At this time, I'd like to give out the Funniest Reviewer Award to Anna Marie Raven for the Chapter 8 review that made me laugh out loud as well as for the hilarious theme regarding Elphaba's inability to stick to a plan she's consistently carried through most of her reviews. Since handing over an actual statue over a website is quite challenging, I thought you should know it looks like a golden laugh.
I know that there are a few other people quietly reading this story and I hope that sometime soon you'll drop me a line. I'd love to thank you personally for reading along. :)
The servant had done as she asked and had led her down stairwell after stairwell until there were no more stairs left, following the path of least resistance as she had commanded. All the while, he whimpered about having a wife and children and she shouldn't kill him because he was all that was left to take care of his ailing mother, etc, all of which she found irritating because she had no intention of harming him at all. It was worth this aggravation, however, and pain from the long walks down the half-dozen staircases because he took her right where she wanted to go.
Before she knew it, she was standing in front of the door that haunted her dreams. It was exactly she had seen in her vision: bold, solid green, with gold wire creating strange yet beautiful patterns all over it. If she weren't completely confident in her feeling that this was where she needed to be, she wouldn't have believed that behind that beautiful door lay a prison (Perhaps it was designed to dismay those – like her – that wanted to break in. It certainly had a discouraging effect.). It had an enormous lock on it, though, one that any normal person wouldn't be able to break through without proper tools and enough time. But she wasn't normal. A moment after she told the servant to go and he ran in the opposite direction, she stretched out her hand to the lock and summoned her power. She heard the lock unhitch and door swung open.
She surveyed the vacant area. If this wasn't a dungeon, she didn't know what was. Water trickled down the dark bricks and into puddles on the floor, and the glimmer of candles reflected on all of the glistening, glossy surfaces. It was completely eerie, to say the least.
It was also freezing. Her breath rose in a hazy mist in front of her and she felt the need to wrap herself up in her cloak. In comparison to the rest of the palace, which was heated with the dozens upon dozens of fireplaces, this place felt like an icebox.
It wasn't the cold or darkness that disturbed her most, though, but rather the harsh smells that reached her nose. Human waste mixed with death, so thick in the wet air that she felt nauseated. She pulled the edge of her hood over her nose and crept forward, examining every prison cell she passed.
Her heart was pounding so painfully loud in her ears as she wondered how long it would take for her recent hostage to summon the aid of guards or someone nearby to hear her, for surely there had to be some security in this prison. But other than her thunderous heartbeat and her quick, tense breaths, she didn't make a sound.
The twisting of her stomach increased with every step she took, for in every cell she found rancid corpses. There was a moment where she found she had to stop and force herself not to sob at the sight of a dead boy, about the young farm girl's age, who was huddled into the back corner of one of the dim prison cells wearing filthy rags. She turned away, unable to look at the teenager's body any longer, with his pale hand clutching a token of the Unnamed God close to his chest. Elphaba mourned for the innocent life, and in her sadness, she wondered if anyone even knew this poor boy was missing from the streets and had taken time to grieve for him.
As her eyes turned from the young boy, she saw a pair of familiar leather boots in the soft glow of the flickering flame, and her breath caught in her throat. She ran over to the opposite cell, gazed down at the unmoving body that lay there, and closed her eyes when saw its face.
It was Fiyero.
She whispered his name, but he didn't stir. She called for him again, this time louder, but he still lay motionless.
Elphaba couldn't breathe. She wanted him to be alive so bad that her emotions completely ignored her logic; what other reason would she have given up so much of herself to try and resurrect him from the dead? To give every last ounce of energy she had in her and to even sacrifice the blood from her veins to find him? Yes, the optimist in her yearned for life in him, but the realistic part of her knew that he had been dead all along. As she looked upon him, she had no doubt.
He was sprawled slightly upon the soiled floor, and though she could barely see his face in the faint light, she could identify him without any hesitation. After their nights with nothing but the moon and a small lantern to see each other by, she could find him with her eyes closed. But at that moment, her eyes were wide and fixated upon all of Fiyero's blood in dismay. Through the shadows she could distinctly see the dark red smear down part of his face, having dripped somewhere from past his hairline. What was worse was his shirt: the entire tan fabric was starched and stained from blood loss that had seeped from between ragged tears.
