Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and everything you do not.
Author's Note: So… Yeah. Don't know what to say much except for here is Chapter the Thirteenth… I can't believe I'm so far in! I never thought this story would get this far… but I'm definitely going to finish… according to my outline there are 5 chapters and an epilogue left… We're coming up to the climax in the Emerald City… can anyone tell how excited I am? I really am! OK, go read.
Resistance
by Fiyero Oberon
XIII.
"How do you think the Munchkinlanders will fair without an Eminent?" queries Glinda inattentively.
"They have been under the sovereignty of Nessarose for the last few years… I scarcely think they will notice my absence." Elphaba reaches into the bag slung over her shoulder, rummaging for a bit of bread.
An extensive ribbon of yellow stretches out before and behind the small, indomitable group of travelers. Each yellow brick is crammed in tightly next to its brothers and framing the lengthy golden highway are rolling fields of green grass. War is raging in the City, but out in the country it seems impossible to tell.
Elphaba glances at the people ambling along beside her and decides quickly that they would look very much like a ragtag troop if the onlooker did not know who they each were and what their connections were with each other.
The infamous Glinda the Good in her immense berry bush gown, a plump bag in each hand, promenading along with her honey-colored curls bouncing gaily; an undersized Munchkinlander farmer with a small suitcase, a straw hat perched on his head and dressed minimally in a plaid shirt and trousers, hiking steadily to stay with the group because of his short limbs; a bony teenager with scraggly hair, ambling carelessly along beside his companions, clad in garments tattered and dirty and hands free of baggage – Glinda had insisted that Ojo leave Killyjoy behind, to her own relief and Elphaba's; a blind woman stumbling over her own scarlet scarf, empty-handed as far as her own traveling bags went, but hauling a case for Glinda; and the blind woman's half-sister, a woman with jaded skin clothed all in black with a bizarre pointed hat on her jet-black mane, a bag hanging over her shoulder, striding along with the others and eyeing them every once in a while as though she is the teacher and they are the juvenile students, to be watched over as a shepherd watches his sheep.
"Oh, poppies!" squeals Glinda, running up to a cluster of scarlet blooms. "They're so beautiful, aren't they? They'll make for a nice change from the yellow road and green grass."
"Better than agreen road and purple grass," remarks Ojo, shrugging. Glinda makes a fuss of stuffing several poppies in Singra's braid.
"They look lovely," Glinda assures her.
Boq returns to chatting to Ojo about crops as Ojo apathetically picks at his fingernails, nodding vaguely, evidently uninterested in what the farmer is saying. Singra has walked in silence since they left Nest Hardings and Glinda is struggling with her heavy bags, though no one makes a move to help her.
They had departed from Nest Hardings two days after Elphaba's coronation as Eminent. Milla had agreed to stay with and watch over Nanny and Frexspar, and Elphaba had left Milla and Shell in joint substitution as Eminent in her absence, should any major tribulations transpire. She still has yet to talk to Shell, for she had Singra speak with him about taking charge as Eminent while Elphaba is in the City of Emeralds. He consented without too much persuasion, according to Singra's testimony.
They had walked from Nest Hardings for nearly a full day. A night had been spent at Boq's farmhouse before resuming their trip along the road paved with yellow brick. It is nearly noon now and Glinda will be pleading starvation soon.
"Singra," says Elphaba suddenly, capturing attention from Glinda, Boq, and Ojo, "I want to know what is going on."
Singra's brow furrows. "What's going on?"
"You, and my father, and Turtle Heart." Singra lets a sigh emerge, but nods. Boq is not interested in this subject matter and returns to babbling to Ojo about the positive results in growing pumpkins and carrots in the same field. Glinda, however, is undoubtedly attracted to a topic such as this and, though she turns her eyes back to the road before her, Elphaba senses Glinda's ears are perked in their direction, incessantly eavesdropping on their conversation. The scarlet poppies appear in greater clusters on the side of the road as they walk farther and every once in a while a poppy will appear, sticking out between bricks in the center of the road.
"All right," says Elphaba, deciding to disregard Glinda. "Tell me."
"Well, from what I have gathered, Turtle Heart was not exactly a man of high values. But it's best to start at the beginning…
"My mother was born, raised, and married in the City. Her husband, a man I have never known, moved them to the Quadling mines because he wanted rubies. Turtle Heart was a glassblower in the village where my mother and her husband were staying in Quadling Country. They met one way or another, and before long my mother was having an affair with Turtle Heart behind her husband's back. My mother eventually became impregnated with Turtle Heart's child – me – and when her husband found out, he cast her aside, treated her harshly, and eventually left her. Turtle Heart and my mother moved to the City to have me and raise me… the only thing I remember about him was a sort of glass ball he gave me. I didn't know what it was or what it was for, because I could not see it, and I presently shattered it. Not on purpose, granted, but it was certainly broken. It must have been some sort of test or something to see if I was right, because he vanished in the night after I broke the orb. I was barely two and my mother was on the verge of committing suicide for losing both of the men she loved. She did eventually kill herself, found dead in the fountain outside the Emerald Palace, overdosed on drugs and drowned.
"That is my entire involvement in this story, and here is where the puzzle pieces of my story and your father's start coming into play. We figure he left the City and headed east, towards Munchkinland, where he came upon the Thropp household. You had just been born and, according to your father, he also gave you a glass orb… so I'm starting to wonder if those glass spheres are more than they appear – but anyway, he showed up and I presume had affairs with both your mother and your father. 'He was hers by day, mine by night,' in the words of your father."
