Work Text:
One volume is lost in a greater one, water-marked for all time.
Green toes dug in against yellow sand. She curtsied silently to the wild waves. She was a stranger to them, after all, and could not know what words to thank them with. A gesture would have to suffice.
“Are you quite done?” Iskinaary's voice was barely audible above the roaring wind. “Standing around in this wind is likely to dislodge a feather, and I am hardly at an age where I can afford to lose them willy-nilly.”
Instead of responding, she reached out both hands, taking the tips of his wings delicately in her fingers. Before he had a chance to ask what she was doing, she tugged him into a clumsy, silent, joyful dance along the sand. He shouted that she would wrench his wings out of joint, or tear flight feathers. She just grinned and spun him around with her more, until at last she lost her footing and the two tumbled into the sand.
While the Goose stormed off behind a rise to tidy his wings and shake the sand loose, she lay panting on her back and stared into the sky. Her lips were dry and tasted of salt. Her skin was irritated all over from falling into the sand. Her fingers were numb from the cold air she had climbed into earlier, and blistered from gripping her broom so tight.
She felt, briefly and completely, wonderful.
Above her the sky was a ceaseless blue, as though the effort of what she had done had chased away or evaporated every last scrap of cloud. She tried to compare it to other shades of blue that presented themselves in her mind's eye, but the giddy elation of the Grimmerie's consignment to the mythical deeps had stuck with her, even after the long journey back to land. She couldn't find it in herself to feel longing in the face of all she had just done.
Standing up, she decided to leave some few words to the book. “I hope whatever spirits dwell in there keep you forever! You can be their burden now! I hope whatever grows down there grows into your spine, and that your clasp turns to mother of pearl!” She had no idea if there could be pearls in the sea, but the sentiment was what really mattered. The book could become stranger than it already was if it wanted, down there at the bottom of the sea.
Ding dong, the book was gone.
With a loud whoop, she turned and ran to grab her broom, throwing one leg over it almost before it could lift high enough from the ground. As she wobbled into the air, Iskinaary let out an undignified shout before winging it after her.
“So where to now?” the Goose asked the Witch, after he had caught up to her.
She didn't answer at first, but just kept flying like an arrow away from the afternoon sun. And like an arrow, she began to arc toward the ground. Iskinaary followed, and waited as she dismounted from the broom and paced across the little patch of grassland. Eventually she got bored of pacing and threw herself on the grass, dislodging some more sand from wherever sand hides in clothes.
“If you're really that displeased with the direction you've chosen, I'm sure we can go attempt the potentially endless ocean again, instead.”
She pressed the heels of her palms against closed eyes. “Shut up.”
“My, what a stirring sentiment your words evoke. If you're too tired after your oceanic exertions, you're welcome to rest a while. I certainly won't begrudge you,” the last of this was muffled by grass as he splayed himself upon the ground.
When the Goose started snoring, she lifted her hands away from her eyes, and looked at the sky again. Sunset was nearing, and this far from the sea clouds still lingered, so the ceaseless blue that reminded her so much of – well, the blue was replaced now by a variety of colours, there was nothing specific to be remembered in it, no singular colour to compare it to. Besides, her eyes were watering from exhaustion.
She never had the same talent for seeing the past that her father did, anyway.
It could have been the next day, or a week later. Neither was sure, but the Witch and the Goose took flight again. East, ever east, over reaches of sand that were never quite falsely-endless or daunting enough to convince them they returning the way they had come. One evening, as they sat huddled together in front of a little orb of fire that floated above the grass, Iskinaary put forth the idea that the sun physically set into the sea at a point a little further out than they'd been, and as such travel in any direction away from that point would appear to be travel to the east.
“Don't be ridiculous,” the Witch said, “We've come this far seeing just the one sun. If this is a completely different land to Oz, then it stands to reason the sun that we saw rise this morning must be a second one that sets in the same place. Did you see a multitude of suns sinking into the sea while I was distracted?”
“Pardon me for entertaining a thought,” he grumbled, and nipped at her ankle. “So you think this is the way back to Oz, then?”
“I don't know what I think,” she admitted. One green finger stretched out, she directed the orb of fire to twirl. “Perhaps we just didn't notice a Congregation of Suns as they merged and quenched themselves in the sea. Perhaps somewhere far, far east of here is the other end of the world and a mountain that spits orbs of golden fire from its tip.”
