The Land of What-Might-Have-Been

by Straightjacketed

After spending so many years wishing that things had been different, what happens when, halfway through their final meeting, Elphaba and Glinda find themselves unexpectedly plunged into the worst of all possible worlds? AU.

79. Goodbyes And Hellos

A/N: One more to go, one more to go after this, one more to go...

Ow.

Somewhere, Stephen Strange is wearily remarking "we're in the endgame now."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am tired, headache-ridden and I have lost my grip on the concept of time, but I am somehow feeling glorious. I had a whale of a time churning out this penultimate chapter, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing this mammoth of an installation.

Anyway, without further ado, the second-to-last chapter. The epilogue will be here very soon. Read, review, and above all, enjoy.

---

The next morning, work began anew.

In both Greenspectre and Exemplar, rebuilding efforts were underway. Reports from the Deviant Nations quickly revealed that engineering teams were already making progress in their efforts to clear away hazardous wreckage and build new residential areas for citizens left homeless by the Empress's attack; in a matter of weeks, the city would be almost completely functional again, though it wouldn't be restored to its former glory for at least half a year.

Meanwhile, the soldiers of the Deviant Nations were doing their best to win hearts and minds by ensuring that the people of Exemplar were warm and fed, setting up soup kitchens and temporary housing for residents who'd lost their homes in the final clash with the Empress, and had even begun sending mage-surgeons to tend to those who'd been wounded over the course of the battle (though getting the hopelessly-paranoid locals to actually accept their services was another matter entirely); the Amorphous League rescued citizens who'd been trapped beneath rubble, mirror golems arrested looters and other opportunists, and magicians safely disposed of hazardous materials loosed upon the city during the partial collapse of the Deep Sepulchre. Even the dolls were put to work in unearthing people who'd been sealed inside collapsed buildings, and proved an effective (albeit undeniably terrifying) rescue service.

Less pleasantly, the magicians of Polyandrium were charged with disposing of the bodies and burying them with all due respect according to the wishes of their family – or, in the case of the Deviant regulars, the Irredeemables and their allies, sent back to the Deviant Nations. Already, Dr Coil and Branderstove were being given state funerals, with their estates (such as they were) being divided among what heirs they'd established in their wills; for days afterwards, Dr Kiln wore a snakeskin armband in remembrance, and in a strange leather belt, proudly wore the snaketooth dagger that his tutor had bequeathed him.

Fortunately, Paragon needed only minimal assistance in rendering repairs to the city's buildings and infrastructure: now that the thinking engine was freed from the Empress's control, he could direct whole fleets of automata wherever they were needed, sealing burst pipes, reconnecting severed energy conduits, and re-establishing communications with other cities. Buildings took a little more effort, especially the ones that had been destroyed outright during Alphaba's shapeshifting temper tantrum, but experts were confident that they could be replaced in a few months' time if the construction mages' skills were applied correctly.

Of course, it wasn't as simple as handing out bowls of soup while Paragon went about patching up all the damage. The Empress was effectively dead, but unfortunately, her demented beliefs lived on in the people… and those beliefs were incredibly difficult to eradicate, as Paragon's reports from around the empire quickly revealed. The sight of the Empress "becoming ugly" in her final moments – as helpfully transmitted all over Unbridled Radiance thanks to the parade cameras – had triggered a crisis of faith among a wide swathe of the population, yes, but it had not been enough to completely shatter belief in the Radiant Laws; some stubborn souls insisted that the beauty of Unbridled Radiance could not be stymied even by the fall of its founder, and that the Empress lived on through them; a few even claimed that the Empress would be reborn very soon, cleansed of all the imperfections that the "blaspheming Deviants" had forced upon her.

In the days following the final battle, there were reports of scattered rioting in some provinces of the Empire, even armed rebels trying to seize control of local governments in the name of their messiah. Fortunately, these hardcore loyalists soon found themselves finding out the hard way why such minor rebellions had always ended up failing during the Empress's reign: Paragon was now in complete control of the Vigilant Eyes, and though he saw no reason to use their weapons at anything other than the lowest power settings, routing armed rebels proved almost hilariously easy once he got used to aiming for the groin.

Any attempts by Unbridled Radiance to restore the status quo rapidly fell apart without the Purified: the upper echelons of the governmental, industrial and military spheres had been manned entirely by the Empress's chosen elite, and these positions had been made so that only they could possibly occupy them – either through biometric security or through more elaborate methods of prevention that only the enhanced intellect of a Purified could hope to crack. Factories couldn't be managed, armies couldn't be properly organized, governments couldn't be run, warships couldn't be piloted, operations couldn't be performed, and morale was in the toilet. In many cases, the unmodified people of the empire did their best to substitute, they were ultimately undone by the very teachings they sought to restore: from birth, they had been taught that only the Purified were capable of running a business, leading an army or governing a country; whenever "lesser citizens" tried to fill in for their modified superiors, they found themselves undermined by decades of instinctive adherence to the Radiant Laws. Some attempted to get around this by breaking the Purified out of the Ascendency Temples, but these attempts always failed miserably thanks to Paragon's security measures, and in the end, most of the more ambitious terrorist cells were forced to conceded that there'd be no help from their leaders and professionals until such time as Paragon was finished updating them.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to force the true believers and the rabid fanatics to admit defeat, not when they genuinely believed that a victory for the Deviant Nations would mean an eternity of horrific future for them – and their children.

Nor was it enough to convince the average citizen to trust the people of the Deviant Nations, alas: they had seen the Empress fail after having been told that such a thing was impossible, yes, and they had seen her become ugly, true, and they'd even witnessed her apparently-infallible thinking engine betray her. But despite the overwhelming evidence, many argued that this didn't mean the Empress been wrong. Instead, it merely meant that the Deviants had somehow found a way of "cheating" reality, that the villains of the fairy-tale had somehow won by breaking the story; as far as the people of the empire as a whole were concerned, suffering would be their only lot in life now that the Deviant Nations were in control.

Regardless of whether they belonged to the despairing majority or the rebellious few, there was no debunking their beliefs, at least in the short term. To the citizens of Unbridled Radiance, the propaganda they had heard was still true, and the Deviants, Distortions, Shapeshifters and other members of the victorious army were every bit as vile as the Empress had claimed.

The lies were nothing short of sensational: according to the Empress, the Amorphous League drank the blood of virgins to gain their powers, the good citizens of the empire had been told; wherever they went, the shapeshifters kidnapped unsuspecting men and women for horrific orgies, violating every last scrap of innocence until they would either join them or the Deviant Nations. The Deviant Nations was held together through vile infanticidal rites in which the most beautiful children of each city was rounded up every year and sent as tribute to Greenspectre – where they would be devoured alive by the Irredeemables. The mage-surgeons of the Deviant Nations demanded to be paid in the flesh of their patients and would punish any welshers with horrific tortures. The Irredeemables were the ultimate level of society to which all citizens aspired to, the propaganda blared, and even ordinary civilians routinely scarified their bodies in longing for the days in which they could join their ranks; the people of the Deviant Nations so despised beauty that "impressionable young men and women" would gladly slice off ears, noses, lips, breasts, and mutilate themselves in any one of a thousand different ways if it meant that they could be "ugly" enough to fit in with society. And when the Deviant Nations invaded a region, they were supposedly in the habit of separating children from their parents, funnelling them into indoctrination centres, then brutally mutilating them into new citizens of the Deviant Nations. Come to think of it, there'd even been a few especially brazen accounts of it happening in Loamlark, with "expert witnesses" claiming to have seen children dragged into dark alleyways and carved up with a razor before being press-ganged into the Irredeemables.

As for the things they'd said about "The Mentor's Champion," the propaganda had ranged from merely slanderous to openly obscene: Elphaba had been portrayed as the Mentor's bastard daughter, a clone of the Empress built to bring shame to Unbridled Radiance, a member of the Amorphous League with a blasphemous streak, the Mentor's secret lover, and – Elphaba's personal favourite – "a tormented biological abomination driven to despoil perfection and beauty as a direct response to her own inadequacies; a jealous monstrosity driven to profane Unbridled Radiance with calumnies and lies, even while making her soul a thousand times more unclean through atrocity."

Or, as Elphaba had cheerily put it, "It's just like home, isn't it?"

It was, of course, total claptrap… but the people had been raised to treat the Empress as an infallible god-queen and had never been exposed to a single contradictory voice in their entire lives except in the form of the strawmen seen in the propaganda, so it really wasn't so surprising.

Or, as Elphaba had cheerily put it, "It's just like home, isn't it?"

Elphaba hadn't been included in any of the rebuilding at work throughout Exemplar: she wasn't asked to help clear rubble, put out fires, recycle scrap metal or break up the few angry mobs that had appeared in the city, and she certainly wasn't required to convince civilian groups of their good intentions. Instead, perhaps in recognition of her actions throughout the war, perhaps out of medical necessity, she'd been placed on leave.

She'd spent the first three or four days of it in a dazed stupor, too burnt-out to focus on anything other than eating, exercising and sleeping – and there'd been a lot of sleep in those first seventy-eight hours. Though she rarely slept any later than 10 AM, it quickly became her habit to doze during the day; even if she didn't actually fall asleep, she often found herself drifting in and out of reality as her daydreams grew ever more intense. Of course, she'd known that Glinda and Fiyero were worrying about her, but she just hadn't been able shake that terrible sense of exhaustion: in the wake of all the physical, mental and emotional extremes she'd been forced to undergo, she couldn't feel anything other than a deep, crippling sense of fatigue, as if the final battle had left some vital aspect of her being fractured and broken, and all her energy had simply spilled out through the cracks.

In these confused times in which she'd somehow found the energy to walk, she'd found herself roaming for hours on end with no destination in mind, too tired to care if an angry mob descended on her. She had the distinct impression that she was being shadowed throughout these journeys, either by Glinda, Fiyero, Leoverus or one of Nessa's mirror golems, but she didn't have the heart to dissuade them. So she simply wandered onwards, letting the road take her wherever it pleased until she found someplace where she could somehow recover from this terrible, numbing sense of entropy.

She wasn't sure when she'd stumbled upon the park or even where it was: all she knew was that she awoke from her latest wandering stupor one day to find herself sitting on a bench, placidly basking in the sun as she stared through the labyrinth of trees at the colossal fountain that was the centrepiece of the grounds. This far from the ruined districts, with so many trees blocking her view of the distant buildings, it didn't feel like a city park at all; if anything, it felt almost like being back in Munchkinland. Here, with most of the locals too scared to leave their homes much less visit the park, she could pretend that the world was completely at peace; and so, she found herself staring off through the pleasant green haze of the trees, half-asleep and daydreaming of happier times.

Eventually, though, some of the locals began to trickle back to the park. The moment they saw Elphaba dozing on the bench, most fled immediately, but a stubborn few remained to jog and picnic and walk their dogs, almost as if hoping that the strange green girl would pick a fight with them. After all, everyone in Unbridled Radiance knew her face by now: even if they'd somehow managed to avoid every bit of propaganda that the Empress had disseminated in the last few months, Elphaba's face had been transmitted to every street corner and every building with a functional viewscreen, and every good citizen of the Radiant Empire could plainly recognize the woman who'd laid their Empress low.

