A/N: Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are.
Eight years, close to a million words, three laptops, four emotional meltdowns, more additional stories that I care to count, and one major change in outlook, and at last, we've reached the end of this gargantuan fanfic.
Eight years, folks. The amount of change I've undergone in that span of time is nothing short of incredible, to the point that this story might serve as a potted history of my development as a writer: look carefully, and you might actually be able find the point in the story when I fell out of love with Game of Thrones and began watching Gravity Falls to recover from the disappointment. Now, here I am, polishing off this glorious monstrosity of a story; there have been times when it was the only thing keeping me sane, and there have been times when I despised it beyond all rationality, but now that it's done, I'm grateful for the experience and relieved that I had the intelligence to return to it from my many hiatuses.
That said, I've learned my lessons: I'm probably not going to be writing something this ambitious ever again, not without at least a few dozen chapters written well in advance.
So, now that it's over, what do I do now?
Well, I may have a new story or two up soon. As for whether it'll interest you or not, that all depends on what you think of Gravity Falls or Fallout :)
But enough about me and enough of my maudlin projections on future fanfics: it's time for the epilogue!
Read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Wicked was never mine. Try to contain your shock.
The Empress of Unbridled Radiance twitched and shivered helplessly in her sealed prison, trying valiantly not to scream.
She didn't know where she was or how she'd been contained, but she knew that she wasn't likely to travel any further: the rocking and swaying from beyond her cell had finally ceased, leaving her world plunged into an eerie stillness, as if she'd been placed on a shelf. Other than that, she knew little of what had become of her. After all, how could she?
She couldn't see.
She couldn't hear.
She couldn't touch or taste or smell.
All she had was the vague sense of gravity and motion, and the dimmest awareness of the walls now encasing her body; other than that, she was deaf, blind, mute and effectively paralysed, as well. The shapeless flesh that her body had become would not respond to her commands, for it had no bones, muscles or even basic nerve-endings, and if there was some means of directing this inert sludge, she hadn't found it yet. All she could do was lie there, a mass of sloshing, rippling liquid jammed inside a container no bigger than a letterbox… and try to hold back her screams.
If she could have, the Empress would have gladly summoned up all the magical power she could muster and blasted her way to freedom; if she could have, she'd have given herself new senses, perceived the world through data channelled directly into her mind; if she could have, she'd have reached out the nearest receptive mind and screamed for help, her wounded ego be damned.
But she couldn't.
She still had her magic, could still sense its energy rippling through every cell in her maimed body, but she couldn't use it. She couldn't express or direct the power: she couldn't speak the words or make the gestures that cast spells; even the nerve impulses that would have allowed her to perform magic by will alone were of no help to her because she didn't have a nervous system anymore. She didn't even have a brain: she was just a blob of slime clinging to sentient thought by force of habit.
All she could do was wait in the dim hope that someone might eventually find her – preferably someone capable of restoring her physical form… and in the meantime, she needed to find a means of keeping her mind occupied, enough to stop herself from screaming. Unfortunately, entertainment was a little thin on the ground in here, and even if there had been something in her cell for the Empress to focus her attention on, she wouldn't have been able to see or hear it.
In the end, she resorted to counting the seconds, if only because there was literally nothing else to do.
So, she counted patiently, determinedly, one second passing into the next. She counted the procession of seconds into minutes, of minutes into hours, of hours into days, into weeks, into months, into years. She counted, even as the darkness around her began to fade into dreams.
From numerous experiments performed by the Pottery and the Childlike Researchers, the Empress knew that extended sensory deprivation could result in compensatory hallucinations, the mind conjuring illusory stimuli in order to replace what had been lost. But she did her best to ignore it all the same, keeping her mind focussed entirely on counting and shutting out all awareness of the visions playing out in her mind's eye: that way lay madness.
So she went on counting, even as her past rippled all around her in a dizzying kaleidoscope of moments: her childhood, her days at Shiz, the rebellion against the Wizard, her captivity and conversion, her ascent to power, her reign as the Empress… and her fall from grace. She went on counting, even as the visions of her past were replaced by events that she knew had never taken place. She went on counting, even as her visions descended into outright delusion.
Before long, she was dimly aware that she was beginning to forget, that names and places and dates previously etched into her memory were fading one by one as her mind began to atrophy from lack of real sensory data. But she couldn't stop counting: the relentless tallying of seconds was all she had left; to stop now would be to embrace insanity.
So she counted.
She counted, even as she forgot her reign as the Empress. She counted as the memory of her superiority melted just as surely as she had. She counted as her past began a murky, indecipherable mess of images and incomplete scenarios that dissolved as soon as she tried to focus on them. She counted, even as she forgot her name.
She counted, until finally, seventy-seven million seconds after she began tallying the time, she forgot how to count.
Then she began to scream.
Though she didn't even have vocal cords with which to scream, she howled in the depths of her own mind, trying to fill the silence in any way she could.
She screamed until she forgot why she was screaming, and by then, she'd lost so much of her mind that she went on screaming out of reflex alone.
She screamed until, at long last, she forgot how to scream.
From then on, she lapsed into a long, sullen silence as her mind finally tumbled backwards into dormancy, her last remaining thoughts flickering out one by one – until at last, without a single remaining impulse to stir from its torpor, her liquid body went still.
