The Wicked Game
From Eroica with Love/Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West cross-over
By Sindeniirelle
R
Dorian/Klaus, Elphaba/Glinda
Contains spoilers for Wicked as well as the first nineteen or so volumes of Eroica. Takes place in the Wicked canon (book-verse, although with some elements drawn from the musical-verse) around part 14 of The Murder and Its Aftermath, in Eroica shortly after the events in Emperor's Waltz. In any case, it is an AU fic that tries it's best to stay as true as possible to both universes and their respective characters.
Also worth noting, in this fanfiction time flows differently on Oz than on Earth, so that one year on Oz is the equivalent to roughly ten or so years on Earth.
From Eroica with Love is property of Aoike Yasuko, Princess Comics, and DC Comics. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is property of Gregory Maguire. Wicked: The Musical is property of Gregory Maguire, Stephen Schwartz, and Winnie Holzman. The original The Wizard of Oz was written by L. Frank Baum, and was also used as inspiration for this fanfiction. No profit was made from this story.
Prologue
Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach, NATO Intelligence Officer, stood in the half-opened doorway to the darkened church. Normally, he liked churches. They were quiet. Supposedly good for the soul. And they were a good place to take a nap.
But this place…large flakes of shimmering white snow were haphazardly floating in through the large doorway, disappearing in the shadows around him, and the elaborate stained-glass window loomed up before him, covering the entire wall. The centre figure was some sort of saint or an angel. The pose was relatively standard—one hand over his chest, the other pointing towards the ground, the head slightly inclined—but the expression on the face was almost mischievous, devious.
The Major shuddered in revulsion to think it, but the resemblance to that annoying thief Eroica, who had taken to interfering with his life at every possible opportunity, was downright uncanny. Especially with all those long golden curls.
He could turn around, go back to his hotel until it was time for the meeting. But, in the end, for reasons he could not articulate, he decided to enter the empty church anyways. Even with the painting's laughing eyes watching him. He snorted. The very idea of Eroica as an angel…that bugger was more like Satan. Always messing up his missions with his idiocy and perversion.
Still…the resemblance was uncanny. Despite himself, the Major caught himself looking at the window again, and slumped down in one of the back pews, closing his eyes.
The thief was not entirely without merit. He had proven somewhat useful on the last mission. He had allowed himself to get beaten in order to steal the microfilm back. There had been certain amount of selflessness in that. Klaus hadn't been able to get angry with him, after that.
The Major caught himself, and scowled into the darkness. There was work to do, and no time at all for such foolish idiotic reveries.
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Elphaba was hunched over in the unionist chapel in Saint Glinda's square. It was an older chapel, with frescoes adorning the cubby-holes. Not that Elphaba cared in the least for those silly things. She felt tired. She wasn't entirely sure what had brought her to the chapel. Loneliness, perhaps, if she were still capable of such a human thing as loneliness. There was an oratory to Saint Glinda, a tomb-like space, barely lit, with a smoky image of the saint. She was probably lucky to find even that much, considering how most of the old saints had been discarded for the 'Glorious Wizard.' She practically snarled at the thought of that man, although she managed to control herself, and concentrated on the statue of the saint.
Saint Glinda had been the namesake of her roommate at Shiz so long ago. It felt like lifetimes ago. And she had not seen Glinda of the Arduennas of the Uplands in years. Not that Glinda had been anything like her namesake. Elphaba couldn't claim to know much about saints, despite her father being a minister, she couldn't remember any inspiring legends or heart-warming stories, she just saw the water-damage on the neglected ikon and bowed her head, although in tiredness rather than in prayer. Chapels were quiet. They were a good place to take a quick nap.
Still, that giddy, shallow, annoying and snobbish girl she had gone to school with could have been nothing like a saint.
Elphaba drew the old lace shawl tighter around her shoulders. She couldn't lie to herself or to her memory. Glinda had been capable of thought—intelligent thought—when she had tried. Elphaba remembered her as sweet girl she had become, the girl who had followed her to the Emerald City. The girl she had kissed in the back of a carriage somewhere long ago.
No. Those thoughts are too dangerous. Don't think about it. It never happened.
They had seemed like friends for a while.
Nevertheless, she shouldn't miss her golden-haired, giggling roommate as much as she did. And she could not explain the ache in her heart that had brought her to the place of her Glinda's namesake now, after such a long time spent devoting herself to her work in the underground and trying to forget Glinda-Galinda-Glinda-Galinda…
Elphaba closed her eyes.
She had work to do, and no time at all for such foolish reveries.
Chapter One: The Confessions of Glinda the Good
The Witch took Glinda's arm. "Glinda, you look hideous in that getup. I thought you'd have developed some sense by now."
