Chapter Text
It had been a simple thing, the death of a traitor.
He had given names. Why, had been irrelevant. The only relevant thing had been that he was there in that barren grey room, bound to a chair, with their shadowed faces all around him.
Only his face was unveiled, and his face was as white as the heart of a flame, as white as the heart of the flame flickering beside that grimy chair in that dingy room.
Elphaba had not known if his face had been white from fear or from exhaustion. Sweat had dripped from his brow like white wax, but they had used him unkindly before bringing him to that place, so perhaps it had been simple fatigue.
There had been so much that Elphaba had not bothered to ask, had not cared to ask. Had the Gale Force found his true name, something even the other members of his cell did not know? Had they threatened his family?
Had he wanted to save them? Did he consider that cowardice or bravery?
He was unnaturally quiet, she remembered. Was that in acceptance of his fate? Did he feel guilty and want to be absolved of guilt through death? Was it in hopelessness, despair? Were his last thoughts of his daughter thrown to whatever horror the Wizard might contrive? Or were they of his comrades, those he knew he had betrayed?
His had been a silent, inscrutable face – but its flatness, its simplicity, had been so beguiling. A part of her had wanted to take an hour to read that face, but that would have been impractical and foolishly sentimental.
Besides, there was no time for that.
The deed had to be done quick, and then they would disperse, as spectral as the shadows the candle made dance upon the wall.
There had been talk about how they were going to do it – what would make the least noise, what would be the least messy. They had brought him to a dunghill. Its population was sparse. Still, there were a few eyes and ears out there, a few tongues that might dare to wag…
“Strangle him,” she had said.
But she had not done it herself. Greater hands than hers, thickly gloved, had closed around his throat. Even so, she watched him to the end in a kind of piteous contempt. He had hurt them all and so hurt her, and this was justice. Brutal, but it was. At that point in time, the justice was of greater weight on the scales of her heart – but for there to be any struggle in the scales, the brutality must have weighed down too. Mustn’t it have?
Perhaps she had thoughts then, in that dark room. Perhaps her thoughts now were roiling the thoughts she once had and tipping the scales of certainty.
Perhaps the whole muddy mess of life in the Resistance was becoming too much of a tumultuous storm – a tumult of mixed metaphors a high-minded scholar would simply screech at in the hallowed halls of Shiz.
Dear old Shiz.
Elphaba laughed hollowly.
Impossible for that not to come into her mind, impossible for… memories… not to come back…
Past and present were a fen to drown in, weren’t they?
Was it simple now?
It had been simple then.
Had it even been simple then?
Maybe it had been, maybe it hadn’t… but that had been a face in the faceless sea of the Resistance and this… this was Glinda.
Glinda… who had thrown in her lot with the Wizard…
Glinda, who even now was standing before a crowd, happily spewing the Wizard’s rhetoric with a smile…
That smile…
The memories hurt.
Glinda smiling at her…
Glinda taking her hand in hers…
Glinda’s head resting against her shoulder…
The softness of their first kiss…
Their bodies entwining, raven hair entangling with gold…
And she could not.
Elphaba just… could not…
She knew, though, that if she could not kill her, another would. Another faceless shadow from her cell. Someone to whom Glinda was nothing more than another one of the Wizard’s propogandists.
She felt the shifting in the crowd.
The corners of her eyes stung, anticipating the thunder of a gunshot from another sniper – there were crannies in which to lurk, she had found one, her comrades could easily find others, she knew right well they had –
As she delayed, were they preparing –
And in that moment, Elphaba made a decision. Knowing that she no longer knew what she was doing. Knowing, that whatever she was doing, it was folly. Knowing that there was no way out, that she was the traitor now, that this was madness and that uncertainty was her only certainty and it was all so… painfully ridiculous.
And she felt herself diving down like a great black bat, heard the gunshot ring out, heard Glinda’s scream, and then –