I don't own Wicked, any of its characters, any part of the musical, or Gregory Maguire's fantastic novel… sigh.
I hope you enjoy this one. It's my first attempt. Reviews are ever so helpful! Here goes.
In Relation to a Tree
Elphaba shuddered. The swift autumn winds had returned. They were much more noticeable here at Shiz than at back home. Nest Hardings had its fair share of windy days, to be sure, but it was sparse in the way of trees. The campus grounds here were rich with many shapes and sizes. The wind constantly rustled through the branches, tearing leaves away to float gently on the breeze.
Elphaba hated it. She grimaced in disgust as the foliage swept by her, tickling her nose, taunting her with rich shades of brown, gold, and red. Even the leaves on the trees can shed their… green color, she speculated in disgust. Come to think of it, so does grass. It browns in the winter. And bananas turn yellow. Tomatoes turn red.
But not me. Just more proof that I'm a freak of nature.
She spent the next twenty minutes (while pondering the other elements of the world lucky enough to slough away that hideous color) wandering along the outskirts of the campus before sitting to rest against a tree. Her arm brushed against a branch and she winced as the needles scraped her skin. Her nostrils flared as a thick odor wafted in the breeze. She looked up...and chuckled. How perfect. Nature had chosen to ridicule her once again.
It was an evergreen. Very similar to herself, she noted. Prickly, pungent, and had the color to match. Strangely enough, it was the only one of its kind nearby. The other trees towered over the small evergreen and its newfound visitor. Pine, Elphaba noted.
She memorized its shape and form. A coarse trunk thrust stubbornly out of the ground and served as the anchor for hundreds of stalky branches jutting out at awkward angles. Some branches intertwined, and others collided. Elphaba's fingertips came away with the sticky residue of tree sap that reminded her of all the rude comments she had relished in launching at her annoying roommate: words that dripped with dry sarcasm but were poignant enough to glue themselves to Galinda's mind, forcing her to give up any feeble attempts to retort back.
She also noted the odd way the tree was balanced. While the others could have been seen as top heavy, with the bulk of their weight rising far above the ground, the evergreen was not. It was actually much more practical in its build. The bulk of the spiny branches began at the bottom and gradually tapered on its way up, forcing the top into a jagged point.
The gusts of autumn continued to whisk falling leaves into her face. She stopped to untangle a large red leaf from her long black hair. Elphaba twirled it in her hand, studying it, and crinkled it in her unforgiving fist. Her lips twisted into a thin smile as she unceremoniously dumped the red confetti to the ground. She looked up at the evergreen and admired its branches. The needles were much stronger. They would not crumble, dissolve, decay, or flake away.
The sky was growing dim and Elphaba realized she should be heading back to her room to finish up some reading for Life Sciences. She fumbled with the buttons on her navy blue vest and slung her satchel over her shoulder as she stood. She took one last look at the cantankerous tree before turning to leave. The others were beautiful, majestic, and glorious to behold, their leaves delicate and soft to the touch. The evergreen could claim none of these favorable traits. But it would outlast them all.
Elphaba smirked. How pathetic. She felt more closely related to a ridiculous tree than to any of the students at Shiz. She waved the thought away with a spindly green hand, deciding that she really had no desire to associate herself with any of her shallow peers in the first place. She promised to herself that she would return to that very spot the next day for her afternoon reading. It looked to be the start of a most abnormal relationship. But then again, Elphaba Thropp was everything but normal.
And for the first time in her life, she was thankful.