Okay, this is where the story actually begins. This is a bit of an introductory chapter, but reviews are always welcome, including criticism because of course, I want to know what it is people don't like that I could fix. :)
Lena was lying on her back upon the warm stone parapet, gazing up at the sky. The vast expanse above her was shining an iridescent sapphire, trimmed with a deep purple. Everything about her gleamed an eerie blue, as though the warm evening air could capture the last light of the fading sky and hold it there forever.
She relished the feeling of the wind gliding through her hair like a gentle wave. Air that came from some land she had never known. She fancied that it originated in some mystic hollow just over the horizon and invited her over the walls to share in its mystery.
Sighing, she flopped onto her stomach and scanned the fields below. Against the last rays of the sun she saw a meager group making its way to the mauntery.
After sliding down the ladder, she floated down a long hallway lined with hewn stone walls. She passed a couple maunts hurrying along in flowing skirts to their nightly devotions, and a few of them flashed her a quick smile before flying past.
Arriving at a simply carved quoxwood door, she raised her slender fingers and knocked gently. Following a few dainty footsteps, she could hear someone working at the handle of the door. After a couple of moments there was a sigh of frustration before a voice called, "Who is it?"
Lena chuckled and unlatched the door with relative ease. "Really, mother, are you ever going to get the doors right?"
Glinda beamed broadly and pulled Lena into her arms, mumbling something into the dark locks that sounded like, "The doors hate me."
Smiling, Lena pulled out of the embrace. "There are visitors coming this way."
The blonde glanced out the window, apparently startled to see that the sky had grown dark. "Nighttime already! Come in then, dear, while I go and greet the guests?" She squeezed Lena's hand gently before hurrying out the door.
Lena looked about as she sat down upon the large bed in the center of the room. Suppressing a sigh, she turned to face the window, straining to catch movement outside, but seeing only stars appearing one by one in the indigo sky. Stop feeling disappointed, she chided herself.
She longed to experience something new in her monotonous life—to meet new people and explore the countryside. For as long as she could remember, her life had been the same. Not unhappy, certainly, though she had nothing to compare it to. When she had been younger she was whisked away from the prying eyes of visitors with a comforting, "Leenie, darling, you're just too young."
Now those days had come and gone, and certainly she was of age by now; older, in fact, than a few of the youngest maunts. They no longer supplied her with an excuse when they hid her away.
She rose and lit a candle, chasing away the darkness in the corners of the room. Returning to the bed, she glanced at her bare feet trailing along the wooden floor. Subconsciously, she rubbed her hands together to warm them, which she had taken to doing when she was uncomfortable.
She used to blame her green skin for her shallow existence and the secrets in her life. Standing bitterly before her reflection, she would close her eyes and wish it away, but to no avail. Recently she had begun to feel differently about it. Rather than it being the cause of oddities in her life, perhaps it was a sign of it. The way a 'Beware of Dog' sign plastered on a neighborhood fence would put you on alert, so would her skin. Beware the green girl.
Crawling into the bed and pulling her legs up to her chest, she waited. After a few minutes she heard someone struggling with the door before it burst open and Glinda fell in.
Lena made a move to help her, but she caught herself against the wall, muttering curses at the door.
"Really, the doors aren't so bad, you just have to push then flick the latch," Lena said, amused.
"Whoever said they needed doors… so darn strong…" she mumbled under her breath, but more for amusement than out of anger.
"Well the mauntery is supposed to be a safe place, you know."
"Yes. I do." Glinda said, raising a delicate eyebrow in a mock I'm-not-as-dumb-as-you-think-I-am look.
As Glinda stumbled onto the bed and removed her shoes, Lena asked, "How were the guests?"
"Exhausting," she replied, rubbing her worn feet.
"They were attempting to match your efforts," Lena said slyly, trying to coax Glinda into smiling. Instead her face fell slightly and she looked over at Lena through the curls falling about her face.
"Sometimes you're more like her than you know," she said quietly.
Lena stiffened. The Wicked Witch of the West had always been a forbidden topic for all the mauntery's inhabitants. She knew very little of the woman that was to have been her grandmother other than the fact that she had been close to Glinda. "I didn't mean to upset you."
A smile flickered across her face then. "Maybe you're not as alike as I thought. I just miss her, you know. Sometimes you remind me of the way she acted back when we were at Shiz together."
Lena's reply was interrupted suddenly by a rather loud knock at the door. "Lady Glinda?" a voice called urgently.
There are (obviously) a few questions you all probably want answered about Lena. Like, why she is still in the mauntery, why Glinda is there (and, consequently, can't figure out how to open the doors), and the like. I intend to answer these questions in the next chapter, so don't hate me. :)