(AN: Okay, new chapter. This is more story-oriented, and shows the conclusion of what happened at Settica. I know, that sub-plot really wasn't that important, but I'll try to flesh it out here.)
Stolen
One of the lucky things about being a public figure meant that you could usually get yourself where you needed to go in short time. As soon as she was certain that nobody was watching her, Glinda Upland made her way tip-toe by tip-toe out of the venue and into the streets of the Emerald City.
The Palace was her next destination.
Fame also had it's draw-backs. She couldn't go into a store or town in Greater Oz without someone recognizing her. Then a sea of people came rushing about, wanting to take a picture of her, to have her touch them, anything! The Wizard and Madam Morrible had invented a clever way for her to travel, one that ensured her safety and also made quite a spectacle whenever she went: a pendulum-looking machine that was powered by bubbles.
At the moment, she didn't have such transportation, just her feet, and a pair of very expensive high heels purchased from the City's own Emerald Trader.
Luckily, a carriage driver was making his way down the street. Sensing an opportunity, Glinda stepped out in front of the carriage, waving her hands about widely. The driver pulled the reins to a stop, got out to start cursing out whoever was foolish enough to stand in front of his carriage, then took off his hat when he saw who it was.
"Why, Lady Glinda!" he exclaimed. "I-I mean no disrespectation, Your Goodness. You see, it's-it's been a long day, and I guess I wasn't thinking..."
"Please, good sir," Glinda returned, donning her bubbliest, goodest demeanor. "I am in haste. I must reach the Emerald Palace at once!"
"A-At your service, Your Goodness!" the driver nodded.
"Why, that's so kind of you, sir," Glinda said as she climbed into the carriage. "Oh, I must needs find some way to repay you."
"Please, think nothing of it." he smiled. "Although, I wish my kids were here. They do love your music, Your Goodness." He reached up from underneath his carriage-seat and pulled out a heavy vellum sheath. "Got one of your records right here."
"Oh, do you happen to have a pen?" Glinda asked. "I think I know how I can repay you."
"I'm afraid I don't," he returned.
"No bother, I do," she smiled. She reached beneath the cloak, into her dress beneath, and pulled out a long, fluffy pink quill with everlasting ink: a little toy from Madam Morrible that she, Glinda, 'Glindafied' into a pink nightmare. The driver handed her the record cover and Glinda scribbled her name upon the cover.
With a crack of the reins, they were off to the Emerald Palace.
She arrived at the Emerald Palace, thanked the driver again, then ran inside, throwing her cloak somewhere nobody could find it but her. Once she passed the doors (Omby Amby, that odd little man with a fuzzy green helmet and huge orange whiskeys, let her in without any resistance. She was known here and allowed entrance without having to wait for days or even months on end), she found that all was quiet in the Palace.
This was both comforting and nerve-racking. If the alarms were sounded, that meant that Elphaba had been seen. Likewise, the absence of alarms meant that Elphaba hadn't been seen yet, and might still be in danger. But, if she still hadn't been found out, where would she be?
If I were Elphaba, she thought, where would I go first?
Then it hit her: the sheets of music score at the venue, Elphaba saw it and suddenly decided to go to the Palace. It was composed by R. Diffarious, the very one who had played keyboard for the People of Oz. Could he still be alive? The last place Glinda remembered seeing him was...
The Throne Room!
Gathering her skirts about her, Glinda took off on a very tedious jog - especially in those heels - down the hallway, trying to remember which way was the one that led to the Throne Room. The hallway was exceedingly empty: no sight or sound of Gale Force or royal attendants in all directions. Actually, Glinda would rather that there were such people about. The staccato clip-clap of her heels was so loud, it was echoing all the way across the long, green tunnel-like hallways. It made her heart race: somebody would find her, and if they found her and Elphaba together...