But Elphaba was simply too tired to start fights with anyone, no matter how aggressively they stared at her. So, she sat perfectly still and waited for them to lose interest – or grow a spine.

But of course, nobody was brave enough to challenge her. Nobody bothered to complain to any higher authorities, either. After all, the locals understood that the Deviant Nations were in charge now, and the Radiant Laws would no longer be given the slightest bit of respect – including the previous commandment against "Distortions" being seen in public. So, they just accepted her presence with dirty looks – or at least, the adults did.

Now that the authorities were no longer enforcing any of the Laws against public unruliness, children were beginning to rebel, and now roamed freely about the park in open defiance of their exasperated parents, engaging in all the games and mischief they would have been forbidden from indulging in beforehand; Paragon was obliged to step in if their antics escalated to outright crime, but everything else was fair game. Much to the annoyance of the parents, one particular "misdemeanour" he refused to put a stop to was the children's growing fascination with the Irredeemables: under the previous administration, photographs of "Distorted aberrations" had been forbidden to all citizens below the age of thirteen, forcing them to make do with police sketches – at once ludicrously overexaggerated and obscured by shadows. Now that the Deviant Nations had taken the city (and by extension, the entire empire), every kid in town wanted to get a look at the soldiers that now occupied the city; some children even took to making nuisances of themselves around the Deviant Nations' encampment, hoping that they'd stir up enough trouble to get the attention of one of the Irredeemables.

Needless to say, the sight of Elphaba hanging around the park sent the local kids into a frenzy of excitement: Elphaba counted no less than two dozen of them watching her on her most recent visit, most of them hiding behind the delicately-trimmed hedges bordering the outer pathways, while the braver ones risked a closer look by sneaking behind the trees – as if Elphaba couldn't already see them. Eventually, Elphaba found herself being repeatedly tapped on the shoulder, apparently just so the kids could be certain that she was real; some of the most adventurous kids actually walked right up to her and started asking questions, wanting to know her name, where she was from, why she had crystals growing from her shoulders, and if it was true that the Irredeemables ate babies. Elphaba could tell that these kids were frightened of her, though they'd been careful to hide it behind a façade of youthful boldness as most headstrong children did… and yet, they didn't hate her. Most were still too young to accept the unthinking hatred of enemies of the state, and as for the others, curiosity had overridden what little indoctrination they'd already undergone.

After all, it was one thing to make sheltered adolescents blindly hate an enemy they'd never seen in person except in propaganda; expecting them to sustain their hatred when the enemy was right in front of them – harmless, unthreatening and even helpful to a point – was a different matter entirely.

Once upon a time, Elphaba would have probably flown into a rage at all the poking and prodding, but now she was too lethargic to provide much opposition. Besides, as much as she hated to admit it, she enjoyed the attention. True, it wasn't anywhere near as flattering as the hero-worship she'd received back in Greenspectre, and the children probably wouldn't have been anywhere near as pleasant if they'd still been loyal to the Radiant laws… but all the same, it was nice that someone was willing to ask real questions for a change; most of the kids back in Oz recycled the same mocking questions over and over again, and that was on the rare occasions when they hadn't thrown stones at her. Eventually, the questions changed tone: how had she joined the Irredemables? Did it hurt to have her skin turned green? What was it like to fly? Were the shapeshifters safe to be around? What was the Mentor really like? Why had the Champion been seen buying flowers? Who was the girl who kept following her to the park – the one with the glowing eyes and the little dog?

Elphaba answered every question as honestly as she could, even sparing a wave in Dorothy's direction, until at last the parents dragged the children away in a fit of panic – too scared to even look Elphaba in the eye as they did so. And yet, the kids always came back, always wanting to know more about the Deviant Nations, about the Amorphous League, about the Mentor, even about the other world they'd already heard so much about. And on every occasion, Elphaba couldn't help but smile despite her weariness: as the Mentor had said, it would be a long time before Alphaba's many lies could be finally swept away, especially since the culture had been so ingrained in the minds of adults – and even longer before the memory haze could finally be dispelled once and for all… but even now, in the earliest days of what might very well be the work of a generation, you could already see that the country was slowly being healed.

All the same, it wasn't until the late afternoon of the third day that the last of Elphaba's exhaustion finally faded, and it happened to coincide with the strangest and most gratifying moment of her time at that park. Elphaba had been rising from her bench, amiably shooing the children away so she could head back to the camp, when an old woman had suddenly emerged from the tree-lined path and began hobbling towards her.

At first, Elphaba didn't know what to make of this – but then she recognized the man helping her along the pathway: it was Corporal Cathurney, still in his uniform, scars plainly visible. It had been surprising enough to find that he'd been grateful for saving her life back in Loamlark, given the fall from grace he'd suffered as a result; the fact that he didn't seem in any way vengeful towards her for killing his Empress was almost incomprehensible. But then, perhaps he'd been recruited from one Unbridled Radiance's more isolated colonies, where the propaganda was less stringently enforced – or perhaps the experience of being vilified for the simple act of being rescued by a Distortion had undermined his faith in the regime. It was impossible to guess at the answer.

Whatever the case, the corporal went on helping the old woman down the path towards Elphaba, until they finally stopped about five feet away. Then, without warning, the woman reached out and hugged Elphaba very tightly around the shoulders. "Thank you," she said softly. "Others might call my son a traitor for being indebted to you or claim that he should have killed you before allowing you to save his life; I don't know if the Radiant Laws are right or wrong anymore, and frankly, I don't care. All I know is that my son is alive today, thanks to you."

Then without another word, she released Elphaba and began hobbling away. In a matter of seconds, she and Cathurney were gone, the corporal sparing only a respectful nod in her direction before vanishing back into the tree-lined path. In their wake, they left a park full of baffled citizens, looking at Elphaba in utter bewilderment. After that, there were no further dirty looks thrown in her direction from the onlookers, no fearful glances thrown over their shoulders, not even the occasional challenging glare; and while she wouldn't say that they'd accepted her, Elphaba couldn't quite deny that quite a few people looked as though they were rethinking their lives – a minor miracle in her book.

It wouldn't be fair to say that Elphaba went back to camp in a flurry of energy – after all, it was almost sunset and she got the distinct impression that she'd walked for quite some distance just reach the park… and yet, there was a newfound spring in her step as she made her way back to the encampment.

"It's good you're feeling better," Glinda remarked, as Elphaba sat down at the mess hall table next to her that evening. "If you'd been like that any longer, we'd have had to start watering you."

"Right, because I've never been compared to a plant in my entire life. Very original, Glinda."

"Well, you never know…"

"What are you insinuating?"

"I'm not insinuating anything! I'm just saying that the reason you're feeling better is because you finally got enough sunshine."

"Oh hush," Elphaba laughed, playfully swatting Glinda on the shoulder. By way of a response, Glinda made her hair sprout a dozen roses in bloom, and playfully swatted Elphaba back with a hand that was more leaf than flesh.

Behind them, Boq chuckled metallically. "Speaking of plants…"

Elphaba followed his gaze: standing in the entrance to the tent was none other than Fiyero, still in his Champion's uniform, armed with a colossal bouquet of flowers.

For the first time since she'd ever met him, Fiyero looked somewhat abashed. "Well, we haven't had a chance to talk since I got this new body," he said, sheepishly, "So I thought I might as well reintroduce myself wi-"

He didn't even get a chance to finish his sentence before Elphaba flung herself into his arms.

---

"I honestly didn't expect things to end this way."

"Well, I wasn't expecting to end a decades-long war in the space of a few months either, but-"

"No, no… I didn't expect that we'd end up giving you this new body. Even when I started sabotaging the Empress's control system, I wasn't sure it would work… but here you are. What does it feel like – the Champion's body, I mean?"

"You haven't had a good enough feel already?"

"Fiyero…"

"I mean, we can always try for a second round if you want to know more-"

"Fiyero!"

"Okay, okay, spoilsport. Anyway, it's not that much different from my original body, aside from the flesh-porcelain skin. The physical enhancements are so well-integrated, I don't even notice them until I need to fight or run or whatever; I actually ended up outrunning a low-flying airship the other day without evening meaning to. But other than that, I don't think or feel any differently than I used to – thanks to you destroying the control system."

"And you're okay with being like this?"

"Perfectly fine. I mean, I did have to spend some time practicing my dance moves the last couple of days: these muscles aren't used to dancing. Kinda sad when you think about it."

"But… you're not in any-"

"Elphaba, you don't have to keep worrying about your handiwork. You're not going to find some horrible drawback lurking around every corner, and you're not going to ruin everything just by trying to help. This time, you won. You saved the world. Have a little faith in yourself – and I know it's easier said than done, but if you need any proof that you can genuinely change people for the better, just look at me."

"And you're okay with being one of the Purified? You're okay with being damn near immortal?"

"Is there any way of undoing it?"

"Not according to Paragon and the best medical authorities in both countries. The treatments to the flesh and internal organs are permanent, removing the mechanical modifications would cripple or kill you, and the flesh-porcelain can't be removed without putting you on the receiving end of a lethal infection. Alphaba didn't want anyone undoing handiwork when she first thought of it."

"Then why not just roll with it? We'll find some way to live with this thing, I'm sure. Besides, just because I can live forever doesn't mean that I will: even the Purified need repairs sooner or later. From what I heard from the engineers putting this body together, it'll take a long time before this body breaks down without maintenance, but it definitely sounds possible for me to die of natural causes… if that's what you want, of course."

"Fiyero?"

"Yes, Elphaba?"

"One of these days, could you teach me how to be as optimistic as you? I desperately need more of that in my life."

"Of course. As we've just established, I've got all the time in the world to show you."

"You have no idea how much I missed you in the time we were apart."

"I think I've got some idea."

"Oh, hush. Um… there's one other thing I meant to ask you before it gets any later in the evening: what do you think of us… you know, going back to Oz?"

"I'm all in favour. I go where you go, remember? Besides, it's not like we're going to see any decent nightlife in these parts until the rebuilding process is over and done with – and even then it's probably going to be another five years before Radiant Loyalists stop trying to bomb restaurants. And if I'm being perfectly honest, everyone on the team agrees with me: Glinda wouldn't give up being your friend for anything; Boq doesn't want to stay in a universe where he has the opportunity to get into another argument with Kiln, and the Mistress of Mirrors freaks him out; Brr wants to make a new life for himself back in Oz; Dorothy seems to think her best chance of getting back to Kansas can be found in Oz; and Chistery's tied to you with a length of string."

"You have a wonderful way of satisfying literally all my anxieties in a single paragraph, Fiyero."

"What can I say? I'm a giver. Speaking of which..."

"Shut up and kiss me again."

