Take the Stand
Disclaimer - I do not own Elphaba, Glinda, the Wizard, or any other character mentioned in this fic. I do not own Wicked, and I do not own Legally Blonde.
When the Wizard saw that it was Glinda who was taking his place as Lurline's lawyer, he was shocked. However, that wore off quickly and was even more quickly replaced by his previous anger... increased tenfold.
"You." He said quietly, his voice filled with cold fury.
Whereas before, Glinda would have been terrified by the Wizard's anger and the icy and dangerous glint in his eyes the former intern simply stared back at him in defiance. The Wizard was not going to intimidate her anymore.
"It's good to see me, isn't it?" Glinda giggled, batting her eyelashes at the Wizard. Though she was the picture of innocence, her eyes said otherwise- she was giving the Wizard a challenging gaze.
Seeing Glinda's almost taunting look, the Wizard's anger increased even further. So angry he was almost seeing red, the Wizard felt an intense urge to yell at her. However, the fact they were standing in a court of law was not lost on him. Forced to fume silently, the Wizard felt his face go red, and his teeth clench together.
"Miss Upland," He began carefully. "I-"
"Oh, there's no need to respond!" Glinda laughed airily.
"That was rhetorical."
With a cheeky wink from Glinda (and a laugh poorly disguised as a cough from Lurline), the Wizard was seething. He turned to the judge and cleared his throat to protest.
"Your Honour, she's only a student. She cannot be allowed to defend the...defendant."
The judge gazed at him with unconvinced eyes, and the Wizard slumped a little bit- perhaps it was his lacklustre finish to his sentence that had caused him to fail in impressing the judge.
"Actually Your Honour..." Glinda motioned to Elphaba, who handed her the small black book that was cradled in her green hands. Opening it up to a dog eared page, Glinda strode up to the judge's stand and held out the book for her to take.
"Here, Your Honour," Glinda pointed out. "It states that a law student is able to represent a defendant in criminal proceedings so long as-"
"-So long as she is supervised by a licensed attorney." The Wizard interrupted rudely, a gleam appearing in his eyes as he recalled the conditions of the rule.
Turning his eyes upon Glinda, his mouth twisted into a smug smile. "I refuse to supervise Glinda Upland, Your Honour."
"He might not, but I will."
Whirling around, the Wizard stared as Elphaba stepped forward, face stoic, and went up to the judge's stand. As the green woman passed by the Wizard, the man gaped- he had completely forgotten about her.
"I'll supervise Miss Upland, Your Honour." Elphaba told the judge. "I'm a licensed attorney."
The judge nodded and Elphaba looked to her side, where Glinda flashed a brilliant smile. A small grin worked its way across Elphaba's visage as she smiled back at Glinda. Her smile disappeared however as the green woman felt a hand grab her arm and spin her around.
"What are you doing!?" The Wizard hissed with his eyes wild. "You can't supervise her!"
The professor pulled Elphaba in closer to him – not close enough to rouse suspicion from watchful eyes, but close enough so that no one else would be able to hear what he was saying to her. "You work for me, Elphaba, and I forbid you from supervising her. If you do, you can just banish any thought you've ever had of becoming an associate."
"Too long I've been afraid of losing your approval, sir." Elphaba said slowly as she stared into his eyes. "But if siding with you is what it takes, then your approval comes at much too high a cost."
With a single powerful motion, Elphaba wrenched her arm out of the Wizard's grasp, breaking his hold on her both literally and figuratively.
"I work for myself, sir." The verdant woman said coldly to her former mentor. "Not for a man who preys on his interns and fires them for the sole fact that they have the self respect and dignity to not give in to his advances."
Shooting him one last gaze of icy cold fire, Elphaba turned and nodded to Glinda. Though Glinda had not heard a word between the two, the blonde smiled proudly at Elphaba, knowing without a word what had happened.
The moment was broken as the judge shoot the rulebook closed with a snap after she finished reading the portion Glinda had singled out.
"I see no problem with letting Miss Upland represent the defendant." She announced. Turning her eyes upon Lurline, she threw the sorceress a questioning glance. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Absolutely." Lurline responded, a smile on her face, complete confidence in her eyes. "This is who I want representing me, Your Honour."
"Does the prosecution have anything to say?" The judge asked, looking at the other side of the room.
Looking at the prosecutor, Glinda immediately wished that she hadn't. Her stomach churned suddenly as she saw the delighted, broad grin on the other woman's face; she was smiling ear to ear, as though she was a child who had just received everything she had ever wanted on her birthday.
"The prosecution has no problems with allowing the student to represent the defendant, Your Honour." She said to the judge, practically buzzing with glee and excitement.
"If that is all then, I'd like to begin." The judge said. Picking up her gavel, she banged it against the desk in front of her. After calling court back into session, the prosecutor stood and began to speak.
