down and attacking them.

But there were stranger sights to be seen here, though: unexpectedly, there was a house left intact close to the centre of one of the Munchkin towns. And though it was more or less in one piece, it was somewhat dilapidated. In fact, as Elphaba slowed slightly, she realised that it didn't even have foundations; it was as if someone had just dropped it there.

And someone had, she realised, bringing the broom to a halt; this was the house that Dorothy Gale had arrived in, the house that had crushed Nessarose to death. It was quite obvious why the Munchkins hadn't been interested in moving the house, but why had the Nomes let it be?

Suffocating both her sadness and the unwanted question, Elphaba moved on. As she ascended, she realised that discovery had done her an unexpected favour, for with most of the cities rendered unrecognisable by the invasion, navigating Oz had become somewhat difficult without the aid of a map; now, she had some idea how far she was from the border.

From here on, what was left of the farmland was broken up by an extremely long stretch of forest. Strange; as far as Elphaba could remember, this had once been an orchard of lunchpail trees. But somehow, in the year since Elphaba had last visited, this modest-sized orchard had grown into a forest large enough to cover the next few acres of land. Was this a side-effect of the Nome Invasion? It didn't seem extraordinarily likely, but there weren't too many alternative explanations in store.

As she passed over it, she thought she heard the sound of shouted voices from below; she remembered how she'd seen no people in her journey so far. Perhaps Munchkin refugees were hiding here; it sounded feasible: after all, the Nomes didn't seem to have much interest in destroying Oz's forests. Perhaps the forests of Oz were now becoming havens for fleeing Ozians.

Unfortunately, this meant that, after perhaps seven hours without encountering a single living soul, she was now flying over a group of doubtlessly panicked survivors. And if they were still armed with something that could reach her, that meant-

There was a bang from below.

So, she thought, they still have guns. They obviously didn't do much good against the Nomes, and at the height I'm flying at, they're not much good against me either. She recalled the first time she'd taken flight, when a few guards on the outer walls of the Emerald City had had the presence of mind to actually fire their guns: every single shot they'd fired had missed her then, as well. How little things change.

There were a few other scattered gunshots from below before the forest was plunged back into silence, presumably as they reloaded. Then an arrow shot past Elphaba's head; another thudded into the broom, narrowly missing her left hand. Pausing only to remove the arrow, she put on an extra burst of speed and accelerated away as fast as she could, gaining altitude as she went.

As she ascended to what was hopefully a safe height, Elphaba wondered what the survivors were going to do now that most of Oz had been claimed by the Nomes. Were they amassing arms to try and fight back? If so, what else did they have in their arsenal?

She was still wondering this when something sleek and metallic rocketed out of the canopy and exploded almost right next to her; thankfully, because of the various supplementary enchantments Elphaba had placed on the broom, the explosion didn't kill her, nor was it enough to dislodge her altogether. Unfortunately, it was enough to send the broom spiralling out of control towards the ground. Elphaba swore diabolically and tried to steer up, out of the death-dive, but it didn't take long to realise that while the enchantments had protected her well enough, the broomstick itself had been wrecked in the explosion: the handle was broken almost in two, and the straw bristles were either missing or on fire.

Oh well, she thought absently, as the upper branches of the trees rushed up to meet her, at least I know they have explosive shells at their disposal...

Whispering what protective spells she could, she crashed headlong into the forest; down she flew, barely avoiding head-on collisions with the trunks of trees, just managing to keep the broomstick intact until a particularly sturdy-looking tree branch loomed out of the chaos at around knee height and neatly broke the fractured broom in two. Elphaba dropped at least ten feet to the forest floor and landed in a heap, badly bruised but otherwise unhurt.

She rose, awkwardly, still holding half of the broom, and realised that she was surrounded by a cluster of terrified-looking Munchkins.

Among the traditionally lethal array of guns, crossbows, and farming tools, Elphaba noticed that two of them were holding buckets of water.

What with trying not to laugh, it took a little while for Elphaba to find her voice. "Look," she said, trying not to sound too threatening, "Before you get too carried away, I'm not-"

One of the survivors poked her between the shoulders with his pitchfork. "Sh-shut it," he stammered. "Y-y-y-you just shut it."

"How the hell is she even alive?" hissed another.

