A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks - its been a bit of a rough month, as I'm sure you all know by now. Hopefully this will serve as a fittIng present to all of you in this time of crisis and universal brouhaha. i wish you a merry Christmas/happy holidays/satisfying saturnalia/etc, and hope that, if nothing else, this demented titan of a story can offer some entertainment and solace in this turbulent month of political insanity and biological embuggerances.
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Wicked is still not mine.
Elphaba couldn't say exactly where she'd seen this house before: whenever she tried to grasp whatever it was about the building that made it so inexplicably recognizable, it all seemed to slip through her fingers.
Part of this was no doubt due to being hopelessly overwhelmed with details from all the other worlds she'd just visited, but mostly because she had more important things to concentrate on for the time being. She needed to get out of this dimension and back on the trail of worlds that would hopefully lead back to her point of origin, and the sooner she could find the portal leading out of here, the better. Unfortunately, Roquat's shared perceptions of reality didn't seem to have detected it yet, so for the time being, she could only keep exploring.
The sensible thing to do would have been to just ignore her feelings on the subject and focus on the job at hand. After all, it didn't matter if she found the place familiar or not. This was a parallel universe – it had nothing whatsoever to do with her: everything she had seen and heard so far had been snippets of someone else's life, fascinating from an intellectual perspective and no doubt important to the Nome King for some ungodly reason, but utterly irrelevant to the bigger picture. Apart from the vision of herself overtaken by Alphaba's personality, all these possibilities were well and truly out of reach by now, so there was no point in caring about this one in particular.
Besides, it wasn't as if she was going to settle down and rent a room in the place, was it?
And yet, even with the curtains drawn and every room shrouded in darkness, it was almost impossible to ignore the sense of déjà vu ringing interminably in the back of her head. And the louder it got, Elphaba found it just a little bit harder to resist the urge to explore. Curiosity would do her no good here… but something about the building seemed to call out to her, luring her ever deeper into its echoing, silent bowels.
The rulebreaker in her wanted to start opening doors, peering behind curtains, reading the books on the shelves and rifling through the bureau drawers. She even found herself sorely tempted to take a peek at the portraits hanging on the wall – but that would have required her to conjure a light or open the curtains, and doing either could draw unwanted attention from inside or outside the house, a risky move considering she didn't know where she was or what threats could be found in this dimension. For all she knew, she'd ended up in a dimension where surveillance was even more advanced than it was in Unbridled Radiance, and any lawbreaking would immediately summon trained magicians to blast her into cinders. For now, she'd have to keep her head down and hope that she could get out of here before she attracted too much attention.
Lowering her voice to a nearly inaudible whisper, she asked, "Roquat, can you see the portal?"
But for the first time since he'd joined her, there was silence in the back of her mind: the Nome King was still there – she could tell as much by that strange and disquieting presence inside her skull – but for some reason, he didn't seem in the mood to talk. And in the place of his usual lectures, a strange and tangible sense of anticipation was blossoming across her psyche, as if Roquat was waiting for something.
In desperation, she tried a second time to reach out to the ominous lurking presence in her mind, but once again, Roquat the Red remained determinedly silent. For the time being, Elphaba was on her own. She still had access to the Nome King's perceptions, but without him recognizing the portals at a distance, she'd be left searching blindly for any sign of the damn thing until she ended up in its immediate vicinity. All she knew was that the portal was somewhere in this building, and for the time being, that was her only advantage.
So, with no other choice but to continue forward, she crept on through the silent house, subtly picking up the pace as she progressed. Already, she could feel the ominous gravity of dimensional synch descending on her, draping itself across her shoulders and slowly pressing her into the carpet. Roquat had warned her that the synch would be more aggressive while travelling through these dormant portals, and already she could feel herself being subtly anchored to this dimension as she grew more acclimatized to it: somehow, the portal felt further away with every step, and the sense of familiarity was joined by what Elphaba could only describe as false recognition; she personally found this place uncannily familiar, but the history she was already inheriting through the synch were telling her that she belonged here. Perhaps, if she stayed long enough, she might even learn what this place was once she began assimilating those memories as dreams… but by then, leaving this dimension by portal would be a thousand times more arduous.
Finding no sign of the portal on the current floor and no indication that it might be outside the house, she ignored the imposing double doors at the entrance hall and made her way into a much more spartan wing of the house, until she finally found herself in the kitchen. Predictably, the room was empty, the counters were clean, and the ovens were cold… and yet, judging from the dirty glasses stacked next to the sink and the broken bottles piled high around the garbage can, someone had been helping themselves to the wine cellar of late.
Beyond lay a narrow, undecorated passageway leading to a rickety flight of stairs; this was presumably for the manor's servants, but if this was so, where were they all? Why was the house deserted, if indeed it was so? Judging from the comparative lack of dust about the place and the recent signs of alcoholism, it couldn't have been left unattended for very long, so what could possibly have driven everyone out – or at least of this floor?
And was it her imagination, or was someone in the distance crying?
Shaking her head in frustration, Elphaba ascended to the ground floor, tiptoeing anxiously up the creaking steps into another set of servant's passageways. Then she heard a voice from somewhere nearby, perhaps only a few rooms away unless she was mistaken; instinctively, she threw herself behind the door and out of sight, just in case the speaker happened to glance towards the servant's entrance, and did her best to listen in.
"…we've been over this before, darling," the voice was saying – a man's voice, anxious, frustrated and more than a little pained by the sounds of things. "We've been over this every day since the funeral: it wasn't your fault… I don't know why you… not worth your grief… so much better if you just forget about it entirely and try to move on with your life. I know it sounds callous, but there would have been nothing but misfortune in store for us if it hadn't…"
The rest was inaudible, muffled as the speaker moved away from the door. Elphaba had the distinct impression that the speaker was pacing around the room, hence why his voice kept dropping in and out of comprehensible range. Eventually, someone replied to him: as far as Elphaba could tell, this was a woman's voice, but even though most of the words were nothing more than an indecipherable mumbling at this range, there was no mistaking the grief and exhaustion in them. This could only be the source of the crying Elphaba had heard upstairs.
"And why have you sent the servants away?" the male voice continued. "I'm going to be out of the house for nearly a full week this time! Surely you don't want to spend all that time alone? I mean, at least come with me – we could…"
To Elphaba's growing confusion, there was something about that grumbling tone that seemed uncannily familiar, as if she'd met him at some point in the distant past.
"…you're not thinking straight, dear: you haven't slept in days and you've had nothing to drink but wine… your life isn't over, don't you see? We can try for another child whenever you're ready. I've arranged special preparations. We won't have to worry about anything like-"
In the distance, the woman let out a strangled shout of anger. For perhaps thirty seconds, there was silence, and then in a much lower tone of voice, she murmured something just coherent enough for Elphaba to recognize:
"Please… please, I don't want to talk about it… not worth the pain and heartbreak of… we'll talk about it when you get back… please, just leave me alone."
As the man sighed and began noisily marching away, Elphaba couldn't shake the feeling that she'd heard the woman's voice as well, but once again, her head was still too overloaded with details to work out precisely where. It was frankly irrelevant to the current situation, but once again, her curiosity couldn't be repressed.
A minute went by in silence as the man left the house, slamming the door behind him. Elphaba waited until she was absolutely certain that he wasn't likely to return for anything, before she finally slipped out of her hiding place and crept down the hallway as quickly as she could manage without making too much noise. She'd barely managed to duck into the shadows at the end of the corridor before the lady of the manor emerged from her room – and made a beeline directly for the servant's passage. With her back turned, Elphaba couldn't see much of the woman's face, hidden as it was by the tangled mess of dark hair; however, she was carrying an empty wine bottle in her hand, so she was probably headed downstairs to pick up some more.