"When in the provinces," she said, "you have to show them a little style. I don't think it's so bad. Or are the satin bells at the shoulder a bit too too?"
--Wicked: The Life and Times
Present Day.
(1988.)
Dorian Red Gloria lay stretched out on the red divan in Castle Gloria's lush drawing room, a half-opened book sliding from his lap, his gaze resting upon one of the many rare and priceless works of art that surrounded his castle. His head rested on one arm and he stretched catlike across the sofa, his long torrent of golden curls cascading over broad shoulders.
"Jones, love, God knows it's been a while since our last heist…Who knows what our peers are saying in the criminal underworld?" the Englishman said slowly, although he did not seem particularly inclined to move, right at the moment.
The young man with short auburn hair tried to hide a grimace. As one of the core members of the Earls' gang of thieves he knew exactly what Dorian was referring to. A few nights ago they had attended the Annual Rogue's Gallery, an event the Earl himself had hosted at his castle in North Downs some years ago. While at the party, they had overheard the latest bit of gossip, none of which was particularly pleasing to the Earl's ears.
"I mean, the very idea that I'm losing my touch! Me! Eroica! The greatest art thief in English—no, world—history!" Dorian muttered, rising and tossing the ancient tome across the drawing room so that it crashed into a wall displaying two Rembrandts, a Monet, and a Van Gogh with a moderately satisfying thud. "I mean sure there was that…difficulty…with that haunted statue, but by Jove anyone would have been spooked by that!"
"Of course, m'lord…" the thief answered uncertainly.
"What! What's that look for?" Dorian asked, sitting up so that more of the long golden curls tumbled into his face. "And old, who are they calling old! Twenty-nine is NOT OLD!"
"No, uh…sir, you're thirty," Jones corrected.
The Earl huffed, folding his arms indignantly over his lean chest, muttering something about age and thirty and "…why, that's not even mature! Well, what do they know? I'm still Eroica, the Prince of Thieves, the—"
"Yes, m'lord," Jones sighed, "But you wanted to steal something. Has anything struck your fancy lately?"
At that moment a peculiar looking short, skinny accountant in a tattered and stained woolen suit with incredibly messy black hair came scurrying into the room, Casio mini calculator in hand, not to mention the stack of forms or receipts (the Earl groaned at the sight of paperwork and turned away)—"Myyyyyyy Looooooooord! Did you just say we were going to steal something? Finally! We really didn't get enough for that last Waterhouse we fenced, and—and you'll never believe the rise the price of—"
"James, calm down!" Dorian sighed, massaging his temples.
The diminutive accountant paused for a second, shifting through the stack of week-old newspapers he had no doubt purloined from some trash bin rather than bought, before exclaiming: "OH! My Lord, the National Gallery has just acquired some new Rembrandts, if we were to snatch those up, they'd be worth quite a—"
But the Earl of Gloria shrugged. "Oh I don't know…" He flicked a few golden curls out of his face, wide blue eyes blinking open drowsily. "I've grown bored of Rembrandt. And the National Gallery is hardly a challenge to a thief of my skill.
They all knew what he was thinking. What Eroica was really hungering for was another mission of danger and espionage with NATO and one certain gorgeous-but-frigid German major…the thief had begun making a habit of it years ago, to get caught up in the handsome officer's missions one way or another, teasing the violent, dangerous, and homophobic officer all across Europe…
But lately, Major Eberbach hadn't been leading any dangerous missions on NATO's behalf. Eroica couldn't imagine why (although he was quite painfully bored…) and though Jones, James, Bonham, and the rest of his team knew the reason for the Major's absence from NATO affairs they would be DAMNED if they were going to relate the news to their lord. They didn't want to think about the madness, the anger, or worse case scenario, the depression, that would occur if Dorian were to find out that the man he had loved unrequitedly (some would say madly) but devotedly (bordering on obsession) for the past decade and a half was….
Getting married.
To a woman.
The Earl's men wisely kept silent.
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Heinz von dem Eberbach was not certain whether to feel relieved that his son was finally getting married, or profoundly uneasy about it. As the chauffer drove towards the Schloss Eberbach, he stared out the window at the passing German countryside and frowned. The Eberbach family line certainly needed to continue, and he had certainly been pleased to learn that his son, Klaus, was finally taking his advice and marrying one of the many suitable young women he had suggested. But it had been afterwards that the doubts began setting in, as he remembered more and more things about his son's unusual birth that he had tried so long to simply forget.
His son had been a miracle, for a lot of reasons. Not the least being that Heinz' wife Henrietta, whom he had loved so dearly, and who, as far as Klaus would ever know was his mother, had died a year before Klaus' birth.