---

The next day, Paragon's modifications to the Purified were finally completed.

Though it was impossible to restore any of them to their former selves, the mental conditioning had finally been undone, restoring their free will and allowing them to perceive the world without the all-consuming lens of the Empress's beliefs. Their awakening was a momentous occurrence, with the thinking engine taking all due precautions to ensure that none of them would experience any trauma, gradually guiding them back to cognition as slowly and gently as possible so that they would not be horrified by their new awareness.

All the same, they awoke to great disillusionment, especially the ones who'd been Purified against their will. The unwillingly modified numbered at least thirty-eight percent of the Purified population, and all of them nurtured a great deal of resentment towards Unbridled Radiance once their minds had been restored, especially since they'd been drawn from the ranks of outlying colonies where the Laws were not regularly enforced.

As for the remainder, many of them had been entrusted with duties that stood in clear defiance of the Radiant Laws, allowed to keep secrets that no unmodified member of society would have been entrusted with; they knew better than anyone else that the sacred laws that all citizens were taught to obey and venerate were nothing more than a shallow mask for the overriding dominion of the Empress. If the Empress needed the Radiant Laws to be violated in pursuit of her goals, it would be the Purified who were entrusted with performing the dirty work – the deed itself, the elimination of witnesses, the destruction of evidence, and the creation of the necessary propaganda that would blame any discoveries on the Deviant Nations. The Purified all knew how little truth there was in the Empress's definition of beauty and perfection, and even those who had been genuinely devout prior to their admission into the ranks of the Purified couldn't help but awake to a great sense of disillusionment and loss. Without the conditioning that had guided their thoughts, they could no longer accept the lies or uphold the Radiant Laws.

They returned to their cities in a daze, not sure what to do with their lives now that they had them back again. In the days that followed, some were reunited with their families and apologised for anything they might have done to hurt them while in the power of the Empress; some volunteered for service in the most distant regions of the fallen empire in the hope that they could one day come to terms with what they had become and what they had done; a few even joined mercenary bands like the remnants of the Strangling Coils and journeyed out to far-flung lands that Unbridled Radiance had yet to make contact with, determined to make use of their unfettered strength in pursuit of profit and indulgence.

Most, however, returned to their old jobs across Unbridled Radiance – only this time in the service of the reformed Paragon; after all, what else could they do?

With the Purified helping Paragon run the country, Unbridled Radiance settled into a bemused, sullen sort of efficiency. The Radiant Laws were officially repealed and replaced with a more general code of law acceptable to both the Deviant Nations and the few independent countries that the Empress hadn't conquered, threatened or devastated. Tentative freedom of the press was allowed; regulations against "Distortions" being seen in public were repealed; prospective couples were no longer forced to undergo surveys to determine the potential appearance of their children; even the mandatory alterations of "Distorted" children were officially banned.

Most importantly of all, Purification was outlawed except in very special circumstances, though replacement parts and repair services were still made available to any Purified who needed them.

Now that the Empress was dead, the empire of Unbridled Radiance was no more. Instead, at the direction of Paragon and the Mentor, the imperial territories were broken up into their component nations and allowed independent rule under democratically elected governors… though given the common bias against unPurified officials, the leaders remained Purified for the time being. These autonomous countries formed the Collective of Illumination, an alliance of nations run by a council of representative drawn from each nation, headed by an elected executive and assisted in all respects by Paragon. Elphaba found the process immensely dreary, but it was all Kiln could talk about in the few hours he had to himself.

By now, it was abundantly clear that the Mentor was dying. There was no way of telling how long she would linger on for, but to her credit, the old harridan was determined to get as much done as possible before finally expiring.

Already, she was in talks to arrange a new system of government for Greenspectre – as for the last few decades, the city had been run exclusively by the Mentor alongside the Deviant Nations themselves; after all, she'd been running the show since before the Empress had cast the memory haze, and her popularity had made unseating her impossible in the face of Unbridled Radiance's continued aggression. Now that the war was over, she'd declared, it was time for things to change: from now on, it was time for Greenspectre to have an election for governor just like every other city-state in the Deviant Nations, one that would be subject to the regular checks and balances of power much like every other head of state; similarly, the army of faceless officials and department heads that had previously been hidden in the undergrowth would be officially appointed from now and subject to the media scrutiny that had been denied to the Mentor's administration. Meanwhile, the Deviant Nations as a whole would be run by a newly-elected Mentor – an administrator that would oversee the cities under their aegis and guarantee that the freedoms of body and thought that had formed the Deviant Nation would always be respected.

"And that'll be enough?" Elphaba had asked, in one of the few moments when the Mentor hadn't been busy or sleeping. "You honestly think that'll be all it'll take to make everything right?"

"Of course not," the Mentor had chuckled. "But I have to trust that it'll be enough to keep things on an even keel, give or take a little political improvisation. In a matter of hours, it won't up to be me anymore: now it'll be someone else's job to make sure the Irredeemables don't just become another version of the Purified, to keep the rights consistent between societal strata, to guard against prejudice, to keep the lights on and the water running… and all the little jobs that keep a head of state awake after midnight. As of this afternoon, I'll be retired, and the only thing I'll need to attend to will be seeing my daughter again.

As it seemed that it was the week for assigning places to people, the Childlike Researchers were freed from the Creche and given to qualified caretakers; in practice, these adopters were more like support groups than foster families, allowing the Researchers the assistance they needed to live happily while also granting them freedoms they hadn't been allowed in the Creche. United by small but well-secured communications network, they would now be able to collaborate with each other on research projects, liaise with mundane scholars, and receive commissions from the new governments. Though nothing could be done to cure their condition, Kiln speculated that it was possible for them to gain a measure of control over their oscillating ages given sufficient time and assistance. Indeed, he theorized that their initial loss of control was due to psychological factors more than purely physical ones: infantilized by their captors and traumatized by repeated transformations without counselling, perhaps the Childlike Researchers had simply failed to develop the strength necessary to manipulate their conditions to their own benefit, until their memories had simply eroded. In time, Kiln went on, perhaps if their new caretakers gave them the respect and comfort they so desperately needed, they might be able to consciously direct their patterns of regressions and progressions. For now, though, all that mattered was that they were safe and happy.

One by one, they were funnelled out of the ruined city and into more peaceful areas, until only Morrible and Lintel remained: the latter because his expertise was needed to rebuild his portal gateway in Greenspectre and find the world from which they'd originated; the former because she'd awoken from her sleep with questions about "the pretty green lady" she'd been dreaming about.

Soon after, Elphaba soon found herself getting acquainted with the hyperactive ball of limbs otherwise known as Emmii Morrible (a name she'd devised from her new caretakers' tentative efforts to explain her former identity). Elphaba quickly realized that her previous encounters with children had utterly failed to prepare her for the non-step avalanche of enthusiasm that was the little girl's daily routine. She had no idea if this was just a side-effect of having her brain irrevocably altered, or if Morrible had actually been like this as a child – and if that was the case, what, if anything, could have been able to transform her into the joyless, self-important careerist nightmare she'd been as an adult; whatever the case, the kid was damn near impossible to keep up with. Even Dorothy had difficulty keeping pace with her.

(Not that Dorothy needed much encouragement to lag behind; for the last few days, she'd been curiously subdued, maybe even a little worried about something that she wasn't willing to discuss, not even when Elphaba had taken her aside and asked point-blank. Maybe it was just Elphaba's imagination, but the girl had seemed as if she wanted to tell her – but couldn't; she kept looking oddly at her… or rather, something just over her shoulder.)

Elphaba hadn't intended to take Emmi up on her previous offer to teach her magic; after all, like all the Childlike Researchers, the only memories of her old life she could retain were those relating to her skills in magic, so it wasn't as if she'd actually need to teach her anything. Nonetheless, Elphaba ended up as an unofficial tutor to the hyperactive little girl, if only to stop her from accidentally blasting airships out of the sky every time she felt like showing off. Emmii, who had only a vague recollection of the "pretty green lady", was immediately overjoyed at meeting a fellow witch… and from there, things progressed rather quickly:

"Wow, you can do magic too?! That's great! Can you make lightning bolts? Can you make thunderstorms? Can you make floods? I wanna see! Wait, let's try tornados! Let's go flying! Is it time for lunch yet? Can we be friends?!"

All Elphaba could do was indulge her in a spirited contest of magic, and as exhausting as it was, she had to admit to being a little flattered at her old teacher applauding her every move without a trace of her old ambition. But around the time Emmii went rocketing across the park on Brr's back, whooping at the top of her lungs and launching thunderbolts from her fingertips as Dorothy and a small army of dolls tried desperately to corral her, Elphaba was forced to to admit she'd created a monster.

Eventually, Vara was forced to step in and dissuade Emmii from hang-gliding across town with nothing but an oversized trench coat and a gale-force wind to support her – and, to Elphaba's astonishment, Emmii immediately complied without a word of complaint.

"How the hell did you do that?" she eventually asked, as the little girl meekly clambered down from the parapet.

"Practice," Vara replied, her smile making the scales on her face glitter in the sunlight. "Lots and lots of practice."

Much like the Mentor, she was now waiting for the Mistress of Mirrors to reunite her with her lost family; unlike the Mentor, she was in perfect health and not dealing with the last of the political intricacies, so with the Irredeemables being kept off patrol duty until they'd managed to well and truly in the hearts and minds of the locals, she had little else to do but help keep an eye on the younger members of the army. Sadly, she didn't have any more luck in getting Dorothy to admit to what was worrying her.

All confusions and setbacks aside, though, it was a happy week in the ruins: contests of magic with Emmii, laughing conversations and citywide flights with Glinda and Chistery, the occasional nostalgic ramble with Brr and Boq, novels in the afternoons, and her evenings spent with Fiyero.

But of course, all good things had to come to an end: at around the time Elphaba was finally beginning to appreciate the fact that she might very well have changed this world for the better, a message arrived from Greenspectre informing them that Lintel's improved interdimensional portal was completed, calibrated and ready to transport them back to their Oz.

And as much as Elphaba wanted to linger a little longer in this strange and curiously comfortable reality, she knew that it was best to move on sooner rather than later. After all, Kiln couldn't keep the Mentor alive forever, not even with the old woman sustained by her fondest hopes of seeing her daughter again, and for every minute Glinda remained in the same dimension as her, she was in danger of suffering a terminal case of synchronization.

So, it was time to leave at last.

---

Dorothy was one of the few members of the little troupe not to participate in the victory parade once they arrived in Greenspectre.

Though both Elphaba and Vara questioned this, neither of them tried to talk her out of it, and they didn't appear to be giving the matter any serious thought: after all, they knew she'd gotten self-conscious about being seen in public following her transformation, and Elphaba had clearly noticed the way she'd avoided fame in this world after her experiences with it back in Oz, so hopefully they would chalk it up to a mixture of self-consciousness and guilt.