Good, Elphaba thought. That should give me some time to search the room for the portal out of here. Now all I need to do is figure out why Roquat is being so tight-lipped all of a sudden.
What followed was a quick but thorough check off each room as Elphaba progressed along the corridor, all the while doing her best to ignore the sense of déjà vu. Most of them were bedrooms, lounges and the occasional office, and none of them of much interest apart from the occasional vague flare of recognition that she didn't have time to indulge. However, as she reached the fifth room on the left, Roquat's senses began sounding alarm bells: the portal was in here!
Unfortunately, it was also the room that the lady of the manor had been moping around in. Assuming she was planning on returning here after picking up a fresh bottle, Elphaba would have to hurry if she wanted to escape without getting caught – or being anchored even deeper into this world by dimensional synch. So, steeling herself for the quickest ransacking of her entire life, Elphaba stepped inside.
The room, as it turned out, was a nursery: Elphaba had seen more than enough of them over the course of her dream-memories back in Unbridled Radiance, though the nurseries arranged for Alphaba's daughters had been much grander by far. However, there was no mistaking the purpose of the room; the curtains at the window weren't as heavy as the drapes found throughout the rest of the house, allowing Elphaba more than enough light to see the room by.
Along with the usual array of children's toys and the mobile dangling from the ceiling, the place was immediately distinguished by a horribly-battered armchair lurking by the windowsill like a misplaced gargoyle. From the look of it, the lady of the manor had been sitting here for quite a while, digging trenches in the armrests with fingernails and littering the ground with broken wineglasses as she kept watch over the cradle sitting nearby – a cradle that, as Elphaba drew closer, turned out to be empty.
Hang on, she thought, I've seen this before in another vision. But what does this have to do with-
There was a muffled expletive from somewhere downstairs: once again, it was hard to recognize what was being said at this distance, but from the sounds of things, the lady of the manor had found that her husband had finally put a lock on the wine cellar door. Moments later, the rickety staircase rang with the sounds of clumsy footsteps making their way back upstairs.
Realizing she had only a few seconds, Elphaba frantically scanned the room for any sign of the portal, hoping that Roquat would finally give her some kind of helpful hint before she was discovered. But for once, even though she knew that it was in this very room, she couldn't find it: it was as if the portal was all around her, throwing her sense of direction off-balance every time she thought she got close to it.
"Okay," a voice mumbled from somewhere just down the corridor, "He'll probably have something in his desk drawer, maybe a bottle of brandy... just need to hope he didn't take it with him… just need enough not to think. Just need enough to get to sleep…"
Finally, she saw it: the portal was directly behind the door, its faintly-visible surface completely hidden in the shadows. Silently punching the air, Elphaba marched straight toward it-
"What are you doing here?"
Just a few feet down the corridor, the lady of the manor was staring up at her, bleary-eyed and empty-handed. Thanks to the darkened corridor, her face was in shadow and her features almost impossible to discern, but Elphaba could tell from the tone of her voice that she wasn't happy about being disturbed.
"Didn't you get the news? I said that I didn't want any servants in the house today: you're officially on vacation until my husband gets back, so there's no call for you to be around here, cleaning up – especially not in the nursery! I told all the maids that I didn't want this room cleaned and… and why are you wearing that ridiculous hat?"
Elphaba floundered for a moment, suddenly unable to explain herself: normally, this would have been her opportunity for shock and awe, to get shout down her opposition or just blast enough magic to spook them into surrender; after all, that had been her best option back in Oz… and yet, something about this drunken homeowner seemed to paralyse her instincts. Maybe it was the sense of déjà vu, or maybe it was all the disquieting emotions stirred by the synch; whatever the case, she couldn't bring herself to retaliate against the stranger. All she could do was hastily doff her hat and try to look nonchalant.
Fortunately, the woman obviously didn't recognize that she was an intruder, either because she was too drunk to take in the subtleties or simply because it was too dark for her to notice that the "maid" had green skin. Either way, Elphaba at least had a way out. All she had to do was make a few sheepish excuses, slam the door in the woman's face and dive through the portal before she sounded the alarm.
But as she took an instinctive step backwards into the nursery, a stray shaft of light of light from the window happened to stray across her face – and the lady of the manor let out a strangled gasp of horror as she got her first good look at the intruder.
"I… what? How can… no, this is… if this is a joke, this isn't funny. This has to be a joke – I mean, that can't be anything but makeup. I… you can't actually be…"
As Elphaba continued to back away, the woman followed her into the room and into the light – and now it was Elphaba's turn to let out a gasp of shock as she took the lady of the manor's face for the first time.
Her chestnut hair was a tangled mess that obviously hadn't been washed for several days; her dark eyes were red and puffy from crying, and her face was flushed a dull scarlet by hours of comprehensive drinking; her clothes were rumpled, as if they'd been slept in; she probably hadn't eaten in quite some time, for she was even thinner than Elphaba remembered… but for all the differences, for all the exhaustion and sickness and shock, there was no mistaking Melena Thropp.
At last, Elphaba knew why this place seemed so familiar, and why those voices had stirred such déjà vu: this was the governor's mansion in Munchkinland, as it had been in the years before mother had died, up until Elphaba had been about five years old. Frexspar had redecorated quite extensively in the years since then, replacing every last inch of wallpaper and almost every single piece of furniture, hence why things had seemed so distinctive and yet so alien to Elphaba's eyes.
Somehow, her mad voyage across the dimensions had brought her right back to the very house she'd been born and raised in, had actually landed her face-to-face with her own mother. After all this time and all the journeying, somehow she was home – and yet not. After all, something can clearly gone very wrong in this world's history: as far as Elphaba knew, Frexspar and her mother had never suffered marital troubles on this scale, and mother had never suffered drinking problems – certainly not on this scale. And then there was the empty crib and the derelict nursery, which brought a whole new array of suspicions with it…
She hadn't meant to say anything, of course. She knew this wasn't her real mother: this was a version of Melena Thropp from another dimension, and judging from the state of the nursery, there was a distinct chance that this Melena had never even known her baby long enough to name her Elphaba (if she'd even been born, of course). No, Elphaba had meant to keep quiet, to push past Melena and fling herself through the portal at the first opportunity… but in the end, something about the piteous sight of the woman trembling in the doorway had cut neatly through all her strategies, shattered all her knowledge into meaningless trivia. And before she could stop herself, before she could do the sensible thing and run, the word she hadn't meant to say had already rolled out of her mouth:
"Mother?"
If Melena had looked stunned before, now she looked downright horrified. "No," she whispered. "This can't be real. This is a trick. It has to be. You can't be her… you just can't be…"
She darted clumsily forward, grabbing Elphaba's hat by the brim and whisking it off her head to get a better look at her. In growing bewilderment, she clasped Elphaba's face in her hands, fingers awkwardly scraping the skin as she frantically checked the intruder for any signs of makeup, obviously hoping that the green might simply rub off on the tips of her fingers. For her part, Elphaba remained deathly still, too shocked to even protest the manhandling.
Finally, Melena staggered backwards, her face white with terror as she finally took in all the details. "You look so much like me," she said softly. "But… his hair colour. You can't be here – it's just not possible for you to be here… but you are, aren't you? You're my daughter. You're Elphaba."
