The Week of Ill Repute by Chudley Cannon
Disclaimer: Oh, hey. I don't own any Wicked/Wizard of Oz stuff. Poor wimpy Glinda fan.
Author's Notes: Yeah, uh... you may think this is the last chapter. But, to be honest, I still have about 4 chapters left in me. (Which is a silly way of saying that my outline allows for 4 more chapters, and perhaps an epilogue, but most likely not an epilogue) So, there you are. Thanks to all who reviewed, and keep the criticisms coming if you can, because they really help.
Chapter 3: Costly Inhibitions
The morning was met with both a grumpy Elphaba and a grumpy Glinda, both of whom had gotten little to no sleep the night previous and both of whom were not admitting it. Drauc was annoyingly cheerful at breakfast, so much so that Elphaba was too fed up with him to notice right away the absence of their Horse friend.
"Where is Halivan?" she questioned.
Drauc put down his spoon and wiped his mouth. "Yes, oddest thing. Woke up to find him gone, no trace of him outside. Just took off. No note, either."
Elphaba bristled. "How do you propose he write one, having no hands to write with? And furthermore, why would he leave?"
"Well, it has me curious as well. It is a shame, for I had so looked forward to speaking with him. Never saw one of those, Animals, that is. Well, eat up! I'll load the wagon and we'll set out for civilization soon!" He left the kitchen, heading outside, leaving Elphaba and Glinda to eat their porridge in silence.
"Why would he take off so?" asked Glinda after a few moments.
"He didn't," said Elphaba darkly. "I'm convinced he didn't. My dear, you have been blessed with a naïve gullibility that I envy and find both charming and exasperating. If only I believed everything told of me, my existence would be less fraught with disaster, don't you agree? It must be nice, coming from where you are."
She had suddenly turned bitter and cold, and Glinda, used to her roomie's often jarring changes in moods, simply ignored the hurtful remarks and searched for a clever thing to say. "Huh?" she said.
"Our Master Drauc is lying," explained Elphaba. "Halivan has most likely been sold to the highest bidder, put back into the servitude we rescued him from."
"How awful," cried Glinda.
"Yes. How I wish we did not need Master Drauc to get us out of the fix I got us into in the first place, because I would not mind strangling him." She pushed her porridge away, having eaten nearly none of it.
"Elphie, you really should eat something," said Glinda, ignoring the contemptuous glare her friend sent her as she pushed the porridge back and picked the spoon up. "It won't do to have you pass out in front of the Wizard, you lanky thing. I should be entirely put out, I think."
"Oh, good," said Elphaba, who was more sarcastic when she was upset. "I had suddenly felt as though I had wandered out into the middle of nowhere unchaperoned – lucky enough, though, you are here to be a nuisance. Please, do, spoon-feed me this porridge."
"Don't think I won't," muttered Glinda, annoyed at this point. "It's sad that Halivan has been sold off, but it's not as though I had a thing to do with it, so kindly stop taking it out on me."
Elphaba frowned sourly and did not apologize, but she did stop talking, which Glinda supposed was the closest thing she would get to an apology with Elphie.
Drauc had the wagon all ready and they loaded it with their things. Glinda rode in the shotgun seat and Elphaba sat in the shallow wagon, enduring the blatherings on of Drauc as he tried in vain to elicit some sort of interest out of Glinda, who was charming and polite and as discouraging as one could be without being impolite.
It was a lot of:
"You know, if I may be so bold, you are very beautiful," Drauc would say, taking a crop to his horses (presumably to most adequately display his strength).
Glinda, who knew very well just how beautiful she was and did not need to be told, would say something along the lines of, "Oh, you're so kind, sir," and then make a face that very much suggested that she wanted nothing to do with him.
"I only wish that you might have stayed longer," he would reply with at this point and Glinda would avert her eyes at the scandal of it all. "I apologize if I am over-stepping my bounds, but perhaps I may call on you while you are in the Emerald City?"
And Glinda would say something to the effect of: "I am afraid that is not possible, sir, as we will not be in the Emerald City for long and you must remember, of course, that I am still a student."
