"You're green?!" Mal hadn't meant to let the words slip out of her mouth so easily, but for a split and uncharacteristic second, her inhibitions left her. Only half a second later, though, she slapped a hand over her mouth, partially concealing an embarrassed blush. The woman she had addressed, however, did not seem at all offended. Instead, she only scoffed.
"How very astute of you," she deadpanned. "You know your basic colors. I am sure you must be so proud."
Her curt tone and snide words were sharp enough to rouse Mal out of her embarrassed stupor and it brought back some of her old Isle venom.
"You have a lot of nerve to insult and judge someone you just met so rudely," she growled at the older woman.
"Well, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?... Or, green?" came the dry reply, followed by a smirk. This time, though, Mal stood firm.
"I never mocked or assumed your intelligence," she replied, crossing her arms.
"But you did still react harshly to someone who looked outlandish compared to yourself," the green woman replied with a shrug, unbothered by Mal's implicit accusation. "You aren't exactly the most normal-looking yourself," she added as she gestured to Mal's purple hair.
That brought Mal back down a level as she reflexively reached up to touch the purple locks.
"Genetics," she mumbled embarrassedly. The green woman only gave Mal a knowing smile as if to say, "And what do you think caused me?" This was enough to bring Mal down even further and she took a deep breath, attempting to start over. She didn't know why, but she'd been increasingly antsy and irritable of late and she knew that it wasn't good form of her. A future queen was supposed to remain as calm, dignified, respectful and objective as possible. There was never any excuse to lash out or become rude, crass or defensive. So for her to mistreat this green stranger merely because she was feeling upset over something else was absolutely inappropriate. It was not the person she wanted to be.
"I'm sorry," she said, looking the green woman right in the eyes. "I reacted rudely and I acknowledge that. Now, I would like to ask your forgiveness for my rash behavior. May we start over? My name is Mal," her face went from formal and polite to warm and welcoming as she extended a hand to the green woman. In the back of her mind, she was silently congratulating herself on what she considered to be a successful recovery. A good apology and an offer of peace. That's how a true queen was supposed to wield her power!
But the green woman, again, did not react as expected. Instead, she recoiled. She gave Mal an almost horrified look and, for a split second, Mal felt terror born of shame and worry roil again in her stomach. But before she could speak, the green woman opened her mouth.
"Forgive? How can you ask me to forgive? How can I possibly…? How do I have the power to…?" she continued to speak in staggered, broken sentences, like someone lost far, far away in their own little world. She rambled softly about forgiveness and, at first, Mal worried that she had somehow been so offensive that this green woman would not accept her apology. But after listening to the green woman sputter in disbelief, hushed and confused, Mal began to realize that maybe there was something more going on under the surface…
"I am sorry," Mal apologized again, gently retracting her hand. "I can see that I have managed to upset you once more…" for a moment, nothing was said between the two, the green woman still gazing into another world while Mal could only berate herself. "It seems to be a family curse of mine," she finally muttered, if only to fill the silence between the two of them. "I have the most unfortunate luck of driving away almost anyone I meet. Precious few can tolerate my appearance and even fewer can tolerate my temperament and horrible social skills…"
Once again, a small voice in Mal's head could not fathom why she was being so open to a stranger, let alone using her as an info-dump for all of her personal problems, but for once, this seemed to have been the right choice. At Mal's mention of an awkward past and a bad habit of accidentally offending, the green woman was brought back to the present and, once again, her eyes widened, only this time, they were filled with… wonder? … Kinship, even? Whatever it was, the horror was no longer there and, for that, Mal was grateful.
A few more seconds of silence passed between the two of them as Mal let the green woman study her freely.
"I… ummm… like I… said… My name is Mal," Mal finally offered softly. She was finally rewarded with a name.
