Middle Ground
Chapter 37
A/N Thank you for telling me about your Christmas :) I had a nice one this year, spent with family. I got a Wicked Witch of the West Barbie. I own a collector's item of something. I feel powerful :)
In other news, here is the next chapter. We're getting there...
Madame Morrible was good at her job.
Of course, Elphaba had known that quite from the start. If she hadn't been, Elphaba would never even have set foot in the palace. Would never have ended up here at all. She longed for those days sometimes. The days at Shiz spent in sunshine and chatter, an unwilling participant in most of it, unaware of all that would follow.
But the longing always made way for the heady sensation of knowing that that alternate reality, that great promising land-of-what-might-have-been, wouldn't have brought her a better fate.
Had she stayed in school, a wide-eyed schoolgirl with too little experience of human kindness, then she might not have been any better off. She certainly would never have told Fiyero of her feelings. She wouldn't have been able to save the Animals she'd had the fortune to help in these past years. She wouldn't have been a member of the Resistance, a task she was burdened by but proud of.
Still, she was scared. She had too much in her life now to be thankful for. Despite everything, she was more unwilling to die than she ever had been before.
If she had to, though, this was the moment, the reason, to do it.
To save Fiyero...there was nothing she wouldn't do. Glinda too...she would have been here, just as ready, had it been Glinda's life in the balance. For Nessa. For her father, even.
She looked around, down on the stage Madame Morrible had put up for the show. And a show it would be. But she had expected, somehow, more flourish. Death by magic.
But there were gallows on the stage.
A human, old-fashioned, execution.
It would satisfy, but also scare, the audience. It would give them what they wanted; the death of the Wicked Witch, and it would, at the same time, tell them what was in store for those who went against the established authorities.
The old Witch was entirely too clever. Too good at what she did. Too talented in all things deceptive and evil.
How had she become such a vile, vile, person?
She took a breath and directed her broom towards the stage. There was no audience yet. It wasn't even near the crack of dawn. The execution would take place, per agreement, at high noon.
She had wanted to be there early. She didn't want to give Morrible, or the Ozians, a dramatic entrance. Wanted to rob the older Witch of the opportunity to get the people riled up even more than they would be.
No, she would be here, waiting. As calm and collected as she could be.
And when she died, she would move no muscle.
When she did die, she would make sure no one got what they wanted.
They would not hear her scream. They would never see her cry or hear her beg.
But she was sorry.
She was so sorry.
4 more chapters to go. Thank you all for reviewing. I hope you'll do it again :)
And for now, more than anything, I wish you a very happy New Year's Eve!