Around here, Elphaba would always jump in and save the day (whether her intention was to save the day or just to cut off Drauc, either way she would make a swooping save) and say, "Sir, you almost ran over a rabbit back there; perhaps you had better keep your eyes on the road," or "I do wonder where Halivan has taken off to – do you have any idea, Master Drauc?"
It became clear that Drauc knew that they knew what had become of Halivan and he became quiet after that. This contented both Glinda and Elphaba and they chatted idly the entire ride to the carriage stop, the front of an inn called Moroscoe's Inn, where they had an hour or so until the carriages began to leave. Carriage stops were always milling with people, the drivers of the six or seven third-class carriages on the Yellow Brick Road line, the drivers of the three of four first-class carriages, traveling traders who used the abundance of people at carriage stops to their advantage and sold all sorts of goods. Elphaba pointed out to Glinda their old driver, who scowled when he saw them and shoved his hat down over his eyes.
"Well, Master Drauc," said Glinda, taking his hand as he helped her off the wagon. "It was good of you to go to such lengths of kindness, and we both thank you."
Drauc bowed gallantly at the two girls and then made a great show of taking Glinda's hand and kissing it. Elphaba did not try to hide her scowl. "It was my pleasure, my dear Miss Glinda. And Miss Elphaba. Please, do not hesitate to look me up in the Emerald City."
He took off, then, in his wagon, much to Elphie's relief. She had thought they were going to have trouble ditching him, but he seemed rather in a hurry to get home. She and Glinda headed inside, the stench of stale inn kitchen food a welcome odor to their deprived nostrils. They used their hour to poke around the kitchen for lunch they might take with them, and when it came about time, Glinda took it upon herself to be charming and talk to one of the carriage masters about two tickets. Most of the carriages were pretty full up, but a young couple who heard of their plight and found Glinda so very charming offered to switch onto the carriage that Glinda and Elphaba were banned from, thus freeing up two seats on their carriage.
"Oh, how kind!" cried Glinda, and she and Elphaba paid half-price for new tickets and were off to the Emerald City again. This meant, thankfully, that Elphaba was ready to sleep again and she slept the entire day away. Glinda herself dozed in and out on occasion, but for the most part, tried to stay awake. In an effort to succeed in this task, she made small talk with the other passengers, in the vague notion that if perhaps Elphie decided to pull another one of her Animal rights stunts, the passengers in the new carriage might be sorrier to see them go than the old carriage was.
There were two days to go.
Elphaba awoke with a start. Glinda shook her and said her name over and over. She opened her eyes blearily and peered up, not making out facial features, just a blur of peach, a funny feathered traveling hat. Then there was blonde hair, eyes of a clear and pretty color, a perfect nose, a perfect mouth and Elphaba smiled, a smile that was half in dream and half awake.
"Oh, it's time to get off the carriage, Elphie," said Glinda. "Come along."
"Yes," said Elphaba. The evening had opted for a chilly demeanor and she had slept with her knees up by her chin, which seemed altogether too uncomfortable now. Glinda was standing over her, shivering, her traveling cloak wrapped tightly around her as she hitched it up higher to cover her lips, pulling the hat down to cover her eyes. Now all that was visible was a cherry red nose that Elphaba found both ridiculous and endearing.
They hurried into the inn, Glinda shouting, "I do hope it doesn't snow!"
"What?"
"I said, I do hope it doesn't snow," she repeated once they were inside the inn, where a fire was ineffectually roaring and not providing heat.
"I don't see why it would," said Elphaba, rubbing her hands together and then rubbing them across Glinda's to warm them. "It isn't snow season."
"It isn't chilly season, either! But I find that the weather seems to think it is."
"Come on. If we order quickly, maybe the soup will still be hot."
It wasn't, but it was warm and rather tasty and they each had a bowl. The tea also was only warm, but they had some of that as well. Glinda's new friends, the couple who had switched carriages for them, came and sat with them. They were a city couple who were on a return journey back home to the Emerald City, although the man joked that he had forgotten what home looked like! Work had sent he and his wife to the Glikkus for a few weeks time to mine for emeralds and the like and they had now been traveling for what felt like years – days of railroad travel from Glikkus to the Railway Square at Shiz, and now the third-class carriage ride from Shiz to the Emerald City.
"One day, we hope to afford first-class travel for this sort of business trip, because I have them often," said the man, Varakoff.
