A/N: Back again sooner than usual! I am now focussing entirely on this story, ladies and gentlemen: my calendar is cleared and I am giving this my all; everything is strictly background from here on... wherever possible :)
Without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Wicked is still not mine.
In that moment, the Empress's private quarters were completely silent: all sounds, from the whirr of the projector to the footsteps of the guards outside, instantly faded away; even the distant hubbub of the city below was muffled by the sudden hush that had descended upon the room.
For almost thirty seconds, the Empress could only stare at the video footage sent back via the transmission mirror, briefly unable to believe what she'd just witnessed. Wondering if the signal had been blocked or disrupted in some way, she checked the quality of the transmission and then had one of her attendants examine the projector for any sign of damage, but both checks turned up nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps she had simply imagined the anomaly… but there was only one way to be sure.
She replayed the scene again, watching the last minutes of Commander Thaonn's life play out before her eyes: for the most part, nothing was out of the ordinary, and no anomalous elements could be found in the footage; true, the botched mission had resulted in the failure of Thaonn's mission and the deaths of the entire platoon, but that was of minor concern given that any signs of the "gift basket" had already been erased. True, it was disappointing that the coincidental opportunity to assassinate Elphaba had failed so spectacularly, but it was hardly a crippling loss. And yes, there would have to be measures taken to disguise why and how Thaonn's men had arrived in the Deviant Nations, but for now, this urgent review of the footage took priority.
Humming absently to herself, the Empress observed the now familiar scene: Glinda undergoing her blasphemous metamorphosis into a member of the Amorphous League, being trapped in the body of Elphaba, being counselled through it by Elphaba, and finally completing her initial transformation… but not before accidentally sighting one of Thaonn's men and sounding the alarm. From here, things proceeded exactly as before, right up until the commander had made the mistake of kidnapping the child known as Dorothy Gale. This in itself was not unusual: Thaonn had always been determined to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat, no matter how minor, and he could hardly have known that Dorothy was a Distortion – let alone one capable of severing his fingers in a single bite.
No, what had caught the Empress' attention when she'd seen this part for the first time was the very moment that Thaonn had kicked aside Dorothy's clumsy bodyguard. By itself, it was nothing special: she'd seen the Scarecrow before in both reality and the dream-memories, so normally this would have been nothing write home about. And then, just as the Empress was about to dismiss what she'd heard the first time, Dorothy let out a scream of fear – and said the word that had caught the Empress's attention the first time:
"Fiyero!"
There was no mistaking it this time. But what could it mean? It couldn't be a mistake on Dorothy's part: even if Elphaba had actually shared the story of Fiyero's death with the girl, then Dorothy would have no reason to use the name, even accidentally. So unless the girl's experiences had finally driven her insane, the Empress could only conclude that there was something else going on with the Scarecrow.
Come to think of it, how much did she really know of him? According to Elphaba's memories, he had only appeared during her last days in Oz, and in all that time, he'd remained a cipher: unlike the Tin Man or the Cowardly Lion, she hadn't previously been acquainted with him and knew nothing of him personally. Even the whispers she'd heard of him revealed little apart from the fact that Dorothy had simply found him in a field one day. He hadn't participated in the rallying of the witch-hunters, as far as Elphaba knew, but he'd seemed on board with the idea of stopping the Witch… and yet here he was, allied with Elphaba without so much as the slightest shiver of suspicion. Perhaps it could be explained by the friendship he'd shared with Dorothy, but that still didn't explain that bizarre incident during the Battle of Mourner's Lake when he'd suddenly arrived in the middle of the fighting, trying to reintroduce himself to Elphaba. And his voice had sounded ever-so-slightly familiar on that day, hadn't it?
From what she'd seen in Elphaba's memories, the Fiyero of her world was dead… and yet, she hadn't actually seen the body. Nor had there been any confirmation that the disgraced prince of the Vinkus had died; in the official notices that Elphaba had seen, Fiyero Tiggular was listed as "missing"… and, if Dorothy had been correct, perhaps he had been found after all.
