AN: Sorry for the wait, everyone--my life has been all kinds of crazy. It doesn't look to clear up soon either, but rest assured, I won't forget about you, and the story will be updated as soon as I can get chapters ready. Working slowly but steadily.

To my reviewers--you all rock. As always, feedback of any nature is well appreciated.

Btw I've had some notes on my pacing--I'll say it's kind of working at its own pace, which at times is slower and at times faster than I anticipated, but hopefully it works best for the story. Hopefully it also works for readers, but hey it really belongs to the characters right?^_^ The chapters, now that the plot is going, are still actually shorter than I had initially thought they'd be, but to be truthful this story feels more like writing microfiction in a series than it does like writing long fiction--high in feeling and sensory, and every word counts. (Now I'm going on a tangent about my process, and no one wants to hear that rambling!)

Hope you enjoy this chapter. I'll have the next up as soon as it's written and polished enough to be posted. I have a solid idea of where I'm going, but again noting that the story has its own way of pacing, will have to see if it manifests next update or later.^_^;

When Glinda came upon her, Elphaba was frantic. "What's happened?" The blonde stepped forward, taking hold of her friend's hand.

"Nothing. I'm writing a decree. Would you… read it? I'm not sure it's properly phrased." The witch perspired with excitement.

Glinda partially stifled her laugh. "Me? Read over your work, like a school essay? Surely you remember my marks back at Shiz."

"You've more experience than I have. In these matters." Elphaba handed over the document with gentle care. Glinda accepted and looked up at her, questioningly. "I want to free the Animals and the others who were incarcerated only for holding to their individuality against the Wizard. Glinda, can you get me the transcripts for all the trials he held?"

The blonde sighed, touching her forehead. "I doubt most of your dissenters were given fair trial."

"Surely some can be—"

"Elphaba, what will you do? Throw open the floodgates? There will be no weeding the freedom fighters from the common criminals."

Fire flashed in the green woman's eyes. "Then we should abandon them?"

"We should do what we must!" Glinda regretted, somewhat, the chill in her words. But she had not ruled a year in vain. She had come to weather the political hurricane and had learned very well how to manage its winds. Compassion was one thing, sympathy quite separate. "Elphie, it's best that you care—if you did not, I would fear for our future. But you cannot singlehandedly right all wrongs. The system, the world, must work at its pace. And healing takes time."

Elphaba turned away, her eyes darkening. "Then what should I do?" she asked in a low voice. "In Your Grace's personal opinion."

Glinda brushed away the cut to her pride with a practiced patience. "Turn a wheel too sharply, the axel will break. A skilled driver guides with a gentle hand."

The witch laughed, a quiet puff of breath, accompanied by a smirk. "When did you become so philosophic?"

"I have become many things," Glinda said.

"And you're all right with this?" Elphaba's eyes pleaded, feared.

"Of course not. But we must work within the system, mustn't we?" Glinda looked down and back up at her friend. "Would you still like me to read over the document?"

Elphaba took the pages back, grasping Glinda's wrist with a soft pressure as she did so. "I think I'd like to rewrite it."

The blonde nodded and drew back. "I'll leave you be. And I'll bring the transcripts as soon as I can manage."

"Glinda," Elphaba called after her as she turned. But whatever she had wished to say, she changed her mind. Silently, the witch nodded, and Glinda departed without another word or glance.

OZ

12, the Month of the Gryphon, 22 Post Ozma

I find myself nostalgic. I think of Dr. Dillamond and wish for his advice. I think of Nessarose as a girl, even then selfish and brash, but delighting in life. We once employed an old Pony, Jemny, who taught her to ride in a modified saddle. He passed when she was only nine, and she cried for weeks—I would hold her at night.

What did we want, then? Perhaps only love.

OZ

"I say, Elphie, sometimes it's as though we're back at Shiz again. The two of us, before there was any Wizard involved or anyone knew us."

Elphaba shrugged. "Except that between work, public appearances, and too little sleep, we still hardly so much as see each other."

"Oh, but you were always studying, and I was always shopping or gallivanting with those inane lemmings."

"Your friends?"

The blonde snorted. "They were as much my friends as the bootlicking carrion feeders who've trailed my political career. I just hadn't the wit or experience to see it."

"I miss my inexperience."

"But see, it wasn't so different."

Elphaba shook her head and sighed. "We were different."

Glinda contemplated her friend, tilting her neck for an angled view. The witch did not look up at her. "Nostalgia aside, I suppose I disagree with you—I don't miss my inexperience. Life was more difficult, in its own way, when I knew no better. Some of the choices I might have made… if I'd known then…"

"I never blamed you for your choices," Elphaba said softly.

"But I did."

Drumming her fingers, the witch rose suddenly. "We should go."

Glinda blinked. "Go?"

"Out. I feel I've been inside these walls long enough." She hesitated suddenly. "Is it night or day?"

"Night."

"Of course—or you wouldn't be down here." She presented a hand to Glinda, smiling. "Come."

The blonde laughed, and they ran through the tunnels as though children, racing for the joy of self-produced wind and breathless giggles. The night sky opened above them, clear and starry, an infinite ceiling with no walls.

"Let's fly, Elphie," Glinda pleaded, grasping Elphaba's sleeve and looking longingly to the endless space.

Elphaba laughed, and she offered Glinda the broom. Reaching slowly, breaching years of separation, Glinda took hold of the wood handle, and with a whoop of joy—startling her companion—she mounted. Elphaba in front of her, she wrapped her arms tightly about the green woman's ribs, and they were soaring. The exhilaration was as nothing she'd felt before.

The women heard a scream, and their heads turned to find Chistery, flapping rapidly toward them, belting through his fangs. Two friends laughed, and the monkey circled them. Together, they swept farther and farther from the city, over empty countryside and through abyss of sky.

Glinda's hammering heart pressed into Elphaba's back. She rested her cheek against the witch's shoulder and gazed down at Oz below, green with life even in the dark. They slowed to a glide, and Glinda savored the breeze, drank it. She was tempted to laugh but did not want to rupture the silent serenity.

Elphaba turned to look back at her friend. They hovered, suspended. Glinda's arms loosened about Elphaba's ribs. Under the hypnotic gaze of deep brown, she felt soft, gentle lips and did not think.

Without warning, a furry hand grabbed the shaft of the broom and swung, treating it as a stationary tree limb. Elphaba, who was used to Chistery's aerial shenanigans, tucked with the broom's sway into a spin. Momentum carried broom and witches through a full barrel roll. However Glinda's balance, thrown, did not right with Elphaba's, and with a scream she tumbled from the side.

The shift of weight carried Elphaba over again, and she too fell, though with both hands tightly clamped to the broom's handle—and she hung. She called out her friend's name, in a panic, but Glinda's cry of terror had been short-lived, for Chistery had caught her not twelve feet below.

The witch sighed. With a pull and a swing of her leg, she reseated herself on the broom and drifted down to retrieve the rattled blonde.

"Catch," Chistery said as he cradled her trembling form.

Glinda reached her arms about Elphaba again for the support, but she did not sit as surely as she had. "I'm starting to think I'd be better off taking my bubble from now on."

"And if anyone saw you," said Elphaba, "there'd be an admiring crowd wherever you tried to land."

"And if they see you?"

"Maybe it's time to return."

Glinda held tightly to Elphaba. She shivered, not from cold, and breathed in the silence.