A/N: I'm sure that you must know how it upsets me to see you not reviewing, little ones, so I doubt that I need to say it again.
Disclaimer: Although GregMag left little green high and dry, she is still not mine for the claiming.
She was having trouble concentrating. Not that she really needed much concentration reading old Ozian plays from the Wizard's reign (so simple, honestly), but not a word of it was getting through to her tonight. The weather was too nice.
Lena set aside her book and laid back upon the parapet, gazing up at the sky. The sun was setting behind a small hill of clouds that looked like foam on fresh coffee, but with sun poured in. Birds were chirping shrilly.
A slight breeze blew through the trees below and up around her arms. She shivered and turned onto her stomach, hoping to take in some of the warmth from the stone. A small wagon was trudging dutifully toward the mauntery gates, and Lena stared at it for a moment before shivering again and slipping down the stairs.
Maunts shot quick smiles her way as they hurried past her in the hall, late already for their nightly devotions. She smiled back, feeling lost.
She reached a tall pair of wooden doors and raised curled fingers to knock upon it when she heard the tap of footsteps approaching from the other side. She waited, listening. The door handle clicked repeatedly, accompanied with quiet murmurs and sighs of aggravation.
"Mother," Lena said, giggling as she reached for the handle and flicked it open with ease. "Are you ever going to get the doors right?"
Glinda beamed broadly at Lena and pulled her into the doorway in a hug. "The doors hate me," she mumbled into Lena's dark hair.
"Of course they do." She pulled out of the hug. "And so will the guests if you don't go to greet them."
"Oh!" Glinda cried, glancing over her shoulder to the window. "Nighttime already!"
She pulled her skirts close to her body to squeeze past Lena and out into the hallway. "Do wait here, won't you?" she offered, hurrying away without waiting for a response.
"Yes. Of course I will." Lena shut the door, wandered into the room. "No problem. No problem whatsoever." She lit a candle to keep out the darkness. It flickered in and out of view along the walls and floor.
She sighed. She could hardly remember the last time she'd been allowed to see people other than the maunts. It had been even longer since she'd actually been allowed to meet them. She smiled unconsciously to herself and rubbed her hands together lightly. She didn't think she would ever forget her only trip outside the mauntery walls, the buildings high as trees and just as green, people hurrying past, hundreds, thousands, numbers that before had been concepts but which she would now always attribute to masses. More people than she'd ever seen in the mauntery before, staying, coming, going. More than she imagined had ever gone to the mauntery before or would ever go again. So many of them, all dodging past her to their different lives.
She remembered wanting to remove the veil from her window to better see out onto the street. Remembered her mother's strict refusal as she twisted her hands in the skirt in her lap, glancing constantly at the thin carriage wall behind the driver's hunched back. "Not now, Leenie. Later, perhaps."
But there was no later. She'd never gone back to the city again, never really seen anyone new again. Except through the window into the sitting room from the high round tower across the courtyard. And none of those people had the same look, the same petticoats and gleaming gold watches clipped to their shirts. None of them were clouded with hurry, clothed with time.
It seemed almost like a dream now. She was past the habit of sneaking to the tower at night, listening carefully for the closing hymn sounding from the courtyard as she leaned precariously from the tower window toward the far-away gleam of the sitting room, straining to see, straining for more disappointment. She didn't want to be disappointed again.
A noise at the door startled her, and she turned sharply toward it from her ruminations. Someone could be heard struggling roughly with the doorknob and muttering wishes of evil upon it.
Lena laughed aloud and stood to let Glinda in just as the door banged upon and the woman tumbled with it, nearly falling.
"Whoa!" the two cried in unison, Lena rushing to Glinda as Glinda balanced herself with the door handle to which she was still clinging. Glinda straightened, a haughty expression on her face. Lena, feet away from her, laughed. "It's not so hard," she assured her, grabbing her by the hand and leading her into the room. "Just try flicking the latch before you push on the door, yeah?"
"Right," she said, characteristically throwing in a complaint under her breath, some comment on the unnecessary strength of the bedroom doors.
"Mom." Lena giggled, returning to the bed. "The mauntery was built for safety, you know."
Glinda looked up from the shoes that she had been in the midst of unbuckling and raised one eyebrow at her daughter in an I'm-not-as-dumb-as-you-think-I-am look. "I do know my fair share about this mauntery by now, I should hope." Despite the careful smile, the casual movements, Lena could tell that something she'd said had hurt her mother's feelings.
"I… of course you do." Glinda had returned to her shoes. "How were the… uh, the guests?"
"Exhausting," Glinda announced, pulling off her shoes at last and letting them fall to the floor. "About like you."
"Oh, but they're just trying to match your efforts." Lena pulled off her own flats and tossed them against the wall.
"Oh, you." Glinda pushed her into the pillows, where she lay unmoving, gazing at her mother with a calculating look upon her face. "What?" Glinda asked.
"Just making sure that you're okay."
"Fine!" Glinda piped. Lena didn't avert her eyes. "Really," she added, more serious. "I'm just tired, is all." She sighed, as if to prove her point. "And I miss you. And I'm sorry that I'm not here for you as often as I should be."
Lena sat up. "Don't say that. You're here as much as you can be, and I don't expect anything more." She paused. "Or anything less."
Glinda smiled weakly. "I love you."
Lena put on a reassuring smile. "I love you, too. I couldn't ask for anything more."
Glinda smiled even more broadly.
"What?"
"You just… you remind me of her sometimes, is all."
Lena glanced, impulsively, at the door. They were never to speak of the Witch of the West.
Glinda looked there, too, then looked down at the coverlet. "I just miss her," she said quietly. Neither spoke. Glinda attempted to swallow the uneasy silence. " But I have you," she added, brightening. "I could never want anything more."
Lena pulled her into a hug across the small mountain of pillows between them. "You know that I—"
There was a loud knock upon the door, and Lena faltered. "Lady Glinda?" the intruder offered.