There was a plan forming in the back of her mind now, a possibility of something magnificent slowly inching closer to fruition – a chance for her to regain what she'd once thought lost – but first the Empress would need to ensure that her prize in Greenspectre could be retrieved. The need to guarantee the success of this newest stratagem was tripled, for now she had another prize to take back from the enemy.
She'd thought that the only thing she could recover would be her Champion's body. Now, there was a chance to retrieve a mind for him as well…
In the meantime, the first order of business would be to cover up the true purpose of Captain Thaonn's incursion; if the experiment that had just been carried out was ever discovered, the Gift Baskets they'd dropped across the Deviant Nations would be destroyed in a matter of hours. Even if they could be activated before all of them were destroyed, an attempted invasion would achieve very little in their current state of preparation – especially now that the Deviant Nations was on high alert once again. They would need to arrange something that would convince the Mentor and her generals that the incident had been nothing more than a moderately successful effort at teleporting troops into the country for the umpteenth time – and for that, they'd need to make it look like a coordinated attack.
With a wave her hand, the door to her chambers immediately swung open, revealing the servant that had been patiently awaiting orders for the last hour.
"I believe it's time we lit a fire under the Deviant Nations," the Empress announced. "Contact the generals and draw them back from their staging grounds for an emergency conference. Then, tell the artillery batteries stationed at Paradisium Cliffs to prepare for a blanketing salvo of all Deviant settlements in range. I leave their selection to the gunners."
"It will be done, Your Radiance."
"And inform the Creche that we'll have to delay our operations on the Gift Baskets for a time; I know Lintel will be very disappointed, but make sure he knows that I will make it up to him very soon…"
As the servant turned to leave, she added, "Oh, and one more thing: I think it's time we put out autonomous combat engines to the test via a border bombardment. Are any of the units in long-term storage equipped for guerrilla warfare?"
"At least seven hundred at last count, Your Radiance, but the engineers report that they are woefully out of date. The same goes for the mobile gun platforms and the bombardiers."
"All the better! We can keep the Deviant Nations busy with expendable troops whilst cleansing our ranks of inefficient elements. And have the technicians on duty around Paragon begin calculating the next best opportunity to activate the Gift Basket. We will have an opportunity to try again soon."
The work began almost immediately after they arrived back in Greenspectre.
Once Kiln had finished checking everyone over for injuries and providing the Mentor with a comprehensive medical report on the Amorphous League's newest recruit, priority number one was teaching Glinda how to use her powers effectively enough to represent them in public – and quickly, too.
To that end, the Mentor's gymnasium was commandeered as the perfect training ground for a four-day accelerated learning program. As with all new recruits, Glinda was to begin with the smallest dose of potion until her tolerance towards its effects grew, and therefore would only be capable of shapeshifting for a few short hours before she needed a recharge. So, they made the most of the few hours they had for the next three days. Glinda's skills didn't need to be perfect within the next seventy-two hours – after all, she wasn't expected to be engaged in duels to the death right off the bat – just passable enough to advertise her new abilities to the people of the Deviant Nations. Once the propaganda campaign was over and done with, she could continue training until she was ready for the battlefield.
Fortunately, with over forty years of experience in tutoring fellow shapeshifters, Leoverus was more than equal to the task, and was quick to assure Glinda that both stages of her training would be a lot simpler than initially expected.
"The power of shapeshifting is easy to learn, at least compared to magic," the First of the Shapeless explained. "As long as the potion flows through your veins, transformation will be as effortless as breathing… so the real trick lies in precisely controlling these abilities: the will of a shapeshifter must be carefully focussed, or else you'll start taking on new shapes without meaning to. Don't worry, though: once you've got the hang of the concentration techniques, it'll be second nature."