"Your Honour," She began. "We've gone through several witnesses throughout the course of this trial. The testimonies have been revealing, but none so much as my next witness' testimony. The prosecution calls the next witness to the stand!"
The doors on one side of the courtroom creaked open, and a large, looming figure entered the room.
Glinda blinked.
A single thought ran through her mind.
'I didn't know Fish could walk.'
As the witness came more into sight, Glinda saw it was not a Fish who had entered the room, nor any Animal whatsoever. It was a woman- a woman wearing a ridiculously large bottomed sparkling green dress that looked just like a Fish's scales. Her cheeks, covered in bright powder and the large, bright and dark eyes simply added to her inhuman appearance.
However, it was not the large woman's oddly Fish-like appearance that surprised Glinda- what surprised her was that the woman's skin was wrinkling, and that the hair that was piled atop her head was a pale greying blonde, giving it a nearly snow white colour.
The grand woman sashayed across the courtroom; chin and face held up high and proud as she came to the witness' stand and took her place.
"Your name?" The prosecutor asked the woman, smiling easily.
"You may call me Madame Morrible." The woman announced in a loud, booming voice that filled the courtroom. From accent alone (not to mention the way she carried herself and spoke) Glinda could tell that Madame Morrible was every bit the Madame she called herself.
The judge glanced at Madame Morrible and made a strange face at the witness' eccentric introduction, but nodded for the prosecutor to go on.
The prosecutor faced Madame Morrible as she began to speak. "What is your line of work, Madame Morrible?"
"I am the headmistress of a fine ladies school." The Fishlike woman announced. "I teach a few privileged students myself- I teach them magic. The other young women who attend my school are taught by the other teachers."
'A headmistress of a school?' Glinda mused. 'At least that explains the grand behaviour and voice.'
"Could you tell us how you are related to the defendant, Madame Morrible?" The prosecutor questioned.
"I am her..." Madame Morrible paused to rake her eyes over Lurline's stunned face.
"Step-daughter." She finished, her words tinged with obvious distaste. "I was born while my father was young, around his twenties. Lurline married my father a few years ago, during my fortieth year."
'FORTY!?' Glinda's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. The headmistress, with her pale and ridiculously made up face and her out of date clothing could have passed off as much older than forty.
"Is she really?" The blonde heard a voice ask questioningly. Normally, she would have ignored the whisper but her attention was caught as she felt a poke at her back. Glancing behind her, Glinda saw a man pointing further back behind him, to three girls sitting close together staring quizzically at the witness.
It was more their wondrous stares than their facial features that helped Glinda recognize them as Milla, Pfannee and Shenshen.
"Glinda!" Shenshen called, not even bothering to hush her voice now that the blonde was looking at her. "Is that old bag really only-?"
"ORDER!" The judge yelled, quelling the noise that had risen as a response to Madame Morrible revealing her true age.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Glinda leaned over to whisper to her client. "Is she really that old, Lurline?"
Lurline nodded. "My late husband was in his sixties. Her age would make sense."
"Sixties?" Glinda blinked.
Lurline nodded, flushing the tiniest bit as she responded. "It sounds crazy; really, the age difference between us, but what we had was genuine. I loved my husband, even if he was almost twice my age... but a lot of people don't believe that."
"People do say love is blind though, right?" Glinda pointed out. She was about to go no more, but the judge finally had the court back under her control.
"Madam Morrible." The prosecutor spoke once more. "Could you tell us what you saw on the day of your father's murder?"
"Certainly." Madame Morrible replied cordially. "I came into the house, bathed, and came down the stairs, where I saw Lurline over my father's body."
"Thank you Madame." The prosecutor finished before turning to the judge. "The prosecution rests, Your Honour."
Before heading to her seat, the prosecutor threw once last glance at the judge. Though Lurline couldn't see the prosecutor's face, Glinda clearly could. The look was cocky, smug and clearly the prosecutor was reminding the judge of exactly how solid Morrible's testimony seemed to be.
'There are cracks in her testimony.' Glinda reminded herself as the judge nodded at her to begin her cross examination. 'Find the cracks and we find the truth.'
"Before I begin," Glinda said with her voice so much stronger than how she actually felt on the inside, "I would like to remind you, Your Honour, of mens rea- there can be no crime without a vicious will."
"I know what mens rea is, miss Upland." The judge replied. She raised an eyebrow at the blonde. "My question for you is why you are questioning my knowledge and not the witness'."
There was a chuckle from somewhere in the sea of courtroom faces, and Glinda knew that the Wizard was the one who had laughed.
'Even before I begin my line of questioning I'm not in the judge's good graces.' Glinda moaned mentally.
Still, the blonde student kept her chin up. Forcing herself not to show a sign of weakness, Glinda nodded and turned to Madame Morrible, who was regarding her with a condescending smile.