He still remembered the horrific scandal that had erupted the day when, as far as the rest of his family was concerned, Klaus had mysteriously appeared out of thin air one day. Who was the mother? He couldn't tell them that. And that, naturally, was the crux of the whole damned ordeal. After all, how often did it happen that the mother was unknown? His family assumed she had been some prostitute (or else why wouldn't he tell them her name or where she was from?).
Due only to his power as head of one of the oldest and most respected families in Germany, and the power and commanding authority he had retained from his service as a tank commander in the war, had he been able to keep everything under control. As it was, to this day, very few people knew that his son was a bastard. Klaus himself had been raised to believe that his mother had been Henrietta, and that she had died shortly after giving birth to him.
So why did he suddenly have this horrible feeling that everything he had worked so hard to control, through blackmail and extortion in some cases, was going to fall apart? It was probably just his own morbid mindset, he told himself as the looming stone walls of the Schloss came into sight. After all, what bearing could things so long past possibly have on the future? He hadn't seen Klaus' real mother in decades. She had not even been the one to bring the baby Klaus to him on that spring night in 1955, but an old withered crone who referred to herself simply as 'Nanny.'
He still remembered the strange conversation he had with the near-crazed old hag on that fateful night:
"Of course she doesn't want the baby! You think she has time to be raising a child, with all the work she's doing? She's trying to win a war against the most powerful man in the world, by the Unnamed God! And I never knew anyone so obsessed with her work…her experiments with monkeys, her research into that damned book, and not to mention all the hours she spends strategizing and planning and plotting…and as for me, well poor old Nanny can hardly look after another child at MY age! Honestly, that boy Liir is bad enough, always trying to sneak off with those soldiers even though his mother hates it. Hopefully this one's got a little more sense."
He had just held little Klaus in his arms, in his entire life, it was the one moment he could remember where he had been close to doing such an unmanly thing as weeping. It felt like the baby he and Henrietta had always wanted to have.
He had known without question or doubt that Klaus truly was his son. Over the years, his son had grown to look more and more like his father, and Heinz could not have been prouder, although his own inexperience with children hindered him from saying so.
The butler Conrad Hinkel did much of the work in caring for Klaus as an infant, but there were moments when Heinz wondered if perhaps he should have remarried for Klaus' sake. There were moments when Klaus' expression, even as a small child, would ghost over with something incredibly dark and thoughtful and sombre, and those were the only moments where Heinz was really reminded of the boy's bizarre parentage.
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Dorian Red Gloria was absently leafing through a brochure of the latest treasures acquired by the Louvre and wondering, casually, if he could be bothered to get the team together to steal anything he only half-wanted, when Bonham entered, an unusually pale and stressful look on his round face. The Earl looked up from the booklet and frowned. "Bonham, my goodness, man, you look as if you've seen a ghost!"
"Uh…my lord," his most loyal thief answered, distinctly uncomfortable. "You just received a phone call, my lord. It was from your—ah, mother. Lady Gloria says she'll be dropping by later this week, said—"
"What?" Dorian shook his mane of golden curls in disbelief. He hadn't seen his mother since his father's funeral, and even then, they hadn't spoken. She had taken his sisters and left when he was thirteen years old. She hadn't wanted anything to do with a homosexual thief of a son then; he couldn't imagine what she wanted now. And he didn't particularly want to spend his time entertaining a woman who had, for all intents and purposes, abandoned him. "What does that old witch want?" he muttered.
"Uh—can't imagine, my lord. She said she just wanted to talk to you."
"Talk to me? She hasn't wanted to talk to me in seventeen years!" he tried to laugh, but it fell flat. He didn't even know what to think of that idea. "Well?"
"I couldn't presume to imagine, my lord," the thief answered, giving him a sympathetic look.
Dorian sighed. "Well, best send most of the lads off on vacation or something, then. I can't very well barricade the doors and refuse to let her in, now, can I?" although his expression seemed to imply he would like to do that very much.
"Come on now, I'm sure it won't be that bad," Bonham offered, patting the Earl's shoulder. "Just a little talk and then I'm sure she'll be back off to the South of France or wherever it is she's livin' these days."
Two days later, a silver Porsche drove up the winding dirt road that led to the North Downs' castle. Dorian stayed in his room, a tea cup balanced carefully between his fingers. He felt uneasy about meeting a woman he had neither seen nor heard from since his childhood. And what memories he did have of her weren't all that pleasant.
She had an annoying shrill sort of voice. He remembered that most of all.
He heard the knock on the door, and someone went to answer it. A minute later, Jones came to his room. "My lord, Lady Gloria is here to see you. She's waiting in the drawing room."