Suddenly, she heard a sound! It was coming from one of the rooms to the left. It was a low sound, unsteady and quivering, yet filled with emotion. As carefully as she could, Glinda crept towards the nearest door in the direction of the sound. Pushing it open, she found herself in the rear-parts of the Throne Room. These were usually cordoned away from the main vista with emerald curtains. But the sound was coming from inside.
The huge iron bars of what used to be a great aviary still stood in the rear center of the room. At the edge of these bars, clinging onto them with head bowed, was a figure in black. It was weeping. With a tiny yelp of a start, Glinda realized that there were two other figures on the other side of the bar. Even in the dim light, she could just barely make them out. One looked like a goat, shaking and shivering all on its own on the far side of the cage. Closer to the bars, near the weeping figure, was a raccoon, chirping away and petting the figure's head with its clever black hands.
"Elphie?" she whispered.
The figure's head looked frantically here and there, like a snake tasting its environment. It came to rest on the little figure in the pale blue dress.
"Oh, it's so good to see you!" Glinda said, running up and throwing her arms around Elphaba's shoulders. To her surprise, Elphaba did not seem to be acknowledging her presence.
"Hey, Elphie, it's me!" Glinda continued. "It's your Glinda!"
"They're gone," the green woman whispered sorrowfully.
"What? Who's gone?"
"Ramon, and Dr. Dillamond," she added. Glinda gasped.
"You mean that's..." she asked. "But how? I mean, why?"
Elphaba held out an old, worn letter. Glinda did not recognize it at first, until she pried the old pages open and read from it quietly:
I am almost persuaded to believe that there is no Wizard, or that he is the cause of these events. I am going in secret to the Emerald City to visit His Ozness and discover the truth for myself.
"Do you remember his last day at Shiz?" Elphaba asked sobbingly.
"Actually no," Glinda replied. "I slept in, must have missed that class."
"Everyone take your seats, class," the Goat said, a twinge of sadness in his voice. Everyone noticed the suit-case sitting up on top of the teacher's desk. "I have much to say, and very little time. I...Today is my last day here at Shiz. I'm afraid, Animals are no longer permitted to teach."
Only one person rose from her place in protest. "What?"
"Please, I'm alright." the Doctor returned, continuing to address the class as a whole. "I want to take this time to thank you all for sharing with me your enthusiasm..." He looked at a desk, near the front of the classroom that was empty. "Your essays, however poorly structured..." Then he turned to the green girl, her face so full of concern.
"And, even on occasion, your lunch."
The doors of the classroom were thrown open suddenly. Madam Morrible, looking like a goldfish in her luxurious red dress, was at the head, with two gray-clad men walking in-line behind her. One of them blew a whistle: it was shrill and loud.
"Oh, why Dr. Dillamond," the Head Shiz-tress pouted sympathetically. "I'm so terribly sorry."
The green woman got out of her seat and crossed over to speak with Madam Morrible.
"Madam, please! You've got to stop this!" she insisted.
A friendly hoof patted her on the shoulder.
"Don't worry about me, Miss Elphaba," Dr. Dillamond whispered. "They can take my job away, but they can't silence me! I will continue speaking out against these bans..."
"Come on, goat!" one of the gray-clad men shouted. He and his comrade seized Dr. Dillamond by the arm, leaving a devastrated Elphaba aghast that they would use the word 'goat' as if it were something so...inferior.
"Don't believe what they tell you!" Dr. Dillamond shouted, grabbing hold of his suitcase as the gray-clad suits took him out. "You're not being told the whole story! Remember that, class!"
"I guess he spoke out too much," Elphaba said, her voice hollow and void of really anything.
"Oh, Elphie..." Glinda tried to comfort her friend, placing her arm around Elphaba's bony shoulders. It didn't seem to be working.
Just then, the sounds of boots pounding down the hallway rang in Glinda's ears. Looking about here and there, she saw another doorway open up and Gale Force guards, armed with polearms and muskets filling the Throne Room. All the weapons leveled in the direction of the green woman.
