Authors' Note: Thanks for all the great reviews!

Chapter 2

Glinda the Good gazed at her reflection. For a moment, Galinda Upland of the Upper Uplands seemed to be gazing back, but she knew it was just her eyes playing tricks on her. She sighed and sat upon the bed, spreading the skirt of her nightgown around her. Things hadn't been the same since Elphaba's death. She had blown the heartless Dorothy girl out of Oz as fast as possible, hardly able to face the girl to explain how to return to Kansas. If only Oz knew the truth - Elphaba wasn't the Witch. Dorothy was.

A fluttering noise from the corner of the room made Glinda jump, and she turned away from the looking glass for a moment. Chistery was perched on the table on the other side of the room, peering down at her Book of Records. He stared in rapt attention for a moment, then looked up quickly and began beckoning furiously to her. Glinda sighed in annoyance; she hated being interrupted while brushing her hair. She glared at the monkey for a moment, then failing to get a reaction set down her ivory hairbrush and went to see why the little creature was so agitated.

Glinda's brow furrowed. The darkness filling the room failed to let her see the words being scrolled on the pages of the Book of Records. She took her wand and magicked a lit candle to appear. It floated over the Book, flying back and forth as she read. The magic of the candle prevented it from dripping wax onto the parchment. The words appeared as she read:

30 May 1900, 2:16 AM

Movement in Winkie Camp, Kiamo Ko, Eastern Winkie Country.

Troops preparing for invasion of EmeraldCity.

Mutiny among small faction, chase pending.

Invasion of the Emerald City? Why in Oz would the Winkies be invading the Emerald City? A light bulb lit in Glinda's head for the first time in her life - the Grimmerie.

Chistery let out a squawk as Glinda flew into action. She threw herself to the floor and pulled out a pink suitcase. She quickly opened the silver locks with the key she wore on the chain round her neck and opened it. She dug through yards of fabric in pink, lavender, sky blue, and butter yellow, along with an old portrait of her mother and father and a pink rose Fiyero had given her when they went to the Ozdust. The contents of the suitcase now spread on the floor, Glinda looked up in alarm at Chistery.

"Where is it?" she cried.

The monkey fluttered to her shoulder and she shuddered in disgust. She couldn't understand why Elphaba had been so fond of the little beast, he looked and smelled almost as hideous as the dog had. Chistery scuttled down Glinda's arm and lit on the inside rim of the suitcase. Glinda wrinkled her nose and tried to wave the monkey away.

"Ok, ok, you've done your job, now leave me in peace!" she shouted at Chistery.

The monkey looked at her with an expression alarmingly like a pout.

"All right, yes I know I asked you."

Chistery stepped inside the suitcase and began feeling around the inside lining of the suitcase. Glinda felt sick.

"Stop that, you stinky little beast. You're going to get my things all dirty!"

The winged monkey at last found what he was looking for a produced a tiny leather strap connected to the top of the lining of the suitcase. He chattered and Glinda took the strap and tugged on it. The lining fell open and the Grimmerie fell out. Glinda hugged it to her chest. "Thank you so much, Chistery! Now… what to do with it? It's got to be gone before the Winkies get here… I wonder who's leading them? They don't have an official leader…"

Chistery chattered some more and flew over to the Book of Records again. Glinda glanced at the pages, which still had the candle floating above it.

Glinda just stared for a moment, hardly daring to believe her eyes.

"Nick Chopper…" she gasped. "Who ever would have guessed. He always seemed so harmless…and good-hearted. Especially after he believed the Wizard gave him one." She turned to Chistery and dabbed at her eyes, trying not to cry. "Oh, why did I let him go?"

The monkey just grinned at her, as though mocking her for talking to a semi-sentient Animal.

The woman looked around her. All she could see for miles was sand, gray sand. A black cloth was wrapped around her head to keep the wind from blowing sand into her face. She turned to the man beside her.

"How far are we going?" she asked him. He knew where the ancient temple ruins were located, thank Oz. If she had been in the Fliaan deserts alone, she would have been lost and dead.

The man shrugged clumsily, all his movements greatly exaggerated.

"It should only be a few miles more. I haven't been there since I was a boy."

The woman shivered in the cold wind. They were only a few miles outside of Oz, but already it felt like they were walking in another world. The Fliaan deserts were a far cry from the vibrant colors she was accustomed to. The landscape wasn't just colorless, she thought, it seemed more like it sucked the color out of anyone or anything that dared venture into it.

The colorless deserts reminded her of the house… the house. A bit of peeling paint was still left on it and the boards had gone gray, exactly as the sands around her. The sole window that had been in the house had a giant crack in the glass, perhaps from the girl banging on it too hard, or the dog scratching on it. Or possibly the crash landing on the woman, the Witch of the East, Nessarose… her sister.

Elphaba's mouth had gone dry and she was beginning to taste the sand, despite the cloth purposely placed for the specific reason of preventing that. The man tripped over a branch that had somehow wandered in from a tree from Oz. She bent over and lifted his light body. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Fiyero told her. "Nothing can hurt me - I'm straw now."

"Yes, I know." Silence bestowed its awkward self upon her. "I'm sorry about that."

"I've told you time and time again, it's better than being dead."

"Yes, but it's not better than what I tried to do. If only I hadn't been so stupid…"

"Shh, Elphie, stop it." Fiyero draped an arm lightly around her shoulders. "You're only going to make yourself feel worse. And the only thing that can hurt me is you hurting yourself."

Elphaba snorted.

"What?"

"You're still so…you."

A tiny speck appeared far in the distance. Elphaba squinted. "That's it," said Fiyero. "That dot the size of Glinda's brain, way out there - that's the temples."

"What were they built for?" the green woman asked.

"No one seems to know," Fiyero answered slowly. "There are legends of an ancient parent civilization out here, but there's no sign of any writing or records of any kind near the temples. And no one's really sure how they were built, either."

Elphaba looked skeptical.

"And you're sure we can survive out here? I mean what are we going to do about food?"

There are trees," said Fiyero, "the only plants around for miles, that bear meals for fruit - breakfast trees, lunch trees, and dinner trees. Whatever you desire to eat for your meal, that's what appears on the trees." Elphaba gave a look that told Fiyero she didn't believe him. "I swear on my honor as Prince of the Arjiki!"

Elphaba narrowed her eyes at him.

"It's not your honor I doubt, Yero, my hero. But if you really are brainless as you say…."

Fiyero looked genuinely hurt, and Elphaba decided to shut her mouth rather than chance causing any more damage. They continued on in silence for nearly another hour, until the temple ruins were just a few feet away, looming up like the skeleton of some giant dead beast.

Fiyero made his way around the old bones, but Elphaba walked through them, examining them. "Fascinating," she said. "I wonder what animal this was…" Fiyero shuddered and looked up at the sky. "It's so clear… but so gray. Not a cloud, not a bird, not a - what's that?" Elphaba turned to squint up at the sky.

An abnormally large bird was flying towards them. But as it grew closer and closer, Elphaba realized what it really was. "That's no bird! It's a… a flying monkey! Fiyero, oh Fiyero! It's Chistery!"

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