A/N: Hey all. I was seriously bored today, so this story kind of wrote itself. I had no plan as to where it would go when I started, and it turned out super differently than I thought. The characters took over, lol. Enjoy! Btw, I don't have a Beta, so sorry if there are mistakes =/ Book-Musicalverse
Disclaimer: All of the characters belong to the wonderful authors of The Wizard of Oz and Wicked respectively. I'm just bastardising them.
Pairing: Subtextual Gelphie.
With Glitter on Her Stockinged Feet
Glinda the Good didn't know what had made her come. For years she had kept her feelings locked away- Nessa was just another part of Shiz life that had to be forgotten when Glinda moved into her position of power. Marrying her brute of a husband had given her wealth, power and the kind of social life she had only ever dreamed of. Glinda moved in the circles of the greatest Ozians Oz had to offer- in fact she led these groups herself. The personification of Goodness... Glinda laughed bitterly. Glinda was just about as Good as the Wizard was Wonderful. How very blind she had been. No amount of champagne, or jewels, or extravagant parties could ever make up for what she had sacrificed- and none of these things could fill the space in Glinda's soul that had been created on that awful day in the Emerald City. But she diggressed. Today she mourned for Nessarose- her sister may have stolen every other consious minute of Glinda's mind, but today the late invalid would demand Her Goodness's attention.
A house. Wooden plated, bare, with a dingy window hung with a sad plaid curtain. How could something so unremarkable be the cause of this extrodinary tragedy? It reared in the middle of nowhere- as out of place as a Quadling in Gillikin. And there, popping out just alongside the peeling red door, were a pair of stockinged legs. Glinda took a sharp intake of breath, disgustified. The scene would have been comic to an ignorant onlooker- the shocking paradox of bright colours and absurdity with the terrible weight of grief and the tangible presense of death.
Ding dong! The Witch is dead!
She mourned alone, however, and secretly. Her charade was built on years of pretending, and she had blurred the line of her own reality so thouroughly that she barely understood what she believed anymore. Was it pain she felt for Nessarose's passing? Did she mourn the Wicked Witch of the East, or did she mourn the final passing of a relationship Glinda knew was long dead?
They crowded around her now. Grubby, violence-crazed faces, leering at her with the dangerous combination of obsession and lust. A brave, extrodinarily stupid boy stepped out from the crowd.
"Your Goodness!" he cried, and Glinda thought she heard a patronising note in the ugly one's voice. She looked down at his face in response, and decided he was too stupid to understand what patronise meant.
"Is the Tyrant dead?"
Glinda looked pointedly at Nessa's protruding limbs.
"Indeed, brave Son of Oz." she nodded, plastering a smile on her made up face. "The Witch of the East is passed."
The crowd, having held their breath as one while Glinda spoke, erupted into loud clapping, jeering and cat-calling. A few of the more brutish men took the opportunity to pick fights. Glinda fought to keep her composure- eccentric as Nessa had always been, she had ten times the grace and intelligence and compassion of this group of people put together. Was this the future of Oz? She watched them stomp their feet and beat their chests- bloodthirsty, animalistic antics that would shame the most rural Animal. This thought brought her to Dr. Dillamond and his research- so their really was no difference between humans and Animals. Sweet Oz, there was no difference between humans and animals!
"Yes, yes," she tinkled, raising her arms for quiet, "This truly is a celebratory time. Let us be glad, let us be grateful. Let us rejoicify that Wickedness has met its timely end- and let us remember who has aided in that act."
"Goodness!" squealed a little girl near the front, the word whistled out through the immense gap in her front teeth.
"The Wizard!" barked a beefy man leering over a
pitchfork.
"And Glinda!" they coroused like sheep.
"All that is true, dear Ozians. Goodness is indeed the route of all things that bring Happiness. But I was reffering to whom this house belongs. Does anyone know the name and face of our kind saviour?"
A small path opened in the thick crowd at Glinda's words, and out stepped an unremarkable girl who was clinging to an ugly little dog.
"Come forward, child, and let me look at you."
The first thing Glinda noticed about the girl was her attire. Changed though she may be, Glinda had never lost her flair for glitter and the gay. Living as the model-woman of Oz, an airheaded bauble who stunned the crowds with her beauty and quirks, it was natural for Glinda to absorb herself in the superficial- it was what was expected of her. She thought again of Elphaba, and how she would laugh at how Glinda formed an unfavourable opinion of this girl simply because her frock lacked an acceptable amount of sequins.
"If you please, Miss, could you tell me where I am?"
The girl's voice surprised Glinda. It was not gruff as she had expected, and there was a strange accent to her voice- a homely, endearing quality that summoned up a maternal instinct in Glinda that she had not known existed.
"Why child, you are in Oz of course!" Glinda spoke in a high voice, hoping to convey an authority that she felt was threatened in this foreign girl's presense. Already half the crowd had abandoned staring at Glinda and leered instead at the newcomer.
The girl looked confusified.
"Oz?" she repeated. "In which State does that lie?"
Glinda felt out of her depth, but kept the uncertainty out of her voice as she replied.