He took his time in going down to see her, wearing a loose-fitting white shirt with full ruffled sleeves and black trousers. When he finally made his way to the drawing room, she was sitting on one of the chairs, her face completely obscured by a dark veil attached to her silver hat. Her blue dress was almost ridiculous in its sheer volume of skirts. (And he had thought that he had a taste for extravagant clothing!) She seemed to be watching him for a moment, although with that veil hiding her face so entirely he couldn't really tell.
She was twisting a handkerchief around in her hands. "Oh by Lurline, Dorian…" she gasped.
He managed to pique one golden eyebrow. "What?"
She was half-rising out of her seat by now, staring at him. "By Lurline, it's been too long…I didn't realize the time…"
"You're not making much sense," he muttered.
"Oh, Dorian…" she reached up, and in one movement tore the hat and veil from her head. A mess of vibrant golden curls tumbled loosely over her shoulders, and there was a sort of tiara-thing resting on her forehead. But what really got him was her face. In the seventeen years she had been gone from his life, she hadn't appeared to age a day! In fact, if anything, she looked better than she had that day she had packed up and left. She looked like an older sister, not his mother! For a minute he just stared at her, utterly dumbstruck.
Then it dawned on him. It couldn't be his mother, looking like someone in her late thirties, at the oldest. His mother had to have been in her late seventies, at least, and yet there she was standing, with smooth pale skin, ruby lips, and brilliant golden curls.
It couldn't possibly be, the only explanation was that it was one of his sisters, and she just happened to have grown into an uncanny resemblance of their mother. "Uh…Clarice," he stumbled shakily. "How closely you resemble Mother."
She looked sad then, her ruby lips curling into a delicate pout. She walked a few steps one way, and then the other, her heels clicking on the ground. "Oh Dorian…" she sighed. "This IS me! Uh, Mum."
"That's not possible…"
"Oh, but it is! It is! You see your father and I might have acted like ordinary English citizens but the truth was we really weren't not at all," she began excitedly. "Well, you see Lord Chuffrey Gloria's family did go back to that wretched pirate, but, well, as near as I can figure it out from what you're father told me, that pirate—"
"Luminous," Dorian frowned.
"Yes, yes, whatever," she prattled. "On one of his adventures he came across this strange mirror that had belonged to a powerful wizard—"
"What?" Dorian blinked. "Are you feeling alright?"
"And this wizard had happened to come upon a sort of portal to another world—"
"Are you making fun of me?"
"And this world was Oz, which was where I'm from, actually. Anyways, so ever since Luminous' descendants began living in both worlds, all the way up to Chuffrey. So, you see, Dorian, when I left Chuffrey I didn't go to any silly country, I went back to Oz, to Gillikin (that's in the North). See?"
He stared at for several minutes. She had a strange sort of grin on her face. "…See?"
"So, have you had plastic surgery or something…?" because it really didn't look like she had, but it just wasn't possible…
"Uh! Dorian you're not listening to me!" she cried in exasperation. "Where's your butler, anyways? I really need a drink. Oh…the time changes differently between Earth and Oz. One year on Oz is nearly a decade on Earth! Only, I didn't know that because your father, like with so many other LITTLE things, decided it wasn't worth telling me about. I only realized when I came back for his funeral, and then I didn't get a chance to really see you, you left so soon!"
Meanwhile, Dorian was searching his mind, trying desperately to remember what his mother had looked like at Dad's funeral, only he had left once he had heard that she and his sisters were coming, and he had only caught a glimpse of her, again wearing the thick veils.
"And then I was going to come back, but honey you wouldn't believe the mess of things they're making in Oz! What with the Animals and the unionists and all of this new controversy over the Wizard because of the recent—are you paying attention?"
He stared at her.
"Anyways, I am the 'official' sorceress of the Wizard, or something, I think. It's all very complicated. Anyways, everyone was always dragging me off to help this or that, or appear at this or that. No one really seemed to mind much of it that Chuffrey was gone…" she smirked a little at this. "Anyways, I am Glinda the Good, officially, after all, I just couldn't…" she spun around then, in such a dizzying whirl that Dorian hadn't time to get out of the way. She reached up and touched his face, suddenly a profoundly sad expression clouding her eyes. "Dorian, I am sorry. It was never my intention to leave you all alone like this."
This time, he did back away from her touch. "You disappeared for nearly twenty years," he said simply. "Forgive me if I really don't see how that could be done 'unintentionally.'" It was hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice, so he didn't.
"Oh," she said simply. She looked sad. "Oh, yes…I…well…you know, it really wasn't that long on Oz, and when I could finally get away…people are dying there, you see, and well, everything's been so complicated lately."
