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The Wizard has already concocted a whole story by the time Glinda even makes it back to the main floor. Something about Elphaba coming here with a plan to try and overthrow the Wizard. Something that painted her in the worst light possible but left Glinda largely untouched. An innocent bystander. A manipulated friend.
“All of Oz will be looking for her,” he reassures her. “Don’t worry-- we won’t let her get away.”
“Y-your Ozness,” Glinda starts. She isn’t sure what to say, her heart pounding in her chest. Her arms still ache where she’d been grabbed so roughly by the guards. “Surely, this is all just…just a big misunderstanding! Elphaba wouldn’t hurt anyone, I know she wouldn’t.”
“My dear, she already has! Or didn’t you notice my injured guards? Or the pain she put my poor monkeys through!”
“She didn’t mean to! Elphaba only wants to protect Animals. If, if you were to announce an effort to help them, I’m sure she would come back…”
She’s grasping at straws, and she knows it. It’s a weak and pitiful argument, not thought through or well executed in the slightest. A part of Glinda believes her words-- if the Wizard would just see reason, then surely Elphaba would too. But a larger part of her already knows it’s too late for such moves, and she isn’t so sure she trusts the man before her herself.
Not anymore.
“My dear, I understand you are worried. And I can’t say I blame you after the day you’ve had! But I do not wish to hurt your friend. Truly. I just can’t allow her to hurt anyone else…or herself, either.” The Wizard sends her a soft look, manufactured and fake. “You don’t want your friend to end up hurt, do you? Or see anyone else in pain because of her wickedness?”
“She isn’t wicked!” Glinda protests. There’s a lump in her throat and a weight in her chest, and this goes against every rule in her book, but she glares fiercely at the Wizard and dares him to contradict her.
A heavy silence lingers for a moment before the calculating gleam in the man’s eyes draws sharper and his sly grin grows into a smirk. “Oh, of course,” he says softly. He chuckles, and the sound makes shivers run down Glinda’s spine.
Behind her, Morrible grips tight fingers into Glinda’s shoulders in sharp reprimand. A reminder she’d be stupid to ignore.
“She means well,” Glinda says weakly. “She’s not your enemy; she’s not.”
But the Wizard just clicks his tongue and sighs like she’s a child who doesn’t yet understand how the world works. “I’m sure you believe that,” he says. “But I have known people like your Elphaba before. I see the signs. Her magic is twisted and dark. It is wicked, my dear. I know what that means.”
Glinda shakes her head and fights back tears as she tries to find something, anything, to say. The Wizard twirls closer, his dark eyes boring into hers as he lays his hands gently on her arms. The developing bruises burn under the contact.
“It means, my goodest Galinda, that you have no idea what she is capable of.”
Glinda can barely breathe, his whispered words drifting between them as she stands frozen and trapped between the two powerful people. She’s terrified, and she knows they can both tell. Regret sits heavy around her chest, but it is too late too late too late.
Then the Wizard draws back, a charming showman’s smile snapping into place on his face. “But that is not on you, my dear. You had no way of knowing what would happen today!”
That, at least, is the truth.
“In fact, I should apologize for how these events have unfolded. I must take responsibility for my role in them after all.” Even as he says the words, Glinda knows he doesn’t mean them. He spins around and throws an arm up in a flourish. “I know! How about I offer you a position, right here beside me. A most coveted spot, I am told.”
“A po-position?”
“Why yes, of course! All of Oz will be terrified by the news; they will need someone to look to. Someone to reassure them that everything will be alright. Who better than the girl who was closest to the Witch? An innocent student who nearly fell victim to the Witch’s plan. Someone who escaped because of her own talent and virtue. Someone…like Glinda the Good.”
The Wizard exchanges a look with Madame Morrible over Glinda’s head that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Something much bigger than her is happening here. Yet she can’t help the way her mind turns the words over in her head.
Glinda the Good. It had a nice ring to it, did it not?
Here was everything she wanted on a silver platter. She just had to be brave enough to take it.