“You're right, it was a preposterous idea.” The orb of fire kept twirling, and so beneath it the shadows of the grass danced. Iskinaary leaned his long and elegant neck against the Witch's shoulder. “Maybe it's where the Kumbric Witch really retired to.”
“Or maybe it's where Lurline retired,” countered the Witch, “And each morning, her assistant – I forget her name, now – catches her morning piss in a bucket and then throws it into the sky. Being Fairy Goddess piss, of course, it lights up and flies in great round globs across the air until it can sink into the sea.”
Iskinaary had started honking with laughter half way through the suggestion, and it took him a while before he could stifle his chuckles enough to ask, “I think that might be why the Kelswater never seems to reflect the sun – it's actually Kumbricia's Piss!” They both started laughing helplessly, rolling about on the grass. The little orb of flame went an offended shade of red, and rose up above them to avoid setting fire to any stray feathers.
After Iskinaary fell asleep that night, the Witch walked away from the camp a little. The fire wanted to join her, but she waved it back to hover over her companion. Finding a little grassy hill to hide behind, she stripped naked and sat crying while the moon looked on. Eventually the tears subsided and she hurriedly filled herself with fingers, pushing and rocking against one hand and biting down on the other to stop her voice from waking Iskinaary. When she was done, she wiped her hands clean on the springy grass, dressed, and went back to join Iskinaary in the quiet of his sleep, though hers never arrived.
Despite all the laughter of the previous night, they were both silent the next morning – Iskinaary only so after a look at the Witch's face. Silently they took to the air once the morning sun was high enough not to cast its glare into their eyes as they flew east.
For a very long time, they said very little to each other at all. Neither of them counted the passing of months, so they could not say how long. Their days were long sunlit streaks across sand and grass, their nights what little food they could forage and then sleep. As time passed and the temperature rose, the Witch took to riding in her undergarments. As she cut across the sky, her clothes billowed out like a collection of torn flags from where they had been tied to the broom.
Iskinaary watched her skin burn, and silently flew in search of more of the plants they had found that helped to soothe dry skin. She never thanked him, he never complained about it – she just slathered the sap of the plant on her skin and then got to the business of making food.
It was her skin that prompted the first comment. Iskinaary had been thinking for some time that her skin had deepened to a more foresty green, and that she would no longer match the crystalline tones of the Emerald City when she went back.
When he asked the question, the Witch didn't seem to even register that anything had been said. She just kept nibbling at the nuts they had harvested that afternoon, eyes on her toes. He didn't repeated himself, but after a few minutes she paused in her contemplation of feet and every muscle in her body went tight. She looked up at Iskinaary, and the Goose nodded.
It took several tries for her to speak, and eventually Iskinaary had to go on a quick flight for water so that she could work past an unexpected dryness in her throat.
“I've forgotten the question.” Her first words in – what, six months, a year? More? Her last had been about piss flying across the sky, she recalled.
“Of course you have. Humans can forget how speech works, Animals never really do.” Iskinaary fussed at his feathers while he waited for her to remember. She would remember, and he was in no rush.
It was almost dawn when she answered.
“I don't know, Iskinaary. I'm not sure if I want to go back.”
“You might already be doing it. You saw what was at the very edges of the desert today, I'm sure.”
She had seen. Green on the horizon.
In the castle of Kiamo Ko:
The grand patriarch of the Flying Monkeys was at rest on his day bed. It had been carried out to sit upon the newly built drawbridge, now that the rains had ceased, at the suggestion of some of the younger members of the family. They thought that perhaps their ancient leader might benefit from some sunlight on his old wings, after a long season of storms had kept them all indoors. Besides, one in particular argued, he had yet to see the work they had done creating a new drawbridge – surely they were entitled to some sort of congratulations from the first Flying Monkey on a job well done?
So on that morning, a team had wheeled both Chistery and Nanny out to rest in the sun. The two had chatted in their senile way, until the younger Monkeys had given up on any acknowledgement of their hard work, and went back to hauling rocks up the mountainside to start filling holes in the walls that had formed during the storms.
“It's a well-made drawbridge after all,” Chistery muttered once he was sure nobody could hear him, “They did better than I thought at waterproofing it.” His eyes were closed, and every arthritic limb was relaxing in the warmth of the day.
Nanny drooled a little onto her bodice as she napped.
“It's nice to see the moat filled up again as well,” he said, in a slightly louder voice. Nanny took the hint and woke up. Through milky eyes she looked up at the blisteringly blue sky.