It didn't take too long for Glinda to notice the distinctive sensations of her own body shifting and warping with every transformation: it wasn't just the sense of being slowly inflated or deflated every time she altered her height, though that was certainly noticeable; when she was in the middle of a transformation, she actually felt her flesh oozing in all directions, felt blubber ballooning under her skin like soap bubbles as her belly swelled outwards, even felt muscle building up along her arms and legs as if some invisible construction crew were rebuilding her in concrete and steel. Once, she even reached out to touch her skin as it metamorphosed and felt it bulge inwards like wet clay under pressure, only to reform just as quickly as her transformation continued. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation per se – in fact, Glinda grew to enjoy it as time went on – but it was undeniably bizarre.
The first lesson consisted largely of making the basic transition from one body to another, gradually ascending the scale of difficulty. Having already instinctively taken on Elphaba's form, it wasn't too difficult to take on the appearance of another human being, or so Leoverus assured her: all Glinda really needed to do to kickstart the change was to focus on the details, on growing or shrinking her physique, on altering shape of her nose, the cast of her jawline, the colour of her eyes, the texture of her skin…
So she stood in front of a mirror and focussed once again on Elphaba's form, willing herself to assume her best friend's features once more… and as she held the idea in her mind, she felt her body warp again, and looked up to see her skin turning green. Once she'd left that form, Leoverus brought out some fashion magazines (purloined from Glinda's bedside table), and had her mimic some of the models on display; if anything, this was even easier, if only because Glinda had already read those particular mags – so Leoverus put her to the test by seeing how quickly she could mimic him as he transitioned from one human body to another. The final test for that particular lesson was seeing if she could create an identity of her own on the fly, and though she ended up looking like some bizarre fusion of every single friend she'd ever met in high school fused into one uniquely bland entity, the First of the Shapeless laughingly gave her a passing grade.
Once again, the sense of her own body changing was almost intoxicating, as was watching every transformation play out in the mirrors around her: becoming taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, even crossing the boundary from female to male and back again was a thrill like no other – and unbelievably enough, she was still only at the threshold of what shapeshifting could accomplish. In fact, the only disappointment to be found was the fact that she couldn't mimic clothing just yet.
In total, the first lesson took nearly ten hours to complete, and Glinda still had more classes to attend in the meantime: at her own insistence, she'd decided to continue studying magic with Elphaba, if only because having some useful combat magic might at least make her more useful in the war. As always, the effort just to keep up with Elphaba and Dorothy ran her ragged and the additional study made her head throb, but at least she knew she wasn't completely useless now. Then it was onto a refresher course in military training exercises with Vara and Wolton, followed closely by dinner, two hours of relaxation and bed.
That evening, Glinda dozed off in her chair long before sleeptime arrived and had to be carried into bed by Elphaba. From eight o'clock at night to six in the morning, she remained steadfastly asleep all through the night, never once stirring – not even when an enemy artillery shell exploded over Greenspectre.
The next day was more of the same – except this time it began with a hearty breakfast and a blood-chilling discussion of Unbridled Radiance's latest act of war – long-range bombardments of settlements across the Deviant Nations. Then, it was off to the gymnasium again. Once Glinda had been given her daily dose of the potion, finished with her morning exercises and her efforts to learn the concentration techniques, it was onto lesson 2: her first animal transformations.
This was where Glinda had to make a serious effort to master the art of mass-conversion, otherwise taking on such nonhuman shapes would have been impossible: she had to learn how to conjure additional matter from raw magical current in order to take on larger shapes and funnel her own mass away into the ether in order to take on smaller ones. It was easy to stretch the human form to mimic fat and muscle, but to actually create it required more complex biothaumaturgical trickery. Failing that, as Glinda soon discovered, resulted in a number of highly-embarrassing blunders: once, while trying to take on a shape best suited for stealth, she ended up fumbling the mass-conversion technique and transforming into a five-foot-tall rat; in another case, her efforts to take on a form suitable for combat ended with her transformation into an elephant roughly the size of a pony.