"Lucky for you," said Elphaba. "It could have been worse. You might have been coming from Quadling Country, which is all carriage ride. Or – the Vinkus, where the Yellow Brick Road does not tread."
"Surely it could have been worse," said Varakoff. "But I decline to ever do business in Quadling Country. We do, of course – that is, the business does, as the Kells are ideal for salvage business and the like – but I'd never trust a Quadling as far as I could throw him. Sneaky bastards, the lot of them, so I hear."
"Oh, well, that," said Elphaba dismissively, holding her tea in her hand so as to warm them, although it did little. "That's merely speculation from sources of whom have little or no contact with Quadlings. They're only sneaky to the degree that a Gillikin is frivolous: in a case-by-case distinction."
Varakoff spread his hands plaintively as if to apologize. "I only repeat what I hear. My father and his father before him worked in the same business, and this adage seems to endure – never do business with a Quadling."
"Oh, I've heard that adage," said Elphie. "You forget the part where it says 'Always take advantage of the foolishness of Munchkins'; obviously a saying generated from a forward thinking mind."
"The business world is cutthroat," admitted Varakoff. "I make no apologies for that. If the Munchkins can be taken advantage of in monetary concerns, it is a plight that falls upon them, not the man who makes out with extra money!" He chuckled.
"Survival of the most capable, you mean," said Elphaba. "It's an archaic notion, for who's to say that he who is most capable is also the most deserving of capability? Or that there aren't those who are only considered incapable but only because society insists they remain so?"
"Well!" cried Varakoff's wife with a girlish smile directed toward Glinda. "Talking shop makes me tired."
Glinda smiled, just as relieved that Varakoff's wife had broken the debate, mostly because she knew where it would lead – where it always did, to what's to become of the Animals and what's your viewpoint on it, sir? Elphaba was constantly in recruitment mode, waving people over to her cause, knowing full well that she was likely (as the feeling was in most of Oz) in enemy territory on the issue.
That never stopped her from trying, though.
"Elphaba," said Glinda, slipping a hand into hers under the table. "If we hurry, we can get a good room."
"Nonsense, they're all bad."
"I'm exhausted." She pushed against Elphie's side, trying to move her out of the booth.
"Oh, fine. Pleasant talking to you," said Elphaba to the couple, who expressed similar sentiments. Although Glinda felt if Elphaba had said, 'Pleasant talking at you,' it may have been a more accurate statement, but she kept quiet.
As they entered their room, Glinda's head began to ache. Every room looked the same. Every inn along the Yellow Brick Road from Shiz to the Emerald City was exactly the same. It was not as though they became more posh as you got closer or that the architecture or design changed even marginally. It was like seamlessly walking out one door and into another, only to find that you were in the same room you had gotten out of. They'd had a glorious reprieve for one beautiful night where she had not gotten any sleep, and now they were back in another drafty inn that smelled like urine.
She stacked their things on a chair, topping it with her tired-looking hat and then she curled up on the bed, fully clothed, and wept. It came rather suddenly, actually, the urge to cry, because although she admitted a feeling of intense desperation and exhaustion, she could not foresee that the emotion would result in this particular brand of release. So, the tears surprised them both, but probably Elphaba most of all, who was wrestling a book out of one of the parcels and had originally thought that A Study of Durge's Biological Theories was the source of the whimpering.
"Oh!" she said with a crestfallen expression, looking at the curled up form of Glinda on the bed. "What is it?"
There was a soggy "I don't know," and a wail and the blonde girl buried her head into the dingy pillow. She was, to say the least, a wreck,
Elphaba, feeling somewhat amiss, slid onto the bed and lifted Glinda's head so that it nestled into her lap. This was unfamiliar territory for her, this act of comforting, although it seemed altogether that there was no skill involved; indeed, those that needed comfort were more likely to seek it through a willing source than the willing source was to initiate any sort of healing formula. If there was a formula, she did not see it, only that if you stroked her hair she quieted and if you brushed her tears away with your fingers (and then dried said fingers as quick as you could on the bed sheets) she sighed raggedly, and most of all it didn't really matter what you said, so much as you said it in a soothing tone. "It's all right," worked and was what she used, but she was convinced that, "Mustard and cotton," would work just as well, as long as it was said in the voice.
