A/N: I'm writing another chapter, between writing a monologue for auditions, memorizing one for Theatre Arts, and researching Marilyn Monroe (don't ask). Also, I'm ignoring the timeline of who Dorothy meets up with when, mainly because, well, I can. Plus I happen to think L. Frank Baum was an unreliable narrator, and his version of events not entirely logical (I mean, how dumb is Dorothy? "Kill the Wicked Witch." "Why?" "Because, she's wicked because I say so.") Yeah. So what, Mr. Wizard? You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we care what you think.
Disclaimer: sobs It's not mine! Waaaah!
I run through the forests of the night, a green nimble shadow clothed in black among countless other such shadows; among trees and bushes, green is predominant, and they are clothed in Night. As a child running rather wild, although none at home cared, through the forests of Munchkinland, I loved the aloneness of it. It was just me, Elphaba, and unsure of just who that was all alone. When I wasn't the "other daughter" of the governor of Munchkinland, not the sister of poor dear "tragically beautiful" Nessarose, not the girl whose mother was dead and whose sister was broken and whose fault it was, not the "freak" or "elf" or "weird green girl," not defined in terms of others or in others' terms for me, just Elphaba, alone, who was smart and sarcastic and self-reliant, and maybe just a little bit beautiful, in her way, beautiful in the way of strange flowers and exotic creatures, but it didn't even matter because so far off the country's lone road there was no one to see me but me. And I loved that.
But now, now I had gotten my fill of aloneness for three long years, and now I was full with, yet ever thirsting for, the waterfall of touch and of love and of togetherness I had just discovered, where I was not defined in terms of others or in others' terms from me but one, and that was Elphaba, who is loved truly and forever by Fiyero, and for him it is the same, no longer a prince or a slacker or Glinda's fiancé but only Fiyero, who is loved truly and forever by Elphaba. Or, you know, instead you could just say "Elphaba's husband," and "Fiyero's wife." That worked too.
So I ran, an ache starting in my legs but the good kind of ache you got from running far and fast, just a few feet off the Yellow Brick Road, nearly to Munchkinland, where mother and father and now was it to be Nessa too, lying cold and dead, when I saw them.
An odd duo they make, Boq in his new state and a girl I have never before seen. Instinctively, I duck behind a tree. The last time Boq saw me, he was none too pleased, and that was before the combined powers of the Thropp sisters, albeit accidentally, turned him into a heartless man of tin. As for the girl, well, she looks ordinary enough, dark brown hair in ridiculous pigtails, a blue and white dress with odd, puffy sleeves, sleeves like Glinda might wear if she ever visited a farm, along with a hoopskirt- designer pig slopping, I think, and barely resist the impulse to laugh. But then I catch sight of her eyes. Dark brown and fathomless, they hold as much pain as, well- mine. And maybe she sees me, maybe she doesn't, but whoever she is, whatever she's been through, she keeps going. And so do I.
After they are gone, I start sprinting, for I am only a few moments away. I take the shortcut, veering away from the road, and within seconds, catch sight of the house I saw in my vision…atop a pair of stick-thin, atrophied legs culminating in feet in the same kind of stockings she's worn since she was five and in love with stripes of all kinds, because she wanted to be a zebra when she grew up.
Nessie.