Glinda soon got the hang of it, however: back at Shiz, she'd actually been a halfway decent student when it came to sports, partly to fit in but mostly because she had always looked forward to any chance to show off her body, and shapeshifting was in many ways a sport. After all, the Amorphous League had started out as a hobby group, and though the Empress had done her best to slander it as blasphemous and disgust, it really wasn't much different than swimming or skiing. And because the training process was based largely on physical exercises, she found it altogether more enjoyable than the rigorous, exhausting coursework of formal magic. She even found it genuinely interesting when Leoverus stopped to elaborate on some new technique she needed to abide by:
"Remember, it's one thing to take on the shape of a bird – it's another thing altogether to fly. You need to adjust the musculature of your arms and lighten your bones accordingly…"
"Adjusting your senses is a very tricky business, but you'll know if it's worked or not very quickly. Begin with your eyes: see if you can focus them on a faraway object and see how far you can amplify your range with channelled matter…"
"We can't have you learning how to transform into inanimate objects and plants just yet; don't get me wrong, they're very useful for stealth, but first we have to train you in how to stand perfectly still without wobbling on the spot like a plate of jelly in an earthquake..."
"Clothing is a trial at first, but once you've gotten the hang of covering your erogenous zones with generated matter, things progress relatively smoothly. After that, all you've got to do is to colour and texture your skin to resemble fabric or armour…"
And so the days went by: in between repeated enemy bombing runs across the Deviant Nations, Glinda's training progressed in leaps and bounds – with its fair share of stumbles and falls. Every now and again, she would hit a roadblock and need additional coaching to get over the hurdle: wings failed to work once manifested; attempts to manifest octopus tentacles while still otherwise human resulted in her spine turning to rubber; her concentration faltered, resulting in her turning into Fiyero when she should have turned into a fire-breathing iguana. But Leoverus was a patient teacher and was somehow always able to talk her through the problem.
And no matter how stressful the workload became, Elphaba was always there to listen, even over the course of the brain-pummelling magical lessons: "We're in this together, Glinda," she reminded her on the first day of training. "You don't have to keep all your problems bottled up anymore: you know you can talk to me whenever you need to, whatever the problem – just as I know I can talk to you whenever I need to."
Glinda had hugged her at this – only for her arms to suddenly extend into long, cable-like tendrils that wrapped all the way around Elphaba in an extra-sized hug.
"Sorry," she giggled sheepishly, as Elphaba untangled herself from her overextended arms. "Guess I'm still getting the hang of it."
"Give it time," said Elphaba with a wink. "Sooner or later, you'll be a better flyer than me."
On the fifth day, Glinda found herself in the limelight for the first time in quite a while.
With her skills judged sufficient to keep up appearances for the public, she was to be reintroduced to the public as the new spokesperson for the Amorphous League, and that meant a wide variety of public appearances. Much like the training sessions, the rehearsals were comparatively brief but very thorough, complete with a script and suggestions on the most effective shapes to assume during her recruitment pitch. Once she'd learned her lines, she was to be taken into town and given a pulpit to preach out… but not before taking one additional step.
Because it would have been logically unfeasible for her attend public appearances in literally every city of the Deviant Nations, they first brought in a film crew to record the scene of her recruitment pitch at the Mentor's private studio. The footage would be sent across the land and broadcast to every settlement with a broadcasting theatre available, bringing Glinda's message to every citizen of the Deviant Nations… and with any luck, that would include anyone sympathetic to the League's cause and anyone who might have an interest in the powers they offered.
It began simply enough: Glinda appeared before the cameras dressed in a sombre dark green dress, offering puppy-dog eyes and a sorrowful frown – just as she had back when she'd been preparing to rally the citizens of Oz in times of crisis. Postproduction accompanied her with solemn music, slowly building an atmosphere of burgeoning doom and gloom. Every word she spoke was deathly solemn; not a single hint of her usual upbeat chirrup could be heard in her voice at that moment:
"My name is Glinda Upland," she began, "And I'm here to talk to you about the war: most of what I'm saying you already know – after all, you've seen the battles in the sky, and you've seen our soldiers returning from the front. You know times are tough.
Behind her, grim footage of the latest battles were projected, complete with gory shots of fighting on the front lines across history – right up to the latest skirmishes at Loamlark.