And so she slept – and never awoke again.
The palace was more comfortable than Elphaba had expected.
She hadn't been surprised when the Wizard had given her this luxurious bedchamber, nor was she surprised at the squad of bodyguards that had been assigned to keep her quarters secure; she hadn't even been taken aback by the food-taster accompanying her to every meal – after all, people still hated her. Nor was she surprised by the fact that her friends had all been given quarters of their own, including the dolls; thanks to everything she'd learned in Alphaba's memories, she knew full well that there'd be more than enough room in the palace cellars to accommodate all of the dolls.
What astonished her was how easy it was to feel as if she belonged in the palace.
Technically, she hadn't been given any responsibilities within the government or any direct control over the Wizard's administration, but her opinions were given due weight in discussions with her father; the influence she wielded was unofficial at best, but she had already been granted authority over the palace servants and was to be afforded the same degree of respect at the Wizard – a fact that no doubt came as something of a shock to people who'd have been happy to see her dead scant months ago. Her new status hadn't come with any restrictions, either: she wasn't confined to her room, nor was the Wizard seeking advice on how to temporarily negate her powers while she was his guest; she wasn't being drugged, restrained, bewitch or being given any tiresome lectures on how the Wizard's policies were really for the benefit of everyone. No, it seemed as if the Wizard had lost his ability to justify himself in the wake of this shock discovery, and along with it, his desire to maintain the status quo. Her father wanted to prove to her that he could be a good man, or at the very least that he was worthy of her respect and love, and so, he was willing to remake his government in any way, shape or form – prompted either by his rapidly-expanding guilt or by Elphaba's polite suggestions.
In the last three days since she'd returned to Oz, a series of sweeping reforms had been declared and were being enacted by the relevant authorities. Judging by the newspapers and reports from government operatives, these decrees were being fully respected despite the public's anxiety: nobody was willing to disobey the Wizard, even if they didn't agree with his decisions anymore, if only because the level of propaganda he'd surrounded himself with had ensured that the citizens of Oz would regard him as an infallible demigod until the day he died. So, they tentatively complied with his newest demands: Animals were released from their cages, official efforts to cure the silencing began, full amnesty was offered to the Flying Monkeys and other rebel Animals still roaming free, and human-standard housing was granted to the many thousands of "beasts" freed from captivity.
It was a good start… but the next step would be to get the Animals restored to professional status, and that would probably cause quite a stir. After all, even before the silencing began, most Animals had barely been entrusted with menial work as waiters, porters and labourers, with Dr Dillamond the lucky exception; to have them working at any level above that would no doubt have the human population screaming about Animals "stealing our jobs." Maybe there'd even be claims that the Animals were trying to "replace" them (she'd heard such paranoid fantasies before in her travels across Oz, usually from people that not even the most desperate beggars would want to replace).
Of course, Elphaba's suggestions to the Wizard were not restricted to efforts to free the Animals. As horrific as the Empress had been, she'd at least had some very worthwhile ideas before Morrible had driven her completely insane. The Pottery had been devastatingly effective when employed against Alphaba's enemies; perhaps, if it were put to less clandestine uses, a similar think tank could help improve the country. After all, Oz was lamentably stagnant at present: technological innovation was limited to the Wizard's inventions, which were usually restricted to tricks and illusions; talented political thinkers and strategists had been replaced by loyal pawns who wouldn't question the Wizard's orders or attempt to deviate from them; professional magicians had gone out of style thanks to the overwhelming amount of trust granted to the Wizard, and – as Glinda had discovered – the only practitioners the public was interested in were entertainers and influencers with a basic grasp of magic. They needed to bring the sidelined inventors and scientists out of retirement, bring competence and vitality into this blundering, lifeless regime, and give magicians a place in society again, and thanks to the dream-memories that Elphaba had assimilated over the course of her time in the other world, she knew exactly where all these people were.
But this time, they needed to avoid keeping the whole thing a ghastly secret to be used as someone's private armoury. If there was to be a think tank of magicians, scientists and political innovators, then it had to have public support – if not full knowledge of what went on inside its laboratories. It was absolutely vital that they avoid repeating any of Alphaba's ghastly foibles and ensured that the New Pottery served the citizens of Oz as a whole.
She couldn't say she was going to restore Oz to glory: after all, Oz's glory had been nothing but smoke and mirrors for the last twenty-odd years, and before that, the country had known nothing but strife and turmoil, interrupted only by an increasingly questionable succession of unqualified monarchs. All Elphaba could say was that they were going to make Oz better.
If only slightly, she reflected, as she lay back on her bed.
But that was all in the future. For now, Elphaba just had to make sure that the rights of Animals were restored… and stay alive while she was about it.
So far, it wasn't as difficult as she'd expected. She wasn't expecting the bodyguards and the food taster to be as helpful as the Wizard had promised; after all, none of these people had any real loyalty to her, and if they decided that their beloved despot could do without Elphaba's influence – or if someone were to wave the right amount of money under their collective noses – the assassins would reach her quite ready. So, she'd done her own homework: magic made it very easy to detect poison in her food, the right enchantments could shut down explosives by presence alone, and a few of the same could easily keep assassins out of her bedroom. Plus, she had the full support of her little team of allies, and any one of them were more than a match for the average knife-wielding idiot.