Elphaba nodded mutely, unable to think of a response – and in that moment, Melena very gently folded up: wearied by drinking, lack of sleep and shock, she slowly sank to her knees; she was trembling now, her eyes filling with tears even as she tried valiantly not to pitch forward onto the carpet.
"Is this divine punishment?" she asked. "Is this what I've brought down on myself? Did the Unnamed God send you here to make me suffer for what I've done? Frexspar always likes to preach about the wicked fate of sinners, but… I never imagined this one. Haunted by the evidence of my crime for the rest of my life, is it? Gods only know I deserve it…"
"I-"
"Or maybe this isn't even real; maybe you're not really here, and I'm just hallucinating from too many sleepless nights. Maybe I've finally gone mad and you're just a phantom haunting me. Not that that's much better." She laughed bitterly, a hoarse wheeze of laughter that ended in a choked sob. "Maybe I'm just imagining what you'd have been like if you… if I hadn't…"
She was crying, now, her words dissolving into helpless sobs of grief and remorse; it was like watching a dam collapse before her eyes, an ocean of pent-up emotions erupted out of her, and given that Melena had obviously already been crying for quite some time by now, Elphaba couldn't help but wonder about what had happened to her other self. But in the end, she could only watch as Melena cried helplessly, not know what to do or what to say; she knew that this was not her real mother, and she knew that Roquat would want her to leave before the synchronization grew any stronger… and yet she couldn't just leave this poor woman to suffer.
"Oh gods," Melena wept. "Please, can't you at least spare me this much? Can't you just leave me alone? Losing you was bad enough, but this… this is cruel! This is cruel! This is cruel! This is cruel…"
Elphaba had never been especially subtle or measured when it came to acting on her emotions, nor had she been shy when she it came to doing what she felt was right. For the most part, she just acted and left the complex planning until later, and so far she still hadn't learned her lesson no matter how many times the approach had backfired. So, before she knew precisely what she was doing, she'd knelt down and flung her arms around Melena.
Instantly, the nursery was plunged into deathly silence. For a moment, it seemed as if Melena – drunk and despondent as she was – couldn't quite grasp the fact that Elphaba was a physical presence that could actually touch her, much less hug her. But then she buried her face in Elphaba's shoulder and gave full vent to everything she'd endured; hopefully, this time, she would at least have the luxury of knowing that she wasn't alone and that she wasn't being punished.
Elphaba patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, and allowed her to go on weeping. She'd never seen Melena like this in the world she knew: even in the face of her disagreements with Frexspar, Elphaba had never once witnessed her mother crying so openly and so helplessly. But then, she'd never been in a position to see her like this; Melena had kept her affair with the future Wizard a secret through all the remaining years of her life without anyone suspecting a thing, and if she'd had any regrets or hidden memories, she'd only ever expressed them in private, if at all.
Nor had Elphaba ever been in a position to see her mother so small and frail: she'd only ever seen Melena Thropp as tall, statuesque and graceful – as most children no doubt saw their parents; she'd only ever seen her as the natural bearer of everything that Frexspar had refused to grant her: care, forgiveness, tolerance, love. She'd never seen this depth of self-loathing and doubt, nor even imagined that she might be capable of such things.
Eventually, Melena stopped crying and lay still against Elphaba's shoulder. Frankly, Elphaba couldn't blame her: she looked as if she'd been awake for days, had probably been drinking for the same amount of time and weighed so little that a stiff breeze could have sent her flying out the window – it would have been more shocking if she hadn't been exhausted.
"I'm not here to torture you," Elphaba said at last, keeping her voice low and soothing. "I'm not divine punishment for whatever you think you've done, I'm definitely not a ghost, you're not going insane, and I didn't mean to hurt you by coming here. I'm just…"
How could she explain the concept of parallel universes to a woman who was on the verge of a mental breakdown, if not actually in the middle of one? She knew that the sensible thing would be to run for the portal right now before the synch anchored her any further to this world, but once again, she couldn't just leave the other Melena to her miseries.
"I'm just a traveller," she said at last. "A different Elphaba from a different world. It might take a bit of explaining – you might be better off thinking of all this as just a dream, but that's not the point right now. The point is that whatever happened to your daughter wasn't your fault. You had an affair, yes, and you drank the green elixir, yes, but you couldn't have known what was going to happen."
Melena tensed in her arms, slowly extracting herself from the hug. "And what do you think happened?" she asked, bitterly. "If I've got this right, and you're another version of my daughter, then you only know what happened in your world. You don't know what happened here, though, do you?"
"…no. I mean, I heard enough of the argument between you and fath- between you and Frexspar, so I was guessing crib death or some other childhood illness."
"That was what I told Frexspar. And that was what I paid the doctor to say."
This caught Elphaba completely off guard. For a moment, she could only blink in confusion, trying to process too many connotations at once. "What?"
"We held a funeral about a week or two ago, and Frex was in home in time to see the grave being filled, but the coffin was empty except for ballast."
"Hang on, are you saying your daughter isn't dead?"
Elphaba silently cursed herself for not realizing the truth sooner: if she'd ended up in a dimension where her counterpart had died, she'd probably have experienced her memories all at once as she was synchronized with the new universe, and given how young this version of Elphaba would have been, it probably wouldn't have taken very long.
Meanwhile, Melena sighed and struggled valiantly not to burst into tears all over again. "No… but that doesn't change the fact that I've done the unforgiveable. My little Elphaba's alive out there, but only because I did the lowest and most cowardly thing a mother could do. And that's why I thought you had to be divine retribution for what I'd done: that's my nightmare – to meet my baby girl, all grown up, and wanting to know why I…" She bit her lip, unable to finish the sentence.
An idea of what had happened was already forming in the back of her head, but Elphaba's found herself wanting, needing to hear the rest of the story, if only to assuage her curiosity.
"Explain it to me," she said at last. Seeing Melena's expression turn wary, she added, "Please; it might make you feel better. Sometimes, a secret's easier to keep if someone else knows it, and who better than me? I'm not going to be around to tell anyone about it: your secret's safe with me."
Once again, her mother (Melena, Elphaba reminded herself, she isn't really my mother, just an alternate version of her) let out a low sigh, and began in earnest:
"It started about three months after Elphaba was born. Frexspar never liked her, you see, hated her from the moment he laid eyes on her – well, if you're another version of my daughter, I'm sure you know all about that by now. It was okay in the first few weeks, when nobody outside the nursery saw her; true, Frex kept telling me that it was a bad omen, kept getting angry when he saw me holding little Elphaba in my arms, kept saying we should put her up for adoption, but I could deal with it." There was a subtle flicker of pain in her eyes, and she added, "I thought I could deal with it. I know I'm not a good wife by any stretch, but I thought I could at least be a good mother: I thought I could love my daughter no matter what she looked like and care for her no matter how angry Frexspar got."
"Then I brought you – her outdoors for the first time. Up until then, we'd kept Elphaba indoors, away from prying eyes… and away from most of the servants too: apart from the midwife, I'd been the only other person in the entire house to touch her. After three months of me feeding her, changing her and cradling her behind closed doors, all the servants were gossiping about monster babies anyway and spreading the rumours from one end of Munchkinland to the next, but Frex didn't care. He thought we could keep the scandal under control if we just kept my daughter away from prying eyes and spared the family the shame of having her seen in the daylight… but then he went away on another business trip, and I after twelve weeks cooped up behind curtained windows, I needed to get out of the house. And I couldn't just leave little Elphaba behind, not with nobody else allowed to even be in the same room as her. So I put the baby in a perambulator and went for a walk.
