A/N: I'm very excited to publish this! I've never shared anything like it before on this website. It's more like my typical writing style for things that aren't fanfic (excessively cryptic and ambiguous because I'm not good at creating original characters and storylines. Yeah.) Anyway, it's something different and I hope you like it.

Fun fact: I actually originally wrote this on the back of a toothpaste box, but that's a long story that I doubt anyone cares about haha.

Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked.

There was a gust of wind and a clatter of shoes - high heels - hitting stone. A decidedly unpleasant noise. A flurry of words - soft pleas and harsh refusals, potentially the same thing if you think enough about it. They were weak arguments. But still fired with enough force to break down the illusionist pretences keeping this fortress intact, and expose the raw wounds inside.

One by one, the bricks broke from their niches, cement flying everywhere, and left a heap of rubble on the exposed concrete floor.

A girl. Maybe a young one, maybe not. But a girl nevertheless. It was evident that she had previously been a woman - perhaps even before her time, but in this moment of deep distress, it seemed all her acquired age and wisdom began to melt.

Rather ironic, isn't it?

And there was another one, too. The high-heeled one. The one who, despite being the opposite, was actually, really, the same. Her palace was still very much intact, so long as you excuse the slight cracks and feeble tremors that came as an aftershock from the fortress' collapse, and was decorated with the finest, most glamorous glitz. She called it superficial.

But really, how can you identify 'superficial' when you've known it all your life?

Still, here in the ruins of a once-grand, once-menacing castle, she began to venture outside her fairytale prison; into uncharted territory that felt terribly familiar. She knew it was dangerous - they both did - but there was no option anymore. The ice had begun to melt.

It seems silly at this point, not to mention the third girl. This one, much younger than the rest, yet still sharing similar qualities: determination, fortitude, stubbornness. The list goes on. She didn't have a castle. No, not yet; just a run-down house, lost to a stray wind, and an optimistic habit of trusting all those who displayed kindness. It was a well-meaning flaw, you could say. The naïveté of a loved child.

It was also a dangerous peril for those around her. Or perhaps an opportunity to be harnessed, depending on who was weighing in. It had totally flipped the fates in this land, though. That much could be agreed on.

But despite her annoying malleability, she was not a cold-hearted girl. She believed what she saw, and while that was often a curse, it was, on occasion, a blessing.

And so some would argue that it was no coincidence that, just as the first cracks in the fortress began to appear, this girl was plotting her revenge. Maybe fate was what led her to throw open the doors once the final brick had fallen, and witness firsthand the broken girl within. With the princess who had journeyed too far out of her palace while she thought no one was watching.

And it was these revelations, this feeling of betrayal, that became the first bricks of her very own castle.

( This 'fate' is me coming up with fanfic scenarios in my head, by the way. )

Thanks for reading! What did you think? I would love some feedback because, as I said before, I haven't published anything like this yet, so it would be interesting to see how other people find it.