Fortunately, it seemed that Elphaba had struck an unexpected wellspring of luck in the last few weeks, for there'd only been a handful of assassination attempts since she'd moved into the palace, most of them restricted to poisonings.
At first, this had seemed out-of-character considering the number of angry mobs that had appeared during her so-called reign of terror, but then Elphaba had caught up on the last few months of newspapers and the answer became apparent: in the wake of the demoralizing loss of Glinda, Dorothy and her friends, the Wizard's government had been forced to amplify the propaganda in a desperate attempt to make their "heroic sacrifice" of the national heroes appear justified, and thus, Elphaba had been made to appear even more powerful and more dangerous than she had in her lifetime. There'd even been the claim that the Wicked Witch had become too powerful to be killed by mortal weapons, a sure sign that Morrible had been getting desperate in her efforts to spin the situation to her benefit.
In the end, the propaganda worked a little too well: when Elphaba had reappeared in the Emerald City and managed to defeat the Wizard's guards with almost comical ease, the people had been too frightened to be gathered into a mob, too crushed by terror to ever believe that any of them might stand a chance before the dreaded Wicked Witch.
For good measure, Elphaba's shockingly peaceful approach and the Wizard's public acceptance of her had caught the public completely by surprise. With the support of Glinda and Fiyero, Elphaba hadn't lost her temper for weeks on end, and the sight of the Wicked Witch of the West – known across Oz for her foul temper and social gracelessness – actually treating people with courtesy had had left the palace servants completely adrift.
Nobody knew what to think of it and nobody knew what to do next…
…except for a few fanatical worshipers of the Wizard, all of whom were driven enough to attempt assassination but not brave enough to attack her head-on.
Thus, the poison.
Ironically, Dorothy had been the first to unveil the assassins: her insight allowed her to recognize what dishes were spiked long before Elphaba got around to scanning them with magic, and she had an impressive flair for pretending to eat from them – just so the entire court could watch the nearby assassins fly into a panic in the belief that they'd just poisoned a child. In time, they'd learn that a little sleight-of-hand made all the difference in the world, but for now, watching the assassins panic every time they thought they'd accidentally poisoned the wrong target was by far the easiest method of detecting the fanatics ahead of time.
In hindsight, it was inevitable that they'd be undone by their fear of poisoning Dorothy. All concern lay with her friends: the citizens of Oz didn't believe that Elphaba had bewitched Glinda, Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Lion had all been bewitched into serving her (after all, the rumourmill argued, if they were under her control, they would have killed those guards instead of knocking them out). Of course, they couldn't extend that same belief to the Wizard: no, the Wizard was too good, too wise to be fooled by the Wicked Witch of the West. He was just being too merciful for his own good, or so his people claimed, though they were still baffled by the level of reverence he appeared to be showing her – as, of course, he couldn't just tell them that she was his daughter, not until significant reform had taken place.
But Elphaba could live with that. As stupid and gullible and belligerent as the citizens of Oz were, she could live with them, partly because they'd been ordered to treat her with civility…
…but mostly because she knew from experience that they could change for the better. If the people of Oz were doomed to remain as ignorant and close-minded as Elphaba had once thought they'd always be, the Deviant Nations would never have been possible; if her most cynical musings on the Ozian character had been true, the Empress would have won instantly.
So, she could afford to wait while the reforms continued. She could afford to be patient. She could afford to rest.
And so, bit by bit, she allowed the evening to lumber onwards and eventually, she drifted off into a deep, blissful slumber.
The boiled egg had been prepared faultlessly.
Every last moment of cooking had been precisely measured to make it just runny enough for the toasted bread soldiers lined up on the side of the plate. A large jug of orange juice had been arranged as well, and also a few slices of bacon in reserve should this experiment prove fruitful… but it was the egg that was the undivided focus of his attentions.
For Nomes, chicken eggs represented nothing less than the deadliest poison. A relic of some ancient magical associative, they dissolved the metaphysical bonds that held them together at the most intrinsic levels, destroying them in both body and soul so thoroughly that only the most powerful magics could save a victim of this poison. In realms where Nomes were more organic, eggs were often toxic enough to blind and scar even at the lightest touch; in dimensions where Nomes had conjured their bodies from the rock and soil around them, not even the hardest of skins or the largest of shapes would save them from an egg.
Of the many thousands of selves that composed Roquat's agglomerative spirit form, countless iterations had fallen to the poison, sometimes being carpet-bombed with them by the Radiant Empress, sometimes being laid low by the humblest and luckiest of Dorothy's companions. The Nome King knew the agony of such deaths all too well; there was no erasing that pain from his memory – or that of his many iterations. For him, as it had for all Nomes, the egg represented a slow, painful descent into oblivion.
Hence why Roquat had chosen this boiled egg as the ultimate test of his new body's resilience. After all, he had made this new form virtually ageless and impressively resistant to injury… but he needed to know that his old weakness would no longer haunt him. He had spent the last three days of his new life avoiding any food that included the slightest trace of egg, taking ridiculous scenic routes to avoid chicken farms and jumping whenever he'd heard the sound of clucking hens.
