Chapter Text
“You’re looking radiant, Miss.”
Glinda gives a small smile to her maid as she puts on her left earring.
“Thank you, Leah.”
It is rather sad, on paper, that she is getting ready with a woman she paid to be present. She wishes Crope could be here, but that doesn't change the unorthodoxy of a man helping a woman prepare for her wedding.
She doesn’t want to make this any more of a chore than it has to be.
Leah fusses with Glinda’s bodice from behind as she touches up the last details of her makeup. Her hair is twisted into a stylised french roll, embellished with pearl-tipped hair pins. A matching necklace hangs over her delicate collarbone, a pretty thing of nacre and diamond which gleams under the glaze of the gas lamps. Leah is right. She looks radiant.
Glinda finishes fidgeting with the last touches of her appearance and looks at herself in the vanity mirror. Her jewellery are points of light in an already resplendent picture of perfection. Glinda smiles, stretching her lips into her well-practised signature look. She looks like such a happy bride.
Good.
Her eyes seem vacant.
Hmm. Less good.
“Leah, do you think I should add more eyeshadow? To make the eye look brighter?”
“I think your eyes look beautiful as they are, Miss Glinda.”
Glinda chuckles bashfully and changes the topic. She doesn’t need—nor want—validation for her beauty right now. She shouldn’t have expected genuine feedback. “You won’t be calling me that for much longer.”
“What do you mean, Miss?”
“Miss. I’ll be a Lady.” She raises her chin and observes her immaculate reflection. “My parents are so proud.” Probably more than when I landed my seat in the Hall of Approval last year, but what can one do.
“You make a beautiful bride, Lady Glinda,” Leah jokes back, smile on her face.
Glinda smiles back. Maybe the fact that it's her maid here makes it easier. At least she doesn’t know all of the baggage she will be carrying into this marriage, all that she is giving up to get that ‘Lady’ tacked onto her name. Crope would have known. The dressing room would have been heavy with nostalgia and unspoken grief. Maybe it’s better that he isn't here.
She will become Lady Glinda Chuffrey and stride to the altar with a radiant smile on her face and no weight in her mind—even if it's the last thing she does in her godforsaken life.
꧁ ꧂
Her throat is dry.
She has been speaking non-stop for the past three hours or so. This was just what she needed—a cabinet meeting right before a public address. The joys of being the public face of the party.
She is in the carriage ride back from city hall, jostling to the uneven cobblestones of City Center. She is rummaging through her clutch for her makeup appliances. The ride is barely ten minutes long, and she needs to remove her face and put on an entirely new one for her return to the palace. Public Speaking cosmetics and Council Meeting cosmetics are completely distinct—and Glinda, contrary to most of her peers in the cabinet, still has standards when it comes to appearance. Lurline strike her down the moment she loses her aesthetic touch. She refuses to become one of those old people who think their seat in the Hall of Approval automatically makes them refined. She finally finds her makeup remover in her purse and starts wiping down her face with precise and efficient movements.
Across from her, on the other side of the rattling carriage, her advisor is blathering on about something or other pertaining to tomorrow’s council meeting. She is the Wizard’s liaison in the party’s cabinet, an overseer of sorts, just there to make sure that the bloc’s beliefs do not stray too far from good old Ozian Morals. Glinda does admire the woman. She very clearly had to cut throats to get where she is today; a Vinkun dark skinned woman in regular contact with the Wizard is impressive. The markedly Gillikin style of clothing, the distinctly Emerald City surname, and metropolitan twang to her voice probably smoothed her rise to power, but that doesn't take away from her achievements. Glinda gives credit where credit is due; Mrs Lanis is rather impressive—but, Oz, she is also exceedingly boring. That is why, when Glinda tunes back into the woman’s monologue, she is confronted with something slightly too unpleasant for her taste.
"The Wizard has requested an increase in the Insurrectionist rhetoric. The more head on we speak of the Rebel Question, the better,” she explains, looking through her leather document binder. “The press conference you have scheduled tomorrow seems the best moment to introduce the theme in the forefront of current political debate.”
Glinda stills in her scrubbing. “Are you sure that is wise, Mrs Lanis?”
The woman merely raises her brows as she glances over to Glinda with an aporetic look and forges on, ignoring the interjection. “The plan seems to focus on centering the attention around specific groups or personalities. Give a face to the enemy, if you will.”