No, a familiar voice whispers through her mind. You just have to be brave enough to refuse it.
“What if I say no?” she questions, the words falling from her mouth before she can stop them.
“No?” the Wizard repeats. Her heart drops at his tone. He takes a step closer, looming over her. “Well…I suppose any accomplice of the Witch would be met with the same response from the people. They’re calling for her head out there.”
A single finger reaches out to run through one of Glinda’s signature golden curls, and she has to repress the instinct to cringe away. “You have such a pretty head, my dear. It would be a pity if anything were to happen to it.”
It was at that moment that Glinda truly understood how the Wizard had remained in power for so long. It didn’t matter that he didn’t have any true magic of his own. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t read the Grimmerie. The people had given him power, and that was enough for him to do as he wanted.
It’s not about aptitude; it’s the way you’re viewed.
No one cared about Glinda. Sure, she had her parents and the students at Shiz. But they could turn on her just as easily as they’d turned on Elphaba. They’d say she was wicked, that she’d been corrupted by her roommate. They’d use their friendship against her. Or worse-- they’d use Glinda against Elphaba, painting her as a victim and using her to further fan the flames.
The choice before her wasn’t really a choice at all. The Wizard smiles, his hands clasping her own and giving her a gentle pat. He had won this round. And he knew it.
***
Glinda returns to a Shiz in chaos.
The train ride back was excruciating; the weight of Morrible’s eyes on her back as the sound of Elphaba’s voice kept clashing with the Wizard’s in her head. She barely looked up from her lap a single time, the beautiful view of Oz flowing past that had captured her just yesterday (Oz, was it only that long?) now making her sick to her stomach.
Somewhere, out there, Elphaba was all alone.
The school has all heard the news, and they’re not so dumb as to be unable to connect the dots. After all, there are only so many green-skinned girls running around Oz. Already, the students are calling for her head, and Morrible’s speech upon arrival does nothing but encourage them.
Glinda almost can’t bear to be there, but she knows she has no choice. She has so very few choices left, now. Glinda got what she wanted-- private sorcery lessons with Morrible and a position beside the most powerful and beloved person in all of Oz.
But at what cost?
She keeps her head down like that will help ward off the angry cries of the students as Morrible twists the story of what happened yesterday into something terrible. She’s mostly being left out of it for now, simply an innocent bystander and witness to Elphaba’s supposed wicked acts.
She hates every word of it.
She’s trembling slightly as she stands off to the side, and she can’t help the way her eyes start to water as she remembers tying that cloak around Elphaba’s neck. She misses the way a hand would find its way into hers whenever they started to shake. Misses the comforting squeeze and silent support. Is starting to feel the bands of regret tighten around her heart.
Somehow, Glinda still manages to pull off the correct expressions whenever Morrible sweeps a dramatic hand her way, but it feels like hours before she’s finally released and allowed to go back to her room. It is only then, still reeling and exhausted, that Glinda finally sees Fiyero.
That first fight is one for the ages.
“Please,” Glinda begs, tears in her eyes, as had been there for hours. “You have to understand!”
But she knew he didn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t understand why Glinda had done what she’d done. Why she’d left her friend (her… best friend) to fly off alone. Why she’d let Morrible drag her out in front of the masses of the Emerald City and spin that same awful story they’d just heard.
He leaves her, storming out the door and letting it slam shut as Glinda collapses to her knees. She’s shaking all over, but she cried all her tears out last night in a cold emerald room, and now she has nothing but the gasping breaths of a drowning woman whose lifeline has long since flown away.
She can’t seem to get any air, the bands around her chest growing tighter and tighter until Glinda is choking on desperate inhales.
Breathe, she hears a voice whisper through her head. You’re okay.
Except she’s not. She’s not, and she’s not sure she ever will be again. Her heart has been torn, been ripped, been shattered into pieces, glittering like glass, the edges sharp shards that dig and dig and dig into her chest and fill her lungs with iron blood.
Glinda is far from okay.