A hoarse moan escaped her throat, but she didn't bother to try to muffle it. She didn't try to halt the tears. She didn't try to suppress the magic that began to build. She just stopped trying.
All her life, everything ended before it ever truly finished. Broken things littered her existence. Her early life was filled with small destructions and hatred, as if it was some foreshadowing for the future. When she was a child, it seemed her touch was all that was needed to destroy whatever she held – usually it was just a toy – and her derisive father just assumed she liked ruined things better. But she never did.
Even back then she knew she was not right, as if she was born with this knowledge of her abnormality along with self-loathing. She never looked at her reflection, though the other children seemed so fascinated with their own. She hated to. She hated her skin, her sharp features, her strange eyes.
It wasn't until Nessarose was born that she had begun to settle down. Poor Nessa was so small and tangled, and far more damaged in some ways than Elphaba would ever be. Even the green girl could see that.
It wasn't until Nessarose was born that their mother would never wake again. And it was all because of her.
The unusual child grew up strong and stubborn though, despite her secret guilt and her burden of fault. She had to; she became responsible for her younger sister who looked to her with her big, brown eyes for help and guidance in everything she did. That was how she learned to love and care in the uncontrollable way that hampered her adult life so.
Elphaba also came to find that she didn't need to carry that stress of detestation for herself in her heart so much, for her father took up the task well. He hated her so strongly for being the way she was and expected nothing but evil from her. It was one thing to learn to ignore and tolerate taunts and abuse from strangers, for they were only that: strangers. But to live with someone and love them in a way that was never returned was difficult for her. It did, however, provide the motivation she needed to keep being strong, to be as good of an influence as she could for her younger sister, and to work hard in everything she did to prove Frexspar wrong.
It was in her hard work and self-reliance that she discovered her own competence and her passion and ability for learning. It was a compensation, to say the least, for all of her faults, and in that way little Elphaba was able to be confident in herself. That in itself was an enormous accomplishment for a child who looked the way she did and who did nothing but break everything she touched.
All the same, the more she evolved and matured, the more she distanced herself from everybody, which most people seemed to prefer except for her. But, she thought, at least the farther away she kept from others – both physically and emotionally – the safer they would be.
And she had always tried to do good things.
One question haunted her though, so much that she never spoke of to anyone: had she really been seeking good or just attention? Was that all good deeds were? In the years that had gone by she never knew.
Over two decades had passed since Nessa had been born, her mother had passed away and her father had begun to hate her as strongly as he did. It had been more than twenty years since she had learned to stand up for herself, to put herself above ignorance, and to guard herself from the world's injustices. She had nearly a quarter of a century to protect her sister, to learn of friendship and love, and to change the world.
Yet somehow all the managed to do was to get everyone killed she had ever cared about. None of them had been safe after all. Everything she ever worked for was left unfinished, broken. No good deed had gone unpunished.
Maybe her father had been right all along. Perhaps she had been foolish to think that it was ever possible to show him and everyone in Oz that they were wrong.
Let all Oz be agreed, she thought coldheartedly. I'm wicked through and through.
In the cold of the dismal dungeon, she was aware of the wet teardrops that rolled down her cheeks and the length of her nose. She could feel the chill of the unrefined iron bars she held in a death grip. The unnatural sensation of magic was undeniable as it flowed through her veins, tickled her fingertips, and pulsed through her palms.
But she couldn't move other than the uncontrollable trembling of her body and ever-tightening grip the bars in front of her.
So she let the tears fall, and she let the metal gate twist and bend and break as her power flowed through the natural channels of her hands.
As the grip of metal she held disintegrated from her grasp and her hands fell limply to her sides, she decided that she no longer wanted to fight. Let any guard who found her to take her; she surrendered. Let this be where she ended.
And then Fiyero moved.