Glinda's brow furrows—she has some choice words with whomever thought it was a good idea to alter her public rhetoric without her say, be they the Wizard’s hands in the cabinet or not—but Mrs Lanis doesn't pause on her account. “The Animal Liberation Front are prime marks and, of course, the Wicked Witch of the West is always…”
Glinda cuts her off, indignant. “We are three steps away from an economic recession in the agricultural sector, now is not the time to address subversive activities!“ She can’t believe this. The absolute gall of the Wizard, waving his proxies all over her party without even showing his meddlesome self to face the fallout. “This shouldn’t be brought up now. We are dealing with a very immediate problem, whereas Elphaba hasn’t even been active in…”
“Elphaba?”
Oh, Lurline drat it all. That’s why she avoids getting into heated discussions about politics. It all comes down to dicidents and dictators and bad blood coursing under burned bridges. She needs to get a hold of herself.
“I said not now.”
Mrs Lanis does not seem pleased by that. She finally stops thumbing through her seemingly innumerable files and stares into Glinda’s eyes with a scowl. “This order comes from the Wizard, Lady Chuffrey.” Her voice is cutting, tainted with an underlying current of threat.
Glinda cringes. She has gotten too comfortable in this political game. She got used to the approval of the crowds and the grudging respect of the counsellors, but she forgot that she still lives in Oz. This, above all else, is an autocracy bolstered by a healthy cult of personality; Glinda shouldn’t fail to remember that the playing field is already conquered. She should be glad enough that the Wizard hasn't closed the Hall of Approval and be done with it. Not only would it put her out of a job, but it would also doom her to a life of mind-numbing wifely duties. If a not-totally-free career in politics is what it takes, then she will pick that option gladly. It is better this way; she should keep her head down and not be too outspoken about her own wishes. It shouldn’t matter to her if the great and terrible Wizard uses passive-aggressive proxies to control the disgrace of a game that gets called politics in this Lurline-forsaken-country.
“You know this as well as I do, Lady Chuffrey. Fear of economic collapse always creates a mob of panicking Barons, and you know what panicking Barons do? They stop investing, and an investor-less market is a fallen one. And we can't have that, so attention must be redirected and alarm controlled. Do you understand that, Lady Chuffrey?”
Glinda averts her eyes, focusing instead on the partially used makeup wipe in her hand. “Do you think them so stupid? That basic misdirection will keep them distracted?”
“Yes,” she retorts. “So do you.”
“You are right,” she sighs, as if it is her decision and not something imposed upon her. The sides of her eyes crease, creating little indents of consternation insufficiently covered by half removed foundation. “Just give me the outline of the talking points for the conference. I’ll have them memorized by tomorrow.”
꧁ ꧂
This is idiotic. Absolutely and utterly stupid. Who does she think she is? Taking all this risk for what? A quick thrill that could ruin her marriage? Her career? Her accursed Goodness?
This is the last time she listens to Crope.
A molly house. Of all things, he brought her to a molly house, and then vanished into some corner booth with a man he met half an hour ago.
Joy.
At least, this one looks decently upscale, or she would have expired the moment she crossed the doorway. Organized much like a pub, but draped in unexpectedly rich extensions of dark red velvet fabrics and finished with a makeshift stage in the back, the place radiates an aura of amused pomp, as if the molly house itself was aware of the irony of her presence here. Just hilarious, her in the one place where her discovery would be more scandalous than even Chufrey’s affairs. The tabloids would entirely lose their minds. All things considered, it’s all rather thespian, which she should have expected. She huddles in the far corner of the bar, the one nearest to the stage, where the ambient lighting is dark and the spotlights are on someone else. At least the male impersonator on stage is talented enough to make her want to endure this stupidity. Of all the things to risk her reputation on…
“Excuse me?”
Glinda does all she can not to jump three feet into the air. Oz, if someone recognizes her, she vows to bring back her rusty offensive-sorcery skills just so she can murder Crope herself.
“Excuse me, Miss,” the voice asks again.
Glinda is startled by the title; she hasn’t been Miss in a while. Her marriage is rather high profile, and people tend to be immediately aware of it—if not of Glinda herself—when they lay eyes on her for the first time.
This person doesn’t know who she is.
Oh. That is new.
Anonymity.
Glinda thinks she might just try it out.