Insensitive and detached, she admonished herself. There's no need to find amusement in this – despite the fact that a near-temper-tantrum is humorous – you ought to find out what's wrong.
"Er, what's wrong?"
Glinda, whose tears had subsided and was now reduced to sniffling, rubbed her nose against the scratchy material of Elphie's dress. "I wish we had never left," she said, hiccupping.
"Oh." Elphaba's hands stilled in her hair. "Maybe it would have been better had you not come."
"Oh, no, Elphie." She sat up, running the back of her hand across her nose. "I'm glad I did. I don't know that I could have stood being back at Shiz, worrying about you. And the constant questions! Pretending to not know where you are! I couldn't do it. I hate these rooms, though. I hate the carriage rides and I hate the smell of horses and I hate the people." She hiccupped again and then wailed, "And I've probably missed at least two exams by now!"
Elphaba blinked and continued stroking Glinda's hair. "Do they have exams in sorcery? Are they all practical?"
"No," pouted Glinda, sitting up. Elphaba scooted away from the mess of a girl beside her. "I wish they were, but most of them are boring old theory questions, written – oh, it's just like you to make me forget why I was crying!" She did not say this in any state of upset; she appeared, rather, to be in awe of Elphie's ability to do so. She watched Elphaba smirk slightly.
"I haven't the faintest idea what you speak of," said the green girl airily, "and I do wish you'd stop being so dramatic. I am interested in what sort of exams the Future Sorcerers and Sorceresses of Oz have to endure. I say, the questions must be a lark! 'Answer in composition of 250 words or more, how does one go about floating a banana from point A to point B?' I wonder if diagrams are encouraged? Or frowned upon?"
"Elphie," said Glinda, exasperated, tears forgotten.
"It's all subjective, isn't it?" went on Elphaba. "You might write, 'I think really hard and so it happens,' but another person may say, 'Thirty minutes of meditation and a wand twirl will get the job done,' and really, who's to say which one is right?"
"Oh, you." She got up off the bed and shucked off her dress, wanting nothing more than to go to sleep now that she had cried out the little energy she had left.
"Well, thank the Unnamed God that you aren't crying any longer," replied Elphie in cool tones. "Or has the Unnamed God a thing to do with it? Perhaps the power lies in a willingness to stop?"
"Perhaps the power lies in your lap," mused Glinda idly, and when she looked back to gage her roomie's response to what she felt was a rather clever quip, she was pleasantly surprised to find said roomie blushing. And when she stepped out of her underclothes to change into her nightgown and spared another glance backward, she was also pleasantly surprised to find that Elphie was blushing still harder and pointedly averting her eyes.
She, not prone to psychological analysis of any type, did not dwell on why exactly this surprise was so pleasant, but it felt good nonetheless.
That night, she did not need to maneuver herself against and into the arms of Elphaba, because Elphaba opened her arms as she slid into bed and closed them tightly around her once she had snuggled in against her. They exchanged good-nights. It was a night of instant sleep.
Despite her seemingly cheered up state of the previous night, Glinda was a morose traveling companion the next day, staring sadly out the window with what seemed to be a permanent pout and answering Elphaba's running – and she felt, humorous – commentary with short, concise sentences. She was so very depressing that Elphaba, who was quite tired, didn't think it correct of her to go to sleep, and stayed awake instead, trying to think of clever ways to cheer up Glinda.
All for nothing, apparently:
"Oh, Elphie," said Glinda finally, turning her head from the window and cocking it to the side. "You don't have to cheer me up. You did that last night. Effectively. I just... wish we hadn't come."
Elphaba pursed her lips together and wanted to argue for argument's sake and to convince Glinda that this was a worthwhile adventure, that they'd speak to the Wizard and everything would make sense. But the poor girl just looked so miserable, her hat all worn and filthy, her beautiful, beautiful hair limp and uncurled. This was no place for her. She was no third-class traveler. She had first-class ideals and expectations, a first-class attitude toward adventure that allowed her an inkling of excitement to start off with, but required in the long run a warm, scented bath and a bed of satin sheets. An image Elphie found not only enjoyable, but apt as well.