Eventually, the spots in her vision fade back into color and she manages to gulp down enough air to keep herself from fainting. She pulls herself to her feet, robotically going through the motions of getting ready for bed. She nearly breaks down again when she catches sight of Elphaba's things sitting out, waiting for an owner who will never return.
Instead of crawling under her own blankets, Glinda tucks herself down in the cot on the other side of the room. She turns her face into Elphaba’s pillow, breathing in the familiar scent, and feels the last of her composure fall away.
“I have a secret,” she confesses to the dark. “I think I may have loved you.” I know I definitely do.
But there’s no one there to hear it, and a secret said to no one is not really a confession at all.
***
Under Morrible’s stormy grey skies, the days continue to slide past. Glinda spends her time between classes dodging the sorceress's knowing eyes and praying she doesn’t receive a green-inked letter. She hides from her fellow students, unwilling to bask in the praise and concern they heap on her, and does her best not to let her worry and sorrow swallow her whole.
The rumors only get stronger. Elphaba is spotted several times flying over parts of Oz. She’s spotted as far away as Winkie Country and as close as the Emerald City. Glinda has one of the worst breakdowns of her life the day she arrives back in their dorm and sees the untouched other half of the suite completely stripped bare.
She had been here. Elphaba. At Shiz. In their room.
And she hadn’t wanted to see Glinda.
Morrible and the Wizard keep spreading their story, twisting it further with every iteration. Glinda can’t believe the students at Shiz are falling for it. They were there when Elphaba displayed her powers. They were there when she received the summons from the Wizard. Did they not remember cheering for her as she got on the train? Did they not remember dancing with her at the Ozdust?
More than once over the weeks, Glinda puts on her best dresses and her most uncomfortable shoes and lets herself be shoved to the front of an emerald stage. She’s good at this-- even if the thought no longer makes her proud. The speeches, the dramatics, the pandering to the crowd. They hang on every word she says. She has all of Oz at her fingertips, just as gullible and manipulable as the students at Shiz. They look at her with the same shallow awe in their eyes.
Even Nessarose believes her. Even Nessarose, distracted by the fate of her father and the weight of her own title, turns her back on her sister. And slowly, the number of people who knew of Elphaba, who knew of the truth, starts to dwindle.
After all-- Glinda the Good had always been in sorcery class, hadn’t she? Glinda the Good must have been the one the Wizard wished to meet. Oh yes, there was that awful green girl…what was her name? Did anyone remember? Poor Glinda, she must have been so frightened! Poor Glinda, she's just so good.
Glinda knows it is killing Fiyero to go along with it. He’d stormed out of her room that first night after their argument had dissolved into screaming and tears. He’d tried to confront Morrible, tried to confront the students. He’d quickly learned what Glinda had already known.
There was no winning here. Either they gave in to Morrible’s demands…or they ended up no better off than Elphaba. Hunted. They both had family to think about. And they both--deep down in their shameful hearts--were too selfish to find the courage.
For a moment, Glinda thought Fiyero might truly do it. Might take off into the unknown and leave her behind. It had terrified her, the very thought of losing him. Of being left behind. Again. But she knew that look in his eyes, that mix of anger and guilt. After all, she saw it in the mirror every morning and every night.
“I’m going to help her,” he declares. Two months have passed, and he’s fallen into his role now just as she has hers. A prince of Winkie Country and a shoo-in for the Emerald City Guard. Only Glinda knows it’s all a farce. That he’s determined to play double agent, minimizing the risk that anyone else finds Elphaba first.
His clear blue eyes are steely when he turns them on her. There’s something there, hidden in the cerulean depths, that she perhaps should make note of. Think harder about. Instead, her mind avoids it at all costs.
She already lost one love. She cannot afford to lose Fiyero, too.
***
The end of the year is here before they know it, and with it, the end of Glinda’s time at Shiz University. It scares her, dropping out in order to move to the Emerald City. But it's what the Wizard wants, and so, under the careful eyes of Morrible, Glinda bids farewell to the ancient halls of Shiz.