"Only a handful of people got close enough to get a good look at her, but that didn't matter: word spread quicker than the plague. By the end of the day, the secret was out and everyone in Munchkinland knew that the governor's daughter was green; of course, the rumours usually added tentacles or claws or something like that into the mix, but everyone knew Elphaba was green. And then Frexspar…" Melena closed her eyes, visibly suppressing her tears again. "I thought he'd been angry before. I thought I'd seen the worst of his temper. But when he got home that evening, he was drunk and angrier than ever: he shouted at me for – gods, it felt like hours – said I'd brought a monster into the world, said it was my fault the baby turned out wrong, even told me that the best thing that could ever happen to her would be to die before ever growing up and shaming the family any further. I tried to speak up for her, I tried, but Frex… well, he didn't hit me, but he started throwing things at me. Glass and porcelain and anything that could shatter. And he told me that he wouldn't have "the green brat" under his roof another moment longer, and he wouldn't tolerate anyone who took her side. Then he stormed out.
"Next day, he was sober enough to apologise for the cuts on my hands and face, told me he hadn't meant a word of what he said… but I knew he meant it. He meant every word of it. That's why he only drinks in private, you see. He doesn't like seeing all his worst traits in action and out of control, and he doesn't like to imagine that he could be a bad man, let alone a disreputable one. So he spent the rest of the day drinking, but he made sure to stay away from me… so he took it out on the servants instead. Broken bottles and overturned furniture all over the house. Next morning, he sobered up, apologised to the maids and butler, then went right back to drinking until he had to leave for work; came back home, drank some more and lost his temper all over again. And I knew that was the way things were going to be from then on. And I was so terrified that one day, he'd..."
She was crying again, tears coursing down her face as she struggled to finish her story.
"I still don't know if I was afraid of what he'd do to Elphaba or what he'd do to me; I-I couldn't think straight, I was so scared. Maybe some part of me was worried that one day he'd be so drunk and so angry that he'd willingly hurt a child, or maybe that Frex would find out about the affair and… take revenge on both of us. I don't know. I didn't know then and I don't know now. All I know is that I couldn't keep Elphaba in the house, so while Frexspar was away on a business trip, I went looking for someone who'd… who'd take the baby away."
"I couldn't send her to an orphanage; sooner or later, the rumours would spread and everyone would know that the green child was the governor's daughter. So, I looked for someone who was already on the way out of Oz and never likely to return: fugitives, refugees, migrant workers, anyone likely to have a good reason to stick clear of the country. It was the ringmaster of a circus troop that eventually took me up on that offer, just some strange old man in a bar in some backwater village: they were from Ev, and with all the political turmoil in Oz, the boss told me they probably wouldn't go anywhere near Oz ever again. He promised to take good care of my baby, and that was all that mattered to me: I kissed her goodbye, handed her over with the asking price, and the last I saw of Elphaba, she was being smuggled out of the bar hidden under the ringmaster's coat.
"I managed to keep it together until I got home, and then I just… I broke down, sobbing, screaming, wailing; I must have sounded as if I was being murdered – god only knows I wished it was that way. By then, I'd already forged all the necessary documents, paid off the right people to say the right things and arranged for an empty-casket funeral, but the tears made it authentic. Because it was authentic, because Elphaba was as good as dead: I'd given her away to a complete stranger, a man who could be planning to do all kinds of horrible things to her – sell her into slavery, train her for all kinds of unspeakable acts, beat her for his own amusement, raise her as an animal. He ran a circus, for Lurline's sake! For all I know, my daughter might be the prize exhibit of a freakshow, never knowing life outside the bars of her exhibit – and I did that to her! It was all my fault.
"And then I knew that I was the lowest and most cowardly thing that dared call itself a mother. I knew that I didn't deserve happiness, love, kindness, or even to live at all. I'd betrayed my husband, I'd disfigured my daughter, I'd lied when the doctors asked me if I'd taken anything that might have affected my pregnancy… and after all that, I'd abandoned my only child. I'd condemned my baby to all manner of horrors – not because I knew that something terrible would happen to her, not because I knew that she'd be better off away from Frex, but because of a few vague suspicions that might never come true! In the end, I did it because I was afraid, afraid that my affair might be discovered, afraid that Frexspar would hurt me, afraid of my husband's temper. Because I'd been bold enough to defy him in private, but never to his face. Because I was a coward."
There was silence in the nursery, as Melena finally ran out of breath and sank into a despairing fugue. For the next minute and a half, the room was as quiet as the proverbial tomb, except for the sound of Elphaba's head spinning.
"So now you know," Melena concluded. "If you really are real and not just a dream, I imagine this is the moment you want to leave in disgust. Frankly, I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't stick around after hearing everything I'd just confessed to."
Sweet Lurline, Elphaba thought. Is that where I get my self-loathing from?
"Mother-" She winced, and tried again: "Melena, I can't say if you were motivated by fear for your safety or if you wanted to protect your daughter, and I'm not about to decide for you. But the one thing I can say is that I can't blame you for being frightened of what Frexspar would do. In my world, he only lost his temper with me once, and that was enough to keep me afraid of him for the rest of my life. He was a bitter, hateful, self-important old miser who couldn't qualify as my father in any sense of the word, and he was even worse when he was drunk. So I can understand why you were afraid, and why you wouldn't want Elphaba to grow up with him as a father."
"And leaving my daughter to be raised by complete strangers is any better? For all I know, they've already thrown her away!"
"But they haven't," said Elphaba without thinking.
"…how do you know?"
"I..."
Elphaba suddenly swayed on the spot, her knees almost buckling beneath her as dimensional synch weighed down on her, heavier and more brutal than ever. Her eyelids fluttered wildly, the skin on her forehead prickling as she broke out in a cold sweat and new memories began to pour into her brain.
"She's safe," she murmured, lost in the vision. "She's safe."
"What?"
"They've given her a crib of her own in the Ringmaster's caravan; he is a strange new father, quiet and not sure how to treat a baby, but he does not shout and does not rage. He will not force her to join the freakshow. The mothers of the circus care for her as they would her own. They call her the Emerald Princess, and sing her the songs of Old Oz. The conjurer and the fortune teller amuse her with their tricks. They see the witchlight burning above her crib, and they whisper that she will bring the show good luck."
"What? W-what are you saying? How do you know this?"
Elphaba took a deep breath, forcing the memories back through an effort of will. "I… the longer I stay here, the more I see of the life my other self has lived so far. And… well, it's a little bit weird seeing things through the eye of a four-month old child, but from the look of things, she's perfectly happy."
"You mean it?" A faint glimmer of hope shone in Melena's eyes, fleeting but all the more powerful for its brevity. "You're not just saying this to make me feel better?"
"Of course not. Do you really think Frexspar would tolerate a liar under his roof?"
In spite of herself, Melena actually managed a snort of laughter. "For all I know, you've inherited too much from me," she chuckled weakly.
Elphaba floundered for a moment, unable to let her doubts remain unaddressed. With the synch connecting her so thoroughly to this dimension, she knew she couldn't stay here for long, but she couldn't afford to leave Melena haunted by guilt and doubt.
Come on, Roquat, she hissed silently. Help me out here: you showed me the memories of your time in Oz through magic; can't we do the same thing with my memory of the vision? I'm not asking for the world, I just want to give my mother a reason to live…
And to her surprise, the silent Nome King obliged.
A split-second later, information began trickling into her brain, ancient instructions memorized from tomes long forgotten by the rest of the multiverse and collected by Roquat's agglomeration of souls as they fled into the void. In the end, the spell that could transmit memories into the minds of others was a simple gesture and an effort of will – or at least it seemed simple to Elphaba.