"Why, a state of happiness and relative peace, child. After all, we are ruled by our most Wonderful Wizard."
The non-sensical, textbook answers that Glinda had sprouted for years seemed, for once, unsatisfactory. The girl, however, nodded as though she understood.
"Uncle has spoken favourably of Washington. That is where I must be."
Glinda felt desperate. She had never heard of this "Washing-tun" before, and it would not do to be outsmarted in front of her adoring public, lest they realise that she was not really such a viable object for adoration. She needed to perform an immediete act of Goodness- or that which appeared Good, at any rate. Her eyes fell upon dear Nessarose's legs, and a bright twinkle caught her eye. The shoes! Glinda knew the speculation and outuendo surrounding the sparkly heels- they were magic! Possesed! Enchantafied! The Witch's main source of power! Silly rumour, of course, but Glinda had long since learned that public opinion was much more powerful than a pesky objection like logic. The people said that the shoes were magic, therefore they were. The same applied to Wickedness, Glinda thought before she could halt herself. She was back with Elphaba. Would the woman never cease to plauge her thoughts?
Glinda floated magestically over to the side of the recently airbourn property, and stooped down to remove Nessa's shoes.
"I'm so very sorry, Nessa." The patron of Goodness whispered quietly to her late friend as she slipped the pumps off Nessarose's delicate feet and straightened up to stun the audience with another of her dazzling smiles. A few of the more weak hearted young men (and a few women, it must be said) gasped aloud at her unbearable beauty. Glinda turned, partially satisfied, to the girl.
"Closer, my dear. Before I instruct you, I would be very pleased to have the pleasure of knowing your name."
Glinda wondered that the girl didn't melt from so much poorly concieved sugar-coating.
"Dorothy. And this here's my little dog, Toto."
"Dorothy and Dodo. How utterly charming." The Good Witch smiled through her teeth. "I am Glinda, the Witch of the North."
Dorthothy squirmed uncomfortably, and Glinda saw with satisfaction a tremble pass the foreigners lips.
"You're a Witch?" she mumbled, her eyes firmly on the ground, her arms holding onto the ridiculous dog (or it could be Dog, the Elphaba in Glinda's head argued).
Glinda laughed, and the sound was like a thousand wind chimes tinkling gently in a summer breeze.
"Do not fear me, child. I should have explained more clearly. I am Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. You have provided Oz a great service today, ridding us of a force of Evil and Wickedness that had plauged Munchkinland for many decades. You and your wonderful Dodo have killed the Wicked Witch of the East."
The crowd erupted again, and began their annoying little jingle about dings and dongs again. Glinda would never understand commoners. Dorothy, on the other hand, looked horrified.
"Killed? Oh dear no! Toto and I would never have done such an awful thing! We never meant to fly the house into this woman- Wicked or not, it was an awful thing to do!"
The girl had coloured, realising what she had done, and more than that, she seemed shocked that they were celebrating her for it. Glinda rolled her eyes. She had no patience for optimists. She needed to get rid of this girl quickly.
She thrust forward Nessa's beautiful red shoes, and closed her free hand over Dorothy's.
"Take these, child. You will need them on your journey."
The crowd gasped as one.
"The Witch's magic shoes!" one shouted brainlessly.
Dorothy stared at the breathtaking shoes in awe. For once, however, she didn't seem to object to Glinda's Goodness. She took the shoes wordlessly.
"Journey? Where am I to go? All I want is to go back to Kansas."
Cans Ass. What a strange name for a place, thought Glinda.
"Wear the shoes Dorothy. As one of our wize Ozians so rightly said, these were indeed the late Witch's shoes. They will protect you as you travel across Oz, to see the Wizard."
More gasping from the inexasperable crowd.
"A Wizard! Golly!"
Dorothy was obviously not the smartest sequin in the box. She reminded Glinda faintly of Fiyero.
"Not A Wizard, child. The Wizard. He is divine ruler of Oz- the most knowlegable being in all of Oz. You say you wish to return to your Cans Ass. Take these shoes to the Emerald City, where His Empress resides, and show them to him. When he sees the good deed you have done for Oz by killing the hated Witch, he is sure to grant you passage back. Follow the Yellow Brick Road, it leads all the way to the Emerald City. You cannot get lost, for there is only one path, after all."
Glinda laughed with the crowd, but at the same time realised that if the girl was anything like Fiyero, she could probably lose her way regardless. It was not her business, however. What did she care about some little murderer who flew in from a rudely named and obviously foreign country?
"Thank you, Your Goodness." Dorothy still looked uncertain, but Glinda felt she had done enough for the situation, and wished nothing better than to return to the solitude of her bubble and lose herself once again in thoughts of self-pity and Elphaba.
She floated away smilingly, waving her tiny hands jovially and tinkering "Just follow the Yellow Brick Road!" over and over as she disappeared, the crowd harmonising with her in corouses of "Oh, she's just too GOOD!". Soon Glinda was back in the clouds, her face already drooped and tears streaming down her tragically beautiful face. Dorothy was already forgotten- she thought now of Nessa.
And as always, she returned to her constant contemplation of the other Wicked Witch.
***
Fin
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