"Do you remember much of that last conversation we had? I know it was a long time ago for you…But, when you said you never wanted to get married…I don't know. Most of my life was spent fantasizing about who I would marry. A man of high social standing, wealth, someone who could open doors for me to a life of extravagance and luxury. It was my dream. And so, when it finally happened, and I finally married Lord Chuffrey of Gloria—I guess I…tried to convince myself that I was really, truly, honestly happy. I mean…happy is just what happens when your dreams come true! It's just was naturally follows—isn't it?"
"But you weren't happy…were you?" Dorian asked slowly, wondering why he should really care.
The handkerchief in his mother's grasp was being twisted to mercilessly. She bore such an expression of—guilt? Despair? He almost felt sorry for her. Almost. This was still the woman who had abandoned him when he was thirteen years old, and hadn't even tried to contact him in all the years since.
"I was…I wasn't…oh! What a celebration it was, though! A fairy-tale come true…grand, and beautiful, and all the cheering…but…Yes, I admit, it was the tiniest bit…unlike I had anticipated. It was a little—well, a little complicated."
"What do you mean 'complicated?'"
"Well…there was a—a kind of a—sort of a—cost. A couple of things got…lost. And then when the whole 'thrill' of it didn't thrill like I thought it would…WELL! Still, I mean, anyways, who wouldn't have been happy? So, I guess…I mean…I must have been happy."
"But it obviously wasn't, because you left us."
"I left him! I never meant to leave you! Only, I…I seem to have been making these foolish mistakes my entire life. We had been arguing for so long, and finally somehow Chuffrey convinced me that everyone would be happiest if I took the girls and left you. And somehow, in my naivety—no, my—my idiocy—I believed him. But it's really more complicated than you think! Let me explain."
16 Years Earlier.
(Earth Reckoning).
Glinda shivered. When she opened her eyes, the pitch blackness of night met her gaze. Still, the shaking wouldn't stop, so she pulled herself out of the deep feather blankets and lit the candle resting on her bedside. She stared at the small light for several moments, feeling a horrible depressing blackness creep over her heart, although she could not say why. For the next several minutes she sat that way, every muscle in her body tensed, her heart pounding. She clenched the edge of the bed beneath her.
It wasn't the first time since leaving Chuffrey and her only son, taking her daughters, and returning to Oz that she had been awakened in the night by mysterious horrible feelings and unnamed fears. But this was the first time it had felt so bad. She shuddered, and covered her face with her hands.
"Am I going to regret this for the rest of my life?"
Yes. Of course you are.
She felt the cold brush of tears against her fingers and pulled her hands away. And all her acts of "Good" and charity like visiting orphanages in Munchkinland were never going to make this guilt dissipate.
Years earlier, she had agreed to marry Lord Chuffrey, Earl of Red Gloria. He had owned many attractive properties in Northern Oz, in Gillikin, and even more astonishingly, his bridge to that other world. It was, he had said, the world that the Wizard himself had come from. In fact, it was something the Wizard would want very much, maybe even kill to take, so they had to keep it very, very secret. But it was something she had immediately wanted to tell Elphaba, although she didn't even know where to find her old roommate.
It was something Elphaba would have known more about, but she hadn't seen Elphaba since their last year at Shiz together. She hadn't seen Elphaba since that painfully sweet moment in the back of the carriage in the Emerald City…
"Hold out, my sweet." Elphaba had whispered back then.
But she hadn't, had she?
And that hurt deep in her heart, aching and bleeding, buried beneath everything else.
In any case.
The world Sir Chuffrey introduced her to had been easy enough to grow accustomed to, Chuffrey's family had been doing it for generations and she soon caught on. It wasn't that much different from Oz, really, except that there were no Animals (again, the thoughts of Elphaba…she pushed those away, swallowing the pain deep inside her chest) and there was no Wizard, there was a Prime Minister instead.
Whatever.
It hadn't made such a big difference to her, once Chuffrey had told her what was expected of her, which was no different from in Oz—look pretty and be well dressed, except that she didn't come and go in a giant bubble.
Over the incredible distances she even managed to bury the pain she felt at missing Elphaba a little more effectively. Oz or England. It had made no difference.
But now it did. Because she was back in Oz, and that cheating bastard Chuffrey could rot in hell in England or wherever else he had figured out how to go, but she had, in a moment of pure and thoughtless weakness, given in to him one last time, and come back to her ruby castle in Gillikin with only three of her four children.
She muffled a cry and tore at her long golden curls.
There was a knock at her door. Her oldest daughter came in, a thin lanky girl with straight brown hair. "Mother, what's the matter? It's well past midnight!"