She turns around. A woman is leaning against the bar, with a coy smile on her face. She towers over her, looking down upon her with such a charged intention that Glinda can practically feel it in the air. Looking at her, Glinda can’t help but throw a critical look over her. Her dress is a dark shade of blue which complements her tone to perfection, but her hair is piled into a high bun in last season’s style. Probably of the merchant class; new money, but pretty enough to make up for it in high society. No ring on her finger, though. Hm. Strange, she is surely old enough for it, presumably a few years older than Glinda herself. The way she carries herself has a surprisingly charming resemblance to those men who are handsome but present not to know it.
“I was just wondering if I could buy you a drink?”
Glinda smirks. Anonymity. “Of course you can.”
The woman’s evasive smile turns into something more roguish as she takes a seat next to Glinda and leans against the bar.
“First time here?”
Glinda raises her sculpted eyebrows, amused. “Are you here so often you recognize every patron?”
“No,” the woman tilts her head at a droll angle, her low voice lilting to the tune of her mirth. “No, it's just every newcomer has this aura of nervousness about them. Yours was noticeable from across the bar.”
“So you came just because I looked so obviously green, you took pity on me?” Glinda retorts, tongue in cheek. “Charming.”
“No, I came over because you looked so obviously ripe for the picking,” she quips, smirking.
She is being flirted with. Oh.
Well, she knew the woman’s intention already—one doesn’t offer to buy a woman a drink at a bar without at least an inkling of that motive, even Glinda knows that—but she hadn’t internalised the implications. She hadn’t prepared herself to be hit on by a woman at a molly house—it just wasn't a script she had ever considered learning—but she doesn’t let herself be perceived as caught off guard. It can’t be that hard.
Glinda smiles charmingly. “Well, if that’s the case, you can order me some Liqueur.”
The woman nods in a form of appreciation and leans over the counter to flag down the bartender. She obviously has been here before, as the transaction is swift and, in less than a few ticks, the bartender is already off to pour her a fruity sloe gin—not super alcoholic, a good choice for both their sakes. The woman is once again facing Glinda, a jesting glint in her eye.
“So now I bribed you into talking to me, can I ask for your name?”
Her first reaction is to laugh at the joke, but she quickly realises something that dampens her signature smile. Her name. She can’t just say ‘Glinda,’ can she? The woman doesn’t recognize her now, but what if putting a name to the face changes that? Is anonymity even an option? Should she just use her name and deal with the consequences? She can’t just base the entirety of the interactions she is about to have with this woman on a lie. Can she?
“I am… I’m…” she stutters, and panics, and settles on: “I’m Lin.”
Oh, drat it all. Anonymity is freedom, and so be it.
“Heh, interesting name. I’m Vivian, by the way.” The woman doesn’t seem to catch onto her hesitation and grins at her. “I understand that when given a name, it is polite to return the favour.”
Lin raises her eyebrows, and retorts with a teasing tone, “Are you so disoriented in the realm of decorum that you refer to it as a school lesson?”
“Oh, I’m absolutely lost to the conventions of society.” She lets out a peal of laughter, throwing her head back and exposing her throat. “I’m here aren’t I?”
They keep talking throughout the night.
Lin’s drink comes and goes, one or two arrive soon after.
They talk on and on about anything other than politics.
They talk as the male impersonator’s set finishes and the live band goes back to playing swingy tunes and crowd favourites. Lin notices, from the side of her eye, that Crope is already occupying the dance floor with his previous gentleman friend, leading him into a spirited dance that takes them all across the floor.
They talk about themselves in such a nebulous way that while they might learn each other's favourite childhood doll, they wouldn’t be able to tell what the other’s day to day life looks like.
They talk, and laugh much the same way, until Glinda embraces the idiocy of this whole situation and pulls Vivian from her seat at the counter into the floor at the centre of the bar.
“Oz, Lin!” she cries, off kilter, balancing on one foot as she unsuccessfully tries to avoid the other woman’s ungainly pull.
“Come on, the dance floor is here for a reason,” Lin screams back over the sound of the band, an unchecked giddy smile illuminating her face.
“I can’t bloody dance!”
“So you’re an expert at picking up women from bars, but you can’t dance?” she cries back, laughing. “I’m almost disappointed!”
“I never said I was an expert!” Vivian startles as she is pulled to Lin’s chest, inadvertently placed into perfect dance position.