Reaching out a hand to Melena's forehead, she summoned up the memory of what she had seen in the vision of her other self, and with a flex of willpower, copied it into her mind.
Melena reeled in shock, briefly unable to process what she'd just seen and felt. Elphaba could hardly blame her: seeing through the eyes of a baby was an odd experience for an adult, and seeing through her absent daughter's eyes would have been doubly alarming for Melena. But then her shell-shocked gape faded, and at long last, a smile began to creep across her face despite the tears still coursing down her cheeks.
"She's okay," she murmured, awestruck. "She's alive. She's… loved. I was wrong. Thank Lurline, I was wrong."
Once again, there was silence as Melena finally seemed to breathe easily for the first time since Elphaba had arrived. The old cliché would have claimed that she looked as if "a weight had been lifted from her shoulders," and in this case, it would have been wrong, but there was no denying that she looked relieved. Perhaps it'd be fairer to say that the burden was a little easier to shoulder this time.
Then she bit her lip, and asked, "Could you stay? Just for a little while? I mean, I'm not asking you to move in, but if you're connected to my daughter for as long as you're still in this world, then maybe you could… well, keep an eye on her? Maybe you could show me what's been happening to her like you did just now, perhaps once a day?"
Now it was Elphaba's turn to hesitate. It was so difficult to speak to her on this level: her own mother had died long before she'd learned to speak to her with any degree of authority, and Frexspar had never allowed her to utter a single word that wasn't in deference. Giving advice to this sad, strangely-familiar woman felt so out-of-character, so wrong; the Melena she'd known hadn't needed advice from Elphaba at all… but then, Elphaba hadn't known just how many doubts her mother had secretly harboured, nor had her mother ever shared her darkest, most shameful secrets with her. She couldn't leave her with so many concerns weighing down her mind, surely, and yet… she couldn't stay.
"I'm sorry, but I can't," she said at last. "I'm needed in another world. I know it's not fair to leave you with so many questions, but… well, I've kinda got a universe to save."
"But you're from the future as well! How can time mean anything to you if you can just drop into a world that's… what? Twenty-seven years in your past? You could find your way back to your own dimension at any point in history if you wanted to, so why the urgency?"
Elphaba had no answer for this, apart from the fact that she'd wanted to avoid having to explain dimensional synch. Frankly, it was a little embarrassing to find herself temporarily outfoxed by a drunken housewife, but then, mothers always had an uncannily ability to spot the gaps in a child's logic.
"Besides," Melena continued, "I need your help with something important: Frexspar was completely taken in by the empty-coffin funeral, even thinks that Elphaba wouldn't have lived long anyway, but now he's pushing for us to have another child… and he's arranged this weird folk remedy that he claims will make sure that our next baby won't turn out green – milkflowers, by the looks of things. Now, I'm no botanist, but I don't know if I should be eating milkflowers for a serious illness, much less one that isn't even real, but I still don't know how to refuse Frexspar; his mind sets like a steel trap whenever he wants something, and I don't want to see him angry again. Now, you've got magic, so maybe you can figure out if they're safe or not. Or maybe-"
Elphaba paused, issuing the mental equivalent of a double take as Melena's last few words trickled into place. "Wait a minute," she murmured. "You said he wanted you to start taking the milkflowers right after you gave me away?"
"That's right."
"So… he wanted you to take them anyway even after I was gone? Even after he thought that I was just a crib death waiting to happen?"
Melena sighed, clearly pained by the memory. "Yes. Does it matter?"
It was such a little thing, but somehow, Elphaba's mind still reeled in astonishment: all this time, she'd thought that her presence had been the impetus that prompted Frexspar to try the milkflower treatment, that her continued existence had been the one thing that could drive her foster father to take such steps: in his many disgusted rants. He'd even said it himself out loud, his drunken screeds making it abundantly clear that five years spent watching Elphaba grow up and "disgrace the family" every day had been enough to convince him that having an untainted baby was worth using the flowers. In his cups one evening, he'd actually told her that if she'd "at least had the decency to die in the crib like all the other freaks of nature", then her mother would still be alive.
But now she was hearing that her role wasn't as great as she'd been led to believe. In this world, she'd been cast out of Frexspar's perfect life before she'd even learned to walk, much less shame the family in every possible way. But even without the five years of embarrassments weighing on him, he was still willing to feed his wife milkflowers. He hadn't even waited longer than a few weeks before suggesting they try for another baby, had actually voiced the idea while Melena was still mourning and seeking solace in alcohol.
And if Frexspar was willing to demand such a thing – not out of hate for a daughter he had come to despise more and more with every year, but out of pure reflexive fear – if he was willing to do this even with his best justification gone and his own wife too afraid to say no…
…and if this version of Frexspar and the one that Elphaba had grown up with were as alike as she suspected…
…well, that would mean that he was to blame for the death of Elphaba's mother.
She'd known this was the case for years, of course: Glinda, Fiyero and anyone else who'd heard the sad story had told Elphaba that there was no way that she could be blamed for what had happened to Melena and Nessarose, and that her "father" had been wrong to scapegoat her for the death. By now, Elphaba was old enough to understand the fact that she was innocent of her mother's death and her half-sister's complicated birth… but it was one thing to comprehend it academically and another thing to truly know it and believe it. Every time she'd tried to acknowledge the fact, her self-loathing had always crept up to deny it, empowered by years after year of Frexspar's bitter tirades and by every misfortune that had occurred since then. The discovery of her own illegitimacy, of the realization that she'd been the bastard daughter of the Wizard had strengthened self-loathing's hold over her. And the Hate-Creature, the living personification of Frexspar Thropp's resentment and hate, had only made it harder for Elphaba to accept her own innocence.
But now she knew the truth, and not even her self-loathing could deny it. It was just a tiny detail, a miniscule quirk in the usual procession of events, but somehow, it had been enough to blast away over twenty years of guilt and self-delusion; her confidence, revived by her status as a hero of the Deviant Nations, was finally unchained. She hadn't killed her mother or crippled Nessa. She hadn't been a parasite on the family from birth, nor had she been destined to be a destroyer all along.
She was free.
"There's something you need to know, Melena," she said softly. "The milkflowers aren't going to work; they're not going to help even slightly. They're toxic: taking them in your current condition would be enough to leave you sick and vomiting for weeks on end; taking them while pregnant will ruin your health, damage the foetus and probably kill you over the course of labour. And this isn't just academic knowledge: I'm speaking from personal experience."
"You mean-"
"Frexspar needs to hear this, and needs to understand that his next child's skin colour is out of his control. Tell him whatever will make him give up on the milkflowers: tell him that it won't work, tell him that the next child will end up dead as well because of him – tell him about the affair if you have to. Say whatever you have to say that will shock him out of complacency. Believe me, he might be terrifying, especially when he's drunk, but he doesn't have the cruelty in him to hurt you deliberately. Persuade him any way you can – or he'll kill you."
For a moment, Melena clearly had no idea what to say. Then her eyes suddenly narrowed in curiosity, as if taking in the strange green girl sitting before her.
"Show me."
"Sorry?"
"Show me what happened. Show me your life so far; that trick with the memory copying or whatever it was – I want to see the life my daughter could have lived if she'd stayed with us."
And even though this wasn't her real mother, Elphaba couldn't bring herself to refuse her.