"And I'm Elphaba. Elphaba Thropp," then the green woman gave her something almost like a smile and extended her hand…
It was during the rest of their conversation that Mal finally realized she was dreaming. Perhaps it should've been obvious sooner, the biggest giveaway being the fact that their entire world was pitch black. Just endless darkness. But dreams had a weird way of altering the human mind and making that which would normally stand out become unnoticeably plain. Dreams had a weird way of altering the human mind and making them act out in ways they would never show in the waking world, but it would all feel perfectly natural.
Perhaps this explained Mal's first outburst which caused this entire chat to start. Perhaps it explained Mal self-disclosing to a stranger. Perhaps it explained the stranger panicking at the mention of forgiveness, despite giving off an aura of stoicism and mystery. All these things they normally would never do became manifest in the world of dreams and neither of them would realize the peculiarity of it until much later.
It was during the time where they were trading stories that Mal realized that she must've been dreaming. They had been walking through this endless blackness, which looked vaguely looked like a moonless, starless forest at nighttime, for the entire chat and hadn't once stopped to comment or wonder where they were. Instead, it felt… right. But when Mal finally did notice, although she felt no alarm, it finally became a bit clearer to her where she was. She was asleep. And this black forest was no more than the place where her mind decided to deposit her.
She couldn't help but wonder, then, if this green lady was but a manifestation of her own psyche. Was this other lady really real? Or just another piece of Mal trying to sort itself out in her fractured mind? Or maybe this was indeed some other witch from a whole new world who had managed to reach Mal via dreams. Stranger things had happened to the Daughter of the Dragon. Dreams and sleep were hardly foreign to her story.
"I've been thinking," Mal finally said. Elphaba raised an eyebrow and smirked, as if trying to restrain herself from another witty insult. "I think I know what part of my problem is. I mean, I've always known, but it's starting to sort itself out, rather than just sitting all tangled, you know?"
"Do tell," came the mildly-interested reply.
"You see, like I've told you before, I am about to become queen," Mal took a deep breath, another rush of anxiety accompanying those words. "But I'm second-guessing myself. It's not just that I think that I'm not qualified for the job. I don't even know if I want it anymore!"
"Mmm. Fancy titles were never really my thing either," Elphaba shrugged. She had vaguely mentioned some distant "royal lineage" of her own. It was a title they did not have in Auradon, an Eminence, but Mal didn't need to know the specifics to understand.
"I, unfortunately, do not have the luxury of simply refusing my title," Mal replied, a hint of envy in her voice.
"You could always choose not to marry your prince," Elphaba replied with another shrug.
"Not to marry Ben?!" one would've thought Elphaba had asked Mal to kill Ben from her reaction.
"Well it doesn't seem like you love him anyway," Elphaba replied, with that same disquieting frankness she'd always had.
"Don't love him?" Mal again parroted, eyes bugging as she struggled to find something else to say.
"In the past 20 minutes, you've spent more time talking about yourself and your friends from the Isle than you have about Ben," Elphaba said.
"Well that- that's- that's got nothing to do with it!" Mal felt her face burning red again.
"Are we sure?" Elphaba almost smirked at her, amused by the red tint to Mal's face.
For a time, Mal sputtered and stuttered, unable to think of anything else to say to Elphaba. Half of her was furious that the green witch would treat such a serious, delicate, personal matter so flippantly. The other half of her was furious because it was true. Mal had indeed spent more time talking about Evie, Jay and Carlos than she had about Ben. And even after the time Ben should've entered the story, he was still one of the names she mentioned the least. Everything she said about him was good, but the fact that she could not cull up much more than a few compliments or cheesy love stories was exactly what Elphaba had taken note of and Mal hated her for it.
If she really is just a manifestation of my subconsciousness, Mal thought to herself, I hope I never lose myself to my subconscious desires ever again! Meanwhile, Elphaba only continued to walk silently by Mal's side, through this shady outline of a forest. There really was no reason for them to keep walking, but it felt right.
"Don't you worry," Elphaba said at last, voice softening for the first time since they'd met. "Our stories may have yet to find all their similarities." Then it was Elphaba's turn to talk about a failed romance with a prince.