In the end, his fear had sent him on a rambling road all the way to this humble railroad café on the outskirts of Munchkinland. Money wasn't a problem for him: he'd always been good at games and even better at rigging them in his favour (magically or otherwise), and after winning a few games of cards with one of the old men outside, he'd had enough cash to pay for a very special breakfast.
Just so he could settle the matter of his own vulnerability.
Just so he could know for sure if he was safe – even if it killed him.
Steeling himself for the worst, Roquat cracked the egg's shell with the end of his spoon and levered it open. Beneath lay a sea of gleaming white, and below that, the magma-like yolk. He dug in his spoon, shovelling up a generous scoop of egg, took a deep breath, and emptied the spoonful into his mouth.
For perhaps forty seconds, he chewed cautiously, savouring the taste before finally swallowing. Then he waited for the effects to kick in, fully expecting his new body to dissolve into a molten puddle of screaming flesh as the poison consumed him from the inside, fully expecting to wake up back in the void (if at all).
But to Roquat's immense astonishment, he remained unharmed.
His diagnostic spells revealed no degenerative effects, no attacks on his internal biology or his magical epicentre; the egg no longer had any power to harm him… and astonishingly enough, he liked the taste. Chuckling, he dug in a buttered bread soldier and gleefully dunked it into the egg, availing himself to another mouthful of yolk.
He was halfway through calling for the bacon and getting ready to make a celebration of this morning's breakfast – when he noticed the shadow creeping across his table. Roquat looked up on instinct, but he already knew who it was; after all, there were only two individuals that knew he was present in this dimension, and only one of them could have been as tall as the figure now looming over him.
"Nyarlathotep," he murmured. "I wasn't expecting you to follow me this far; you've been persistent in the past, but I didn't think you'd be willing to go this far just to ask again."
The Black Pharaoh smirked, his smile rippling across untold realms of non-Euclidean geometry. "I didn't come here just for you, Roquat. I've been surveying… other potential recruits."
"You wanted Elphaba on your side, then?"
"Come on, Roquat. Can you honestly see someone like Elphaba taking my side in any matter, much less the mission I've set myself? She's far too moral and far too volatile for such an undertaking as this; I wasn't even considering her, truth be told. No, my sights have been set on someone younger, someone more… impressionable."
Roquat's eyebrows rose. "You wanted Dorothy on your team?" he remarked.
"Why not? She has the army and the magical potential to serve as a capable asset; she has the ruthlessness necessary to aid my cause… and even after all the growing up she's been forced to undergo, she's not without a trace of naivete, enough to make her easier to control. Managed correctly, she would have given me the all the strategic advantage of the Hellion with none of the Hellion's instability."
"Then what changed your mind about her?"
"She's made herself too independent. She's learned too much from Elphaba, become too adept at sabotage; if I were to try and recruit Dorothy, she would become a dangerous liability the moment she learned of the full scope of my plans. So… that just leaves you, Roquat."
There was an ominous pause. Somewhere behind that swarthy face, Roquat could see alien appendages writhing and shifting, just itching to break free of the human disguise.
"Have you given my proposal any further thought?"
But the former Nome King shook his head. "Alas, I'm not interested in anything you have to offer me, my friend. I've had my glory days of world domination several thousand times over and I've no interest in trying to relive them. I've learned my lesson: no matter how carefully you stack the deck in your favour, it all ends in ruination and void. From now on, I'm retired. I've got my magic, a long life, a deck of cards, and a pouch of gold. As far as I'm concerned, that's all I need."
If Nyarlathotep was in any way dismayed by this decision, he didn't show it. "If that's how you feel," he said softly, "then I won't trouble you any further. I have other candidates… and plenty of time to find them."
"Where you will be headed next?"
"I had a few decent possibilities on offer: Midsomer, Springfield, the trackless wastes of the ride to Hell… but I think the most promising destination will be Washington DC."
Roquat shook his head in disappointment. "This isn't going to be a repeat of the Ewen High School incident, is it?"
"You make it sound as if that was my fault. I didn't start the massacre or even encourage it; I merely hoped that Carietta White could be willing to accept my proposal once she was finished butchering her classmates."
"And in the end, she proved unsuitable and unwilling to accept medical attention. I'm noticing a pattern here, Nyarlathotep. Honestly, why are you bothering with alternate Earths when there's so many richer opportunities among the alternates of alien realms?"
"Earth isn't as boring as you might think, Roquat, there's some very nice towns huddled away in Roadkill County and Solomon Island. But this time, I'll be headed somewhere further afield, somewhere much more unfamiliar: I'm heading to Washington DC in the year 2277."
"…oh. You're heading to the Capital Wasteland, then. May I ask why?"
"That'd be telling," chuckled Nyarlathotep. "Anyway, if you're not interested in joining my little posse, I'd best be making tracks. I have an appointment with an ancient fantasist, and I've no doubt that my protégé will be getting antsy while we're busy talking…"
Roquat glanced over at the café door: as expected, the boy with the pyramid printed on his soul was standing there, too frightened to run for what little remained of his life, his hands twitching unconsciously as he glanced from left to right – as if looking for someone who might be powerful enough to save him.