Once again, she poured her memories into Melena's brain. Of course, twenty-odd years couldn't be transmitted so simply: quite apart from the fact that Melena probably wouldn't have been able to process the whole thing in one sitting, the human brain simply couldn't perfectly recall every single detail of every single day. So what she sent amounted to a precis of the life she'd lived up until now, a compressed collage of the moments that had made her who she was today: snippets from her childhood, her mother's death, her earliest magical eruptions, the prophetic visions intruding on sleeping and waking hours, the years she'd spent caring for Nessa and enduring Frexspar's endless disgust. She went into slightly more detail when she reached her days at Shiz, and how she'd met Glinda, Madame Morrible, Boq, Dr Dillamond Fiyero; after all, here were those first turbulent days with Glinda, her night at the Ozdust, the first stirrings of friendship and love, the encounter with the lion cub, the Wizard's summons, and her visit to the Emerald City. And then, the first meeting with the Wizard, and how Elphaba had been inspired to rebel and become the Wicked Witch. Scattered visions of Elphaba's bitter triumphs littered this time, interspersed with long periods of loneliness, heartbreak, tragedy and failure: the collapse of her friendship with Glinda, Nessa's death, Dr Dillamond's silencing, Fiyero's torture and apparent death, and that night when Elphaba had all but given up. And then, at last, the portal to another world…
And then, just as Elphaba was about to end the transmission, something exploded into her mind, an emerald-green blast of dizzying stimuli cascading out upon her waiting brain. It was another oracular vision, but this one so strong and so clear that Elphaba couldn't stop herself from transmitting what she'd just seen to Melena.
Years ahead, the circus returns to Oz. The Wizard's reign is over, the work of an assassin, and now the new Queen Ozma rules in his place, aided by the mysterious Regent Mombi. With Oz now stable enough to host such a show, the Dammerung Brothers Circus now trundles back into Munchkinland.
And the star of the show is its magician, the sorceress Elphaba. At nineteen, she commands more magic than most Ozians have seen in the last twenty years; for fifteen minutes, she holds an audience of nearly two thousand people in the palm of her hand, dazzling them with her pyromancy and illusions. Among the crowd are dignitaries from all over Oz: Glinda Uppland, the influential protégé of political intriguer Madame Morrible; Prince Fiyero Tiggular of the Vinkus; Rostov Branderstov, one of the richest men in all of Oz; and the guests of honour, Nessarose Thropp, the governor of Oz, and her mother – the now-widowed Melena Thropp.
In spite of all the doubt and guilt that led to this moment, Melena can't help but smile. Perhaps she will introduce herself to Elphaba after the show, and perhaps she can finally explain herself; or perhaps she can simply let her daughter go her own way in life.
Either way, Melena is content to know that the child she once sent away is happy, sane and loved.
The effort of transmitting so many memories into the mind of another, even if they were only summarized ones, left Elphaba drained and wearied to the brink of collapse. She would have fallen sideways to the floor, but Melena caught her at the last minute – and the next thing she knew, Elphaba found herself being hugged very tightly around the shoulders.
"You poor thing," Melena was saying. "How are you even alive? How did you survive this long?"
"Luck, mainly," Elphaba admitted.
She felt Melena's hands on her shoulders, brushing against the crags of poorly-healed battle-scars; judging by the look of dawning horror on her face, she'd found the small mountain range of witch-crystals jutting from her back.
"You shouldn't have had to lead a life like this, Elphaba. You'd be so much happier as an academic, maybe even as a teacher."
"Maybe. But then again, I didn't start a rebellion because I thought it'd make me happy: I started it because I knew it was the right thing to do, and my conscience wouldn't have let me ignore it."
"But still... you shouldn't have had to suffer so much. Even growing up was hell for you, wasn't it?"
"So you can admit that you might have done the right thing by sending me away?" Elphaba remarked, a little more cheekily than originally intended.
In spite of herself, Melena once again snorted with laughter. Then, sobering suddenly, she asked "Do you think that last… vision… could be real one day? I mean, I saw how you could experience bout of precognition, but do you think that prophecy could ever come true?"
"I don't know," admitted Elphaba. "They aren't usually as clear as this, and there's often a twist to how they'll come about, or some hidden meaning not readily apparent at the time. Maybe it'll come true, or maybe it won't. All I can say is that you can't blame yourself for being afraid, and I certainly don't blame you for sending your daughter away from this place."
There was a pause. Once again, Melena was smiling through her tears.
"You'll have to leave me now, won't you?" she said at last.
"I'm afraid so."
"I don't know how I'll cope without you here to remind me that any of this was real. It's going to be hard to figure out what I'm going to tell Frexspar; even harder now that you'll be gone."
"If it helps, whatever you choose to do next, don't do it alone: don't send the servants away, don't shut your husband out, and don't lock yourself away in this place. Maybe it's just me, but it's easier to be a bit more optimistic when you're not alone. And if all else fails, just remember that even if you still think you're a failure as a parent, just remember what the vision showed you: one day, you'll have another daughter. Nessa can be clingy and maybe even a bit of a control freak – not that I can talk – but once you get past the "tragically beautiful" nonsense everyone likes to go on about, she's one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest people in all of Oz. She's going to make you proud one day."
In spite of herself, Melena smiled. "Something tells me that Elphaba will make me proud as well. And in a way," she added wryly, "maybe she already has."
Elphaba's heart quietly somersaulted inside her chest. "I don't know if I'm that sort of person, Melena. I don't even think my own mother was all that proud of me – I think she just tolerated me a lot better than Frexspar. I mean, you've seen my life-"
"And that's how I'm absolutely certain she was proud of you, Elphaba. That day when she found you in the library, studying the atlas and reading the dictionary cover to cover? I recognized that smile on her face well enough: she was proud of you, Elphaba. And I think, if she was alive today to see what you've become, she'd be the proudest mother in all of Oz." She sighed, smiling sadly. "Go now, Elphaba: get out there and save the world."
Elphaba took a deep breath to steady herself and stood up, donning her hat once more – hoping that the brim would disguise the tears that threatened to fall. "Goodbye, mother," she said. And this time, she'd didn't correct herself.
Then without another glance over her shoulder, she strode across the nursery, straight for the portal behind the door. But at the last minute, as she touched the portal, she happened to turn, though she couldn't imagine why: the last thing she saw, before the portal swept her up and cast her back into the multiverse, was Melena Thropp – a beatific smile on her face, her eyes full of hope. In that moment, she looked so much like Elphaba's real mother it almost hurt to look at her.
"Elphaba," she whispered, "thank you."
Then she was gone, and the world she'd stayed in for just a little longer than necessary was gone along with her.
And then the pain of disconnection slammed into Elphaba like a derailing train. She'd been synchronized with this dimension for longer than any of the others she'd reached via this volatile path between realities, and now the side-effects could be plainly felt: it was as if she was a ship trying to escape a storm while still anchored to the seabed, the anchor refusing to budge and the chain almost at the breaking point; if the chain snapped, then it might cripple the ship, but if the ship couldn't outrun the raging wind and thundering waves, the storm would drag it to the bottom. And then, just as the pain-dizzied Elphaba was starting to think this was a decent enough comparison, another jolt of agony rippled through her being, and she started thinking of new horrors to compare it to: it was as if she was a prisoner on the rack, being slowly stretched further and further until her joints threatened to shatter, until her spine snapped like a celery stalk and sent gouts of spinal fluid dribbling through her rupturing body, until her very flesh tore wetly apart and left her as nothing more than a bisected carcass. And it was as the next onslaught of pain roared across her nerves, biting, tearing, digging, burrowing, shredding, burning as it went, she finally realized that there was only one comparison she could make: it was the pain of being ripped away from everything she'd ever known and everyone she'd ever loved, but made physical, tangible, almost enough to mark her flesh for real even though the pain existed only in her mind.