Hers was named Fiyero, and unlike Ben, he hadn't always been very kind to the girl he almost made his princess. But that was one of the few differences. After the romance started, the story of Elphaba and Fiyero mirrored Mal and Ben's and did not diverge until the end.
"He… or rather, I… fell out of love," Elphaba admitted painfully, guilt rising up across her emerald face once more. "I still cared for him deeply, but not in a way that I understood. I think I misconstrued it as romance. After all, what else was I supposed to do? I was desperately lonely and had never truly been loved quite like that before. I think all of us who grew up unloved have the tendency to latch onto the first signs of affection and never let go, sinking our claws and teeth into that love deeper than we perhaps should.
"That is, of course, not to say my love for him was ingenuine. But perhaps the type of love, I got wrong. It only happened after… an accident…" Elphaba swallowed and Mal looked away politely, staring at the black branches spiraling above their heads. But after a moment, Elphaba continued. "Of course I consider it the biggest mistake of my life and have been seeking forgiveness ever since, and yet, I don't know how to love him. I still don't love him. Not in the way I should, nor in the way I thought I did. I don't love him the way I promised. So do you think that's it, then? That I was so desperate for love I ran away with the first one to ever show it to me?"
She met Mal's eyes and Mal felt as if she were looking into Evie's mirror, the reflection had never been clearer.
"I don't know," Mal finally admitted.
"I just want to know why," Elphaba whispered softly, bitterness in her eyes. "Why did they raise me like this? Why can't I understand? Why did that have to happen? And to him, no less? And why have I received no answers?"
"I don't know," Mal repeated helplessly, feeling her heart twinge in regret at Elphaba's distress. She could sense that there was something else Elphaba was holding back, another unasked and unanswered question, but she refused to spill and Mal couldn't bring herself to pry. Instead, she could only observe and ponder. There was something more to this story that Elphaba wasn't telling.
Perhaps there was another name? Another face? Another heart? For what made Elphaba so certain that her love for Fiyero had been of the wrong variety? Was there someone else whom she loved even more? Someone else whom she had first ignorantly cast aside, only to come to regret now many years later? Who was it that she wanted to go running back to? Who was it that she had changed her mind about? And was there someone in Mal's life who was much the same? Was there someone she'd missed and was now missing, even if her heart did not yet know it? If this was the subconscious, perhaps a forest was fitting because of all the dark and twisted branches, with a moon that offered nearly no light.
And yet still, Elphaba and Mal walked. Their conversations ebbed and flowed all throughout the night, of titles and trials and treaties and triumphs. They talked of princes, parties and proposals. Of feelings, fears, failures and flights. While Elphaba spoke of forgiveness, and trying to understand the love she had so devastatingly misidentified, Mal sought promise, trying to understand the love she was still so confused in seeking.
It was the past and future colliding in the present, one looking behind to a murky history while the other peered ahead to a hazy future. The young witch and the old one, both isolated and marked, different and destined, but neither of them feeling ready for it. They both sought answers and understanding, but neither of them found any. They stood back to back, staring ahead and behind, searching but fruitless. This time, magic was of no use. These were answers they needed to find in the subconscious. No amount of outside power could save them. The problems, doubts and worries they were facing had to be faced alone and inside. But as both of them were well aware, the subconscious did not like to give up answers. Instead, the duo could only wander and wonder.
But even through all the uncertainty and strangeness, their newfound… friendship acted as something of an anchor, to some extent. Even if they were unable to give one another answers, they were able to give one another comfort, even if in a vague and distant sort of way. So that was why they continued to walk, and walk together. They had to keep moving forward and even if they were going in circles, at least they had one another for the company. They were both so eerily similar that neither of them wished to depart from the other. So in silent, mutual agreement, they decided that until an outside force woke them up, they would stay together and they would continue to walk the endless dreamland side by side.
AN: elphiegranger2508, sorry that took longer than the 12 hours I promised, I got distracted, but I hope you liked it nonetheless!