My GOD! This took me WAAAAY too long to finish...and I'm not totally happy with the ending. I'll be the first to say- I'm Sorrysorrysorry! Let's just explain it this way- Front of House. School Musical. TAKES OVER LIVES!
Alright then...
One thing, I should add...I had a beta reader...so I'd like to thank yummycherrygum in advance...for listening to me non stop...bugging him at everything from parties to early-morning emails for helping me with this.(I MAY look for another opinion on some stuff...when I get there...but basically...he's my main talk-to person right now.) But, saying that...really not sure about the abrupt ending of this chapter...it's just that...I'd want to get back to Fiyero and Elphaba in the next chapter...but needed to let y'all know what was happening with our other Witch of Oz. Oh...and the title is indefinately subject to change...I'm trying to keep with a theme Idea I have...and this one didn't work as well as the other ones I have planned.
Lastly...in favour of Faba's suggestion...this story for the time being is T...depends if I want to go...darker...still contemplating...but most likely...will stay T.
Disclaimer: Don't Own it. Never have...Same Ol', Same Ol'.
Chapter 1 -
In Which Glinda Has a Moral Dilemma
One had to admit, even if it's walls were not the splendored green so many were tricked into believing, even if the Emerald City was nothing by a towering metropolis of white sloping granite buildings and crudely paved ghetto streets, where every shop and private home sported bottle-glass windows, it was a opposing spot to see. A blemish on the sloping countrysides, it was indefinitely the most glamoured crossroads in any Country. From the tallest balconies, one could see in all four directions of Oz- most predominately the now winter-barren farmlands of Munchkinland, and the bare forest before them.
In the cold, snowy mornings that always seemed to accompany the months Proceeding and Ascending Lurlinemas Eve, a lone person stood out on perhaps the tallest balcony of the entire city. An absurdly small, frail looking figure, though by no stretch of the imagination was this any sort of stereotypical damsel in distress. Perhaps at one point Glinda had filled that roll, but now, it was a highly unsuitable title for one who ran the expansive Land of Oz.
The sun had yet to peek it's way up over the hills to the east, so she was lit from the candles and gas-fueled lanterns ablaze in the room behind her. Around her shoulders a overly large and, of course, passionate pink housecoat wrapped firmly around her already shivering frame. Even in her just awoken state, one could see the beauty of the petite blonde: bouncing curls, mussed by sleep, framing her full heart-shaped face just so, the chill bringing color to her cheeks, and bringing tears to her blue eyes so they shawn with watery gleam. There was a grown-up, solid sense, even dressed as ethereal as in the frock she'd warn to bed, frilled and laced yet conceived as modest attire to the fashion-driven woman, that perhaps gave her linkage to the role she had been filling for the past few months. It was not very hard to believe that the stately Glinda ruled, literally, over everything she could see and more in the dimmed light of the pre-dawn morning.
It could be, and was, overwhelming.
Six months. In fact, it was six months, two weeks, and three days since Glinda had been thrust from Spokeswoman of the Wizard to Ruler of Oz. Six months, two weeks, and two days since she'd actually been able to have a day to herself, and day in which there would be no documents to sign, no debates to attend, no parties to grace with her presence. It was a blessing, for it was a day even a socialite like her dreamed of every once and a while. Yet, it was a curse, for she had no idea whatsoever what she was going to do with it.
Shopping was always a suitable fall-upon choice...but now that everyone immediately looked to her the minute she stepped onto the street, it was usually more stressful than it was worth. Strolling the gardens wasn't that promising either, as all the plant life would be dead after facing the past week's frost, the ornamental pond frozen over, and the swans and ducks that swam those ponds tucked securely into their nesting boxes.
Her parents, she knew, were busy with their own preparations- as they would be entertaining guests at their Gillikin Manor house, while Glinda herself would be spending the holidays celebrating with the citizens of the Emerald City. It would be impolite to bother them with not so much as a day's notices, and impoliteness was very much not Glinda's style.
But what could she do, then? Spending the entire day locked into her room like some cloistered Bird was perhaps the most unappitizing. But she could no longer dwell on these thoughts- as a muted knocked from inside her chambers alerted her to the arrival with one of the serving girls bringing up her early breakfast. Before shutting the great, freezing glass doors behind her, she sighed, and took one last glance at the grey, sky which was just beginning to lighten in the farthest part of the East. She used to so enjoy sleeping in...