“Looks like rain,” she said.
Chistery looked in what he assumed was the same direction as Nanny. “So it does. So it does.”
That night, the Flying Monkeys set the table with the closest thing to a feast that could be managed on such short notice. With all of the storms, they had not yet managed to collect supplies from their sister colony in Red Windmill. The guests would have had to make do with the last of the bread (with the mould cut of, of course) and some vegetables baked until they weren't quite so tough, except that the same young Monkey who had sought Chistery's approval for the drawbridge had flow to the nearest river, and snatched up a couple of fish to add to the oven.
Iskinaary gulped his serve of fish down, and talked so much about how long it had been since he'd had a proper home-cooked meal that Chistery managed to go from confusion to suspicion he was being made fun of to amazement that even an Animal could talk this much. All before the Goose even paused in his diatribe for a sip of water.
The girl, however, seemed reluctant to speak. Maybe not so much a girl anymore, Chistery realised as he considered her with his good eye. She still resembled her grandmother strongly, though her skin was several shades of green darker, and there was a reticence to her that was nothing like Elphaba's own taciturn moods.
Nanny, after being fed her last mouthful of mashed peas, turned her face towards their guests as if realising they were there for the first time. “And what was your name again, dearie?” she asked of the Witch.
A green jaw hung open for a few moments, working to find words again. “You can call me Elphaba,” she answered, and not even she was quite sure why she'd lied.
“Oh that'll be confusing, dearie, we already have an Elphie in the house. Where is she anyway? Never on time for dinner, even when we have guests. As bad as her mother.”
This time the Witch told the truth: “My name's not Elphaba, actually. I don't seem to have one anymore. I think it was blown off me by the wind.”
“But you've come here to see Elphie, haven't you? I remember that much about you.”
“Oh, we haven't come here deliberately,” Iskinaary piped up, trying to smooth over what could be an awkward topic for a Witch who wasn't sure why she'd come back, “We were merely blown here by the winds of chance.”
“No such thing,” Nanny murmured, to herself more than anyone else. “Anyway, you can't be Elphie, you poor confused thing. You're a whole different colour of emerald to her.”
The Witch regretted her little lie all the more, and gripped her fork so tight her knuckles went asparagus-pale. “Like I said, I don't know my name.”
“No, I suppose you don't. You resemble her like that. For her, it wasn't so much about names, but if she was good or wicked, whether she was a woman or not. Worried about the most pointless things some days, that girl.” she chuckled, and a tooth fell onto her plate, landing upright in the last of the peas. “Nanny was there when she was born, to see what Elphie was at her very beginning. Male or female, good or bad, as though these were the only options and only one could ever be true at a time!
“And you, my deep green duckie, you know your name, and where you fall on things. You just haven't told yourself yet.” Nanny smiled and picked up the tooth from her plate. When she jammed it back in, it was still green from the peas.
The Witch didn't go near the tower that had once been home to Elphaba Thropp, but history managed to find her again. When she retired to her room, one of the Flying Monkeys was there, turning a familiar object over and around in her hands. She stood as still as a bone, as the Monkey stood and bowed. “Meanin' no disrespect miss Witch!” she said, clutching the ball tight to her chest, “My brother said he saw you come in, and fed you's fish, and so I thought I ought offer you what I found.” She lifted the orb in both hands towards the Witch. “I never done mentioned it to nobody, though I know I shoulda offered it back to -”
“I don't need it,” the Witch cut her off, “And I had assumed it shattered on the rocks. You should keep it.”
“But miss, it ain't for me to keep!” the little Monkey protested, stepping forward to bring the glass closer to the Witch's face. She recoiled as if the thing could dissolve her, though she knew the opposite was true. Taking a deep breath, she gripped the Monkey's arms, and gently lowered them.
“It isn't mine to keep, either. I have no name to claim it under. If you do not want to use it, then return it to its tower and let it rest there.”
The poor thing looked very confused by her refusal. “I daren't go up into the tower, miss Witch, it's not allowed no more. It ain't mine either, so I don't know what I ought do with it.”
The Witch sighed, but then remembered a story her father had told her. “What you ought do,” she said, “is to put it in the fishwell. Perhaps a Fish will find it, and see in it the wisdom to give it to someone deserving.”
It seemed that mere exposure to Kiamo Ko had the same effect as the last time, though. At night the Witch woke, invisible, and wandered from the room where she and Iskinaary were asleep. There was someone waiting for her as she walked through the door.