"Oh, don't worry about me, Daphne," Glinda murmured, but her daughter was standing right in front of her, and the tears she felt streaming down her face must have been reflected in the candle light.
"Mother! What is it? What's wrong?" Daphne cried, clasping her shaking hands in her own. "Are you ill? Do you feel alright?"
"I'm fine…" she whispered hoarsely, turning her face away from her daughter.
"I'm worried…I'm worried about your brother. The reason I finally decided to leave was to protect him from your father's madness, but somehow in the whole mess of it, I ended up leaving without him…how did this happen? And this was a year ago…and oh one year here is so many MORE on Earth! Oh, by the Unnamed God, I don't know what to do anymore…"
"Mother, please! Stop your worrying over that disgusting freak!" Daphne snapped. "You're beating yourself up over this when you don't have to!"
"Daphne…stop it, please," Glinda closed her eyes, her headache was returning, worse than ever now.
"He was a dirty pervert, just like his father, you were right to leave them both!"
"Daphne, STOP IT! Don't talk about Dorian that way!"
The girl stared at her with wide eyes for a moment.
"Go back to your room," she murmured, her hands running back over her face, tangling in her hair as she slumped forwards along the corner of the bed. "Leave me alone."
1 Year Earlier.
(1970 on Earth)
Glinda felt ill. England air was so much more different than the air in Oz. She was getting head aches more and more frequently, and listening to four children bicker constantly was doing nothing to help it. She lay back on one of the sofas, propped up by a pillow, her long mane of curls tied back and out of her way in a hideous bun. She'd lost a lot of weight lately. She almost looked like a skeleton.
Chuffrey was becoming more and more distant, he no longer even tried to give the impression that he cared for her on any level. He no longer seemed to care what she or anyone else for that matter, saw or heard. He always had the pretty young men fawning over him. She felt humiliated, and betrayed.
Were these children all I was good for to you, Chuffrey? And you don't even pay any attention to your three daughters. And what about my baby, Dorian? You're trying to turn him into a thief—a criminal!
The head aches worsened.
The days would go by, the pretty winsome young men would be paraded past her, as though taunting her, and Dorian was beginning to be drawn into their circles.
"Chuffrey, don't you see what's happening? Dorian is—Dorian will be--"
"He doesn't mind, so why do you?" Chuffrey muttered. He didn't seem to regard her existence as worthy of even being snapped at. Just a passing mutter of discontent.
She felt her anger boil.
"Dorian is a CHILD, by the Unnamed God, you monster!"
Then one day, her daughters started commenting on it. They were jealous because the handsome young boys were obviously more interested in Dorian than in any of them. "I think it's dirty!"
"Perverted!"
"They're disgusting!"
Glinda pressed her hands over her eyes. Her head was pounding and aching. She wanted to cry and scream and pull her hair and—
And then, Chuffrey had approached her (after not speaking to her for weeks) and told her that he thought Dorian would make a wonderful professional thief. A criminal. She hadn't married into an aristocratic family so that her children would grow up stealing!
"You're not only raising my son to grow up as a pervert, but a THIEF as well!" she shrieked, her eyes wide in horror. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You're mad! Do you hear me, Chuffrey? You're completely insane! You must be insane, otherwise how—how could you be proposing such things!"
Chuffrey had looked at her with contempt. "His ancestor was made an earl by being a thief pirate on the sea! The fact that he has a talent for theft just shows how pure his Gloria lineage is."
She stared at him in disbelief. "Chuffrey…have you completely lost it? This isn't—there aren't any pirates anymore! Look around you, we live in a CASTLE, he doesn't need to be a PETTY THIEF!" she shrieked, forgetting the proper language of her rank that she had trained herself so long to grow accustomed to.
Dorian had heard them. She stared at him hard, trying to understand, but his face looked so strangely distant in that moment, oddly blank. Then he smiled. "It's more fun being a thief, Mother."
"Maybe so, but, oh Dorian, you can't—"
Chuffrey put his arm around his son's shoulders. "He doesn't mind, so why do you? Back off, Glinda."
She felt her hands shaking. "No! No, you can't do this to my son, Chuffrey! He's not going to be some common thief after I worked so hard to make sure my children would be able to grow up in wealth and comfort and splendour—Dorian! Dorian, I'm taking your sisters and we're leaving—we're going some place far, far away from this—this mad man! You come with us, Dorian. Go on, get your things. We're leaving."
But he just smiled at her with that innocent child's smile. "I don't want to leave, mother. I want to stay here. I want to be myself."
"No! Dorian, come with me! You can still be an honest, GOOD citizen! A respectable human being!"
Chuffrey scowled at her. "Just because you have to keep carrying on the whole 'Glinda the Good' act doesn't mean your son has to be some sort of goody-two-shoes saint."
