Chapter 3 - Don't Let Go
The first drop was a shadowed alleyway. They hadn't been in flight for more than an hour before Elphaba realized adjustments had to be made. With her arm crossed around Glinda's waist, she helped her friend find support on the wall.
"You alright for a second?"
Glinda nodded, shifting her back to the wall and coughing into the crook of her arm. Elphaba removed her cape, then her coat.
"Elphaba, you'll catch your death!"
"You'll catch your death." She draped the leather coat around Glinda's shoulders. "I have layers in my satchel. Put your arms in." Glinda obliged, and Elphaba grabbed a folded sweater from her bag. She pulled the sweater over her head, replaced her cloak, and freed her braids. She eyed Glinda's skirt, teal and bright and catching light with its sequins. She willed a spare skirt to appear in her satchel that would cover it, but Elphaba hadn't exactly prepared for escaping with what would appear in the sky like a beacon of stardust. The coat would have to do.
"I can't fly high enough to take Kellswater," Elphaba muttered, mostly to herself. "South, then west. It'll take longer, but it'll be safer. Glinda?" She turned just in time to catch Glinda from stumbling. Green arms grabbed the pale ones and Elphaba helped ease her to the ground. "You can rest a moment." She took the collar of the leather coat on either side and pulled it tight around Glinda, fastening the ties to keep it closed. The moonlight hit in the shift of a cloud, and even in the darkness, Elphaba could see her friend's pupils dilated almost to the point of blocking out the doe brown iris.
"That powder…the vial…" Elphaba finished tying the coat. "What is it?"
"I don't know. The Wizard…"
"The Wizard made it? What does it do? Why was Morrible making you take it?"
"I'm…I've been sick."
"Anyone ever told either of you about medicine?"
Glinda coughed, and the witch could hear it rattle in her chest. Glinda's eyes drifted. For a moment she wasn't completely there. Elphaba stopped and took her friend's face in her hands.
"Hey, stay with me," she whispered. She tucked a curl behind Glinda's ear, then realized those blonde curls would be blowing right into her face mid-flight if she didn't do something about them. Elphaba motioned for her to turn and started pulling Glinda's hair back into a braid. "Keep talking to me. Why didn't you want to take it? You were saying something to Morrible about it making you shaky?"
"It's more than that, it makes everything…my hands actually shake, but coming down from it…like everything is shaking but not moving at all, nothing can rest, not even bones…you fall asleep if you don't take another dose but even sleeping, I can feel everything shaking…heart racing…"
Elphaba finished the braid and fastened it off, slowing a moment and moving in front of her friend. She removed the gloves from her hands and put them on Glinda.
"And what's it supposed to do?" Elphaba asked more gently. "Why does Morrible keep making you take it?"
Glinda shifted in the coat. Despite the two being similar in height, it looked loose on her more fragile frame.
"It can keep you awake for days," Glinda explained. "At first."
Elphaba paused.
"And then?"
"And then it only works for a day. Then only for a few hours." Glinda had closed her eyes for a moment with the end of her braid in her hands, but she opened her eyes and looked at Elphaba. "Then you can't stay awake without it. I've tried. I never want to take it, but Morrible's always there and she always…I still never want to take it. Even though I can feel…I think it's addictive…"
With timing as impeccable as ever, a voice boomed in the clouds like a sudden thunder. The woman who roiled the thunder out herself. Their former mentor.
"Citizens of Oz!"
"Here we go again..." Elphaba breathed. Her olive eyes fell on the sky, but felt Glinda's worry on her. The witch looked back down to her friend, forced a halfhearted grin, an I'm alright. Glinda reached for her hand and she took it.
"Our greatest enemy has struck The Emerald City and its gem we hold most dear! The Wicked Witch of the West has made an attempt on my life, and kidnapped our precious, our beloved Glinda the Good!"
Alarms started to blare to the east, back at the Emerald City. The stomping of assembly began to shake the ground. The shouts of the Emerald Guard rang out as they fell in order.
"Citizens! We implore you, keep your eyes to the skies! Bring word of all you see to our Wizard. For our benevolent, our innocent, our Glinda. Do not let this green demon get away! Not again! Not with our Glinda!"
Cries of anguish echoed in the streets. Elphaba tensed, feeling the change in pressure immediately. First ice in the air, and then her head tilted up just in time to catch the first raindrop on her forehead.
"That's going to make things…harder." The witch didn't let herself dwell. She squeezed Glinda's hand once more before she released it and stood. The decision had to be made now. "Straight up, above the clouds and above the rain. Then south. Get us into Restwater. We can drop low there." Elphaba rummaged through her satchel again, this time for her fingerless cloth gloves. Normally they were meant to go under the leather ones she gave to Glinda, but something was better than nothing.