True, what with the media frenzy surrounding the heroes of the final battle, Dorothy had probably been photographed about a dozen times since she stepped out of the portal, and she already knew that her name had been mentioned as the leader of the dolls in several newspaper articles in the weeks since the attack on Greenspectre, so there was no avoiding publicity. But in truth, publicity wasn't what she was avoiding: Dorothy needed a bit of privacy to think and consider her next move before she made it.

Something was wrong… or perhaps, more correctly, someone was wrong. She didn't know what had happened or why or even how she knew it, but there was no denying the fact that something had changed. It was the Hellion's insight working through her again, telling her things that her own senses couldn't tell her, even though she didn't have the foggiest idea of what it was trying to clue her in on. All Dorothy knew was that one of her oddest and dearest friends had changed in some nightmarishly subtle way, and whenever she looked at her, she couldn't help but feel that there was someone else looking back… or perhaps just peering over her shoulder.

More importantly, she knew that something had to be done about this before it was too late: that maddening sense of intuition was giving her too many hints about what might happen if the problem wasn't addressed. It had to be done before they left this world, or else Dorothy might never get a chance to fix things ever again. But as for what was to be done about it… well, the Hellion's insight could only tell her so much.

So while Elphaba, Glinda, Boq, Brr and Chistery smiled and waved for the jubilant crowds below, Dorothy sat anxiously in one of the palace hallways, just outside the vacant hangar bay where Lintel was putting the finishing touches to the portal that would carry them home. It was dark, cold, ominously silent except for the distant clamour of the parade outside, and it probably would have been rather lonely if not for Toto's reassuring presence… but right now, Dorothy needed all of that to focus on what she had to do next. From what Vara had told her, the heroes weren't going to enjoy the full length of the parade before they started packing their bags to leave; they probably on be there for perhaps an hour and a half, meaning that Elphaba would probably be hightailing it out of there in sixty minutes or less, giving Dorothy perhaps an hour to consider her options. So far, none of them looked good, least of all the idea she'd finally decided to run with, but unfortunately, Dorothy didn't have much of a choice in the matter. She could only hope that once she was finished, Elphaba would understand why this was so important and – if Elphaba wasn't aware of what was going on – that they would all escape this final mess with their lives intact.

The minutes ticked by, one minute swiftly bleeding into five, then ten, then twenty, then forty... Dorothy tried to remain focussed on the task at hand without thinking of the passage of time, but it wasn't easy: even with the only clock in the room hidden in shadow, Dorothy's unearthly eyes could see it marking the minutes as clear as day. Over and over again, her thoughts drifted back to the one good idea she'd managed to come up with and the insane risk she'd have to take just to get it to work. All she could do was hope that nobody would be hurt – and nobody would interrupt…

And then she heard the sound of footsteps echoing up the corridor towards her. It took some time for the little door at the end of the hall to finally creak open, but Dorothy already knew who had arrived long before the familiar pointy hat crept into view: once she'd packed up her odds and ends, it was only natural for Elphaba to stop by the portal for one last check before she went about supervising the others, just to assuage her hidden anxieties. And this was exactly the opportunity Dorothy had been waiting for.

As soon as the door opened, Dorothy had ducked out of sight and into the shadows behind her chair, hastily taking Toto with her. With the area almost pitch-black and the light switch at the far end of the hall, Elphaba couldn't her lurking behind the armrest as she strode through the gloom, towards the door to the improvised portal chamber. In the nerve-wracking silence that followed, Dorothy took a deep breath to steady herself; then, at the very moment Elphaba reached for the light switch, Dorothy pounced.

In truth, she was surprised that she managed to do so without screaming, bound up with nerves as she was. But somehow she kept her lips buttoned as she flung herself through the darkness, staying as silent as a shadow until she landed with a snarl atop Elphaba's unsuspecting shoulders.

"Argh! What-"

Instinctively, Elphaba tried to throw her attacker off, but Dorothy's hands had already fastened on her shoulders like grappling hooks, her bare feet digging into her back like pitons. The Hellion's nightmarish inheritance had given her more power than most children her age could even dream of, and while her true power lay in magic, there was enough of her counterpart's monstrous strength in her limbs to grapple – however briefly – with an adult. Just to make sure it was clear that she meant business, she allowed the Hellion in her to manifest again, letting her jaws erupt outwards as a fanged maw the size and shape of a bear trap – and snapped it shut loudly enough for her target to hear her.

"Right," Dorothy hissed. "Now that I've got your attention, whoever or whatever you are, you're going to let Elphaba go."

"Dorothy, what are you-"

"I know you're in control, now, so there's no point using Elphaba's voice to try and fool me. I've seen you peering over her shoulder and watching through her eyes; I know you've been here ever since Elphaba turned up in Exemplar; right now, I know that you're going to do something horrible if you stay with her any longer, so let's-"

"Have you gone completely bonkers?! Let me-"

"Listen to me! If you don't let Elphaba go right now, then I'm going to rip your throat out with my teeth."

There was a pause, and when Elphaba spoke again, her voice was that of a complete stranger: it was a man's voice now, older, deeper and far more unearthly than anything that Dorothy had ever heard in her journey; this was a voice that could have only issued from the deepest, darkest pits of hell, from places that had never known light or mercy or sanity, only endless, freezing night. Even the Hellion had sounded more human than this.

More worryingly, Dorothy got the distinct impression that she'd met the source of this terrible voice before.

"So you caught me," grumbled the voice. "Congratulations. I suspected your enhanced senses might have shown you a hint of the truth after I directed Elphaba to safety in the final battle, but I didn't think you be as bold as to try this. Well done, Dorothy Gale, well done."

"You're welcome, whoever you are."

"We've met before: Roquat the Red was my formal title, but you often just called me the Nome King."

Somewhere around Elphaba's ankles, Toto growled ever-so-slightly.

"Now that we're introduced, I should probably explain something very pertinent before you start getting interest in taking a bite out of your friend's jugular. You haven't thought things through: you want to tear my throat out, but Elphaba would be the one who'd suffer in my stead. I don't need a host to survive, Dorothy; you'd only be killing your friend."

"But I know you need her; you want to follow her back to Oz so you can use Elphaba against the Wizard. You want revenge – I don't know what for just yet, but I know you want to make the Wizard suffer for something… and you know the best way you can do that is by using his own daughter against him."

"Very astute. The Hellion's intuition has taught you much. I'm not sure why you'd be opposed to such a thing, though: Elphaba wouldn't be hurt by any of it. I wouldn't even stay in her for very long, just long enough to talk the Wizard into accepting a deal with me – an exchange of hostages, you might say. You see, my version of possession requires a measure of consent from the host. Once the Wizard accepts me into his mind and soul, I release Elphaba and I'll never make contact with her or the rest of Oz ever again; I'll be too busy torturing my new host to bother with that! As far as I'm concerned, everybody's happy."

"Everybody except the Wizard."

"And why do you care, Dorothy Gale? The Wizard hasn't been a friend to you, has he? He sent you off on a suicide mission in the hopes of luring Elphaba into the firing line, dangling you like a worm on a hook in front of a shark. And of course, he's wronged your friends and loved ones so many times it's almost comical: Elphaba, Glinda, Boq, Brr, Chistery, all of them hurt in so many ways because of him… and let's not forget that he signed off on Morrible summoning up the tornado that dragged you into Oz. All the torment you've experienced, all the crippling dread you suffered, all the miseries you've endured since then – it's all been because one petty dictator wanted to assassinate some girl in a wheelchair. So why do you care?"

"I don't," said Dorothy, flatly. "But Elphaba will. She made a promise to the Other Wizard… but then, I don't think she'd just let you torture the Wizard even if she hadn't made any promise: she wouldn't want him to go on suffering for the rest of his life – she's not the sort of person to just let that happen. She'd find a way to stop you, even if it killed her, and I don't want her to get hurt anymore-"

"-than she already has, yes, I'm sure. Very noble of you. But once again, you haven't thought this through, Dorothy: I'm prepared to accept other means of torturing the Wizard; with the power at my command, I have ways of manifesting my will in many wonderous and nightmarish ways. If you kill Elphaba, you lose your dearest friend and I lose nothing."

"You'll also lose your only way of getting back to Oz. If killing Elphaba isn't enough to stop you, I'll tell everyone the truth about you: the portal won't be opened again, and you'll stay here with the rest of us forever."

"…you'd do that? You'd be willing to kill your own best friend and force Glinda to have her mind overwritten by the Mentor's consciousness, just for the sake of stopping me?"

A stab of pain rippled through Dorothy's heart, and for a moment, she wanted to let Roquat go and abandon this entire madcap scheme. But then that terrible surge of foreboding made itself felt again: she couldn't give up now, not when she knew what might happen next. She might not have Elphaba's prophetic abilities, but she had her other self's intuition, and she had enough imagination to guess at what might happen next.

"If you go back to Oz and possess the Wizard," Dorothy whispered, "you'll ruin both of them. Elphaba will never forgive herself for letting you take the Wizard and she'll spent the rest of her life waging war on you, and Glinda will follow her no matter how far she has to go. They'll die miserable, and they'll never get to enjoy everything they won in this world. If it meant saving Elphaba and Glinda from what you'd do to them… then I'd do it in a heartbeat."

There was a stunned pause. Then Roquat began to laugh, a low, thunderous chuckle that rippled through Elphaba and across the room like the tremors of an earthquake.

"The Hellion gave you more than just power and insight, didn't she? She gave you a touch of her bloodlust, a hint of the ruthlessness that drove her so far for a doll or two… or perhaps that's just something you learned on your own, something the war taught you. One way or the other, I doubt you'll ever be able to go home after all this: even if you hid your eyes and never used your powers again, you've done things no child should ever have to do. You're not a child anymore, not really; you don't think or talk or act the way any human juvenile would… and in point of fact, you're not even human, not in the literal or the metaphorical sense. You've killed people, Dorothy, murdered and mutilated and made a monster of yourself a thousand times over. Can you imagine you'd even fit in back in Kansas? Can you ever dream of being able to meet Aunt Em's gaze without feeling ashamed? Can you actually imagine yourself spending a week there without hurting someone – or killing someone? Even with those precious Ruby Slippers ready to take you all the way home, it'll never be home for you ever again!"

Another tiny stab of pain shot through her; once again, all she could do was do her best to ignore the Nome King and try not to lose composure.

"What do you get from torturing the Wizard?" she asked, hastily changing the subject.

"For a start, I have a more-than reasonable quarrel with the Wizard after he plundered our emeralds to make his capital city. In one dimension after the next, my people have been humiliated because of him, and all too often, he's gotten away without so much as a slap on the wrist. I'd say this particular iteration of Oscar Diggs deserves more suffering than most, given that he avoided the fall from grace his counterparts were forced to experience. Besides, I've been trapped in the nothingness between worlds for far too long: I need some entertainment to take the edge off my frustrations."

"And what are you going to do then?"

"…beg pardon?"

"What happens when you're out of entertainment? Can you keep someone alive forever?"

"I admit, I've never tried."