"I don't want my baby to be a CRIMINAL!"
In the end she had given up. She had taken her three daughters and vanished. She had just left him there. Chuffrey had somehow convinced her that everyone would be happiest this way. It was only after she had returned to Gillikin that she realized how truly horrible her mistake had been. And then…how could she go back? What could she say? What could she do to make her son come and live with her in the Red Castle?
"Chuffrey…just…please, keep him away from that horrible, horrible man, Price," those had been the last words she had spoken to her husband, ever.
It had begun just before she had finally taken her daughters and gone. Price, some sort of friend of Chuffrey's, had begun inviting them over to view his art collection on a regular basis. He had a magnificent collection, and of course Dorian, who loved beautiful pieces of artwork, enjoyed seeing the collection. But she didn't like that man one bit. She felt uneasy the entire time they were there. Her skin crawled. She didn't like the way he looked at her son.
She had seen him once, with his arm around her son's little shoulders, saying something that sounded like "I look forward to getting to know you better in the future, Dorian."
It was the first time she'd ever felt something so strong she had no name for it other than to call it maternal instinct. "Dorian, we're leaving, right now!" she hadn't meant to shout it, but the words sort of ripped through her throat in a strangled squeaking yell.
And that pervert had had enough audacity to say: "Why don't you let me show him around a little longer, Lady Gloria? I'll send him home afterward."
She had all-but snarled at him. She didn't think she could mask the look of horror and outrage that crossed her face, and this time she did yell: "Absolutely NOT! We're LEAVING! DORIAN!"
She had felt badly for having yelled in front of Dorian afterwards. They walked home, and she was still so horribly shaken she began saying things maybe she shouldn't have said in his presence, "He always has young men fawning over him! It's disgusting!"
And when Dorian had said confusedly, "But father also—"
She'd almost snapped. Chuffrey using her was the last thing she wanted to hear about at that time.
He'd looked so little and scared from her yelling. She'd felt horrible afterwards, but then came the fights with Chuffrey over thievery and the headaches, and somehow she'd never had a chance to explain to him...
The Present.
Dorian was very quiet by the time she had finished her story. She stood watching, however, and there were genuine tears in her eyes. "Ah. Sorry…I didn't mean to go on forever," she said softly, when a servant arrived with drinks. She took a glass and emptied it in one gulp. "Elphaba always did say I prattled on too much."
"Who was this 'Elphaba' you mention her a lot in your story, too," he asked, although he turned and stared out the window at the trees growing in the garden. The sunlight was filtering through the leaves. He wasn't really concentrating on her answer, his mind still trying to take in the version of events she had told him.
"What? Oh, n—no one, just someone I went to school with long ago. We had a fight over a pair of shoes and haven't spoken to each other since," she laughed, but it was a nervous uneasy laugh, not a jovial one. "We went to Shiz together…"
"Shiz? I've never heard of 'Shiz.' I thought you went to Oxford with Dad?"
She sighed. "I told you, I didn't even come to this world until after I married your father!"
"You really are mad," he shook his head. "Saying all this nonsense about other worlds…well, why should I believe a single word you've just said?"
"Dorian…" she crossed the room in quick little steps, and before he knew it, had captured him in a hug. It had been more than ten years since his mother had hugged him, and he didn't know how he was supposed to respond to the sudden and unexpected show of emotion, so he stood quite still and uncomfortable until she had finished.
There were tears in her blue eyes. "Oh, my darling! I really didn't mean to leave you alone for such a dreadfully long time. You see, I love your sisters very much, but you—you were always the most like me. And I suppose part of the reason I allowed myself to keep getting caught up where I was needed on Oz and avoid coming back was because I was also afraid of that. You see, when I saw you at your father's funeral, I could recognize it right away. You were so much like me at that age and I just couldn't—part of my just couldn't face Galinda again!" she put her hands to her face, and shuddered.
"I've made a terrible mother, and I accept that. You see, it got to the point where I felt I'd already been gone for so long, from your time, that it would be even worse to come back, and so—and so I've been trying to work up the courage to come and see you again!"
This was more than he ever could have expected from her, and he was too dumbfounded to respond at all, at first. "What…what do you mean 'the most like you?' In what sense?"
She laughed, something choked and hysterical, wiping the tears from her eyes and shaking her head. "Oh oh oh, all of it! The frilly costumes, the attitude, the art…oh, by the way, did you know the National Gallery is acquiring some new Rembrandts? Anyways, where was I? Oh yes…"
"Mother…I don't really know what to think of any of this. I mean, you're showing up here after all these years…" (looking like you haven't aged at all and babbling about other worlds!) "But, maybe we should stop this for now." He put a hand to his forehead, he was beginning to feel a little dizzy.
