Middle Ground
Chapter 38
A/N I kept you waiting. The next one will be posted tomorrow and is at least twice as long. Hope that helps. And thank you, so much, for STILL reading.
She wasn't panicking. Or angry. Or sad. Or sorry. Not anymore. That moment had come and gone.
She had made a deal, and she would hold up her end.
So she was here. Calmly standing where in a matter of minutes, someone in a dark robe would put a noose around her neck.
For a brief moment, she wondered where they'd found the fool who dared to touch the Wicked Witch, but she let the thought go without uttering a sound.
She stood, her back straight, her hat pulled low. She'd expected them to take it off her, but as soon as Morrible had seen her and smiled, she knew they wouldn't. The hat was half the image, after all. Her cloak, her hat, and her skin. It's how she was portrayed in all those Oz-awful drawings they'd put up everywhere.
She looked nothing like it, so it had never really bothered her.
She'd arrived early. She'd wanted to be there before the crown would start to show. Morrible had put up the announcement that she'd been captured last night, and she knew that, would she not be there in time, there was no guarantee they wouldn't hurt Fiyero, or Glinda for that matter.
Plus, she'd wanted to be there early. She wanted the chance to have that, at least. To choose. To choose to be there.
And this way Morrible wouldn't need to put up a big act of chaining her up and dragging her onto the stage.
She would do this and regret nothing, but she wouldn't do that. She'd die here today, but she would never be Morrible's prisoner.
Fools.
Here she was.
It'd be over soon, and a small part of her wanted time to speed up. She'd managed so far to keep her eyes off Fiyero, but she knew she wouldn't manage to go without looking at him.
The heart,in the end, dictated.
She tried to focus, for as long as she could, on other things. On the way the crowd stood, far away from the stage (still afraid of her, it seemed. A woman in her twenties. Sentenced to death for crimes she never committed. Wouldn't have been able to commit. And they huddled together as if she was the devil without disguise).
On the way the guards kept wary eyes on her, but threw glances at where she knew Fiyero stood, dressed up once again, but with guns pointing at him, though it seemed as if they pointed at her.
On the empty spot where she suspected Glinda should be.
Glinda...
Where was she?
She'd expected her here.
She hadn't really given it much consideration, but if she'd been asked...she would have expected her to have been here.
She never would have thought Glinda too scared, too weak to stay away. Glinda was never weak.
So...where was she?
Oh Oz, it was too late.
She ran. Faster than she ever had. Her dress flying up and swirling around her feet. She couldn't be too late. It would all have been for nothing.
She could see her there, standing tall and ram-rod straight. A black dress that hung just a little too loose, that hat...
Oz, that hat...
Elphie.
It didn't matter anymore, that she would most likely fail.
That this could get them all killed. Exposed in front of the entire Emerald City.
She'd never have thought that it would come to this.
But what she had expected even less, would not have expected in a million years, was that she would be the one to do this. Elphie was the rebel, the fighter. Elphie was the one who stood for what she believed in, undeterred by fear.
And Fiyero...she hadn't expected him to do what he did. But she hadn't been all that shocked. There'd always been something about him that she couldn't reach. That, try as she might, she could not get to.
That something had turned out to be the longing for someone else. Love for someone else.
But she...she'd never believed in anything enough to risk it all. To take a stand, regardless of the consequences. She'd never loved anything, anyone, enough to risk everything else.
Until now.
She tripped, almost, but caught herself as she flew up the steps to where Elphaba stood, Morrible right there, with Fiyero and what looked like half the Gale Force surrounding her. She forced her arms by her side as she slowed her pace a little and tried to give her voice volume.
"Stop!"
I hope to see you all tomorrow :)