"Madame Morrible, could you tell me what you did on the day of the murder?"
Glinda winced at the tremble in her voice. 'Sweet Oz, already?'
The headmistress seemed much more amused with Glinda's slip than Glinda was. "Certainly, Miss Upland."
"I woke up in my private quarters at the school, of course." The large woman said crisply in clipped yet booming tones. "After taking my breakfast, I proceeded to attend to my duties as headmistress. That lasted me through the day, until the school day ended. From then, I hailed a carriage to take me home. However, on my way back to my father's house, I spotted a salon. Thinking myself needing another treatment and wash-"
Here, Morrible patted her outrageous tower of hair lovingly (much to the chagrin of the aesthetic loving Glinda, Shenshen, Milla and Pfannee), before continuing her testimony.
"I entered the salon and received my usual hair treatment, then came to my father's house. I bathed then changed my garments. When I went down the stairs to the main floor, I was relaxed and calm. All until..."
The witness swallowed harshly, pressing her hand against her breastbone in a melodramatic manner, gasping as if she was about to faint.
"...Until I saw Lurline, huddled over my father's body, drenched in his blood!"
A ripple of murmurs swept through the courtroom, but was quickly settled by a few pounds of the judge's gavel. Soon, only the sound of the reporter and the court scribe's pencils scratching against paper remained as both parties wrote down the new details that Madame Morrible had given them.
"Miss Upland, you may continue with your questioning." The judge told the young blonde. Though Glinda was now armed with new knowledge, she still had no idea where to begin and that though frightened her. Feeling an imminent wave of panic arising, the blonde shut her eyes closed tight.
'You can do this.' A familiar voice whispered to her, coming from the depths of her brain. 'If anyone can do this, it's you. You promised Lurline, and an Upland never breaks her promise.'
Opening her eyes, Glinda exhaled and steeled her resolve as best as she could.
"Madame Morrible," Glinda said. "Did you see the defendant with a gun in her hand?"
The snowy haired woman's mouth tightened.
"I did not." The headmistress replied. "However, considering the time that had gone by while I bathed, she had plenty of time to magick away the weapon."
"So you took a shower and then you saw the body?" Glinda asked uneasily, at a loss for what to do."
"Yes, I did."
"You took a shower before seeing the body?"
"Yes, I did."
"You saw the body after being in the shower?"
"I think that we've established that the defendant showered upon the day of the murder, Miss Upland." The judge said, peering down at the young law student from her post. Another ripple, this one of laughter, swept through the court before quieting quickly.
Face flushed with embarrassment from the judge's reprimand, Glinda turned to the defence's desk. Looking at Elphaba, Glinda sent her a look of worry , a gaze that clearly stated without words that the young blonde wasn't sure she was up to the task at hand.
Elphaba, sitting beside Lurline, just shook her head; not to bring her down, but instead to bring down her fears. The familiar fire was in Elphaba's eyes, burning into Glinda. They stated one thing; one thing that Elphaba's lips were mouthing as well.
"Don't give up."
Swallowing, Glinda felt a little calmer. Turning back to the witness (who was looking rather bored and pompous at the stand) Glinda cleared her throat to speak.
"Madame Morrible," Glinda began. "Could you go into a little more detail about what happened before you saw the defendant standing over the victim?"
Raising an eyebrow, Madame Morrible simply nodded her consent.
"After receiving my hair treatment, I hailed a carriage to my father's home. When I came in, I realized that no one seemed to be around. I decided to go and bathe. When I came to the washroom however, I realized something was wrong. Taking a look in the mirror, I realized that a magical glamour of sorts had been put on me to 'dye' my eyes a different colour. Seeing as the glamour had nearly taken full effect, I decided to reverse it. It took me a while though; my speciality in sorcery is weather and such, not aesthetics."
'That's for sure.' Glinda couldn't help but think to herself, eyeing Morrible's blinding dress, makeup caked face, and the tortured pile of curls sitting upon her haughty head and face.
"Anyways, it took me a while to reverse the spell." Morrible continued after a pausing to take a breath. "Once it was reversed I bathed and then changed before coming down the stairs. The rest, we can say, is obvious."
Listening to the testimony intently, Glinda froze.
'Did she just...?'
Turning to the court scribe (who had been listening and writing intently the entire time) Glinda smiled at the young man.
"Would the court scribe read that back, please?"
Glancing upwards, the young man cleared his throat and dutifully read Madame Morrible's testimony back to the law student.
Once he finished, Glinda could not believe her ears, or her eyes.
Neither could the rest of the court as Glinda Upland took a step away from the stenographer...
...And began to laugh.
I feel guilty for my lack of updates :(
I'm sorry about that. Anyways, nice long chapter for you if you're still reading. Consider it my apology.