"Well, the Wizard's already an old man, so when he finally dies, what are you going to do next?"

There was an awkward pause as Roquat silently considered this.

"I was considering taking a journey to another universe and torturing the next iteration of the Wizard I found there… but I admit, the game would stop being entertaining after the first six or seven repetitions, and I'd prefer working with a victim that truly hasn't suffered enough. But as I said, I've never tried to make a torture victim immortal before. Perhaps it would be possible to keep the Wizard alive indefinitely…"

"You don't know?"

"I never really considered the concept very deeply when I was trapped in the void; I just needed something to keep my mind occupied – and fantasizing of revenge was all I had for a while."

"Then maybe you haven't thought things through. Maybe there's something better than revenge you could try?"

"And what do you propose instead, Dorothy? You haven't got much to bargain with, in case you hadn't noticed."

Dorothy's mind raced. "What do you want?" she asked.

"I want entertainment. I've been without sensation or joy for centuries upon centuries of relative time in the void, and after spending most of that eons-long span watching other people live their lives out in the multiverse, I'd very much like to make up for lost time: how better to begin than by torturing someone who honestly and truly deserves it?"

"What if you didn't need to torture anyone at all?"

Elphaba eyed her strangely, Roquat twisting her features into a quizzical expression. "Elaborate."

"You say you've been watching how things play out in other dimensions, but you've never seen the Wizard forced to compromise while still in power, have you? You've never seen him clean up his act against his will, right?"

"It hasn't happened often, and it's usually been deeply unsatisfying – often due to a coup by Morrible or the future Empress. It's always over before the real humiliation begins. I admit, I haven't seen literally every possible world, but those belonged to a very common variation of that particular outcome. What do you propose?"

"You leave Elphaba; you follow us back to Oz but don't go anywhere near the Wizard. You leave them both alone. Instead, you get to be a spectator on what happens next if everything goes according to what Elphaba's planning."

"And what will happen next?"

Dorothy told him. It took about a minute and a half for her to explain everything she'd learned from the bits and pieces that the Hellion's insight was telling her, and by the end, the Nome King was laughing – and maybe it was just her fear-crazed imagination, but it sounded almost admiring this time.

"Very well, Dorothy. Astonishing though it may be, I think we have an accord. I shall abide by your terms. Elphaba will no longer be troubled by my presence…"

There was a pause, and then Dorothy felt the unearthly presence that had been hovering around Elphaba swiftly receded; only then did Dorothy finally scuttle off Elphaba's shoulders and return to the floor.

Then Elphaba blinked in confusion, suddenly back in her own mind. Then, she noticed Dorothy standing next to her: "There you are," she sighed in relief. "I've been looking all over for you! Why weren't you out on the promenade where Vara could easy track you down? I thought you'd at least want to take a look at the festivities."

Dorothy shook her head, trying to think of some excuse that wouldn't involve revealing everything that had happened in the last few minutes. "I… I needed some time to think about what's going to happen next."

"You're still set on going with us back to Oz?"

She nodded silently.

"You know, I'm pretty sure the portal can take you right back to Kansas – your Kansas, I mean, not this world's version of Kansas. I mean, Fiyero said you had a method of getting back home that would only work in Oz, but-"

Dorothy groaned in despair. Even if she hadn't had the Hellion's deranged intuition, even if the Nome King hadn't filled in the remaining pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, it wouldn't have take much effort to tell that the Ruby Slippers would have been able to take her just about anywhere once they'd built up enough of a charge of magic.

"I lied," she said wearily. "I don't think my method will work any easier in Oz. I think it'll work fine just here… but I don't want to use it – not until I'm sure I want it."

"But I thought that was what you always wanted – to go back to Kansas and-"

"-I know. But now I'm starting to wonder if I belong there anymore. I've changed so much, I…" Her breath caught in her throat. "I'm not even sure if Aunt Em and Uncle Henry would recognize me after all this time. You've seen how my eyes glow in the dark; you've seen how the Hellion in me comes out when I need to fight; how am I supposed to even be anywhere near them now, after everything that's happened to me?"

Elphaba gave her a look of near-parental exasperation. "Dorothy, back when we were first getting to know each other, you were wondering what would happen if the paralysis would never wear off, and I told you your Aunt and Uncle would never think any less of you for it. The same applies now: it doesn't matter how much you've changed or how weird you think you are; it's not going to stop them from loving you one bit. So, what's really keeping you from just going back to Kansas?"

"…you're right, Elphie. It's not about what I am: it's about what I've done. I've done things kids shouldn't even think of doing; I've bitten fingers off, I've bitten ears off, I've killed people… I've been in a war. How am I supposed to even pretend to belong in Kansas after all the crazy things I've been doing for the last month or two? I don't even know if I should go home at all. What if I end up making a mistake and using my powers? What if I hurt someone? What if I end up killing someone by accident – or worse? Or what if… what if I end up going wrong, like the Hellion did? I mean, I've already taken her place in so many ways; I've already had the dolls kill people for me. What if I… I…"

She couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence. The words stuck in her throat like broken glass and dug in too deep to ever be spoken.

Aunt Em and Uncle Henry would call me a mad dog, she thought. They'd lock me up if they knew about the things I've done. People who threaten to rip their friends throats out don't get medals and parades. They go to jail – or they get hanged. And they'd be right, too, wouldn't they? Oh god, I actually meant it. I'd have done it if Roquat hadn't accepted the bargain; I'd have killed Elphaba in cold blood… oh god, what was I thinking?

She was blinking away tears now, trying to hold back the flood of delayed fear and guilt that threatened to envelop her. She wanted to make her excuses and leave before things got any worse, but she couldn't see the room clearly; her vision was swimming already, no matter how hard she tried to keep the tears at bay.

"I mean… maybe I don't deserve to go home. Maybe I-"

And then, just as Dorothy thought she really would cry, she felt Elphaba's arms around her, drawing her into a gentle embrace. "You haven't done anything wrong, Dorothy," she whispered. "You're not a murderer, you're not insane, and you're definitely not the Hellion. If you were anything like that, you wouldn't have doubted that you were in the right for a minute, and you wouldn't have felt a minute of remorse for any of those deaths. You helped save lives out there, including mine; you didn't act out of rage, like I did when I was younger; you didn't get people hurt because you couldn't control your powers; most importantly, you didn't kill anyone who was helpless, surrendering or innocent. You're still a good person, Dorothy… and despite the rocky start we got off to, I still think you're a much better person than I am."

"But what about Kansas? How am I supposed to go home and go back to normal after everything that's happened?"

"From experience, I can tell you that there's no such thing as 'normal' except in machines. In people, the definition of what's normal and what's no changes so often that it's best not to even bother paying attention to it. There's more important things to keep an eye on: being intelligent, being kind, being honest… And if you need time to get used to a peaceful life, you can always stay with me while you adjust: you'll always have a place with us."

In spite of herself, Dorothy smiled, and felt herself almost imperceptibly relax in Elphaba's arms.

"Besides, if you want my opinion on what people back in Kansas would think of you, I'd say your Aunt and Uncle would be pretty damn proud of you. And your parents, too." Elphaba hesitated, and then added, "By the way, you never told me about your mother and father. What are they like?"

Dorothy shrugged. "I don't know, they both died when I was little. I've been living with my Aunt and Uncle since I was, oh, two years old."

"Oh… um… sorry."

"It's okay. I miss them, but… my Aunt and Uncle were always there for me. Just like you've always been there for me."

Elphaba blushed a deep shade of avocado, and in spite of herself, Dorothy couldn't help but giggle at the sight. It took a while for the laughter to finally subside, and when it did, she found herself with one last thing to say – maybe driven by the last of her guilt, maybe driven by fear that the portal might somehow go horribly wrong and leave her unable to say what needed to be said.

"Elphaba?"

"Yes, Dorothy?"

"Thank you. For everything."

The two of them hugged each other tightly, and for perhaps a minute, there was silence in the corridor; after all, there was no need for speech anymore.

Presently, though, they became aware that they weren't alone in the hallway.

"Um… Dorothy, why are all these dolls here?"

"Well, I think they saw the others packing up and decided to join us at the portal."

"Yes, but… why? I mean, can't you just say goodbye to them outside?"

"Um… I've decided to take them home with me."

"What? Why?!"

"I haven't been able to turn them back to normal. In fact, I don't even know if there is a way to make them normal again. Besides, lots of them don't even have families anymore, so even if I could make them normal again, they've got nothing to go back to. But that's not really the point, though: the point is that they really don't like being left alone, and they hate being without orders from their "Mother," so I think it's safer if I was around to point them in the right direction. If I leave them here, they might end up hurting someone. So… I think they're stuck with me."

"And you're just going to bring them all to Oz – all those hundreds of dolls?"

"You don't think we need an army where we're going?"

"…point taken."

There was a chirruping from the radio at Elphaba's belt. "Elphaba, this is Boq. We're all packed up and we're heading towards the new portal chamber, but… um, the path seems to be blocked by about four or five hundred dolls and none of them seem interested in budging. Do you know anything about this?"

"Oh for the love of Lurline… Lintel! We're going to need more room in the portal chamber!"

---

Fortunately, Lintel knew someone with a gift for magically altering the parameters of available space; thanks to the available network of Childlike Researchers, the message was passed along very quickly, and the needed expert arrived and finished the work within the hour. Kiln and the Mentor were a bit dubious about people casually futzing around with the palace's physical constraints, but the two Researchers promised the Mentor that they would eventually put the hangar back exactly as it was as soon as the farewell was finished.

Now they were all here, gathered together on a hangar platform approximately two thousand yards across: Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero, Dorothy, Toto, Chistery, Boq, Brr… and several hundred dolls standing in perfect formation. By now, they'd packed everything they'd needed for the journey: Elphaba's copy of the Grimmerie, the little green bottle, Boq's axe, Fiyero's new utility belt of weapons, Dorothy's old clothes, Glinda's wand, the various medals they'd all been given during the parade, and all the assorted souvenirs they'd collected over the course of their time in this strange, demented world.

Behind them stood the portal, now fully-calibrated and directed at the Oz they knew.

Ahead of them stood the farewell party: the Mentor, dozing in her wheelchair; Dr Kiln, patiently tending to the life-support system; Vara, now in her dress uniform (matching her scales perfectly); the First of the Shapeless, as protean as ever, and accompanied by Omber Landless and Shenshen-Pfannee; the Mistress of Mirrors, with Elarose and Essella flanking her on either side; Wolton, resplendent in his medals; Lintel and Morrible, both under the watchful eyes of their foster parents; the Chapter Master of the Irredeemables; and, most surprisingly of all, Marchfly – his gorilla-like body now adorned with a mayoral chain of office.

The farewells that followed were awkward but heartfelt.