“Took your time coming back,” the shade said, “But at least this time you're wont to listen to someone other than the specimens.”
The Witch looked at it for some time. “Are you,” she gulped down a quaver in her voice, “Sarima?”
It laughed at her. “Not by several years, thank you! I am Six.”
“I never had my father's ability to read the past.” Even to her own sleeping ears that sounded insufficient.
“No? Well I'm sorry, then. You should keep going anyway.” And with that, Six walked through a wall and was gone. Since the dream seemed unwilling to end, the Witch kept moving. She headed to the fishwell, because if the glass was demanding she look upon it, she could at least reject it to its faces.
Further down the hall she meet three shades, who named themselves Five, Four, and Three.
“She's barely grown into her own body!” Five asked her sisters, both of whom merely shrugged. “Honestly, you'd think her grandmother would have fattened her up a little more.”
“I never knew my grandmother,” she said. As she did she thought of Glinda, always just outside the periphery of her memory, yet apparently there, holding her mittens.
Five shrugged her shoulders and walked away. Four and Three looked at each other, and then at the Witch.
“Never knew any of them?” asked Four.
She thought about Elphaba, about the stories and the legends, the shoes she had been expected to fill. “I never knew Elphaba,” she said, and Four nodded and stepped back.
Three asked, “But your other grandmother?”
This caught her by surprise. She tried to remember if Candle had ever said anything about her parents. Her answer was: “I never knew the other one's name, let alone her life.”
Three smiled, and seemed to want to say more, but Four took her hand and led them both through the walls. So the Witch kept walking.
When she walked down the stairs to the fishwell, the next two shades had their backs turned. One was standing behind the other, brushing its hair. She wasn't sure if she should cough, or announce her presence. She just waited instead.
Soon enough Two turned to face her. “Sorry, just finishing up. You're her, then? The one we're waiting for?”
She shrugged. “You tell me. I never had my mother's talent for reading the present.”
Two just waved, and brushed past her to tramp silently up the stairs. Now she was alone with – her. Slowly, Sarima turned in her seat to face the Witch.
“Well. You look a lot like her, I'll give you that. You look just a little like him as well, I think it's the jaw.” She didn't have to ask who Sarima meant – she'd seen the similarity between her own jaw and Nor's. “Now look, you've told my sisters all your nevers, and that's fine. I'm here to ask you what it is you used to have.”
The Witch was confused. “I thought the glass had summoned me here.”
“No, you've done that yourself I'm afraid. I'm sorry, for what it's worth. It can't be easy.” She seemed content to wait for the Witch to struggle and find an answer.
“I used to have a book, a very powerful one, a very dangerous one. I got rid of it.”
Sarima nodded. “What else?”
“I used to have a name. When I threw away the book, I left it behind in the sea.”
Sarima nodded, and reached out a hand to the Witch. “What else?”
Hesistantly, the Witch came forward, and took her hand. She sat on the edge of the fishwell. She tried, very hard, not to cry, but the words came out as an anguished sob: “I used to have Tip!”
Sarima patted her hand gently, and said, “You should head to the drawbridge. The moon is high, and you may be able to see what has floated by.” Then she was gone, while the Witch curled herself into a ball and sobbed.
When at last she could stand again, she followed Sarima's advice. The halls were silent, as the last of the Flying Monkeys had gone to their beds. When she got to the drawbridge, a final shade waited for her.
“Hello, R-” she stopped herself before saying it. “I'm sorry. That's not your name any longer, I know.”
“The Ozmists said you had left with no questions,” the Witch whispered, leaning against the wall out of fear she'd tumble. “They said you were gone beyond this world.”
Nor smiled. “They were right. And yet. I am here because you have a question for me. But if it helps you, we can barter.”
“Barter.” she wanted to phrase it as a question, but instead she said it as assent.
“Then ask me your question, my dear.”
“Why?”
The moon was bright and large enough to be a jackal moon, but the time for such a convergence had passed (or had it yet to arrive?). Nor turned to look at it and sighed. “I'm sorry, you know. Had I known you were coming I would have... well, who knows what I could or could not have done?”
“You do.”
“You're right. In answer to your question, there are three answers. The first is: because the rocks came out from under my feet. The second is: because I thought all was lost and could not bear such woe. The third is: no reason at all, just a terrible accident, as so many things are.”
“That's not a fair answer. Tell me which one is true.”