"For years, we've sought allies to help aid us against Unbridled Radiance, but all too often, they've been invaded and destroyed by our enemies before they could join our cause. The situation seems grim, even with the most recent victories, and this fight cannot be won without friends…"
And then her tone began to change, a tiny note of optimism creeping into her voice and blossoming brighter with every spoken word; slowly, the sombre atmosphere gave way to a more inspiring air, postproduction adding triumphal music to the soundtrack and projecting heroic-looking images of the Amorphous League in action.
"But today, I'm here to tell you that we are not alone," she continued, a smile slowly creeping across your face. "Today, we have new friends: the Amorphous League now shelters within our borders under the protection of the Mentor herself, ready to join the fight against the Empress; they've suffered at the hands of Unbridled Radiance as much as we have, and they believe in the right to do with our bodies as we please. The League stands shoulder to shoulder with our proud Irredeemables against those who would destroy our freedom of choice, and they have the power to carry this fight through to the bitter end. But don't take my word for it…"
In that moment, Glinda changed for the first time on camera: two huge wings erupted from her back, framing her body in feather white pinions for all to see; a tail unfurled around her legs and gently threshed the air with a barbed tip; her eyes expanded, changing from blue to emerald green, to fiery orange, to deepest crimson and back again; antlers sprouted from her forehead, slowly forming a magnificent crown atop her skull.
"The Amorphous League is here to help, but first, they need our help. They need your help: Unbridled Radiance has driven them almost to extinction, and they need numbers to fight this war alongside us: they need brave young men and women willing to join their ranks, learn new skills and find new freedoms in shapeshifting – and where else could they find it but among the people of the Deviant Nations? They know we've fought against Unbridled Radiance and their laws in every way that matters; we've proved our strength, we've proved our bravery, and we've proved our resilience. Now it's time to prove our loyalty. The Amorphous League has been on the run for decades on end, and it's our duty to give them all the help we can – just as any good friend would. For anyone who hasn't joined the army or become initiated into the Irredeemables, this is your chance to show your loyalty to your cause, loyalty to your Mentor, and loyalty to your friends."
She smiled, allowing her body to return to its usual shape.
"My name is Glinda Upland," she said with a wink, "and I'm doing my part; now it's your turn."
And with that, she transformed into a dove and flew away, over the camera and out of view. Postproduction immediately set to work on adding captions for the viewers, offering information on where to join up and where to find more information on the transformative potion. But by then, Glinda had already retired to her room to prepare herself for the live performance of the same monologue.
This recruitment drive took place in the plaza outside the palace, and Glinda was shocked to see just how many people gathered to witness the announcement, if only because she hadn't realized the currency her name commanded: as a friend of the Deviant Nations' newest champion and a protégé of the Mentor herself, she had earned a lot of admirers following the last battle of Loamlark (though hardly as much as Elphaba herself). Also, thanks to their unexplained arrival in this dimension, the mystery surrounding their origins and their impressive records in combat, she was now regarded with considerable interest by the general public – especially once the stories of her accompanying Elphaba into battle started gaining embellishments in the local grapevine. The modest accounts of her deeds had been exaggerated almost as much as Elphaba's, and some of the more bewildering theories even claimed that the two of them were half-sisters. So, when the Mentor had announced that Glinda would be giving a lecture, thousands of people flocked to the plaza out of sheer curiosity, anxious to learn more about their Champion's "sister" and what wonders she might perform.
The script was largely the same, give or take a few of Glinda's own personal additions, but with more open space to work with and no need to fit into a camera's field of view, she could now afford to show off a little further. So, she brought out the most spectacular forms that Leoverus had taught her, taking special care to make them as vibrant and eye-catching as possible: it wasn't enough to become a giant fire-breathing iguana, for example – she had to make sure the beast was three times as big as any other of its kind, complete with a glittering hide of platinum scales and a crest of gold. Evidently, the approach worked: by the time Glinda completed her second big transformation, everyone was oohing and aahing in rapt fascination, cheering at the top of their lungs and eager to see more.