"Anyway," the Crawling Chaos continued, "I wish you all good fortune in your new life, and you can rest assured that we won't meet again: you have my solemn vow that my business in the multiverse won't disrupt your retirement."
"And vice versa, hopefully. Goodbye, Nyarlathotep."
The Outer God chortled hideously. "Goodbye, Roquat. Do remember to keep an eye on the news." He glanced at the door. "Bill? Time to go."
Then they were gone, leaving only a faint stench of ozone and rotten meat in their wake.
Roquat considered this for a moment, mulling over the Black Pharaoh's nebulous ambitions as he finished his breakfast, wondering if there'd be any point to paying any attention to the affairs of other worlds when Nyarlathotep's mad designs might take centuries to bear fruit.
Then, he noticed the small knot of men sitting in the corner of the café: a group of businessmen by the cut of their suits, probably straight from the Emerald City, and judging by the smell of beer and perfume residue, they'd probably spent most of the previous evening touring the bars of every town west of the Cornbasket. If that look of growing despair on the waitress's face was any evidence, they felt entitled to more than their fair share, too, and weren't shy about making it known.
In between catcalls and mutters of "dirt-eating peasants," Roquat heard grumblings of boredom. A couple of them were wondering if the waitress was open to entertaining them, and some were drunkenly suggesting a visit to a local dance hall; eventually, one of them muttered "what the hell are we supposed to do until the train arrives?"
And in that moment, Roquat's eyes lit up.
Very slowly, he stood and made his way to the table, hand straying to the deck of cards in his pocket.
"Gentlemen," he purred. "Any chance of a game?"
"And who the hell are you?"
This briefly threw Roquat for a loop: now that he was outwardly human, he couldn't very well use his real name without arousing suspicion, especially now that recent reports from the Emerald City suggested that the Wizard was open to making deals with the Nome Kingdom. The Roquat of this world had been dead for the last five years, courtesy of a long period of internecine conflict within the royal court, and a successor was already in place. On the upside, it at least allowed Roquat to avoid dimensional synchronization, but it would make things awkward if any Nomes happened to stop by.
He thought for a moment, briefly mulling over a new name for himself. It didn't have to be anything dramatic or even vaguely, but it had to be something he could live with – after all, he'd probably be using it for a while. Before long, though, inspiration struck.
"Call me Ruggedo," he said, offering his best amiable grin. "Care to deal me in?"
An hour later, he left the café with an even bigger smile on his face than ever before, his pockets jingling a merry tune as he strode away.
With the winnings from his handily-rigged game, he bought a train ticket to Gillikin, a bottle of cheap cider, a few trashy novels from the bookshop, and a newspaper – a far cry from the things he had once counted as his possessions back when he'd been known as the Nome King, but right here and now, it was pure luxury. More importantly, it was the start of a new life – of games, of magic, of food and drink and a thousand simple pleasures that he had never indulged in up until now.
It was going to be glorious.
A few minutes later, the drunken businessmen ambushed Ruggedo just outside the train station, demanding that he return their money or suffer a beating. Ruggedo smiled, set aside his luggage, and offered a polite rebuttal.
Not long after the screaming had finally stopped, he quietly teleported their unconscious bodies into a waiting train headed in the opposite direction; hopefully, they wouldn't be too inconvenienced by winding up in the asscrack of Quadling Country, or the fines they'd earn for travelling without tickets.
With that out of the way, Ruggedo continued onto the other station platform as if nothing had happened. But while he waited for his train to arrive, he began absently reading through the newspaper – only to be brought up short by the front page.
My, my, Ruggeddo silently mused, chuckling merrily at the headline. What have you been up to, Elphaba?
The morning had been a decidedly productive one.
Some hours before dawn, a thoroughly sleepless Wizard had asked Elphaba for advice on what needed to be done next. Elphaba had provided a long list of potential experts for the Wizard to hire for the experimental think-tank, including this world's versions of Dr Lintel, Dr Coil, Dr Mainspring, Dr Ailing and many others. She'd also suggested potential investors, pointing out that many industrialists and entrepreneurs would appreciate the technological advances that such a group might provide. In exchange for their investments, they would be first in line to benefit from government contracts to make the think-tank designs a reality, and the factory-owners among them would be the first to benefit from the manufacturing advances that the think-tank would inevitably produce. Rostov Branderstove was at the very top of the list, of course.
Also at this latest meeting with the Wizard, Elphaba had brought up the matter of removing Nessa's body from under the collapsing remains of the Gale house and giving her a proper burial. Elphaba could tell that the matter had him rattled: quite apart from the fact that he was clearly guilty over getting Melena Thropp's other daughter killed, Nessarose was still a controversial figure throughout Oz, and giving her any kind of respect in death was bound to result in outcry. He'd even suggested trying less ambitious ideas, like making the burial private or disguising the removal of the body as something mundane, but Elphaba had insisted on making the process as honest as possible, and the discussion had gotten so heated that Morrible had gotten involved for the first time in days, sardonically demanding to know if Elphaba intended to have Nessa worshipped throughout Oz. After swallowing her temper, Elphaba had eventually pointed out that she didn't intend to pardon Nessa for the desperate, delusional things she had done in the last miserable weeks of her life, only to absolve her of the things that genuinely weren't her fault and allow her to be remembered as a human being… and in time, that might help the Wizard as well.