Nor turned back around, and looked the Witch in the face. “My darling child, whom I loved as a daughter despite all my intentions. You wish that only one could be true, but all are at the same time. Suicide, accident, disaster – all of them happened. So you must work with what you have.”
She didn't understand, not until Nor asked her question.
“When you put that shell to your ear, what does it say?”
The Witch managed to run towards Nor, and catch her in a desperate, fierce hug for just a moment. Nor's arms wrapped around her, and then was gone. When she awoke, she knew where to go.
They left the next morning for Nether How, a storm rolling in behind them as they left Kiamo Ko. Neither Chistery nor Nanny had woken in time to farewell them, but the Monkey who had offered up the glass was there, wringing her little hands. “Miss Witch, I wanted to ask your forgiveness. I did what I ought not, and I...” she petered out, looking nervously around at the other Flying Monkeys. The next words where a stage whisper. “I looked.”
She handed Iskinaary the broom, and kneeled before the little winged creature. “Go and get it, and come with us. Whatever you've seen, maybe you can learn to see it clearer. If that's what you want to do.”
Near to tears, the Monkey thanked her and bowed and scraped and ran to grab the little satchel with the glass inside it. Together the three flew to Five Lakes, and to the little house where she had grown. The broom tree waved merrily to see her, its fruit bristling to break free and take to the air. The young Monkey hooted with delight to see “such a fanficied thing, miss Witch!”
They landed on the roof, and she found that there was a new door added to the house and left unlocked – this one was a little hatch that led into her room. She let her winged companions in first, and then descended the ladder. The house was not only silent, but filled with dust. Iskinaary tutted and grumped, and stole the Witch's broom to start sweeping the floor.
“Of course he's not here!” came a shout from the direction of the kitchen, “Useless sot probably decided to go chasing one or both of his pretty little friends for a dalliance in the moonlight.”
With a regular broom in hand, the Witch joined him in cleaning. The Monkey found a rag and some water, and began to clean the benches. It took the better part of three days to chase out the dust, and would take longer still to complete a rescue operation on the crops that had not yet perished from neglect.
“Maybe,” the Witch conjectured when they all sat outside to relax after cleaning the last of the windows, “He's at the Chancel of the Ladyfish, on his own, or with one of them, or with both. You should go find out, Iskinaary.”
The Goose hissed derisively. “If he is with both of them, I hope they're having fun together and making his life hell.”
The Monkey, not being caught up on gossip, seemed very anxious. “Miss Witch, couldn't you use the glass to see?” She made as if to go retrieve it from the cupboard it had been stowed in.
“No, I really could not. We're just making fun of him, anyway.”
But later that night, as the Monkey slept, Iskinaary brought up the topic again. “It does seem odd that he left without any word.”
“True. You should go to the Chancel, and see if he left a message there. I was going to leave for my destination in the morning anyway,” she said.
“What, and leave me and your unexpected apprentice behind? I think not.”
“She'd do better with Liir to teach her. Him, or Candle, or Trism – whichever ones you find. Any one of them knows more about seeing and teaching than I do.”
“I'm not letting you run off and face the hardest part of this alone!” He was adamant, but she just smiled sadly.
“You're my father's familiar, not mine. Your place is at his side.”
“Oh, now you say that, after all the grief you gave me the last time I didn't follow him. Besides,” he added, the sarcasm mellowing into a tone that sounded vaguely fond of the
Witch, “I'm the only familiar face you've got.”
“Not once I get where I'm going.”
When the Monkey awoke, the Witch was ready to say her goodbyes. Iskinaary had made the decision to stay and make the house at Nether How habitable again, and to teach the Monkey reading before they departed to the Chancel in search of Liir.
The Monkey, though excited to be one of the few members of her family to learn the difficult art of reading, remained anxious about becoming the keeper of Elphaba's glass orb. “Miss Witch, I must ask you again if you won't please consider it for yourself? It ain't right at all, a child like me having this thing.”
“Listen -” The Witch realised she'd never asked for the Monkey's name, and so asked for it.
“It's Galinda, miss Witch, in honour of Elphaba's companion. If you don't mind, we tried to say it the proper way but we Monkeys've got no skill at the gee-ell sound.”
“Galinda,” the Witch's voice was thicker when she spoke, “If you do not want the glass, then please feel free to throw it in one of the lakes. I formally renounce all ownership, and deed it to you. If you can find a way to make it work to help people, then do so. If not, the lakes will still be there. I think if anyone has a chance to make good with such a thing, it may be you.” And with that, the Witch was on her broom, and racing into the sky.