Lurching awake, the Mentor trundled forward and took Elphaba's hands in a trembling grip – half metal, half withered, ancient flesh. "Sorry I wasn't awake to see you arrive," she murmured. "Now that the war's over, it seems I can barely stay awake for anything other than the last few scraps of work I have to complete. Never been this tired, not even during the worst of the Fifth Great Purity Bombing. No doubt it's going to get worse as my organs continue to fail… but hopefully I'll be awake enough to see Alyssiana again when the time comes."

She sighed. "I never would have pictured that we'd ever get a chance for this goodbye. Truth be told, I never imagined I'd survive the war, much less see retirement."

"That makes two of us," Elphaba confessed. "Well, not the retirement business. I've still got work to do in Oz, and I'm not sure if I'll survive that, so…"

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that, young lady. You really think the Wizard will be able to stop you after all the strength you've gained out here? No, I think you'll live long enough to enjoy the life you always wanted: a career, a little respect, given time, maybe even an adoring public." Her mismatched eyes flicked towards Fiyero. "Certainly, you'll live long enough to marry him. Before you know it, you'll be retired and sitting by a fire with eight or nine little green grandchildren clamouring to hear of your adventures."

Elphaba blushed. "I… um… I wasn't thinking of that…"

"Well, you should: I've seen the results of his latest physical. Even after all the Champion's augmentations, he's still a fully fertile male specimen, and with the way you've been spending every other evening with him, I'd say Fiyero might just be a father sooner or later. Though you might want to keep the volume to a minimum in the future: your midnight antics were leaving the sentries with burning ears, Elphaba. Not that you didn't have good reason to," she added with a wry grin. "The physical made that quite clear as well."

"Mentor!"

"I never took you to be shy about such matters. Oh, don't give me that look, dear: I'm old and dying and I've finally put aside one of the greatest burdens of long and extremely violent life. I think by now, I've earned the right to be vulgar."

She paused, and then gradually sobered. "As long as we're still bidding farewells," she continued softly, "I'm sorry for all the times I lied to you and all the times I took your life for granted. You know my reasons for doing so and you know what I'd hoped to achieve, but that hardly excuses it – not when I nearly threw away our best chance at winning simply because I couldn't bring myself to hope again."

"And I'm sorry for what I said when we argued: I didn't have any right to guilt-trip you that way, no matter how angry I was at you, and I certainly didn't have the right be that disrespectful."

"That disrespectful?" the Mentor echoed.

"Er…"

"No, I understand, believe me. Who would you be, Elphaba, if you couldn't be just a tiny bit insubordinate?" That lopsided grin again. "Hold onto that boldness, no matter what happens to you: that was how they ruined Elphaba, by smothering what made her so great and replacing it with what they thought was more acceptable, easier to control. As long as you keep hold of that devil-may-care outrage, that gravity-defying audacity, you'll never go wrong."

For a moment, the mechanical arm gripped Elphaba's hand tighter than ever.

"Now go," the Mentor whispered. "And never forget that you have the strength to make the impossible a reality: you've already liberated one world, Elphaba. Liberating Oz will be a piece of cake to you."

As Glinda began making her farewells to the Mentor, Kiln stepped up and shook Elphaba's hand, snakelike fingers winding all the way up her wrist.

"Good luck," he murmured. "As turbulent as things got between us, I can honestly say that I'm going to miss you."

"And I'll miss you," Elphaba replied, perfectly sincere. "Sneaky, condescending, drug-obsessed apologist that you are, you were the best doctor I've ever had. Plus, it's going to be weird going into battle without you tagging along. After all, where am I going to find conversations as fascinating and disturbing as our daily chats were?"

Kiln actually cracked a smile at this. "Do you have any plans on what you're going to do once you get back to Oz?"

"I have a few, but whether they'll survive contact with the enemy is another matter. Having all this witch-crystal sprouting from my back will help, hopefully. You're sure this isn't going to grow any further, right?"

"Positive: you've been off the drug for long enough to metabolize any remaining traces within your system. Now, all you've got are the crystals. Same goes for the dream-pills, so you won't have to worry about having any other dreams of your counterpart's life… not that you would once you've returned to Oz," he added sheepishly.

"Then I should probably ask what your plans for the future are."

Kiln hesitated. "I don't know," he admitted. "I haven't had the time to think about it. Frankly, I've had so much work in the last few years that I've barely had the time to work out a vacation timetable. But since you asked… once the Mentor no longer has any need for my services, I might start a small, unambitious private practice somewhere in a town where nobody knows my name… preferably somewhere Nessa is always within reach."

"Good to hear: I think a slower pace of life might suit you. Oh, and Kiln? Mistreat Nessa in any way, and I swear to you that I'll find my way back here and make shuttlecocks out of your eyeballs."

Kiln smiled again. "Never change, Elphaba," he chuckled. "Never change."

"Never in a million years; now get back to being a doctor – and promise me that you'll have the decency to have a good life."

"Just as long as you can promise me this: when those grandchildren of yours want to hear the story of your adventures in our world, don't leave out all the grief you gave to the dashingly handsome and marvellously erudite mage-surgeon sent to help you."

Elphaba just laughed as she shook his hand one final time.

The next thing she knew, she was in a whirl of handshakes and hugs and bows and salutes, lost in a maelstrom of heartfelt thanks: she was dimly aware of Leoverus exchanging farewells with Brr, the First of the Shapeless taking on the form of the lion as one final courtesy to his other self; Boq shaking the hand of Kiln, exasperated at his older counterpart's dry wit but unable to keep the smile off his face; Fiyero kneeling before the Mentor, the old woman patting his cheek and looking for all the world like some grandmother saying goodbye to a dutiful grandchild; Vara hugging Dorothy goodbye, the little girl promising her that she would see her son again soon.

Caught between being thumped on the back by an uncharacteristically jovial Marchfly and being saluted by Wolton, Elphaba looked up to see Omber shaking Glinda's hand one final time. "I never thought I'd ever get a chance to rejoin the League and shapeshift again," they were saying. "I honestly thought I'd grow old and die without ever knowing what it was like to be free; you and your friends – you gave me more than I could ever have hoped for. I mean, I just wish there was something more I could do for you."

"Well, you've rescued me from Exemplar, saved my life and brought me into the fold."

"And you saved my life, too, don't forget."

"I don't think we really owe each other anything, Omber. We're friends and fellow shapeshifters. I think we can just say goodbye, knowing that we've changed each other for the better."

"For good," Omber agreed.

"For Shapelessness."

Back in the foreground of Elphaba's attention, she was dimly aware of the Other Nessa's arm on her shoulder. "I know I'm not really your sister, and I know I can't give you closure for what happened to the Nessa you knew… but for what it's worth, I came to care for you almost as much as the Elphaba I knew, before she lost herself in the madness Oz forced on her. I hoped you could bring an end to this war without killing my sister… and you didn't disappoint one bit. You gave me hope: you showed me that, in spite of all that's became of this world and the people I love, there will always be a chance for new beginnings." She leaned in and kissed Elphaba on the cheek. "Thank you always, Elphaba. Thank you."

Then the twins stepped up,

"I know you weren't our mother," sighed Elarose, "But you were better at pretending to be her than she ever was. You set us free-"

"And we'll never forget that," said Essella. "No matter what happens to us, no matter what we grow up to be, we'll never forget that you were the one that gave us that chance."

The two hesitated. Then, they flung their arms around Elphaba.

"Goodbye, mom."

"And thank you – for everything."

It took a long time before any of them were willing to part, but eventually, the three of them finally broke off the hug and stood, blinking back tears as Elphaba prepared herself for the final departure.

Meanwhile, the First of the Shapeless was now handing Glinda what appeared to be a shoebox bound in twine; Elphaba couldn't see what was in it but judging by the sound of glassware rattling inside, she could easily hazard a guess. "You're nowhere near enough to Shapelessness to go without potion," he was explaining, "But that doesn't mean that you have to give up the lifestyle once you head back to Oz."

"What do you mean?" Glinda asked. "The potion you're giving me won't last forever."

"Notice the papers I've included?"

"Wait, you're giving me the recipe for the amorphous potion? I thought you only gave that to senior members!"

"It was a wartime provision against Unbridled Radiance, just in case they tried to destroy the source of our ingredients. They're not nearly as rare as you might think, not even in Oz. In fact, as memory serves, the components of our potion grew plentifully in the Vinkus and in Quadling Country."

"But having all that potion around just for me… well, it sounds a bit selfish."

"Quite so. But it need not be for you alone – or even for you at all. If you so decide that eventually ascending to full Shapelessness isn't for you, then that's your decision: your body hasn't began to undergo any permanent alterations just yet, so you can still leave if you wish, bury your remaining stocks of potion, abandon the formula and think no more of change. It's your choice, Glinda: your body is yours to do with as you please, and nobody – not even your fellow shapeshifters – can ever dictate the limitations of your form. If you never wish to change again, then I will not stop you… but if you want to continue along the path you began with us, then the formula is here for you – and those in Oz who choose to share the path with you."

"You mean…"

"Yes. If all goes well for you once you get home, you could easily start a plantation, a factory even, manufacture our potion on an industrial scale. After all, there are people out there just like all our initiates, tormented by dissatisfaction with their bodies and haunted by the limitations of their flesh, imprisoned by the belief that nothing about themselves could ever change. You could give them a new lease on life, Glinda: you could build a new branch of the Amorphous League in Oz."

Glinda took a deep breath. "Definitely a bigger responsibility than I was expecting, Leoverus. Are you sure I'm the right person for the job?"

"There's not a trace of doubt in my mind: you helped us bring hundreds of new recruits into the League here in the Deviant Nations, and I'm comfortable certain that only your gift for public speaking could have given us that much. Now, it's time to put your talents to good use with a challenge that only Oz – stagnant, blinkered and oblivious – could offer. Besides," he added with a wink from several dozen eyes at once, "It'll be dull being the only shapeshifter in the country."

In spite of herself, Glinda laughed. "Then why not?" she chuckled. "Maybe shapeshifting is the change Oz really needs."

"That's the spirit! Now, be on your way: hold your head high, keep your eyes facing forward, and remember that the League will always be grateful for the blessings you've brought us. For Shapelessness."

"For Shapelessness," Glinda replied automatically.

They shared one final hug – Leoverus embracing her with no less than six arms at once.

Then, it was time to leave.

Ahead of them, the portal roared to life, flooding the horizon with a dazzling blaze of unearthly light. Behind them, the people were hollering their farewells and Elphaba was waving goodbye, but always being drawn closer and closer to the portal at the heart of the gateway.

She saw the dolls around her marching towards the portal.

She saw her friends step through the gateway one at a time, sparing one final wave to the party behind them before vanishing into the light.

And she saw herself turn at the faces she'd known so well over these last few weeks, even as she reached out to touch the portal itself.

Then…

She was gone.

---

For a little over four months, Oz had been totally Wicked Witch-free, and the Wizard's government had remained stable in its own uniquely stagnant, listless fashion.