"Whatever do you mean?" Morrible had demanded.
"In case you hadn't noticed, the propaganda you've cooked up has become a national obsession. You've put so much effort into making me and Nessa look like the ultimate villains that you've actually undone your early public relations victory and made people too afraid to even consider forming an angry mob. People out there are two steps removed from believing that I'm magically controlling the Wizard's every move-"
"Truly unimaginabilizing! I can only wonder why they would think that-
"-and they're beginning to wonder if you're complicit, Morrible."
"WHAT?"
"Just something a little bird told me. Apparently, you gave up a little too soon for people to not suspect you of being on my side. By now, everyone knows you're a schemer and a social climber; you might be respected, maybe even feared, but nobody actually likes you, Morrible… and that puts you in a rather awkward position. From now on, unless you stand shoulder to shoulder with the Wizard's decisions, your actions are going to be regarded in the worst possible light, and if I end up being regarded as the Wicked Witch again, people are going to start tarring you with the same brush. In other words, if I go down, you go down with me."
And once again, the press secretary had nothing to say.
"Watering down the legends might just be enough to reduce their influence on the people. I'm not saying we have to do it all at once, but a respectful funeral for Nessa would be a very good start. Once that's done, we might be able to start gradually rowing back: a little "we received incorrect information" here, a little "we were the victim of sabotage by agitators and corrupt officials", and you can say that "the true story has finally come to light." Simple as that."
Morrible had sulked a bit at this, but ultimately relented.
(Admittedly, most of this bit of cajoling had been planned out by Glinda, who had spent the meeting in the form of a flea hidden just below her hairline, whispering advice into her ear and calming her whenever Morrible got on her nerves.)
Less than an hour later, the Wizard had given the orders, Morrible sent word to the newspapers, and the story was all over Oz by breakfast. For good measure, Morrible also called a press conference, and Elphaba had attended just to make the solemn announcement that her sister would finally be given the respect she was due in death. The reporters had been astonishingly quiet during the whole thing, either out of fear for what Elphaba might do to them if they interrupted her, or out of shock at how polite she was being. In any event, the gradual rollback of propaganda had begun. Now, as with everything else she'd set in motion thus far, all Elphaba had to do was see it got all the way to the end.
Now she was out in the palace gardens, sitting on a bench with Fiyero by her side, watching the rest of her little entourage enjoy the sunshine. At that very moment, Dorothy was merrily cartwheeling across the lawn in a rare display of childish energy, flanked by two of her dolls; above her, Glinda spun and eddied about the garden in a spectacular display of her power, even as Chistery tried to talk her into a race across the palace grounds. Boq and Brr were elsewhere.
And then, just as Elphaba was starting to wonder what the servants were thinking of this display, her mind abruptly lit up, the world around her suddenly lit by a flickering emerald light that existed only in her thoughts. She was dimly aware that she was having another vision, but only vaguely, for in that moment, her mind was focussed entirely on the images pouring into it.
But this time she wasn't seeing the future.
This time, she was seeing the present.
The figure standing in the doorway is clearly Purified.
Months ago, she would have no business here, but now Purified are just as accepted as any other of the Deviant Nations' inhabitants, another whirl of colour in the cosmopolitan rainbow that the alliance has become.
More than that, though, she is someone special: even after all the changes that she has undergone, there is no mistaking her mother's halo of golden-blonde hair.
Nor is there any mistaking the bedridden figure that she has come to see.
"Alyss… it's you. Oh gods, at last, you're here… Vara told me that the Mistress of Mirrors had fulfilled her promise to her – she even sent photographs of her little boy all grown up – but I almost couldn't dare to hope. And now you're here…"
The Purified's head tilts in confusion; her eyes are agleam with curiosity – and something else that no Purified has ever exhibited before: tears.
"…Mother?" she whispers.
"That's right, dear. It's me... please, sit down. Don't be afraid…"
Slowly, Alyss Tiggular sinks into a chair beside her; she is trembling, all Purified grace lost in the flood of emotions.
"They made me forget," she said softly. "I know that now: when they took me away from you, they did everything they could to force my childhood out of my mind. For the longest time, I thought I'd always been a good little girl to good upstanding parents in Unbridled Radiance, that becoming Purified was the best thing that could possibly happen to me – and for a while, it was, apart from a few strange dreams. But then Paragon woke me up. I don't remember everything the Empress took from me… but I remember you."
"Do you remember anything else?"
"I… think I remember a tall man – a giant, really. I keep having the same dream: riding around on his shoulders, staring down into a crowd… and sometimes, I see him trying to fight off armed men, trying to keep them from finding me."
"That was your brother, Allaran. He used to give you piggyback rides when you were little."
"What happened to him?"
"He was captured along with you; they tried to Purify him, too… but he died on the operating table."
Alyss's face contorts with horror and grief, the expression alien to her perfectly-sculpted features. "I'm alone, then. You're all I have left."