The day she arrived, a great parade was being held to honour the retirement of the Ozma Regent. When she landed at the gates of what had once been Madame Teastane's Female Academy and was now apparently a central government building, it was assumed that she was there as a guest of honour. As such, she was hurriedly shuffled into some dressing room where a young woman dressed all in green fussed and fretted to get her decked out in the correct finery for such an occasion. While she politely fumed about “the very scandal of it, a bare-breasted witch in the skies on such a day! No offense intended miss, it's just such a surprise,” she measured that same unclad bust, and then disappeared briefly to return with black-and-bronze dress she insisted would flatter the Witch most handsomely. Though it had been a very long time since she'd been around more than one human at a time, the Witch managed well enough to politely but firmly decline, and insist upon a men's button-down shirt and a simple black skirt to clothe herself in.
“Miss, I must-” the woman began, but then must have thought better of it, because she turned and laid the dress out on a nearby table before vanishing again to source the items.
As she buttoned the cuffs, bells began to ring in the city. “Oh, miss, it's time you got on your way! The parade will start soon enough, and we must get you over to the Regent.” She had just enough time to grab her broom and satchel, look in a mirror, nod in satisfaction, and then she was in the hands of another small cloud of bureaucrats hurrying her along to the stables where a Lion lay on a massive cushion, that itself was on top of a kind of open-roofed carriage.
“Lord Brrr, your guest has arrived!” one of the aides announced in what seemed to the Witch far too loud a voice. Until she noticed a member of staff rushing in with an ear trumpet. Still, the old Lion turned his head, and gasped with surprise.
“My dear girl!” his voice seemed, as did the rest of him, significantly more frail then when they had last met. “Oh, but it's a very wonder to see you again, and on such a day. I had hoped you'd come. Come up here and say hello properly.”
She climbed up the side of the carriage, and deposited her broom in the gap between the cushion and the carriage. She wrapped her arms gently around her Lion, and laughed as he licked at the side of her neck. When she pulled back, he had gone a little misty-eyed. “Oh dear. I fear you have gone and grown up even more while you were away from me. Forgive me, I'm getting sentimental in my dotage. Sound political decision to ship me off to a quiet retirement now, before I start wasting taxpayer money on projects like a search for the Queen of the Bears, or a monument in Traum to assuage my guilt. But how are you, little one?”
“I'm alright. You seem to have aged quite a bit since I saw you.”
“The business of running a nation can do that, even for those of us practiced at running. So. What name do I call you now?”
“You can tell, then?” she asked, twisting her fingers through his mane, which was dyed a more metallic and dignified silver than it really was.
“I came into this world unsure of how I even knew my name, but that does not mean I can't tell when someone has changed enough that a new name may be necessary. Do you have one, yet?”
“I don't think so,” she said.
“Well, plenty of time. Do you have a title we can use? Or shall we scandalise them a little and call you the Wicked Witch of the West? Or perhaps the Good Witch?”
“Neither, I think. Or both,” she smiled as she leaned against him and thought about it. “Call me the Witch of the Utter West.”
That took him by surprise. He pulled his head back, to get a clearer view of her face. “Just how far have you been?” he asked.
She surprised even herself by winking at him, and saying: “Further than you would dare to think.”
The parade itself was fairly dull, though Brrr's dry remarks on various influential members of state in the crowd was a source of amusement. At the very end of it, they came to the Palace itself, still ruined in parts, and drove into the forecourt. And there she was. Standing on a balcony and waving, Ozma Tippetarius. The Witch nearly raised her hand to wave back before realising the gesture was general, and that the Queen's attention wasn't even on Brrr's carriage just yet. So she waited, hands gripping one another in her lap, all sort of useless things like hope and desire welling up in her.
When at last the Queen's gaze turned on the carriage, the Witch could see the momentary pause, though at such a distance there was no way to read the emotion on that regal face. There was a slight nod of acknowledgement, though, so she returned it. The carriage was dragged up on to a wooden dais, and turned around to face the crowd. The Witch made to step down, but Brrr insisted she stay by him.
The speech was long, and flowery, and Brrr and the Witch had to nudge each other to keep awake. Eventually, the speech ended, and the crowd erupted in a round of cheers for the first Animal to lead Oz. Brrr nodded his thanks to the crowd, and then the carriage was taken into the Palace for the farewell Ball.
