Elphaba felt her eyes fill with tears again as she burst through the underbrush.
She had forsaken any inclination towards roads or even the trodden paths of animals a long time ago.
Stringing her whole being out onto the whisperings of the wind that talked so incessantly to her, she drew her direction blindly from the senses that were unknown to most of mortal man and womankind.
Ever since that talk with the Wizard, the undefined feeling of urgency in her had finally taken shape, had acquired substance and had grown greater, by the day.
By the hour.
She could feel… Glinda..could feel her presence in the muddled world of magic..could feel her grow and sway..
And waver.
It was like a shining beacon of light.
Upon which darkness was encroaching.
And it had begun to flicker.
Elphaba thought that she could feel the blonde's desperation..her fatigue, even.
But maybe she was mistaken, and those were just her own.
The muscles of her legs screamed at her..
And her arms and her back..
She carried baby cradled to her torso, to better shield her from the vicious branches that so freely tore at her own clothes and face.
By now,the witch's whole upper body had begun to form an iron mass..clenching in on itself from sheer exhaustion.
Only Nessa was calm.
The girl was confused a little by the rapid succession of new impressions she did not have the time to comprehend, but sensing the great haste and determination of the woman under whose heart she had resided for so many months, the infant hardly stirred.
Elphaba however, was ready to cry with rage.
She could not say for how long she had stormed on like this, if day and night had passed, and if, how many of them, but she knew, that she simply would not be able to go on much longer..and especially faster..
Time was running out..
But she could not spur herself on to greater speed..rather to the contrary.
The landscape, which had subtly changed, bore an increasing amount of familiar marks, and the green witch gnashed her teeth in frustration.
These were the forests she had traversed during her rogue times.
They were hard to manouevre and very dark.
Unwelcome places, forbidding..and therefore perfect hiding grounds for the liberated Animals, and herself.
She had learned to live off of the freely given gifts of an environment, in which she found she had to do very little to camouflage herself.
But right now, there simply wasn't the time for snatching berries, finding mushrooms or cooking roots and cabbages.
These forests were still days away from where she needed to so desperately go.
And they were taunting her..taunting with their familiarity..it was as though they dangled the Emerald City before her eyes..just to keep it out of her reach.
Elphaba cursed under her breath, as she stumbled yet again..a habit that had increased in frequency in the past hours.
Looking at the small head in her arms made a wave of guilt immediately wash over her at her crude words.
She briefly wondered what kind of vocabulary the little girl would exhibit during her first tries at spoken language.
Shaking her head at herself, she pushed on, only to stumble again.
Only to curse at herself again, loudly.
Pausing briefly to gather herself, she really couldn't afford herself to fall while carrying the baby, Elphaba suddenly became aware of eyes following her.
Pretending not to notice that she was being watched, she stumbled on.
Her ears were perked for sounds behind her and her senses whetted for danger.
But a good half an hour of great tension passed by uneventfully, when the young woman was sure that she was pursued.
And that the pursuer was by him or herself.
Blindly fumbling in the pocket of her dress Elphaba grabbed her makeup and drew her hand through the soft powder.
Blindly smearing it over her face to obscure any green that might have gotten smudged off of her face by the incessant scratching of the insolent branches, the witch got ready to face her mysterious stalker.
She turned around midstride in the hope of catching him unawares.
But her eyes were only met by the endless and quite empty green of the canopy the leaves provided.
A soft whirring of feathers attracted her attention to a tree branch above her line of sight.
She was not sure at first whether her eyes had gotten confused by the monotony of green and brown, but the bird seemed huge.
Cocking an eyebrow at her, the Owl screeched.
Elphaba drew her eyebrows together in thought.
She was sure that she had never met the Owl before..and it obviously didn't talk..but it unmistakenly addressed her.
There was an intense look in its eyes, almost as though it meant to burn its meaning into her head by telepathy, which only confused her even more.
Considering her a moment longer, and finally laying its eyes on the sleeping young one on her arm, the giant bird finally opted to speak.
"Coooome.." it said in its characteristic, dark call that echoed through the woods at night.
But Elphaba understood him well enough.
She strained to quickly hurry on on her own unmarked path, but the Owl only cocked its eyebrow at her again before blinking a few times in irritation and flying off to lead the way.
The green skinned witch followed it quietly and swiftly through even deeper bouts of underbrush.