"You're not alone, Alyss; there'll always be a place for you among the Irredeemables under the new laws. They'll help you with whatever you need; they'll be a new family for you."
The Purified laughs bitterly. "That's almost exactly what the surgeons said when they were taking me to the operating theatre: 'the Purified will be your family now, Alyssiana, better than any family you knew as a mortal.'"
There is an uneasy pause.
"What is it like?" the Mentor whispers. "Being Purified, I mean?"
"There are so many different sensations – the presence of incomparable strength in your muscles, the sense that you can run forever without ever being outpaced, the knowledge that your body has been sculpted by an artist, the swiftness of mind and the ability to calculate almost by instinct… it's difficult to describe. But you could get that from any Irredeemable who'd altered themselves thoroughly enough. No, being Purified meant a neverending sensation of bliss, an unceasing adoration of the Empress; we loved her more than we loved ourselves and we could never think of anything else unless it was for her – until Paragon woke us up."
Once again, there's silence in the room.
"I need to know, Mother. I need to know what my life was like before they took me away. I need to… I don't know who I am anymore: I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life now that I'm finally free. I'm afraid… and I'm even more afraid that I'm going to lose you again now that I've found you."
"Nothing can stop what will become of me, Alyss. But there's still time yet, and while that remains… we can make every last second of it count. Now, let's have no more talk about death. Let's talk about what matters to you: your past, your present, your future. No more secrets, no more obfuscation, only unvarnished truth."
"You promise?"
"Of course. It's not as if I have any more secrets to keep, is it? Only my personal physician has secrets – well, he thinks they're secrets. Isn't that right, Boq?"
The bald figure standing by the bed freezes in alarm, his eyes wide with shock. "Okay," Dr Kiln grumbles. "How the hell did you know that and how long have you known it?"
"Oh, ever since I saw the way the Mistress of Mirrors smiled at you, that day at the conference just before the attack on Greenspectre. I've only ever seen Nessa light up like that for one another man, and as I recall, that man died under distinctly suspicious circumstances. I admit, it took me a little while to remember your name, and even longer for me to get it right… but I kept a few souvenirs of Oz, and one of them just happened to be a yearbook from dear old Shiz."
In spite of himself, Kiln managed a sheepish smile. "So much for 'a secret I'd take to my grave.' Mentor, I just want you to know that I'm-"
"Please, doctor, don't apologise. That's all in the past, now. Besides, if I was the type to take secret identities and covert affairs personally, I would have fired you months ago.""
Dr Kiln bows respectfully and resumes his position by the bed.
"Now," the Mentor continues, "Alyss, let's talk. Let's be a family again… while we still have the chance."
And so, they talk.
The days go by: Alyssiana and the Mentor talk as often as they can, talking of Oz, of the life they once had together, of Alyss's long-lost brother, and even of the life Alyss was forced to assume within Unbridled Radiance. Every day, Kiln rouses his patient from sleep and allows her to awaken just long enough to share these precious moments with her daughter, just so the two make the most of what little time they have left together.
But alas, time is always slipping away from them, and the old woman must rest if she wants to continue their talks the next day. Bit by bit, her ruined body fails her, war wounds slowly eating away at her from the inside. Every day, she grows a little weaker and sleeps a little longer, until finally Kiln can no longer rouse her at all.
Finally, Alyss is summoned to her mother's bedside by an ashen-faced Kiln.
The Great Mentor lies cocooned in bedsheets, too weak to even open her eyes, her battle-scarred frame slowly but surely relaxing into the final sleep that precedes death. According to Kiln's instruments, she is still conscious, but only just: she barely reacts as her daughter sits down beside her, and when Alyss holds her hand, she stirs only vaguely – as if reacting to something she'd felt in a dream.
She says only one thing before the last of her vital signs trickle away:
"…luckier than I deserve…"
Then she goes still, even as Alyss weeps over her.
At last, the Great Mentor of the Deviant Nations, is at peace.
But the vision hadn't ended yet. She still had more to see.
She had already seen what was occurring sideways of Oz; now she saw what lay ahead.
She sees Dorothy and Boq laying a wreath of lilies on Nessa's grave before the eyes of a stunned congregation.
She sees Morrible slinking away in defeat.
She sees Glinda seeking out members for the new Amorphous League, looking for those who were tortured by their own flesh.
She sees herself hugging the Wizard for the first time, her eyes full of tears of joy, the Wizard's face alive with relief and happiness.
She sees the Lion speaking before a crowd, campaigning for Animal Rights.
She sees herself dancing with Fiyero; is it her imagination, or is she wearing a wedding dress?
She sees Animal professors at Shiz once more.
She sees herself sitting in a tavern, playing a game of chess with a strange, bearded man with glittering eyes like sapphires. The game ends in a hard-won stalemate; her opponent shakes her hand and smiles, and Elphaba gets the strangest feeling that she's met him before…
She sees airships take to the sky.
She sees dolls building houses in Kansas.
She sees a simple woodcutter, happy at work by his hut on the edge of the forest, silver bones shining through his flesh.
She sees Dorothy in beautiful new clothes, her glowing eyes hidden by tinted spectacles, people tipping their hats to her as drifts by; with her silken skirts so long, none of them notice that her feet never once touch the ground.