"Glinda, it's going to be high, fast, and freezing cold. Just at first. The ascent will take the wind out of you. It'll make you want to pass out. Don't let it. You can't forget to breathe. Think about–" and she took Glinda's shoulders for emphasis, "Nothing. But. Breathing. All the way up.
Glinda nodded. Elphaba could see her trying her best to steel, to mirror the witch's confidence, to understand all the information that she had just been given. But even years later, she knew Glinda well enough to know that she was scared. Elphaba helped Glinda stand and held her, feeling her melt and warm in her arms, feeling her grip Elphaba's cloak even with trembling hands.
"I won't drop you," Elphaba promised. "I'm going to carry you, okay? Wrap your legs around me." Glinda complied, and Elphaba hoisted Glinda's thighs to each of her hips. "Lock your ankles." She did. "You've got it."
For a moment, they pulled apart, both shifting awkwardly until the hold felt secure. Their eyes met under another cloud's pass over the moon.
Elphaba waited a moment.
She waited for Glinda to ask to be taken back. The very idea of it hurt, pulling at the green woman's heart more than she cared to admit. Losing her again…seeing her back away again…flying off alone again…
Another cloud passed, leaving them in all darkness except for the spark of each other's eyes. Glinda leaned in slightly.
"Elphaba Thropp," she whispered. "I'm coming with you."
Elphaba breathed. She didn't realize she wasn't. She nodded, shifted Glinda's weight on her one last time, then pulled her close. Heart against heart.
The witch summoned her broom to her hand, straddled it, and gripped it tight.
"Tuck your head, Glinda."
She felt a nod on her shoulder.
"Breathe.."
Elphaba took her own breath, and Glinda mirrored it.
"And whatever you do, don't let go."
And a caped black comet shot up into the clouds, with what appeared to be a glint of stardust.
The flight would have taken Elphaba just over an hour had she been alone, but with Glinda, it extended through the last of the afternoon, into the evening, and half the night. Keeping Glinda awake, flying slower, and stopping multiple times per hour to shake out the stiffness in her arm and shoulder all added time and exhaustion. Having given Glinda her windproof coat and gloves, Elphaba's woolen clothes were soaked through and freezing.
Elphaba nearly crashed them into a hilled forest clearing between Restwater and the eastern mountains of Kumbricia's Pass, letting her ankles take the blow and stumbling through stability as her joints resisted. She dropped her broom to grab Glinda with both hands, lest inertia send her friend out of her arms. Elphaba's current base of operations - if she could call her meager organizations in resistance an operation - was a barnhouse just west of the Pass. A Bird and former associate of Doctor Dillamond named Qaurel was her point of contact there. Not far now.
Now on her knees in the grass, Elphaba pulled Glinda from the sort of hug she carried her in. Glinda's body felt like almost nothing, but when her head came off the green woman's shoulder, it felt like Elphaba was removing bricks. Nevertheless, she cradled her friend's boulderous head and gently tried to get her to stir.
"Glinda, we're almost there."
No response. The blonde - almost appearing as a brunette in the rain - was limp in her arms. Her face was white, almost glowing in the moonlight and her lips were colorless. If her makeup hadn't already been gone with the wind, the rain surely took it. Elphaba used her teeth to take her gloves off for a moment. Despite her own damp chill, Elphaba tightened the jacket around Glinda and dusted off its moisture. She shook the water off her own hands and tried to ignore the cold and numbness it left behind, then replaced the gloves.
"Not melting yet…" the witch jested to herself. A brief moment of levity, or perhaps denial of how much this stillness in her arms scared her. "Glinda, wake up." Elphaba remembered Glinda's words:
…even sleeping, I can feel everything shaking…heart racing…
Her thumb brushed up against a concerning pulse on the blonde's neck, and Elphaba put an ear to her chest to confirm what she thought she felt. Glinda's heart was at least twice as fast as it should be. She became acutely aware of the brown vial in her pocket - the drug that Morrible had been forcing Glinda to take, that Elphaba had made a point to snatch on their way out.
I think it's addictive…
The witch looked off towards the western sky through the trees, knowing that they were quickly losing the cover of darkness. If it hit daylight, they'd have to fly higher. The thought of it put the biting ice back in Elphaba's eyes from The Emerald City escape, several hours ago - the longest ten minutes of her life - where she gripped her broom with hands that she couldn't even feel just hoping that they were frozen in place. And that was without being soaking wet, as she was now. That was before Glinda lost the ability to hang on. Elphaba's hands would go numb with cold and she'd lose control of the broom or drop Glinda.
Willing adrenaline to surge one last time, she draped Glinda's arms on either side of her neck. She shifted the blonde boulder of a head to the opposite shoulder.
"I've got you," Elphaba whispered. "I'm not letting you go." She held her friend close with both hands for a moment, kissed the top of the damp blonde braid, and with every ounce of strength left, with every leg muscle crying out in protest, hoisted herself to a stand.