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Breakfast was simple, and so finished quickly. As was the daily task of primping herself into the meticulous, addressable state in which she always faced the day; once a hour-long task, now shortened with the help of five or so Maidservants who painted and plucked and re-curled every ounce of curl and ruffle, her gaze wander out towards the wide balcony windows as she was fussed over, noticing that the spare snowfall of earlier had turned into a great, downy flurry of flakes. It was after this that Glinda found herself helping to oversea a decorating process outside in the hallway of her rooms; watching as wreaths and garlands and tiny, winking candles inside carefully formed glass orbs were strung up in the sake of being festive. Not that she actually hung them herself- she had not decorated for Lurlinemas since she was a child. Bows and ribbons and shining slivers of every sparkling, glittering tools imaginable were twirled and draped from banisters and light fixtures, until the entire barren stone walkway was transformed into a successfully cheery Card worthy picture.
"This'll be the best'un in years, won't it, Ghamora?" Glinda's attention was momentarily drawn to a cheerful, drawling Munchkin footman, who was aiding one of the Scullery girls in placing a gold-shimmering glass icicle on a lower stand of the upper stairwell. " What with not having to worry about that Witch and all. Last year nobody dared celebrate openly at all- but just look outside; it's right full of holiday, as it should be!"
"Certainly, Finneon- I can't wait to return home myself. Ma's been boasting of how our entire town's lit up the entire house like a flame; I haven't heard her so cheery about anything in years..."
Glinda stopped listening, becoming instead overly interested in a porcelain dancing girl who was dangling from a string of holly, as if wondering if it were slightly off center. Her mind, however, was far away from dancing girls or holiday celebrations where peoples houses' lit up like they were on fire. Her mind was, in fact, on the so carelessly named Witch. And the feeling that she tried to stuff down every day to the very tips of her being so she didn't break down and cry like the childish thing she had been. Now, though, as all this festive ringing around her, she couldn't help but realise how very different this year would be, not just in matter of decorations, and in a decisively un-good way.
She couldn't even hope that Elphaba was having a good holiday somewhere.
Elphaba was dead.
She hated that word, that thought. Dead. Death. Died. Those words sounded so final. Carved in literal stone. Expired was not much better, and No longer amongst the living was just odd. Those words cheated her, for every way her mind tried to squirm around them, forget them, they came popping back up like some obscene toy. Dead. Death. Died.
Silently, she slipped down the hall, stopping here and there to yet again make as if she were admiring something, even pulling a few bows needlessly straighter. She didn't listen in on anyone's conversations anymore.
Dead. She's Dead. Died. She died. Death. Glinda'd done nothing to stop her death.
As those thoughts kept playing through her head, Glinda failed to realise a change in the hall. Few and fewer people were hanging up decorations, dust was collecting heavy and more visible layers. By the time she did look up, she only partially realised where she was, but did not actually seem to care.
When the Wizard had been dispelled with, secretly, her orders, the parts of the castle he had occupied had remained vacant. In the beginning, a few people had come and tried to leave items there, as some totally absurd monument to a man Glinda did no care what happen to. The rooms were shut up, and eventually, the visitors trickled to a stop. As only half of the palace was in use, the other had grown neglected- not so much as to me dirlect, but enough that it was in desperate need of a cleaning. It basically upset people to go there, only serving to make the Ozians dwell on the Wonderful Wizard who was now lost to them.
"Oh.."Glinda muttered to herself, picked at the top of her dress to keep the hem from dragging on the dirty ground. Busily fixed on cleaning away the evidence of her stroll to the neglected end of the palace, she only caught the first movement of something before her from the corner of her vision.
But it was enough. She looked up.
Nothing.
That's what it had to be- nothing. Her mind was playing tricks on her, as she thought of ghosts from her not so distant past, they made her see things in the present. She had bee overworked, today, she should use this day for rest, so she didn't see things that weren't there.
Twink.
But- there, she swear she saw something move, though it was no longer there, for what she could see. This time, it was accompanied by a light, airy chime- like shattering crystal.
Not good- this was definitely not a good sign- seeing and hearing things. She should have come here- should have just headed back to her room-
Twink-Tink.
Again...a noise! Louder, sharp and piercing. She was not imagining any of this...it was almost like footsteps. Delicate, surefooted footsteps. Approaching her- but she couldn't see anything!
The only thing for it was to leave- to run and leave, and not think about it again. Perhaps she should head back and celebrate with the merry decorators. Yes, that would be the answer. She shifted her many skirts to move, as something behind her made the same chiming tinkle- not un familiar to the clink of expensive crystal against a metal utensil.
"This is not funny!" She started, once she had turned once more to find the barren hallway as barren as it had always been. Her voice was not cooperating with her plan to sound firm, however, and it broke slightly.
She was left, for a moment, with the sound of her own breath, and her heartbeat rushing in her ears.
"Much better." She whispered, and turned ever so slightly.
"So jumpy, Miss Upland!" The very are seemed to ring with a tinkling sort of laughter, and a chill that reached into Glinda's chest that stole her breath was answered with a brush of something frozen, cold and solid against her bare ankle.
She couldn't hold in her scream.
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