"Your mother was in time pregnant again, now with Turtle Heart's child – Nessarose. Turtle Heart died eventually. But who knows what could have happened with Turtle Heart before he met my mother. Maybe he has more children, maybe they are all disabled and that could be a clue to who we are. But it is just strange how everything seems to have gone full circle… your family moved to the Quadling Country at some point, and then eventually you and I met in the Resistance, and now here we are fighting for Animal rights. Half-sisters all this time and ignorant to it."
"I'm hungry," announces Glinda.
Elphaba is speechless at Singra's presentation – such an ironic ring of events, almost as though designed to result in these happenings.
"Is the circle complete though?" thinks Elphaba aloud and Glinda casts a strange look in her direction.
Boq seems to have finished torturing Ojo with farming tips and the entire group falls into an awkward silence.
Before long, however, Elphaba has turned to look at Singra. "Singra, I owe you an apology."
"What do you mean?"
"At the Vinkus… when we first arrived there, last winter. I behaved wickedly, it was cruel of me… it's just… Fiyero's wife was there, hanging there, dead, and I never got to ask for her forgiveness…"
"Oh, of course," says Singra. "It's fine." Elphaba can tell that Singra has not an idea of what she means, but at the same time hardly cares. She has apologized, and right now she feels as though that's all that matters.
The poppies have taken over some time back, and the road is completely obscured by the thick blanket of crimson flora. Either way Elphaba looks, it seems she sees only the fields of scarlet blossoms, like an ocean of blood. The spicy scent of the flowers has overtaken Elphaba's nostrils, as though Glinda has set a cloud of perfume about her, and she finds herself coughing at the heavy aroma.
"I think we're getting close to a nap break," says Glinda, yawning.
"We are not stopping," says Elphaba. "It will only take us longer."
"No, Elphaba, I think Glinda's right," says Boq, sitting down among the poppies, "a bit of a rest doesn't sound like a bad idea." Glinda plops herself down in the flowers beside Boq, and they quickly fall asleep, nestling into each others arms. Singra is stretching in a yawn now and has fallen to her knees. Ojo seems to be unfazed by any sleepiness and Elphaba herself does not feel tired either.
"Get up," says Elphaba stubbornly, but Glinda and Boq are fast asleep and Singra is nodding off now as well.
"It's th' poppies," says Ojo, an expression of what could be boredom upon his face. "When there's a lot o' poppies togevver th' smell is so po'erful tha' anyone who breaves it falls 'sleep, and iv they isn't carried away from the poppies, they's sleeps on and on f'rever."
Elphaba is suddenly sent in a brief cyclone of panic; the poppies seem to carpet the whole world from where they stand and she cannot imagine that she and Ojo could be able to carry Glinda, Boq, and Singra at the same time through such immeasurable fields.
"Ojo," she says quickly, as Ojo sits down on the flowers, "are the flowers making you fall asleep?"
"Nah," he says, "I've dev'lop'd immunities t'all sorts o' fings from bein'n th' Pass all these years."
"Good, I may need your help." Elphaba shrugs her bag off and steps over toward Glinda, who is snoring delicately. Dropping to her knees, Elphaba grabs the fair-haired woman's shoulders and begins shaking her violently. "Glinda! Glinda, wake up!"
"No use," says Ojo, picking at his teeth. "Can't wake 'em up while we're near th' poppies."
"Is there an antidote for poppies?" begs Elphaba, now shaking Boq as hard as she can, thrusting him back and forth and up and down. She is racking her memory for anything about poppies she has ever learned.
"Snow," says Ojo simply.
Elphaba suddenly abandons Boq and commences to dig through her bag for the Grimmerie. She begins emptying the contents… some bread, a brown bottle full of oil for her to clean herself with, a small green bottle with a label reading MIRACLE ELI-, and, at last, the Grimmerie. She hastily pulls the heavy book from the bag, flips it open, and begins leafing through the violet pages full of silver ink, searching for something in the mystical book about snow. Letters and diagrams whirl across the pages, spinning, rearranging themselves as Elphaba reads. It is a strange language, but Elphaba is able to comprehend it.
At last she comes to a passage that mentions snow – a recipe for snow to fall thickly from the sky until the caster of the spell enlightens it to stop. "Wobni areh tre voer eh wemos…" She begins chanting the cryptic terminology aloud, unblinking as instructed on the page. Ojo has paused in his teeth-picking to stare at her, eyebrows up, as her tongue rolls off the enigmatic words of the spell.
Abruptly something on Elphaba's palm gives a light burning feeling – wetness. Something wet. Snow is suddenly falling all around, thick and heavy and white, blanketing the red flowers and icing over Glinda's gown. Boq is the first to waken, his eyes flutter open and he coughs, his breath rising in curls of white fog in the cold air. Singra sits up quickly, holding her head. Glinda is soon awake as well, blinkly profusely and when she stands her gown looks like a magnificent cake from the way the snow has stuck upon it.
Elphaba, however, has curled up, protecting herself against the wetness of the colorless precipitation. Glinda quickly digs through one of her bags and pulls out a pair of satin gloves and helps Elphaba cover her hands with them. Using the gloved hands as a shield for her face, Elphaba closes the Grimmerie and hides it away again in her bag and slings the bag over her shoulder. The others quickly gather their bags and they set off through the blizzard and the snow-covered flowers, Ojo running ahead of them to clear the poppies away to ensure that they are following the Yellow Brick Road.
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