The Wizard himself was still respected, Morrible's job was neither easier or harder, crime was at an all-time low, no terrorists had arisen to take Elphaba's place, and the few Animals that were still free had either fled the country or gone so far underground that not even the most determined hunters had been able to track them down. All in all, the people were contented with their lot, if not necessarily happy… and from what little Elphaba could tell, it was largely because of the events that had led to her "death."

The death of the Wicked Witch of the West had been attributed to a final battle between her and Glinda. Nobody had seen this fight take place, of course, but as Glinda had last been seen headed for Kiamo Ko, it was presumed that the cataclysm that had destroyed the castle could only have emerged from the collision of their magic, and as such, Glinda had been immortalized as a martyr. Unfortunately for the Wizard, as inspirational as martyrs were, the "death" had represented a significant loss for the government's propaganda department, and no matter how hard they tried, nobody could quite replicate the sense of charm, sweetness, innocence and determination that Glinda had brought to the stage – not without making the homage all too obvious.

Worse still, they'd also lost some of the greatest heroes of the age: Dorothy was widely believed to have been murdered by the Witch, and was still being mourned over four months onwards, her name a byword for lost innocence and crushed hopes; the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion were believed slain while trying to help Glinda avenge their friend, and statues were already being built in their honour. Even Toto was presumed dead. And without heroes or villains to distract from the current state of the country, Oz was now trapped in a state of basically-acceptable mediocrity: progress had ground to a halt, entertainment was constant but unimaginative, business was neither booming or bust, politics was lurching along without much in the way of success or failure, and even Morrible's attempts to rewrite history were being met with extreme ambivalence these days.

All in all, Oz had taken on the atmosphere of an extremely boring afternoon in the dying days of summer, which was probably why the memorial services for the fallen heroes of the realm had become so theatrical of late: in the Emerald City, the latest ceremony was due to begin at midnight and feature an appearance by the Wizard himself. After all, grief over lost lives, hatred of the Witch, and a display of the Wizard's magic were among the few things that could get the citizens of Oz fired up again.

So it was rather unfortunate for the Wizard that Elphaba chose to reintroduce herself right in the middle of the midnight service.

The ceremony was being held in the square right outside the palace, with the Wizard's animatronic head positioned where a pulpit would usually stand, with several thousand people crammed into the plaza less than fifty feet away from him. Around the head, a temporary stage had been erected so that Morrible and other chosen orators could pontificate to the masses of the noble sacrifices made by Glinda and Dorothy in pursuit of goodness, with the Wizard occasionally chiming in with some pithy statement delivered in an amplified stentorian roar. It actually reminded Elphaba of the night of Alphaba's coup, though she hoped it would at least end on a more positive note.

One way or the other, at the very height of ceremony, a few members of the congregation happened to glance skyward and noticed a strange new star in the night sky directly above the square, a tiny green pinhole gleaming in the darkness. And as the seconds bled by, some began to notice that the star appeared to growing brighter – and getting bigger, too. By the time the rest of the crowd had begun to take notice, the star was the size of an apple and shining brightly enough to cast a haunting emerald glow on the square… and before long, it became plainly obvious that it wasn't growing it all: it was getting closer, hurtling towards the Emerald City with all the inexorable force of a meteor.

A moment later, the falling star landed right in the middle of the square with a dazzling flash of green light… and when it faded, Elphaba was standing there, resplendent in her billowing black cloak and pointed hat, her shoulders glistening with witch-crystal. She slowly looked up at the horror-stricken crowd, allowing them time to see past the brim of her hat and recognize her at last.

"Did you miss me?" she asked, a wicked smirk creeping across her face.

As one, several hundred spectators began backing away, while hundreds more angled for positions where they could see what was going on as the Wizard's guards began pouring out of the palace. As one, they shouldered their rifles and took aim at Elphaba, readying themselves to fire as soon as the Wizard gave the order.

Unfortunately, the balance of power in Oz had shifted significantly.

Four months ago, Elphaba would never have dared attack the Emerald City head-on. Even with her powers, she wasn't bullet-proof, and it would have been suicide to tackle such a well-defended location with so many guns trained on the sky at once, hence why she'd gone to the trouble of sneaking into palace on her last visit. Since then, though, she'd changed: empowered by witch-crystal and hardened through experience on the battlefield, she had been given the power to match wills with the Empress herself… and the Wizard's men were still using the same training, the same tactics, the same guns – most of which would have been regarded as amusingly quaint in the world she'd just left.

She gave them a chance to open fire, just so she could show off how many bullets she could magically absorb at once, then sent all thirty-seven guards tumbling helplessly into unconsciousness.

Another team of guards pushed their way through the crowd and took aim – and at that moment, Fiyero leapt from the palace roof and landed in their midst. As agreed, he didn't use his sword, his gun or any of the equipment that the Champion usually kept clipped to his utility belt; in that moment, Fiyero used only his fists and his feet… and that was enough. Most of the guards didn't even have time to realize they were being attacked, much less raise their guns to retaliate; a single kick was enough to shatter their rifles into useless scrap, and any who actually tried to hang on to their halberds ended up suffering dislocated limbs when Fiyero wrenched them out of their hands. He gave them a chance to run once their weapons were broken; those stupid enough not to take it usually needed a broken leg before they learned their lesson.

Those who tried to attack Fiyero from afar found themselves swiftly pinned to the ground by a rain of nets dropped by Chistery.

Far above them, snipers were already lining up on the balconies and parapets of the palace, but they seemed to vanish almost as quickly as they appeared, so Dorothy and the dolls were already at work. They'd been instructed not to kill any of the guards, so Dorothy's paralytic touch was probably getting a very decisive workout, though she doubted the men would sleep without nightmares for quite some time.

More guards were pouring out of the palace doors in a desperate attempt to replace the men they'd already lost, without much success; those of them that Elphaba didn't just knock out found themselves facing down Glinda in all her shapeshifting glory. At first, she was subtle, taking the forms of fellow guards and taking them out in sneak attacks, trussing them up with lengths of shed skin; then, as more guards began to appear on the scene, she quickly adjusted from stealth to outright intimidation, assaulting them with the most horrific shapes she could use without causing property damage. Elphaba wasn't sure if it was the ogrish mass of spike-tipped sinew or the beautiful woman with bundles of snakes for arms and a pack of ravenous wolves for legs that finally prompted the call to retreat, but in any event, the guards soon stopped emerging from the palace altogether.

And the hell of it was, she was still a novice shapeshifter: she'd only been a member of the Amorphous League for perhaps a month or two. Less than four weeks ago, she hadn't been able to manifest clothing, and she had just gotten the hang of taking on larger shapes at the time of the final battle. In the world they'd left, she'd been a roughly above-average threat to the heavyweights of Unbridled Radiance, forced to step lightly around flame-projecting weapons and any magician with a passing grasp of pyromancy; here in Oz, where true magicians were out of fashion, incendiary ammunition didn't exist and flamethrowers barely qualified as experimental, she was just about invincible.

But what really broke the back of the defenders was the sight of the Tin Man and the Lion taking her side. When Boq and Brr had first appeared, the crowd had rejoiced, clearly thinking that two of the greatest heroes Oz had ever known had somehow returned from the grave to rescue them from the Witch… only for the Tin Man to shield Elphaba from another hail of bullets, even as the "Cowardly" Lion sent the guards fleeing for their lives with a deafening roar and a few well-placed bites to the ankles. Suddenly, the crowd was no longer in the presence of heroes, but a clattering metal monstrosity and a rebel Animal; Elphaba could only imagine the theories buzzing through the ranks of the spectators.

Before long, the guards were fleeing in all directions, the crowd had retreated to a distance of three hundred feet from the stage, and the only defenders left in the square were the Wizard and Morrible. By now, Elphaba's allies had all joined her in the centre of the plaza, and judging by the howls of disbelief, that must have been the final insult for the crowd: assuming they didn't think that Elphaba had somehow made hideous facsimiles of their beloved heroes, the sight of Glinda, Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Lion all aiding Elphaba must have been enough to crush their spirits entirely.

Realizing that she was now the only thing standing between her employer and almost certain doom, Morrible stepped forward, hands raised; above them, the midnight skies blossomed with stormclouds, lightning flashed, thunder rumbled across the firmament…

And Elphaba waved a hand, swatting the first bolt of lightning back into the heavens. "I'm sorry, Madame," she sighed, "but after seeing you in pigtails, it's going to be very hard for you to intimidate me."

"Intimidation was not what I intendified, Miss Elphaba."

"Then allow me to make things absolutely sparkling clear: ever since I left your class, I've been studying magic from every possible source I could get my hands on, and in the months since I left Oz, I've had actual battlefield experience in using my talents. I've been through wars, Morrible, and I've been pitted against opponents you couldn't even imagine, and all of them have made me wiser. You, though, you decided to let your talents wither on the vine: in the last few decades, you've used those great powers of yours for nothing other than parlour tricks and the odd political assassination while you chased your own ambitions. So tell me, Miss Expediency, who do you really think is going to win this particular battle?"

Morrible's face contorted with hate, but the press secretary hadn't gotten this far in life by taking unnecessary risks – or keeping herself attached to what was clearly the losing side. She backed off, keeping herself as close to the exit as possible just in case she had to avoid Elphaba's wrath.

But, of course, Elphaba didn't have much interest in her at that moment beyond getting the measure of a potential threat. In that moment, she only had eyes for her father.

With the Wizard still hiding behind the face, she couldn't tell how he was reacting to the chaos and confusion, but she could guess that he was terrified. In fact, if it hadn't been for the need to preserve the illusion of magic in front of his citizens, he probably would have made a run for it already; perhaps he hoped that Morrible would come to the rescue if she could find an opportunity, or that one of his guards might be able to get a lucky shot if he could just buy them enough time.

Whatever the case, once he saw Elphaba striding across the plaza towards him, he let out an amplified rumble of "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

Elphaba took a deep breath. She had rehearsed an outline of what she was going to say next, but it was one thing to have a speech at least partially prepared, and another to have to say it out loud. After all, this little monologue would almost certainly end in her death if she got it wrong; then again, she could end up dead even if she recited her lines to the letter – after all, there was no guarantee that the Wizard would accept what she had to say. So, she took a moment to steady herself before finally taking the figurative plunge.

"Funny thing," she mused aloud. "For the longest time, I knew exactly what I wanted out of life. Then, everything changed: then I knew that the only sane thing I could do was become your enemy. Years later, you almost changed my mind, because I still couldn't help chasing the old dream even though I knew there were more important things for me to focus on. Then… then you signed off on Nessa's assassination; then your troops hurt someone very close to me – enough for me to think I'd lost them forever. And after that, all I wanted to do was destroy, because by then, I thought that was all I could do. I wanted to make Oz pay for every last drop of misery and suffering it had inflicted on me, even if it meant embracing every horrible thing you and Morrible had said about me over the years. I wanted to be every inch the monster you'd portrayed me as, and I didn't care who I hurt in the process. In the end, my grief tore open the world and I fell right through it.