She belonged in the dimension she was leaving: she was almost completely synchronized with the life of baby Nessa, and even if she hadn't been, she felt as if she knew this incarnation better than she'd known her own mother. She was a part of this world, and she was leaving it all behind even though her future was nothing but golden here; the thought alone was agony, and though Elphaba told herself that her sense of belonging wasn't real – that it was all just another side-effect of the synch – her body refused to acknowledge it. Instead, she could only scream and cry and beg to be allowed to stay with her mother.
And then, just as she thought she couldn't bear another minute of agony, the ethereal connections linking her to the dimension finally snapped with one brain-pummelling wrench of pain, sending her tumbling aimlessly through the void. Nerves convulsing at the shock, Elphaba had just enough time to realise that the pain was gone and she was free to travel again, before her senses temporarily blacked out and took her consciousness with them.
Somewhere, perhaps a world or two away, Dorothy Gale was hard at work, observed by a bemused-looking Toto and an audience of paralysed rats.
The Hellion had given her many gifts when she'd finally died: guillotine jaws and magical potential were only the start of the powers that had been bestowed upon her; by now, she could actually feel the subtle hunches that were the beginning of the Hellion's insight. And in the days since Elphaba had been cast into the void, she had discovered something new - something she wouldn't have noticed if one of the invading UR troops hadn't tried to grab her during the attack on Greenspectre.
By chance, she had managed to strike him in the neck - a clumsy, openhanded slap to the throat with no real force behind it. But to her surprise, he'd collapsed to the ground, alive but motionless, his body still breathing but paralysed from head to toe. It hadn't lasted for longer than a few seconds, but it had been long enough for the Dolls to rip him to shreds.
So now, she practiced, trying to increase the strength of her new paralytic touch. It took concentration to use and living test subjects to enhance, but if there was one positive to the carnage that had overtaken Greenspectre, it was that there were now no shortage of rats. Rats weren't easy to catch and even harder to grasp, but the touch came in handy there: bit by bit, grab by grab, she increased the length of paralysis, gradually working her way up to a minute of immobility. Using the spellbooks Elphaba left behind (and the exercises she'd been preparing), she did her best to improve her magical skills. And most importantly, she kept an eye on the Ruby Slippers.
Her insight, awkward and undeveloped as it was, told her that the slippers might be useful someday, and until her hunches told her when, she would wait. She would wait, practice and prepare herself for the day when Elphaba returned - for despite the dread that haunted the ruined city, her insight told her that there was still a chance that her friend and guardian could one day find her way home.
Somewhere out in the darkness beyond this world, Elphaba was still alive, and once the Hellion's intuition could tell her where she was, Dorothy would be there to help her.
This time, she would not fail.
Elphaba's return to the waking world was a long and meandering one, interrupted by long plunges back into unconsciousness and interspersed with moments where she seemed almost fully awake, only to drift back to sleep just before she could realize what was going on.
She was dimly aware that her feet were carrying her somewhere and that someone was speaking to her, but she'd no idea of the where or the who or the what. Whatever the case, she was travelling quite briskly, and the conversation even more so: someone was bombarding her with questions, interrogating her on everything from her point of origin to the purpose of her visit. More worryingly, she got the distinct impression that she was actually replying to the questions, though she couldn't work out what she was saying. All she knew was that her answers were a little too coherent for someone who was still mostly asleep.
It was one thing to wake up in the middle of a conversation; to find that you'd been asleep and delivering sensible replies was something else altogether.
Eventually, a familiar voice whispered, I think you've been asleep long enough, Elphaba: you can rejoin us now.
As if by magic, Elphaba lurched awake.
Immediately, she realized that she was still in the void, but now standing on a tiny asteroid hovering between dimensions – a twenty-foot chunk of ancient roadway, complete with colossal granite paving stones and delicately-sculpted marble columns framing it. Not too far away, a portal could be sensed at the opposite end of the road.
More alarmingly, though, Elphaba wasn't alone in the void.
Striding away from her was a figure dressed all in scarlet, its spindly body almost lost in the folds of an impossibly vast overcoat; in fact, the only reason why Elphaba knew that this was a living being and not an assemblage of animated clothing was the narrow, swarthy face peering out from beneath the hood of the coat, and the long-fingered hands that twitched and shuddered at the end of the sleeves like excitable spiders. In the shadows of the coat collar and the darkness of the void, the figure's eyes glowed a colour beyond description, a colour that could only have issued from the deepest realms of eldritch space.
More unusually, the figure was dragging along a small child – perhaps five years old, deathly-pale, and sporting a withered mop of faded blonde hair. More alarmingly, the child was being towed with a lead, of all things, for long with the tattered sackcloth uniform the pallid little boy wore, he also had a rather-vicious looking collar around his neck to which the lead was attached; the inside band of the collar was studded with needle-sharp barbs and hooks that dug into the boy's flesh with every step he took. Judging by the blood soaked into his collar and scabbing over old wounds on his throat, he'd obviously been travelling this way for quite a while… and yet despite being bled so often and so brutally, this kid was somehow still alive. Then again, considering the look of blank-faced horror stamped on the boy's bruised figures, perhaps that wasn't such a good thing.
As they strode away, the boy turned in Elphaba's direction and whispered, "help."
And in that moment, suddenly the two figures seemed to change before her eyes – not in the sense that they'd just shapeshifted into new forms, but in the sense that reality itself had hiccupped just long enough for Elphaba to see these strange figures for who they really were.
The man in the red coat now wore the robes of a king, as red as sunset flame; on his head, he wore a golden crown and headdress of an unknown design… but beneath the helm-like crown, the man's formerly-human face was now an eyeless, glistening black horror, all but featureless except for a monstrous grin.
As for the boy, he no longer even appeared remotely human: he was just a floating yellow triangle hovering in mid-air, his angular body striated with ghastly-looking scars, his one cyclopean eye shrouded with tears.
Then reality reasserted itself. A man in a red coat and a little boy on a lead drifted off into the void, out of sight and out of rational thought.
There was a bewildered pause, and then Elphaba demanded "Where are we? And who was that?"
Just an old friend I happened to bump into while I was getting us to the final portal. I decided not to wake you while the two of us were talking: Nyarlathotep's a jovial enough character, but, well… I'm sure you've done enough reading to know how trickster gods can get; introduce them to a conscious mortal or two, and they'll play with them until they break. Plus, his charge is getting a little uppity again, as you can see: demons from the second dimension are so very, very ungrateful.
Elphaba tried in vain to process everything she'd just heard. "Nyarla-who?"
Long story. Anyway, we're just a few yards from the last portal: beyond this is your point of origin, and your ticket back into the war between the Deviant Nations and Unbridled Radiance. Best of all, I've arranged a very special arrival site! No need to ask me where it is: it's a surprise; you'll love it, believe me.
"Speaking of surprises, can we talk about what the hell happened back there?"
What happened back where?
"You stranding me in that dimension with no hint of what to do next? Setting me up for a meeting with my mother's alternate self? And you staying completely silent through the whole thing? Pardon me if I don't find it just a little suspicious."
Though he had no face with which to express himself, Elphaba suddenly had the impression that the Nome King was smirking. I assume you think that I orchestrated this for some clandestine purpose of my own design… and frankly, you'd be exactly right. As for why I was so silent, in this case, I had to take a strictly hands-off approach: I've planned many of your encounters for many years in advance, I admit, but that was merely for the sake of granting you exclusive knowledge-
"Knowledge that'll just randomly become useful to me one day?"