Scant hours after she'd left the stage to thunderous applause, news began creeping in from across the city: the recruitment centres set up across Greenspectre were already seeing a steady trickle of curious citizens, and while many just wanted to know more about the potion or any potential risks involved, twenty people had already signed up to join the Amorphous League. By the end of the day, the count had risen to fifty.
All in all, Glinda was quite proud of what she'd accomplished so far. Yes, she was exhausted from all the training, and yes, the speech had been a little grimmer than her usual subject matter, and yes, the emotional manipulation in the script had been delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer… but for all that, it honestly felt good to use her public speaking skills in the name of a decent cause for once in her life.
She enjoyed the warm glow of success while it lasted.
As soon as the initial celebrations were over, she was due to return to training – this time with a new emphasis on combat applications for her new powers. Plus, she'd have to get used to carrying out these training sessions aboard an airship, because first thing the next morning, she was due to repeat the recruitment drive performance in several other major cities throughout the Deviant Nations over the course of the next week, beginning with the frontier cities of Doorstep and Warren. And then, once the Amorphous League was suitably repopulated and Leoverus was certain Glinda was ready for battle, she was actually going to be given duties on the frontlines.
By then, Glinda would – or should – have developed enough of a tolerance for the effects of the potion to accept larger doses, these ones lasting for days instead of hours. She'd be off training wheels by then, trusted to hold her own in battle and look after herself… but first she had to make it through the tour, the additional training, and get the hang of those last few concentration techniques. Frankly, she'd have felt a lot more useful if she'd been able to take enough potion to last her a year without having to go through the tedious process of enduring all those little involuntary twitches after taking her first dose of the day. But rules were rules, and frankly, Glinda couldn't help anyone if she ended up being reduced to a puddle of lifeless goo by an overdose. So, she'd just have to wait and work hard before she was strong enough to tolerate higher doses – and gain more control over her abilities.
To the best of her knowledge, she'd never in all her days been quite as busy or exhausted as she was in that first tumultuous week.
But at the end of it, as Elphaba helped her into bed, hugging her gently and telling her how proud they all were of her accomplishments, Glinda realized she'd never been as happy, either.
Elphaba hadn't originally intended to accompany Glinda on her tour of the cities.
With Leoverus chaperoning her around the Deviant Nations, it wasn't as if she'd need any more protection than she already had, and with a growing repertoire of powers under her belt, Glinda had made it clear she didn't need Elphaba hovering over her like a demented mother hen. So, once she'd jotted down some spellcasting exercises just in case Glinda felt like keeping up with her magical coursework, she'd wished her all the best and allowed her to leave with her head held high.
As soon as Elphaba had gotten over the initial surge of anxieties, she went back to work. As always, she had to keep up with her training; she had to enhance her current repertoire of spells; ah she had to test how far her strength had been enhanced by the growths of Witch-Crystal dotting her back; she had to provide Dorothy with sufficient education to understand her growing magical powers. Then, the Mentor requested some assistance in boosting the enchantments that shielded Greenspectre, a necessity now that Unbridled Radiance was escalating its bombing campaign. Then, it was time for the daily update on all the information brought in from the dream-memories, which were now being greedily scrutinized by a small panel of military strategists and engineers.
But once her daily duties were over and done with, Elphaba finally had a few spare hours to focus on her big project – the one thing she'd always wanted to work on but had never found the time up until now: restoring Fiyero's humanity.
She didn't expect the work to be done in a day, nor was it: after thumbing through the Grimmerie for the better part of five hours, she was happy enough to have found some potential spells that might be able to turn Fiyero back into a human being, the most prominent ones involving the creation of a brand new body for his mind to inhabit… but in order to make those spells work, she'd have to research spells that would allow for the sustainable transmission of a living soul into a vacant body… and in order to make that work, she'd have to research spells that would keep Fiyero's new body from undergoing any potential mutations or accidental transformations while being exposed to pure magical current… and in order to make that work-
Elphaba had been halfway through explaining this to Fiyero, hoping to apologise for the lack of progress, when he'd abruptly leaned forward and kissed her hard on the lips – and in a matter of minutes, the research session had dissolved into a long, drawn out kiss. Credit where credit was due, Fiyero still had a wonderful gift for distracting Elphaba from her own anxieties.