She sees the Wizard shaking hands with the newly-crowned Nome King, and somewhere in the background, a gambler with sapphire eyes grins and puffs contentedly on a pipe.
And as the years go by, she sees Glinda change. She sees her old friend becoming so adept at shapeshifting that it's no longer something she does but what she has become: a vast construct of endlessly protean matter, drifting from shape to shape on a whim, no longer bound by the constraints of base flesh. And now that she has finally attained Shapelessness, she will show the others the path…
And finally, Elphaba sees herself once more, holding a child in her arms – a child every bit as green as she is.
Suddenly, Elphaba was back in the present, taking in a deep breath as the full depth of what she'd seen finally sunk in.
"What's wrong?" Fiyero asked, noticing the faraway look in her eyes.
"Nothing."
A strange smile spread across Elphaba's face – a smile of a kind she hadn't worn in years: it was a smile of total self-assurance. And the funny thing was, she should have been wearing this smile ever since the Wizard had started accepting her advice.
She'd made it.
After all this time and all the heartbreak, bloodshed, horror and insanity that had been flung at her, she'd finally made it to the end of her self-imposed mission. This demented quest had led her from failed rebellions to overwhelming personal loss, from dimensional travel to a war between international superpowers. It had pitted her against the vagaries of her own temper, her long-suffering loved ones, against porcelain-skinned supermen, obsessive skinless boogeymen, and her own alternate self. And now, here she was, with everything she could have possibly wanted: victory, friendship, love, maybe even genuine contentment, and best of all, a bright future on the horizon. There was still so much more to do… but for the first time, she could honestly believe that she could meet the future with a clear heart.
"Absolute nothing's wrong," she concluded. "Everything's just… perfect."
She knew that it would take a long time before any of her optimistic prophecies came to pass, and probably more than a little bit of effort… and yet, in spite of all her usual pessimism, she couldn't help laughing, finding herself almost giddy with excitement.
"Come on, Fiyero," she laughed. "We've got work to do!"
The little girl didn't know how long she'd been at the hospital.
A few weeks ago, some of the nurses had helped her outside and allowed her to tour the grounds of this remote, isolated hospital complex, and she couldn't recognize any of it. What with all the silver lakes around, she'd have remembered arriving at a place like this, but not a trace of it remained in her mind.
Truth be told, there were a lot of things the little girl didn't know, and a lot of things she couldn't remember, but the nurses told her that was okay: there were some things about herself that she'd never recall, and all she could do was form new memories to replace them.
She dimly remembered being poured out of a jar when she was younger while nurses with mirrors for faces clucked and fussed over her. She remembered a strange figure with a lion-like face looming over her, stroking her still-liquid face and calling her "daughter." She distinctly recalled being allowed to rest in a bucket while people showed her old photographs and read stories to her until she was strong enough to leave the bucket and stand on her brand-new feet.
She remembered being given a check-up by a bald man with a worried face, anxiously taking her pulse with writhing, snakelike fingers. She remembered being taught to speak by a beautiful woman with dark hair and sorrowful eyes that filled with tears of joy every time the little girl correctly pronounced a word. She even remembered being taught to walk by a kindly man with many faces and skin like the sea, his arms stretching out longer and longer as he helped her totter clumsily across her room.
But there were so many gaps in her brain, so many things about herself she didn't understand.
She didn't know why her skin was green, for example.
She didn't know why she'd been born in a jar.
She didn't know why she turned into a puddle whenever she fell asleep.
She didn't know why she occasionally sprouted wings and tails when she got bored.
She didn't know why the nurses sometimes acted as if she'd been bigger in the past.
She didn't know why she could hear people whispering things like "it's been almost sixty years since she melted; there's nothing left of the Empress."
And she certainly didn't know why she could make little green lights dance above her hands.
She didn't mind, though: none of it bothered her, and making the lights appear always cheered her up. She could spend hours watching those tiny emerald sparks dance in the air – and often did, staring raptly at them and giggling "pretty, pretty," all the while.
Eventually, her caretakers – the bald doctor, the woman with the sad eyes and the man with skin like the sea – came to speak to her, explaining that she was old enough to understand the significance of names.
They told her that her name was Elphaba.
The name meant nothing to her.
They introduced themselves as Dr Kiln, Nessarose, and Leoverus, and they told her that they were her family now.
They were going to teach her how to control her powers, they said, and they were going to teach her how to read and write; ultimately, they were going to teach her how to be ready for the outside world when she was finally old enough to leave the hospital. Elphaba got the feeling they were expecting something impressive out of her – Kiln in particular – but she wasn't sure what any of them expected to happen after that. After all, it wasn't as if she was going to change the world, was it?
She was happy and safe in the hospital with her new family: she had a warm bed, hot food, and people who cared for her.
Why should she want anything else?
At dinnertime that day, she finally mastered eating with a knife and fork, and was even able to use some of her strange power to move the saltshaker to the other side of the table; her new family – Papa Leo, Mama Nessa and Uncle Kiln – gleefully toasted her success.
"To new beginnings!" they cheered, raising their glasses high.
To new beginnings, she agreed silently, though she had no idea what it meant. To new beginnings…
THE END