Lin just laughs to her face and pulls her into a disordered motion that, to drunken eyes, looks close enough to a swing. Lin does dance well—she obviously had formal education on the basics of ballroom dancing—but she is also blatantly disregarding formality. This leads to an interesting mix of perfectly angled, graceful slides of the hip and impressively straight underarm turns paired with an enumerable amount of knocking against Vivian’s disordered limbs.
Lin is loving it.
Lin has never felt so seen—no, that’s not right. She has never felt so unseen. She laughs and twirls and cries in glee in the middle of a bar but she has never felt so invisible. She loves it. To just be, for a moment in her life, without expectation or scrutiny; it is a fragile, self-contained moment of unrestrained fun. She knows it won’t last, it can’t, but she can enjoy it while it does.
Eventually the song comes to an end. Lin is still laughing breathlessly, lines around her eyes marked in joy that, for once, is genuine. Vivian, still disoriented from the exhilarating bout of dancing, leans against the other woman to hold herself up, cracking up at the absurdity of the situation. In that moment, Lin radiates delight in a way Vivian hasn’t seen in anyone in quite some time, if not ever. She beams like the sun in the middle of this poorly lit bar-turned-ballroom. So, Vivian does the only thing she can while looking into that resplendent face, and kisses her.
Glinda’s eyes widen. She lets out a small gasp in surprise which, with the opening of her mouth, only further deepens the kiss.
She knew this was what the evening was building up to, but for it to actually happen. For her cheeks to be held and her hair to be caressed as she is kissed. By a woman.
Strangely, at this very immediate moment, she starts thinking.
It isn’t like the rare times in which her husband kisses her. This feels alive, moving, intentional beyond obligation. This kiss makes her feel; it makes her heart beat in overdrive, her cheeks heat and redden, her eyes press shut in glee.
It definitely is not like with her husband.
Neither is it totally like with Elph—
No. Anonymity. She can say her name, she isn’t The Good today, she can do as she wishes.
It isn’t like her kisses with Elphaba.
No, those were soft and lingering and altogether quite deep in all their meanings. This is freeing, light and altogether quite effortless; it makes the weight of stress at the pit of Glinda’s belly dissipate into pleasant butterflies.
The promise of a momentous event with no strings attached is too good to pass up, so Glinda leans closer and kisses back.
Her heart flutters as she smiles into the confluence of lips and she wonders why this woman—this random woman whom she met barely a few hours ago and probably will never meet again, who, really, matters very little in the grand scheme of her life—makes her feel so much more than her husband or the multitude of boys she has ever kissed could.
Queerly, it is at that time (time of passion and anonymity, a moment that decidedly begs lucidity and not a misguided pulse of reminiscence) that she remembers a moment long ago. She had been with Crope, and it was cold, and he had insinuated something.
Invert, he’d said. She had flinched at the suggestion then, but now? Now it appears in her consciousness, as she is kissing a woman that really does not matter to her, and enjoying it more than with any boy she had ever courted.
“I’m a lesbian.”
Vivian snorts, mouth still inches from Glinda’s. “I thought that was obvious?”
“I’m a lesbian,” she whispers again, breathing in the puff of reality that, out of nowhere, seems to cloud her surroundings. Glinda giggles and presses her lips back to the other woman’s.
One would have thought it obvious, considering, but it had never passed through Glinda's mind to label herself as anything other than what she was expected to be. Anything that deviated from the habitual was considered a momentary falter, nothing identity defining.
She might have never cared for her numerous suitors, but that was because she just hadn’t found the right one yet. She might have been unusually entranced by her ballet partner when she took classes during her teenage years, but that was because she was jealous of her beauty. She might have loved Elphaba, but that…
That was because Elphaba was special, not because Glinda was different herself.
Vivian must think her mad, but she simply had never considered it. That this be part of her identity? She has always been a vehicle for her ambition. She has been a way through which social ascension could be achieved, but this means there is something intrinsic to her that deviates from this pattern. There is still part of herself that is her and simply her and there never will be anything anyone will be able to do about it.
And then she remembers Elphaba again, but this time, it brings tears to her eyes. Tears of joy (and how rare those are, especially when in conjunction with the odd green woman who so shaped her into the person she is now). Her eyes water because it hits her then, the understanding of what she had with her Elphie.
It wasn’t a ‘romantic friendship’ as her mother used to say euphemistically, it wasn’t an odd break in Glinda’s perfect track record, it wasn’t just idolatry for someone she recognized as so distinctly Better and genuinely Good.