"You really don't believe me, do you? And not just about Oz, about all of it."
He didn't know what to say to that. She didn't have the same bitter expression he remembered being terrified of as a child. She seemed a lot sadder. At that moment, however, their meeting was interrupted by the intrusion of one dark-haired accountant and an exhausted-looking Bonham.
"I'm sorry, My Lord, I told him you were having an important meeting, but he's all excited about some new special sale at the supermarket or something."
"My Lord! We're working thieves! We don't have time for leisurely conversations! You should be out stealing—"the stingy bug stopped suddenly, staring at Lady Gloria with a confused expression. He looked from her, to Dorian, to her again. "Earl…I didn't know you had a sister!"
Dorian suppressed a groan. "James, this is not my sister, this is my mother, Lady Gloria."
By now, Bonham was also staring at her in disbelief. "My, the years sure have been good to, my lady."
"What were you just talking about? A thief?" she turned to Dorian. "No, no! You should be a good, respectable citizen! A charitable philanthropist, like me, Glinda the Good Witch of the North."
"…the Good Witch of the...maybe you should lie down for a while, Mother."
"What's wrong with her?" James whispered confidentially.
"I don't know. She's convinced she's from another planet," Dorian whispered back.
"I hear you whispering!" she shouted indignantly. "Well, I'd appreciate it if you at least didn't discuss this horrible thievery business in my presence!"
"But we have to discuss thievery, or else one of us will slip and tell Lord Gloria that the reason the Major hasn't been taking any missions for NATO lately is that…" the tiny accountant trailed off as Bonham glared at him, looking at Dorian nervously. "Ah he he…nothing."
Dorian raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean 'the reason the Major hasn't been taking any assignments for NATO lately….' You KNOW the reason and you've been keeping it from me?"
"Who is 'the Major?'" Lady Gloria inquired, looking curiously from her son to the obviously flustered James and Bonham and back again.
"Oh…it's complicated, My Lady," Bonham sighed. "Terribly complicated. The truth is, I don't even fully understand it."
"The Major is a terrible, horrible, nasty, EVIL MANIAC!" James screeched. "He's cruel and scary and all he cares about are his machines and his guns and his missions! He's mean and cold and he hates everyone! I was in the hospital because of that horrible jerk!"
"Now, now, James, he's not that bad," Bonham chided.
"Will you all just shut up and tell me what he's doing?" Dorian shouted. "Why have you been keeping it a secret from me?"
"Dorian, don't get so upset…" Glinda said, "I still don't understand what's going on."
"Oh alright, I'll be the one to tell him," Bonham sighed heavily. "My Lord…I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, I truly am, but…the Major's become engaged to some lady from an old German family. Rumour has it the Major's old man was trying to get the two of them together for the past few years, and he finally just gave in. They're getting married next week."
For a long moment, everyone was silent. Bonham, James, and the rest of the Earl's staff who had gathered quietly in the doorways while the argument had risen, all stood deathly quiet, waiting for their lord's response.
Dorian looked blank, for a long moment. "I…I see," he said quietly. He sat down, and his eyes stared forwards although they didn't seem to be looking at anything at all. "I see," he said again.
Glinda stood beside him, she had clasped a hand over her chest. After a moment, Dorian stood and wavered slightly, as though walking in a dream. He moved through the crowd of thieves silently, as though he didn't see them at all, and vanished up the stairs. "He—he loves him, doesn't he? This… 'Major' person?"
It was Bonham who quietly took her aside and, perhaps because he thought as Lord Gloria's mother she had a right to know, or perhaps because now that it was so finally over it couldn't matter anymore if she knew, he told her about how Dorian, under his guise as Eroica, the Famous Art Thief, and Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach of NATO Intelligence had first met, and how they had absolutely hated each other, but then through annoying and frustrating the tightly wound officer Eroica had then fallen in love with him, and chased him all across the globe on many dangerous Intelligence missions, sometimes hindering, sometimes helping, always enjoying the chance, however dangerous, of being with the Major, even though the German continued to hate him and showed nothing but disdain and repulsion for his advances.
Once he had finished, Lady Gloria sat down shakily and took the cup of tea Jones offered to her. "Oh, I see," was all she said for several minutes. "Well then, I suppose we'll have to stop this wedding, won't we Mister Bonham?"
Mister Bonham turned quiet pale, and looked up at Eroica's mother in nothing less than abject terror and astonishment. "Stop Major Eberbach's wedding? You can't possibly be serious! Lady Gloria—?"
Continued in Chapter Two: Something Unearthly