Circumstantially, they were also aiming at Glinda as well.
"Glinda," a voice asked suspiciously. "What are you doing here? I thought you had retired to your quarters hours ago."
She turned about, and saw Nicolas Chuffrey walking up through the ranks of the Gale Force soldiers.
"I guess I sleep-walk?" Glinda chuckled.
"Well, what fortuitous circumstance this is!" he exclaimed, a smile on his face. "Two of the five members of the People of Oz together again under one roof. How long has it been, three years? My Oz! I think this was the room your break-up officially happened in, as I recall."
He turned to one of the guards and whispered instructions. He nodded, then departed. Nicolas turned then back to Glinda and Elphaba.
"I think," he exclaimed. "In light of this amazing turn of events, we should hold a reunion show! One big show where all the members of the People of Oz get back onstage for the first time in three years and have the concert of their lives. It will indeed cause a sensation: the Wicked Witch of the West, member of anarchist music group, killed onstage in front of a hundred thousand people."
"Chuffy-poops, no!" Glinda exclaimed.
"'Chuffy-poops?'" Elphaba replied. If she had not seen the two Animals she admired most become little better than dead just moments ago, she would be splitting at the seams with laughter.
To Glinda's surprise, she saw that Nicolas was laughing.
"Why the long face, Witch?" he asked, indicating to Elphaba. "After all, they were only animals."
"Animals deserve every right as anyone else does!" the green woman snarled, rising to her feet in the stance of a cobra ready to strike.
"How very humanitarian of you!" he mockingly exclaimed. "The last time I checked, your soul was supposed to be so unclean that you could be melted by pure water. Now why would something that foul care about anyone but herself? Hmm?"
"I've always fought for those who can't fight for themselves!" Elphaba returned.
"So you say," he replied. "Come come, let's be honest with ourselves. You never really cared about the Animals, or the People of Oz. It was all about the fame, the attention. Little green bean never got loved by Mummy and Daddy, so she can't get enough attention from the world. You sicken me!"
Elphaba said nothing. But it was quite precarious of her: to attack would prove him correct for sure, yet to remain silent was to give consent to his lies as well.
"Chuffy, why are you being so mean?" Glinda asked. "She hasn't harmed anybody, can't we just let her go?"
"No, she's far too big a liability to simply 'let go'," he replied.
"Like that family of Gorillas?" Elphaba asked.
"I'm sorry, what?" he replied. "I haven't the foggiest idea what you're babbling about, witch!"
"This!" she threw a green-leaved newspaper on the ground before them. Carefully opening it, Nicolas saw that it was a three-year-old copy of the Emerald Herald.
"I'm afraid you've got it all wrong," he calmly replied. "You see, the Gale Force was putting down a riot that your anarchist band caused. It wasn't a family of Gorillas, it was one Gorilla, and he assaulted a family who had worked for my parents."
"That's where you're wrong," Elphaba replied. "I found him, running from the Gale Force, and he told me a different story. The way he told it, he wasn't even part of the riots. He says that men in violet uniforms broke into his house and beat his wife and children to death, because he wouldn't shut down his shop after it got vandalized five times in the past month!"
"Collateral damage, Witch," Nicolas haughtily replied. "I'm sure you'd understand the ramifications of working with someone like the Wizard. You see, he was going to grant my family more business in the Emerald City than we ever could have received back home in Gilikin. All we had to do was get rid of the Animals in our area, since they were officially banned."
"Kill them?" Elphaba replied.
"It was nothing personal," he calmly returned, his eyes half-closed in an expression of assured victory. "Just good business."
Glinda thought she saw a hazy, vacant expression in Elphaba's eyes, now burning red. A ball of fire shot out of her open hand, sending the guards sprawling to their knees in fear of being burned. Glinda also cowered, but the flames never came close to her.