"It's not much longer," she said quietly. "We'll see the Wizard and go back to Shiz. Two more weeks at most. Perhaps the Wizard will take a liking to us and send us off with first-class tickets. Then it's only a week and another three or so days." Glinda looked up at her, eyes wet and shining and she pushed herself on. "Then we'll go back and enjoy all those mundane activities, like class and homework and tossing Crope and Tibbett in the lake, teasing Nessie. You'll take a long bath. Just a little while longer, Glinda, hold out, please?"
How like a little girl she is at times, thought Glinda, leaning her head against the back of the seat and closing her eyes. It was startling sometimes to discover just how hopeful and idyllic Elphaba could be, and it made Glinda wish she could have known her as a child. Sometimes there was a glimpse of it here and there, the young Elphaba untouched by the horrors of the world (although Glinda doubted that Elphie had ever really been that innocent), more often than not when she looked after Nessarose. Glinda would get images, flashes of what a young Elphaba running around in the Quadling Country might have looked like.
"I am holding out," she said finally, opening her eyes. "I am here, aren't I?"
"Well, you don't have much choice because you can't very well just turn around now and go it alone. It is good of you to be a companion, though." It wasn't "thank you," but it was close to it and it made Glinda smile. Every so often, Elphie was pleasant and devoid of her dry, cutting humor and although Glinda couldn't have her that way all the time, it was a nice complement to the normally harsh qualities of her roomie.
"Elphaba," she said quietly. "I..." She what? How did she hope to confess something when she hadn't yet confessed it to herself? A person could not very well go about articulating half-thoughts, half-passions, half-desires – especially when one did not fully understand where these emotions came from. At the moment, they were merely ponderings. Glinda's mind was not used to deep, introspective thinking and so when she tried to dwell on any flitting thoughts further, her mind seemed to protest, as if it to say, 'No, sorry, not built for that sort of thinking; would you like to think about jewelry instead?'
As she stood now, they were fragments, ideas: Elphie smart stubborn sarcastic annoying green lovely skinny bony tall beautiful protective strong wonderful. Some of them were exaggerations, she was sure, but this was not something she should submit to half-cocked; that is, it didn't seem correct for her to begin a confession of enormous proportions with, 'Elphie, I've been thinking and I think that you are smart and stubborn and sarcastic and annoying and green...'
"Well?" said Elphaba and Glinda smiled nervously, laughed girlishly.
"Thoughts just flew out of my head!"
Elphaba smiled, somewhat radiantly it seemed to Glinda, and she tapped the girl's forehead. "Oh, for a glimpse of how things work in there."
"That'd be nice. You could explain it to me." She glanced out the window. Evening was approaching and there was a slight chill in the air. "I hope it doesn't get as cold as the other night. Although, this is the last inn on the carriage stop; perhaps, they save the best for last and a warm, really lovely looking room awaits us."
"I think I'll publish a book entitled Traveling with the Eternal Optimist," said Elphaba, mostly to herself. "It would probably sell big in areas of lost cause."
"It would be a wonderful companion to your other book, Being the Eternal Pessimist and Getting Kicked Off Carriages," remarked Glinda, to which Elphaba let out an unladylike snort.
"Who could sell, with a long title like that?"
They chatted about what apt and fitting names the last inn on the carriage line would have, Elphaba going for names like The Last Ditch Resort or The Almost Green Inn that adequately showcased their present position and Glinda, who did not understand the game, was simply coming up with names she liked, such as The Dazzling Boutique of Food and Sleeping or Glinda's Nest. Elphaba pointed out that she would be severely distressed if the latter occurred and they did happen upon an inn called Glinda's Nest. "There aren't many Glindas in all of Oz," she said, saying many things all at once and liking it that way.
When they arrived at the inn (The Tear Drop Inn), the chill had gone out of the air to a large degree, and the two girls exited the carriage, all their belongings under their arms. Glinda straightened her hat, knowing that this was the last inn they'd be staying in and that they would surely find a better hotel of sorts in the Emerald City, she wasn't going to mind too much another night in another ugly room.
"Oh, this is no good," said Elphaba, and Glinda turned to see the girl examining her heavy wool cloak.
"I've been saying that all along," said Glinda airily, examining the cloak as well. "It's really ghastly and the color is too drab."