Not randomly. In my time surveying the multiverse, I've seen so many possible ways you can fail in fighting the Empress; the little details I've shown you can mean the difference between life and death.
"I'll take your word for it. And what about the last world we visited. What knowledge was I supposed to gain from that?"
You already know, Elphaba. But then, the knowledge itself is secondary in comparison to the sense of… closure. You'd be amazed at the power of a clear heart. I couldn't just allow you to eavesdrop this time around: I had to get you personally involved, and I had to get you to meet the participants face to face. More importantly, I had to make sure that you achieved absolution with as little of my help as possible. Hence why you didn't hear from me until you requested my memory-transmitting technique.
Somewhere in the depths of her mind, the king chucked. I hope it comes in handy one of these days.
"Everything's a game with you, isn't it? Everything's just… setup for your next big move."
Who said I had any big moves? You're the hero of this story, Elphaba: you're the lead, the star of the show, the darling of the public. You've got the big moves in this funny little production. I'm just a supporting part. But then, even supporting parts get to upstage the lead every now and again.
"Very cute. Still doesn't mean I have to trust you."
Of course not.
"I'm glad we can agree on that much. Now, let's put this nightmare to rest and get the hell out of here. The sooner you're out of my head and I'm back in the Deviant Nations, the better."
As she drifted across the void towards the portal, an idea struck her, and she voiced it almost without thinking: "What are you going to be doing once you're out of my head, incidentally?"
I told you what I wasn't planning on doing before: I'm not planning a second attempt to become a god, I wasn't planning on resuming my throne, and I don't intend to rule or conquer anyone. In fact, I was planning on living a civilian life of sort. Surely that should be enough.
"Funny thing, Roquat: you didn't say you weren't planning on harming anyone."
Touché.
"Also, no offence intended, but I'm a little bit hesitant to trust you after that last stunt. I mean, what kind of civilian life are you expecting to have in the Deviant Nations – or Unbridled Radiance? They're both at war, remember?"
There was an ominous silence from the back of her mind.
"…Roquat?"
I'm sorry, Elphaba, but it appears we've suffered a slight misunderstanding: I never I said I'd leave your mind on returning you to your point of origin.
"WHAT?"
My exact words were "as soon as we make our way into a dimension more to my liking." And no offense to the friends you've made there, but the world of Unbridled Radiance is the single least desirable bit of real estate in the multiverse. Unfortunately, the ideal route back to your point of origin doesn't lead through any worlds worth staying in, so… I'm obliged to stay with you a little longer.
"Oh, this just gets better and better! When the hell were you thinking of telling me this? And more importantly, when and where are you going to get out of my head?"
When you go home, of course.
"…you're joking."
Hardly. Your version of Oz looks to be ideal for my needs: it's a world at peace, with no horrific conflicts on the horizon and all threats put to rest – the perfect place for a tired old agglomeration like myself to settle down and retire.
"This is just spectacular: you want to stay inside my head with the controls at your fingertips until I get back to Oz – however long that takes – and you want to use my world as your private playground. And don't think I buy the idea of you retiring, least of all with the power you've got at your disposal." She sighed furiously. "Why did you even bother taking me in the right direction in the first place? Why didn't you just skip taking me back to the Deviant Nations and just go straight back to my Oz?"
Because you'd spend the rest of your life trying to find a way back to Glinda and the others, unleashing gods only know what horrors on Oz; not exactly a recipe for a comfortable home as far as I'm concerned. Besides, I've witnessed much during my time spent observing the skeins of possibility: the ephemera of alternates that never were tell me that you would change Oz for the very best if you were to win the day for the Deviant Nations first.
Roquat chuckled malignantly. So, for the time being, you've got me in your corner.
"Don't count on it," Elphaba hissed. "I'm not going anywhere." And with that, she seized control of her forward momentum and brought herself floating to a halt some twenty yards away from the portal.
"There. I'm staying put until you get out of my head."
No you're not, said the Nome King, his voice suddenly a glacial whisper. Up until now, his mental voice had been the proverbial iron hand in the velvet glove, the sense of power restrained by courtesy, but now the glove was off and the hand was getting ready to crush bones.
In that same instant, Elphaba felt her body turn traitor. Suddenly, she was no longer hovering in the void, but floating directly for the portal, her will subverted entirely by Roquat's control.
Apologies. But unfortunately for you, I've spent too much time locked up in this space between spaces to accept that particular brand of nonsense.
Elphaba's only reply was a screamed procession of baroque expletives that only grew more colourful as she grew progressively angrier, until they finally crossed the line from coherent obscenities to utter gibberish. By the end, she was so angry, even she couldn't make sense of what she was saying: about the most recognizable thing spoken in the last five seconds was something that sounded like "Fubberga yugnubs, yan bazzig bassags!" and after that, nothing but a kettle-like screech of incandescent rage.
It's just a temporary measure, Roquat assured her. As soon as you're back where you belong, I'll return control to you, and you can go on fighting the Empress; you won't even notice I'm here. And once you win the day and make it back to Oz, I'll leave… and we'll never have to cross paths again.
Elphaba took a deep breath. "I wouldn't get comfortable if I were you; as soon as I'm through that portal, I'm going straight to Dr Kiln and we are going to figure out a way to get you out of my head once and for all."
The malignant-sounding chuckle echoed across her brain once more. Get what out of your head?
"You, of course! Weren't you paying attention?"
There was a ripple of magic in the air. I'm not sure what you're saying, Elphaba. What makes you think there's something in your head?
"You told me so, you…" Elphaba hesitated, the first inklings of a headache jabbing into her skull; suddenly it seemed very difficult to focus.
By all means, explain.
The headache was stronger now, clenching tighter and tighter around her cranium like the talons of a hawk, digging deep into her brain. And with the pain came further confusion: focus was almost impossible now, and the exact nature of the problem she'd just been facing was nearly beyond her ability to grasp. "You said you were… you were going to share space in my mind and… and you…"
Who are you talking about? Who do you think I am?
"You're… you're the Nome King. I… I think. I'm not sure."
The Nome King is dead, Elphaba. You know this already.
"But… but…"
Memories were fading away inside her mind, to be replaced with new ones; the memory of the loss faded as well, until the new became the old. Through it all, Elphaba drifted, tired beyond comprehension and trying to make sense of the fog that had consumed her thoughts.
You didn't meet anyone out here, Elphaba. You've been alone in the void all this time: you travelled at random, stumbling upon many strange and wonderful worlds; you learned many useful titbits of information, along with that memory-transferring technique; you even met your mother and achieved your own personal absolution. And you did it all by yourself. You should be proud.
There's nobody in your head.
There's no problem Dr Kiln needs to know about.
You're alone.
Elphaba blinked rapidly as the headache suddenly cleared. Then, remembering what she'd been doing, she made a beeline for the portal, hoping that – whatever part of the Deviant Nations it led to – there might at least be friendly faces there.
Frankly, travelling through the void alone had been hell.
Beyond Elphaba's senses, Roquat chuckled to himself.
I won't bother you again, he whispered to her subconsciousness. Until I need to. I've selected a very special place for you to arrive in, just to put you in the perfect position to turn the tide. I leave you to the smallest of your friends.
But not to worry: I'll be with you for a while yet… keeping an eye on you…
And with that, the two of them vanished into the portal – Roquat invisible to the world and unknown to his oblivious host.
A/N: Any guesses as to what might happen next? Let me know! In the meantime, Happy Saturnalia!