It was love. It was part of her identity—her soul—to love women, and when she loved Elphaba, she loved her as one would under the Union of Marriage. Under the eyes of divinities, Lurline and the Unnamed God and even Kumbricia, for all she cared; she Loved her Elphie, and that love was part of her identity. Not a fluke. Natural.
A happy sob bubbles out of her and she presses harder against the other woman's lips.
꧁ ꧂
They’re in the carriage on their way to Chuffrey’s city estate. Glinda’s mind seems to remain on their point of departure, still loitering at the doors to the Florinthwaite club where they had last seen Fiyero’s dark figure disappear into a cab. The unexpected meeting with their old school chum had put them both in an interesting mood, not to call it a dangerous one. By the expression on her face, Glinda’s mind is clearly still wandering down paths once took; the placid, pleasant, perfectly polite look she gets whenever she is thinking about her innumerable regrets is settled dully upon her face as she stares out into the dirty melting snow accumulated on the pavements. Meanwhile, Crope thinks of the past, but instead of nostalgic or even mournful, he finds himself surprised. He doesn’t know how he forgot. He can’t believe he forgot. But he did.
He used to be happy.
Not that all is doom and gloom now. He still has his moments. When the spotlights on stage align perfectly in his eyes and the fascination radiating from the dark expanse of the audience is almost palpable. When his brushstrokes glide so smoothly over the canvas, and at such an angle, that he has to take a breather to appreciate his creation. Hell, even when he drags Glinda down to a seedy bar and they have the time of their life for one night, reliving their young adulthood. But that’s the problem. Reliving. Fiyero reminds him of Shiz, a moment in his life in which he unapologetically lived. Not relived. Not tried to justify his own existence through pointless creation or forceful trips down the path of reminiscence. He just… Was, and he was damned good at doing that, too.
It is just that so much has happened. Too much, perhaps. Elphaba, then Tibbet, then everybody falling apart in different directions and nothing he could do. Nothing he could make right with a bawdy innuendo, slapstick humour, and a good laugh. At least he still has Glinda.
Well, Glinda has him, to be technical.
Crope glances in her direction, and feels an urge. An epiphany of sorts dancing right behind his eyes. A catalyst bouncing around his skull, begging him to do something. To push a button to see if it will create a reaction. With some luck, that reaction might actually create some good in his life.
With a raw mix of hesitation and determination in his eyes, he calls out.
“Glinda?”
“Hm?” she hums back dismissively, eyes still glued to the window of the carriage, staring vacantly with her habitual blithe neutrality.
“Glinda, look at me.”
“Crope, darling?” The levity of her vacuous expression remains, and the distance of her mind from the current conversation comes across clearly in her tone. ”What’s got you all fired up?”
Crope can’t take being dismissed right now. “Glinda, I’m being serious here.”
The inflection sharpening his words startles Glinda. They both know he is firmly in the realm of out-of-character. Despite its rarity, Glinda does know this tone. She is familiar with the way campy, jovial Crope hones himself into a sharp blade whenever his feelings bubble up above the point at which he can laugh himself silly at the tragicomedy of life.
Glinda furrows her brows.
“Glinda, there’s something I need to say.” Crope is uncharacteristically apprehensive, picking at the fabric of his pinstriped tailored slacks. “Something I need to…” He hesitates.
“Spit it out, Crope, you’re scaring me.”
Crope lets out all of his air depart from his lungs, the crevices in his chest left hollow. “Darling, I don’t like who you are when you are around others.”
“What?” Glinda looks confused, of all things. If he were himself, Crope would have found that hilarious. That winsome visage, gaping like a fish, surprised eyes shining with just a hint of genuinity. Now, the obtuseness just makes him bitter.
“Did you just see yourself?” he exhales, an incongruously soft tone painting his recriminations with a pleading quality.
Glinda seems disinclined to do that—see herself—and instead chooses to stare confusedly at him. Introspection just isn’t her forte; it makes her anxious, and everybody knows anxiousness mars the face with wrinkles, so she avoids it when she can. “Crope, where is this coming from? I…”
“You barely let me speak, Glinda,” he presses further, trying to get through to his friend despite the indomitable distance between two opposite benches of the carriage. “You treated me like a lapdog, an accessory.”
Crope hopes it is apparent in his eyes—the hurt. He hopes dearly that this clod of genuine feeling is visible to Glinda through the burnished haze of propriety.