And then, just when she was starting to relax, a messenger arrived at the door: according to the Mistress of Mirrors, a small force of automated infantry units had crossed the eastern border into the Deviant Nations. Platoons of soldiers were already being scrambled to hunt them down, but the defences of towns in the area needed to be bolstered as well, so the Mentor was sending in a cadre of professional magicians… and unsurprisingly, Elphaba was one of them.
On the upside, she'd be protecting Glinda again. Sadly, that was the sum total of things to be thankful for in this newest mission briefing: she was given barely an hour to say goodbye to Fiyero and Dorothy before marching down to the hangar for yet another transport – this time to the eastern frontier. Among the small mercies of this particular mission, she was permitted to indulge in a dream-pill during the trip to Doorstep; so, if nothing else, she'd at least had the opportunity to get some sleep.
Unfortunately, Elphaba never made it that far.
As she began the long, meandering walk to the hangar, she found the world around her blurring in and out of focus; she wasn't losing consciousness, however, for she was still dimly aware of her feet carrying her effortlessly down the stairs without falling or bumping into anyone, but it was abundantly clear that she and reality were slowly parting ways.
Around her the halls of Greenspectre palace seemed to fade away, replaced by visions of another palace – older, darker, and much more decadent… but a thousand times more familiar. Before long, Greenspectre was gone, and in its place was the Emerald City's grand palace in the last days of Oz. Her hands were changing colour, the green bleeding away into stark pale flesh, her black military robes melting away into a fine white gown, and all around her, people who hadn't existed a moment ago were bowing respectfully in her direction.
Tired as she was, Elphaba knew at once that she'd once again stumbled into one of the Empress' memories – but not the brief, temporary glimpses of them she'd experienced while still awake: this was occupying every iota of her attention, driving her completely into the world of recollections.
Somehow, she was slipping into a full-blown dream-memory, and she hadn't taken a single pill yet.
Already, Elphaba's sensory contact with the real world had been almost completely cut off: though she still walked as if she knew the ahead, her sight and hearing were now locked in the illusion, and already, people who had probably been dead for decades were now whispering in her ears – and Alphaba's voice was responding to them.
"Overseer, something's come up: we have reason to suspect that a group of researchers has begun borrowing blood samples from your laboratory – your blood samples."
"Do you have any confirmed members of this group?"
"We have no confirmed members… but judging by her more energetic attitude of late, we have reason to suspect Morrible may be the ringleader; if so, she most likely also has support from Dr Lintel and Dr Calenture."
"Hmmm. The three of them have been collaborating of late, so it may very well be possible. Keep them monitored for any signs of active insurrection. What else?"
"There's been further developments concerning the theft of the shapeshifting potion: whoever took it is a mage-surgeon – one assigned to treating Shenshen and Pfannee."
"What of our more mundane dissidents?"
"We have reason to believe that Glinda's sympathies might lie with these protestors."
"Troubling. Extend her an invitation to my office immediately: we must discuss her loyalties in detail. Make it clear that it's an emergency, and it's for her own good – and that of her child."
"That may not be necessary, Overseer: she's been asking to see you for a while now. She's already in the waiting room."
"How very convenient…"
Back in the real world, the stairs came to an end and the path ahead seemed to open up: obviously, Elphaba's body had finally arrived at the hangar, and she'd soon be aboard the ship, where presumably someone might be able to help her… but she had no way of explaining her predicament to any of them. In fact, she could actually feel her mouth moving of its own accord as she spoke, and judging by the placid pace, she obviously wasn't communicating anything urgent.
Until the dream-memory passed, she was effectively trapped.
I should have known things were going too well, she sighed, as her body stepped onto the waiting transport, her mind drifting even deeper into the dream. There's always a cloud behind every silver lining…
A/N: Care to guess what happens next? Let me know!