In the stable, a page approached the pair with a letter requesting that the Witch attend a private audience with Her Royal Highness Ozma Tippetarius. She gave Brrr a quick kiss on the cheek, grabbed her broom and satchel again, and was off to see if she truly wished to come back to Oz.
The sitting room was empty of everyone but Ozma herself. Quite a show of trust, given that the Witch had vanished from Ozian borders for who-knows-how-long and travelled who-knows-how-far. Still, if they gave it to her, she'd take the opportunity at face value.
“You look well,” she said. Ozma was still lifting herself and her voluminous skirts from the couch, and looked down as though she needed to confirm that the layers had settled correctly. When she looked up again, any possible trace of a blush had departed from her cheeks.
“As do you. Were you always so green?” she asked bluntly, “I seem to remember you much more like the colour when spring is born.”
“I always preferred summer tones,” she quipped. Neither of them laughed. They just walked around the room, always somehow on opposite sides, always studying something of interest that wasn't the other's face. “Should I curtsey?” she asked while looking at a bust of Ozma Initiata.
“Please don't,” her tone was dry, but the Witch knew she'd struck an unfair blow. “My decision to take the throne is just part of a bigger strategy, anyway. Give the people a sense of hope, of restoration, so that we can start settling arguments and moving this place to a better form of government. I think enough damage has been done by rulers with a proclaimed connection to some mystical Other Side, don't you?” She didn't look away from her view of the gardens through the window as she spoke.
The Witch just replied, “It makes sense. Good plan.”
Once the silence had dragged on just a little too long, Ozma spoke, while examining some document or another. “I heard you were introduced to the crowd by an interesting name, today.”
“Not a name, just a title. It was just made up to shock people a little. I,” the Witch of the Utter West paused, “I lost my name quite a while ago.”
At that, Ozma turned to actually look at the Witch – and it turned out the Witch had been looking her for some time.
“Ozma-” the Witch began.
“Tip,” she corrected her with a smile. “If you're allowed to have no name, surely I can have two.”
“Fine. Tip,” they could both tell that the Witch was trying not to smile. “I wanted to tell you. The Grimmerie is gone, for good. For the better as well.”
Ozma – no, Tip – took a step toward the Witch. “Thank you. I just hope you buried it nice and deep; people seem incredibly tenacious about that book.” She blinked, and tried not to look or feel offended, when the Witch laughed. The air had been so tense, and it had been so long since she had seen her, that she had thought the laughter mocking.
“I'm sorry,” the Witch said as her laughter subsided, “I didn't expect you to ask that. It's not buried, Tip. It's at the bottom of the sea.”
Tip took another step forward, but then decided to sit down on the nearest couch instead. “You've seen it? It's real?”
The Witch walked over, and sat on the couch with her, leaving as much space as possible between them. “It's real. And the Grimmerie is gone deep within it, beyond where anyone but maybe a Fish can reach. Though I doubt a Fish could read it.
“But I didn't come here to tell you that, not really.”
“Then why did you come here?” she asked. One of her hands rested in the gap between them on the couch.
“I wasn't sure at first. I flew back here, thinking that maybe it wasn't Oz I was flying to. Maybe I'd ride my broom into some magical new land and settle down there. Or maybe I would just fly across endless deserts until I found another sea.” She rested a hand in the gap between the two of them, but immediately lifted it again. “But I ended up here again, anyway. So I've got something I want to give you.” She reached into her satchel, drew out her shell, and offered it to the Queen. Tip lifted it gently from her hand, their fingers brushing only a moment, though still enough to send a line of heat through the core of both of them. “I want you to listen to what it tells you,” said the Witch. “Then you can decide what to do.”
Tip placed the shell against her ear, and closed her eyes.
“It's alright if you don't get it right away,” the Witch said, “It took me a long time.”
Tip sat perfectly still for a while, brow slowly creasing. Then she opened her eyes, and the witch tried hard not to compare them to anything.
Tip handed her back the shell. The Witch's hand didn't move, just held the shell there in the air. Tip reached beneath the frills of her bodice, and began to pull out something on a chain. The Witch stopped breathing as she waited to see whether the hope in her heart was worth the journey back.
There, in Tip's hand, was a chipped red heart.
She put the shell down on a nearby table, and when Tip said, “Maybe we can find you a name together,” in a shy and uncertain voice, the Witch reached over and took her own heart in hand.