"It'd take too long for me to explain where I've been for the last few months, but I will say this much: quite apart from the friends I've made and all the battles I've won for a change, it's been quite enlightening. I've learned a lot about myself, and I've learned a lot about you, Your Ozness. And now that I'm back in Oz, I've come to a very important realization: I spent so much of my adult life trying to blow stuff up or break things down just for the sake of making Oz into what I think it should be, but now I understand that sometimes, you need to relinquish control in order to get what you want. Every now and again, you need to share control or give it up entirely… and I think that's a lesson we all could use. So, just for today, it's not about what I want at all. No, it's about what you want."

"…WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

"You are the fulcrum on which all of Oz turns. The country is yours to do with as you please: you can rewrite the laws, levy a new tax, put new governors in place, declare war or just abdicate. You have the power of life and death over every citizen of Oz… so I think it's important that you know what you actually want out of life. You once told me that you're a sentimental man, that you want to be the father of the nation and treat all the people as your sons and daughters. So, the question I have to ask is this: do you want to appear to be a good, responsible, sentimental father… or do you actually want to be one? Because it's easy to say you're sentimental; it's easy to play at being benevolent… but you've never really taken the opportunity to be the person you claim to be."

The face lurched angrily forward, the animatronics immediately contorting the metallic features into an expression of utter fury. Either the Wizard was trying to turn this into a show for the audience, or she'd actually hit a nerve. "AND WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ME, ELPHABA? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THE WIZARD – OR ANYONE ELSE IN OZ, FOR THAT MATTER?"

"As I said, I've learned quite a lot in the last few months. Among other things, I know you used to be part of a travelling circus; sometimes you think you might be happier if you were still a showman."

"…WHAT?"

"Then, you were a travelling salesman, pawning off green elixir to anyone stupid or desperate enough to buy it. That was your first job in Oz before you got the attention of wealthy backers and became the Wizard… and while you were hocking green-tinted snake-oil, about twenty-odd years ago, you happened to stop for a while in Munchkinland, near Colwen Grounds. You stayed the night, then you left without a second glance."

There was a stunned pause, and when the Wizard spoke again, his grandiose speaking voice was beginning to fray ever-so-slightly. "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, ELPHAB- ERM, I MEAN… WHAT YOU'RE SAYING MAKES NO SENSE."

"I thought you might say that," Elphaba sighed. "Examples speak louder than words, after all."

Without another word, she reached into the depths of her cloak and held out the little green bottle for all to see; worn and chipped by countless misadventures and worn by constant handling over the years, there was way the Wizard could possibly mistake it for anything other than one of his old bottles of green elixir.

"…WHERE… WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?"

"It belonged to my mother," said Elphaba, simply. "Her name was Melena. She was one of your customers, I believe."

With a wave of her hand, she sent the bottle flying across the stage to the head, where the Wizard could easily reach out and take it without being seen by the audience. There was a pause, as the Wizard slowly digested all the information he'd been provided with. No sound issued from the mechanical face's voicebox, but from somewhere behind the curtain, she could hear the unmistakeable sound of the Wizard letting out a muffled gasp of shock.

"So now you know," she said quietly. "Now, all that's left is what you're going to do about it."

"…WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"

"You once told me that you never had a family of your own, that you wanted to make the citizens of Oz the sons and daughters you never had and give them everything. Now, it's time to see if you actually meant a word of that: are you a sentimental man, Your Ozness, or are you just a snake-oil salesman telling people what they want to hear?"

Without waiting for him to answer, she lowered herself to the paving stones and sat down at the foot of the stage. By that point, the guards were starting to regain consciousness, and one or two of them were already creeping forward with guns raised, but Elphaba made no move to stop them. Nor did any of her friends and allies; they'd all rehearsed for this moment.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ELPHABA?"

"I'm waiting to see what you'll do next. Whatever happens, I won't stop you: you're in control from this point onwards. Whatever happens today is up to you and you alone – not Morrible, not your citizens, just you… and that means that you can't hide behind excuses: you can't let Morrible make the decisions while you sign off on them this time; you can't just say that you want to give your citizens everything they want; and unlike the Animals, you can't just soothe your conscience with the knowledge that you're dealing with some distant section of the population you don't know or care about. This is right in front of you, with real flesh and blood and real consequences to your actions. If you feel it's best to allow these men to execute me, that's your decision, and you'll have to live with the scar on your conscience – if you have one. On the other hand, if you want to save me and make things right for the first time in over twenty years, you have that within your power – and you'll have to live with the fact that you'll never be able to rule as you once did. Whatever you do, whatever consequences follow, you're in control."

There was a horror-stricken silence, as the guards began edging towards her, guns raised. Then, from behind the curtain, the Wizard whispered, "Elphaba, just think about this for a minute…"

In spite of herself, Elphaba smiled. "It's okay, Dad," she whispered back. "It's not up to me anymore. All you have to do is decide what you can live with."

Then the guards got within earshot, and Elphaba said no more, but merely waited as the squad of armed men levelled their guns at her.

For nearly thirty seconds, the Emerald City was almost completely silent: the audience clearly didn't know what to think, being too bamboozled by the events of the evening so far to even call for Elphaba's death. A few of them were probably wondering why the Wizard hadn't annihilated her in some grand display of magic, or why her friends were standing by in readiness, still on their guard but making no move to save Elphaba. Meanwhile, the guards whispered to each other, clearly expecting something horrible to happen if they actually tried to take the shot that they all desperately wanted to take.

Half a minute later, the lone officer among the appeared to reach a decision; drawing a pistol from his belt, the lieutenant pointed it squarely at Elphaba's left temple and drew the hammer back with a click that could have been heard on the other side of the plaza.

Elphaba closed her eyes.

Then…

"WAIT! WAIT! DON'T KILL HER!"

Elphaba barely managed to hide her smile as she opened her eyes; as expected, the guards were lowering their guns, identical expressions of bewilderment stamped on their faces. If anything, Morrible looked even more stunned, clearly unable to tell if the Wizard had gone insane or she had. But by far the most rewarding sight were the disbelieving faces of the crowd: for every year of the Wizard's reign, they had been completely secure in the knowledge that he would always make the correct decision, no matter how little proof of actual magic or wisdom he provided. Now, for the first time in his twenty-year reign, they were faced with a decision that didn't fill them with instant confidence; indeed, they were faced with an official decree that left them terrified.

The lieutenant looked from Elphaba to the mechanical face in bewilderment.

"Um… do we arrest her, Your Ozness?"

"YES! I MEAN, NO! I… UH… SHE'S NOT TO BE ARRESTED. FOR THE TIME BEING, UH, THE WITCH IS TO BE GRANTED FULL AMNESTY FOR ALL PAST CRIMES, AND FROM THIS MOMENT ONWARDS WILL BE CONSIDERED MY… MY HONOURED GUEST. THE SAME GOES FOR HER, UM, FRIENDS."

"…You're certain, Your Ozness?"

"YES, ABSOLUTELY. NOW, UM, RUN ALONG AND PREPARE THE PALACE FOR OUR GUESTS! AS FOR THE REST OF YOU… CEREMONY'S OVER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! PLEASE VACATE THE SQUARE – EXPLANATORY BULLETINS WILL BE FORTHCOMING…"

As the square began rapidly emptying, the Wizard once again leaned out from behind the curtain and whispered, "Elphaba, I am so sorry, I didn't know, I swear… you have to believe me when I say I didn't know. I don't know how, but I promise that I'll make this right."

"Oh, I believe you," said Elphaba, quietly. "But you can't stop at making things right between us, Dad, not if you were ever serious about wanting to care for Oz; we've got an entire country to fix…"

---

Some distance away, an ethereal figure watched this display with something almost akin to amusement, observing closely at the panoply of conflicting emotions playing out across the Wizard's brain. Parental love, thwarted ambition, festering guilt, desperation, fear and so much bewilderment and confusion… but most importantly, the kind of crippling, paralytic sense of emasculating humiliation that could have only been brought about through a self-inflicted crisis.

Yes, this was everything Dorothy had promised and more. The Wizard had fallen from grace: his people might not have seen his true form, but they had seen him capitulate to his mortal enemy… and they had seen that his mortal enemy was stronger, wiser and kinder than him. He would continue to rule Oz, but on perpetual probation in the eyes of the daughter he had always wanted and disappointed beyond measure: too ashamed of himself to take back control, he would be Elphaba's servant in all but name for the rest of his life. In time, he might grow to appreciate the second chance he'd been given in ways that didn't involve horror and guilt; but for now, all the Wizard could do was writhe in shame like a salted slug.

And that suited Roquat just fine, his many alternate selves singing in delight at the Wizard's bewilderment. But now that he was here in Oz, taking in the sights and enjoying this glorious banquet of revenge, what was he supposed to do in the meantime, when he wasn't interested in self-indulgent spectating?

Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he could always change his mind about putting aside his old ways. If he wanted to, he could always seek out power once more, find some new ambition for him to chase if he really put his mind to it. With all the magical might at his command, he could do things that most magicians could only dream of; perhaps, with the element of surprise, he might be able to eliminate Elphaba before she even knew that he'd turned against her – and with her out of the way, there'd be nobody powerful enough to stop him in all of Oz except perhaps among the Nomes. If he wanted to rule the world, he could make that dream a reality in less than a year…

But then he thought again and dismissed the notion entirely. It was a silly idea, really, a ghost of the days when he'd wanted to compensate for his earlier humiliation by claiming the entire world as a substitute for his lost glories. He was done with world domination, done with killing, done with kingship; he'd had a handful of victories and bellyful of bitter defeats, all of which had led him to dead and the void beyond – one multiversal iteration at a time. Defeat after defeat after defeat… he'd long since seen where pursuing his wounded pride and stymied ambitions got him. After eons of relative time trapped in the void, he'd long since promised himself that he would put aside thoughts of ruling entire nations and conquering worlds if he would only get a chance to escape, and now it was time to put that promise in motion.

As of this moment, Roquat the Red was officially retired. And it occurred to him that if he wanted sensation and indulgence in this new life, what better way to go about it than by taking physical form at long last?

Drawing upon the unimaginable power granted to him by the many iterations of himself that composed his psyche, he summoned up a wellspring of magic and began swiftly but carefully weaving it into flesh. For the next few minutes, he watched eagerly as his new body took shape: bones, muscles, nerves, skin, hair, even simple clothing rippled into being before him, sculpted by the memories of the form that Roquat had once taken – back when he'd been so close to being human and seizing the power of the Ruby Slippers for himself. He made a few changes here and there – red hair, a slightly bushier beard, a simple tunic and a pair of trousers instead of royal robes – but other than that, it was almost identical copy, built to contain every last atom of his intellect and power: the perfect vessel for his consciousness.

Then he poured himself into its vacant skull, abandoning his incorporeal nature to stand in physical form for the first time in centuries.

Then Roquat the Red – not quite human, not truly mortal, not really a Nome and no longer a spirit – strode off into the dawn to enjoy his retirement.

---

A/N: Up next - the epilogue. Anyone care to guess what'll happen?