It must have an effect, because she does freeze. Maybe she does see herself, and maybe what she sees is what makes her gasp. Her eyes widen in a semblance of panic. It’s obvious she never expected to be confronted as she is now—for the way she carries herself about the world, the way she always has carried herself—to be questioned to her face. She fumbles with words and intentions, leaning forward, trying to grasp Crope’s hand in an appeasing gesture. A struggle for damage control.
“Crope, you know I don’t see you that way,” she tries with vehemence.
“That doesn’t erase the fact that that’s what it looked like. That that’s what you did,” he chortles in amusement, but it’s a broken thing that can't be confused with anything jovial, no matter how much Glinda wishes she could. “That’s what you do. Whenever we cross one of your society friends, or your pompous colleagues, you start dangling me around like one of your precious handbags.” He gesticulates wildly, racking his unsteady fingers through his dark, styled curls.
“I…”
“Do you feel ashamed of me?” Glinda frantically shakes her head, her short cropped curls whirling about her head, a trembling golden halo encircling her. This helpless display of such superficial innocence bothers him, because he knows Glinda. He knows how she gets through this world, how she climbs the social ladder. Like this. With eyes too innocent to be threatening, smiles too beautiful to be wicked and tongue too sharp to be meek. He thought she cared enough about him to spare him the routine. “Are my dirty theater-rat fumes going to contamine your squeaky clean reputation? Is that it? Oz, Glinda, you can’t just use me for cheap thrills and then turn around and pat me in the head like a docile show dog!”
She remains mute for a few seconds, processing, but then stumbles over herself to justify herself. “I’m sorry, Crope. I didn’t mean to…” She stops herself. How much of that is true? Well, she had never wanted to hurt him, that’s a fact. But she also knew what she was doing, whenever she minimised her friendship with Crope around those who would look down upon it. She loves Crope, he is the last link she still has with the only time in her life where she felt free, where she felt Alive. But didn’t she calculate this? It was a choice she made to treat him this way, just as it is a choice each time she wears a navy dress to a Charity Gala. She wasn’t forced into it, she noticed its strategic relevance to the building of her image, and so she chose this.
She chose to hurt her friend. Lurline.
The carriage stops, assumedly at their destination; originally, before the past caught up with them, they had planned to continue the day with tea and a healthy dose of gossip about other people’s marriages. Glinda simply sways to the halt of the coach, face stilled in realisation, fixed with the pale horror of self-reflection. Crope winces and looks down. At least there was a reaction.
“Glinda, I don’t wish you ill. I’ll always play along.” Crope speaks mournfully, not only for what was done to him, but also for Glinda. For the obvious facade she seems unable to let fall, for the genuine feeling she seems unable to express. He misses a time before her marriage, when they still Talked. But that time is past, and as she said herself oh so long ago, you can’t keep clinging to the idea of someone who doesn’t exist anymore. “I’ll be your eccentric little curiosity to show off at parties if you want, but know that I hate it, and that by doing this, you are hurting me.”
He reaches for the door of the coach and pushes it open. Slipping outside into the soggy cobblestone streets, he looks back towards Glinda. He smiles a sad smile and walks away, hoping that she will change, but understanding she probably won’t.
The carriage fills with a low winter breeze, the insulated heat seeping away through the open door. The small space once shared, now frozen solid. In that little space between two benches spaced an insurmountable distance, Glinda puts her face in her hands and wonders what she is doing with her life.
“Fuck,” she whispers. No one hears.
⩫⩫⩫⩫⫏ ❂ ⫐⩫⩫⩫⩫
They do make up, eventually.
Glinda speaks less. Her giddiness lost to the wind.
Crope doesn’t speak any more than he used to.
They still go out together, hidden under a bejewelled sky, concealed in the secret places between velvet red curtains, trying to relive a past long lost, and loves never recovered.
꧁ ꧂
Glinda misses her still.
She also has it all.
Funny how the world turns, isn't it? How Glinda can be considered the epitome of fulfilment—excessively influential, decently married, beautifully dressed—but still feel so damn incomplete?
As if she missed a left turn somewhere along the way to success, and now the ghost of her whole self still stands, abandoned in a street corner she just never got the chance to cross.
Glinda reclines her incomplete self upon her divan and stares into the crackling flames of her fireplace. She doesn’t know why she still does this. She very well knows that staring into the elements always gets her into contemplative moods, but she can’t help but end up as she is, prostrated on her couch contemplating her own existence.