Elphaba gave her a look and then turned the cloak over. There was a rather large hole in it, somewhere about the shoulder area. Elphie groaned. "Oh, what if it rains? I can't wear this."
"Don't worry. Simply buy another from one of those traveling traders that are always about."
"With what money?"
"Oh." She had a flash of inspiration and smiled. "We'll sell something. One of my nightgowns or something."
Elphaba felt like she had been punched in the gut. How dare Glinda go and be so unselfish? Just when you thought you knew a person, she went and did something like offering to sell one of her nightgowns just so you could have a cloak. It wasn't fair. It seemed only right that while Elphaba was idly admiring Glinda's perfect face, the curve of her flawless figure, that irony should set in and the blonde girl should demonstrate a few of her worst traits so that perhaps Elphaba could step back and say to herself, 'Well, what were you thinking, being in love with that one?'
But no, Glinda was ever the contrarian and chose this exact moment to be perhaps the loveliest specimen of human goodness. Elphie scowled.
"No, it's fine. I—"
"Oh, Elphie, what if it does rain and you get hurt and I have to take care of you, and you know I'm not any good at taking care of myself, let alone another person and we lose precious days?"
Elphaba marveled at the powers of persuasion that came from a girl who did not bother to breathe while she was talking. So, they found a trader loitering outside the inn who seemed to deal primarily in leather goods, which Elphaba knew to be very expensive, but she also knew Glinda's nightgowns to be made of the finest Gillikin silk. The trader was in transition, with many made leather goods on his cart (boots, coats, vests, wallets), and a pile of apparently just received hides that had yet to be processed into leather.
"You'll not find better prices on high-quality leather anywhere," said the trader when he heard of their predicament. He held out a long leather coat in dark brown that Elphie admitted was very nice to look at, but hardly practical in the rain. It didn't even have a hood.
"Don't you have any other types?" asked Glinda. "A wool cloak with a hood and perhaps a stylish hem?"
Elphaba rolled her eyes, distracting herself with the pile of hides on the ground while Glinda attempted to negotiate. It was a pity, Elphaba thought, that hides were dyed when they were made into leather. The gray hide at her feet, for example, was a beautiful color. Color of steel. Sort of like Halivan's, she thought, sort of the same color and it even had a perfect white circle on one part, like Halivan had had on his chest. She knelt down and examined it, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
"Good one, isn't it?" said the trader "Got that one just this evening. I can cut you a deal on the hide, if you have a leather maker in mind and want to take it to him. Can't let it go for too cheap, though. It's an Animal hide, you know, thicker than regular animal hides, more valuable."
"Is that so?" asked Elphaba. "Wherever did you get such a lucky find?"
"Ah, I can give you his card, if you please," he said, patting his vest pockets for his wallet. "He's one of my most reliable traders. Has a little cottage somewhere on the Yellow Brick Road, 'hunting shed' they call it." He unearthed the card. "A fellow by the name of Drauc Harbellows. Decent fellow, very young to be so successful." He handed her the card and she accepted it, getting to her feet and looking over the card with mild interest.
Glinda's eyes widened. "Elphie..."
"Yes," said Elphaba, calmly glancing over the rest of the hides. "It is remarkable, isn't it?"
"Oh, it's terrible!" wailed Glinda, hands on her cheeks in horror.
The trader appeared confused. "Will you be making a selection?" he asked.
"No, thank you, sir," said Elphaba. She took Glinda's hand and led her away, into the inn. She rubbed her nose, looking distracted. "Well, let's hope for no rain, then, or I might have to stay behind."
They sat down at a booth in the back and Glinda, who was fighting back tears, noticed the grim look of determination on Elphie's face, the sour and pensive expression, mostly hidden by her long veil of hair. Really, she looked as she always did – contemplative and resolute, as though she had made up her mind about something. About what, Glinda did not know, but as a tear or two slipped down the Gillikin girl's face, she wished that she was not crying alone.
Elphaba, for her part, was not devoid of sympathy. She glanced up from her menu with a mild expression and then silently passed her handkerchief over to Glinda, her expression softening. She bit her lip briefly, sitting up a bit taller. Glinda blew her nose. Elphaba set her menu down. "Now you have done far too much crying in these past two days and that can't be healthy," she said quietly. "Dry your eyes and think strong, good girl. There's nothing that can be done now."