Just then, there was a flash of green, and Nicolas Chuffrey was thrown from where he stood and pressed back-first against the heavy iron bars of the cage. A haze of green gathered about him, lifting him up, then thrusting him roughly against the bars again. A third time, and then there was a loud, sharp crack! Nicolas cried out, and then the green disappeared. His body fell limply onto the ground before the cages.
"Don't take it personally," Elphaba replied.
Glinda was somewhere between awe and shock. It finally dawned upon her why the train had been stopped that day in Settica: their show, which featured original songs and covers from Never Silent that were pro-Animal Rights and against the bands, must have instigated that riot. Since it made Chuffrey's family's job harder, what with putting down so many Animals, they wanted to stop the People of Oz and bring them in for questioning, or worse.
Just then, Nicolas cried out in pain, then began crying and whining that he couldn't feel anything: not his legs, not his arms, nothing south of his face. Glinda was especially shocked that Elphaba had actually broken his back. Why would she make her boyfriend crippled like that? Elphaba, of all people, would know what it was like living with an invalid!
How could she do this to me?
Then another thought, a more optimistic thought, appeared. Well, he did threaten to have Elphaba killed onstage. He probably deserved it, if not worse. Besides, there's always...
Speak of the Kumbric Witch!
Fiyero Tiggular, Captain of the Gale Force, entered into the Throne Room, musket in hand. He took one look at Nicolas Chuffrey, then walked over to him, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and despite protesting, and cries of pain, dragged him out of the Throne Room. Once they were out, Fiyero shut the door behind him.
"Never liked him anyway," he jokingly said. "Come on, Elphaba. Let's go!"
"Wait, Fiyero!" Glinda spoke up. "What are you doing?"
Fiyero came to a pause, looking at both of them in turn.
"Glinda," he began. "You were my girlfriend back then, and we never really officially broke up. I've just been so caught up with the hunt for..." He pointed the musket in Elphaba's direction. "I never got the chance to tell you, to tell both of you." He paused, then swallowed hard. "I'm leaving with Elphaba."
"What?" Elphaba and Glinda simultaneously and incredulously gasped.
"That was the only reason I was interested in this whole band thing, you know?" Fiyero laughed, hoping he wasn't saying too much. "I wanted to be around you a little more often, trying to build up the courage to tell you."
Glinda was so stunned, she could not even speak. True, she liked Nicolas, but now...now he had threatened Elphie (not to mention was probably crippled for life). She could never go back to him. Ever since that day in the Attic, she felt that, since circumstances pushed the two of them apart - Elphaba and Fiyero - Fiyero was now her fail-safe. If all didn't work out perfectly with Nicolas, she could run back to Fiyero and everything would be right as a spring rain on Mount Runcible.
But now, to be robbed even of him...it was unthinkable!
"Fine, go," Glinda resigned, her eyes downcast. "You deserve each other, after all."
"Glinda, please..."
But before either of them could speak to each other, they left. Glinda was once again alone in Oz.
"Psst!" Glinda looked about, and saw the bespectacled face of the Wizard poking out from one of the emerald-shaded curtains. "Are they gone?"
She nodded. The Wizard then came out of his hiding place.
"I will need to get better security around here," he said. "The way they got in..." He noticed that Glinda looked rather sad. "Hey there, little lady, why the long face?"
Glinda didn't respond, she just sniffled loudly.
"Here, try some of this," he said, producing a green bottle from the inside-sleeve of his jacket. "It takes the edge off life."
"No thank you." Glinda returned. A distant memory urged her not to drink it, though she could not pinpoint where it came from, or why she shouldn't.
(AN: Yeah, pretty much from here up to a certain point, the standard story-line of the musical takes over, and I shan't burden you with a rehashing of that. I'm sure somebody's written a full version of the musical in prose on here, so you can fill in the blanks.)
(But don't worry, I've set up a few important plot-ends here, that you might just get to see played out to their fullest later on.)