"Nevermind that now," said another, who was almost unrecognisable as a Munchkin under the layers of camouflage she wore. "We've at least got something to show for this little scouting expedition; let's get back to the camp before those Nomes start wondering about the noise."

"Agreed," grunted another, hoisting a bewildering array of weaponry and canisters onto his back. "We've only got six of the damn shells left, and I don't have the materials to make more, so let's be off before we have to use any more."

The first of the survivors nodded, raised his pitchfork, and brought it down handle-first on Elphaba's head.

Elphaba was very much annoyed. For all their panic and stammering, the survivors had a very clear idea of what they thought should happen from here on, and it wasn't hard to imagine: immediately after the devastating blow to her head, the Wicked Witch of the West would collapse in a heap; they would drag her back to camp and question her about her part in the invasion, whereupon she would scream and beg for mercy and volunteer every bit of information she had before they'd even started threatening her. One way or the other, she'd tell them how she had led the Nomes in conquering Oz, by what foul magic she had been resurrected, and how to stop her forces from carrying out her ghastly plans. The, being good Ozians they'd show mercy, and because she was the Wicked Witch of the West, she would immediately attack them, and they would have to melt her for the last time with a bucket of water. Then, with the information she had so cowardly volunteered, they would then go on to save all of Oz and be remembered as heroes.

Unfortunately for them, the Wicked Witch didn't quite react as expected:

"Ow! What was that for?" said Elphaba, rubbing the back of her head.

There was an embarrassed pause.

"Well? Aren't we going somewhere?"

"... W-We're supposed to knock you out first," said the first survivor.

"Hitting me on the head like that isn't going to do it! And is there something wrong with just letting me walk there with you?"

The survivors gaped at her, and Elphaba had to fight hard not to laugh; in spite of the situation, she was actually enjoying herself. "Come on!" she said, infusing her voice with a touch of real irritation. "Let's not wait around for the Nomes! Like you said, we don't want to waste anymore of those shells- especially now that you've blasted my broom to smithereens with one of them!"

"Sorry," the third survivor whimpered.

"Don't be sorry!" Elphaba yelled. "Move! You wanted to take me back to the camp, now take me there!"

"What?"

"Move!" she clarified. "Ambulate in the general direction of the camp! You want to get there sometime before the Nomes come and tear us to pieces, right? So let's move!"

Unfortunately, the camp itself was little more than two or three badly-assembled military tents (presumably looted from a local barracks). The few other residents of this camp were naturally horrified to see Elphaba marching boldly down the path, and were only slightly mollified by the presence of their scouting party surrounding her on all sides. A very crowded twenty minutes followed, involving terrified shrieks, angry suggestions on what to do with her, and eventually, screamed insults and epithets.

Elphaba remained stoic throughout; she'd grown used to this sort of thing in the years beforehand.

What surprised her was how few of them were interested in just tossing a bucket of water over her and leaving it at that; perhaps they really did think interrogating her would be the best thing for her.

Before long, the survivors tired of shouting at her, and seemed to remember that she was apparently their prisoner, so they finally took away her satchel of magical items, tied her hands together, and shoved her into one of the tents.

"Welcome to your new home!" one of them spat at her.

To their credit, they were smart enough to have a guard watching her at all times. Unfortunately for them, that guard was armed only with a bucket of water.

Elphaba would have burst out laughing if she wasn't so tired; she'd barely slept the previous evening, and the adrenaline that had powered her through the past few hours was beginning to fade.

She knew that escaping the camp would be relatively easy, even without her satchel. The trick, of course, would be doing so without accidentally killing any of these twits; as much as she resented Ozians for blindly following every bit of propaganda thrown to them, she wasn't prepared to start murdering them all over again. Besides, as firsthand witnesses to the invasion, they might actually have some important information to share.

The next problem would be continuing the journey; with her broom destroyed (her second broom, no less), she'd be crossing the Deadly Desert on foot unless she found another broom to enchant... or something else that might suit her purposes.

But first, she'd wait: she had the journey ahead to plan, she had the eventual attack on the Nome Dominions to prepare for, and a growing headache to try and recover from before she made good on her escape.

So, closing her eyes, she ignored the shouted arguments from the other tents, the crying of babies, and the all-pervading mutter of "We're doomed, we're doomed, we're doomed," and allowed herself to drift off to sleep.