How ghastly.
Glinda closes her eyes against the warmth of the hearth and languishes in the flames’ dancing glow. To think she is running on forty but she lies still, pondering a woman she knew for just over two years. It’s quite pathetic when she thinks about it. How can someone change a person so intrinsically that the ripples of their passage are felt years into the future? They do say that you never forget your first, but that still doesn’t feel right.
Elphaba was more than just that. More than just an experience.
Oz, how she misses her.
She imagines her, from time to time. She wonders how she passes her days, now that she lives slithering through the cavernous, resounding underground vaults of Ozian society.
Now that she lives in the realm of the clandestine, Glinda feels free to imagine her wherever her whims place her. Like playing with a paper doll made from a flawed, washed out, idolised set of memories.
She imagines her as a hero. Looming over sharp-clawed grinning atrocities of Gale Force officers, valiantly hovering over a battlefield, steady on her iconic mount, magical energy arching off of her like bolts of electricity.
She imagines her as a victim. Cowering in the corner of some squalid barn or warehouse, blood seeping from her side, fingers tightening around a wound that is severe enough to need stitches, but moderate enough not to be fatal. She imagines her weak, if only for the fantasy of a reality where Elphaba still needs her.
She imagines her as a romantic. Staring at the moon in clear nights of many stars, wondering whether Glinda—in her distant, ornate mansion—is looking at the same sky too.
Glinda hates this fantasy the most.
She knows Elphaba would never be staring into the finite physical; she would perhaps be glaring at the immensity of natural beauty, much like the poets of old, but her mind would still be contemplating Human nature and considering the possibility of human Sin.
She knows Elphaba would never be thinking of her; she would be far too focused on the immediate, the present, or the serious.
She hates this fantasy the most because its lack of verisimilitude makes her realise how much her memory of Elphaba has faded and mixed with her own wishful thinking.
At least, she still remembers the sound of her voice. Twenty years, and yet, the low raspy tones of their shared nights still reverberate in Glinda’s mind. Her sarcastic cackle hounds her from behind every corner; her whispers sound from dark rooms that, in the dusk, look like the sleeping quarters they once shared.
Her voice remains fresh to Glinda’s ears because it haunts her, slipping into the cracks of Glinda’s life and echoing in the vacant spaces there.
Her face, though? Her face has started to blur.
In truth, it started fading early on, the lines of her face mixing with a reality that never was.
The sculpted aquiline angles of luscious verdant skin, the elegant bobbing of her throat in laughter, and the immeasurable profundity of dark brown eyes of an age bygone turning into the nebulous clawed fingers, the hooked nose and the wicked cackle of today.
The Elphaba she mourns is a facsimile. An invention of her mind. An imperfect copy. This hurts Glinda so deeply it feels almost physical, a stab of real pain that pins her to her divan like a specimen on autopsy.
To think that she has mourned Elphaba for longer than she had ever known her.
Oz, what is she even talking about? Elphaba isn’t dead.
But she’s gone where Glinda can’t follow, and isn’t that the same thing?
Glinda forcefully presses her eyes closed and turns from the hearth to face the ceiling, draping her arm over her face. She shouldn’t be so defeatist. It feels good to linger on her grief, but in the long run, it is ultimately unproductive. Not to mention that it will surely give her dreadful wrinkles. She decides then that these latent feelings of Her, one who have always been kept from the public sphere, should also be pushed out of the private one.
She needs to break out of this melancholy. She needs to move on from this pathetic idolatry. It’s holding her back (or is it holding her together? Aren’t the remains of a broken but happy past the subject of her only peaceful dreams?)
She forces her mind into another direction nonetheless, constructing a false cheeriness in the hopes that she can will it into existence.
And anyways, even if she can’t raze feelings that have prevailed through so much and for so long, she can at least stop worrying herself ragged over Elphaba. Meeting, knowing, and loving her might have been a foundational event of her life, but Glinda must stop wondering about a woman that is out of her reach or responsibility.
Elphaba knows how to take care of herself.
That Godforsaken woman will outlive her—not to say she will kill Glinda herself from the stress she puts her through.
Glinda knows very well that Elphaba will never die.
Glinda shakes herself off, averts her eyes from the flames and leaves the room, hoping that with her exit, her mind might allow her some peace.
That night, without really understanding why, Glinda lights a candle upon her windowsill.