Glinda hiccupped. "Oh, Elphie," she sniffled. "Don't you ever cry? Poor Halivan! He was our friend, Elphie, wasn't he?"
"Oh, he was," said Elphie dismissively. She sighed. "If I had not done anything that day, he may still be alive, I think. Still being worked unfairly, but he'd be alive and perhaps making plans for escape so he could return to his family. That's what I think."
Glinda blew her nose again. "You couldn't have known, though, Elphaba. You mustn't blame yourself."
"I don't," she said frankly. "I'm just saying what I think. I blame Drauc, I think, but it isn't even fair to pin all the blame on him, although I'd like to. I blame Oz, or the social hierarchy within, where to you or me it is inconceivable for such a thing to happen, but to most of Oz's citizens, it's hardly something to even think about." It was clear that she believed this, but Glinda wondered if perhaps the flush that strained Elphaba's cheeks was not, on some level, a manifestation of irrational guilt.
She was quiet all through their dinner of dry biscuits and bland stew and was seemingly too exhausted to speak as they both got ready for bed. Glinda stood by the candlelight, looking out the window into the dry land. Why had this week been such a tornado of emotions? She had expected a long, mundane week with her best friend, filled with the occasional travel amusement and such. She had learned things and grown and perhaps she and Elphie were better friends for it, but it was still a week she wished she could forget.
She slumped over to the bed where Elphaba had her nose buried in a book. "Nudge over," mumbled Glinda and Elphaba complied, letting Glinda climb into bed beside her.
"Do you want the lights out?" asked Elphaba without looking up from her book.
"No." Glinda played with the hem of the worn sheet she was underneath. "We can talk, if you like."
"About?" She turned the page.
"Elphie, please." She said this so quietly and urgently that it made Elphaba look up and set her book down. "I'll never understand why you continually feel as though you need to be strong for me. It's not as though I've ever been strong for you." This was true for the most part; these days, she was very good at deflecting attention off herself around most people, but seemed very often to wear her heart on her sleeve for Elphaba.
"Well, shouldn't someone?" asked Elphaba in a mild tone. "It would hardly do for the two of us to fall to pieces, would it? We'd never get a thing done."
"Oh, really, just throw out your damned airs," said Glinda, annoyed. "As if you're above emotion, or something. I don't think you are."
Elphaba opened her mouth to emit some sort of clever and scathing reply and then closed it. Glinda's cheeks were flushed with anger and sadness and perhaps exhilaration or perhaps she was cold, but either way, Elphaba pondered how one person was able to produce so many emotions at once. She pondered tears and how they came about and why they never came about on her, despite the fact that they were just all-around painful. Oh, she wasn't above emotion, however much she'd like to be. "I'd like to think I am," she said quietly. She shifted a bit in the bed, facing Glinda fully. "That is, I'd like to think I'm above expressing it, but I know I am not." And then, on concept of distraction, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against Glinda's.
And if Glinda had elected to fight off the kiss, Elphaba was not sure if she would have been able to stop anyway, so it was a lucky thing that she did not fight it. Indeed, it is even luckier that she, Glinda, should instead wrap her arms tightly around Elphaba's shoulders and kiss her in return, to pull away and breathe and then kiss her again. All that could not be said, it seemed, was rather easy suddenly; smart-stubborn-sarcastic-annoying-green had a translation, apparently.
Elphaba pushed her back on the bed and kissed her lips and kissed her chin and her neck and behind her ear, eliciting gasps, eliciting her name. And she, who considered herself a terrific thinking individual, was not thinking and that was best. That made it less tense, less fraught with anxiety. It was just slow and wet at times, frenzied and sloppy at times.
It is unclear upon recollection just when they fell asleep, although one of them must have disentangled from the bed to put out the light. It is clear, however, that they both did sleep and that it was a good sleep where Glinda had no nightmares and Elphaba had no fits of being so beleaguered by her thoughts that she was unable to sleep. It was just two girls sleeping huddled together in the middle of the bed, limbs wrapped around each other. There was no pretension of warmth or protection or space; they wanted it that way.
That ended the first week.