The student body explodes into cheers when Glinda gives a short speech before leaving. They love her. Her stage anxiety has grown with every special occasion she’s been yanked to the Emerald City for over the weeks, and the only true balm is the way the crowd always seems so eager to accept her and shower her with praise.
But despite the major launch in status, Glinda doesn’t want to leave. She worked hard to get to Shiz, and the past several months had been the very best of her life. She almost gives in to her tears when it's finally time to pack up the dorm.
She packs up everything, carefully folding all her clothing into pink trunks. There’s a single spot of black amongst them. A pair of boots from a memory that feels like a dream, now. Here, just use mine, Elphaba had said, taking Glinda’s heels from her and grabbing her hand. The boots had felt solid and safe on her feet as they’d continued on to their picnic, and something about the idea of Elphaba sharing them so easily had made her heart do backflips in her chest.
Now, her hands tremble as she works, but there is no one there to steady them anymore. Fiyero is coming with her, of course, but it’s just not the same. Even in the few times Glinda has let herself fall into his arms and bury her face in his chest, the deep rumble of his voice and heady musk of his cologne just wasn’t what she needed.
Glinda gets a full suite when they arrive, beautiful emerald rooms with emerald sheets and a view of the emerald streets sprawled beneath the large balcony. She hates it. Fiyero is off to the barracks, rooming with the rest of the guard he is now a part of. Glinda lasts only a few days before she asks, begs really, for her rooms to get a makeover.
She can’t look at it. All that green.
The Wizard invites Glinda to tea the day after she moves in, a tradition he’d started weeks ago whenever he dragged her to the city to perform.
He terrifies her.
He knows it, too.
The Wizard is a man, just a regular old man with a quirky sense of humor and a boatload of charisma. But he towers over Glinda, and there is a sadistic glee to every smirk he aims her way as he asks her pointed questions about her parents and friends that would be impossible to miss. He’s the ultimate showman, the fakest of them all, and Glinda never feels as truly helpless as she does when she sits alone in his presence.
The terror swirls in her chest, shaking her hands as she tries to sip her tea, and eventually, when she stumbles back to her bedroom, she has to slide to the floor and tuck her head by her knees and try to remember how to breathe.
Sometimes, Fiyero is there. But he has never known how to help Glinda when she gets all worked up, and the only person who does is miles away, and the mere thought of her fills Glinda with almost as much terror as the Wizard does.
The palace is cold and unwelcoming, Glinda’s every move watched by blue-furred guards who glare at her as if they remember that she was there that day. On the vanity in her new bedroom, Glinda places one of the last true pieces of home that she has, carefully running a gentle fingertip down the soft edge of its petals.
It’s a pink rose, still alive and in bloom the same way it has been for weeks. The kind of flower that would fit perfectly tucked behind someone’s ear or pressed into the palm of someone’s hand. Her best friend had given it to her, right before she’d kissed her goodbye.
Glinda looks at it every morning and every night and hopes beyond hope that the life that fills it means that somewhere, out in the world, the woman who gave it to her is still okay.
***
As her life starts to settle into a pattern, Glinda almost starts to feel she deserves an award for how good she’s gotten at acting. Acting like she is unbothered by being near Morrible. Acting like she is happy to perform like a puppet on the Wizard’s whim. Acting like she isn’t terrified that Elphaba is out there all alone.
When Glinda was small, a curly-haired child still clinging to her mother’s skirts, she had been unbearably, overwhelmingly shy. She’d been a toddler of very few words, someone who would stare at the other children when they tried to play with her and didn’t understand the magic of pretend. Someone who cared too much for numbers and straight lines and clean shapes, who covered her notebook in doodles instead of words, who cried when she had to eat certain foods or wear certain clothes.
Someone who, when she was forced to read aloud during class, felt such a burning, awful itch take over her that she could barely even breathe, let alone speak.
Glinda was not a popular child. Not at first.
“Why?” she used to ask all the time. “Why do I have to do that?”
Her momsie always had the same answer. “Because you’re a lady, Galinda Arduenna Upland. And because I said so.”
So Glinda grew up. She let her mother teach her how to talk and how to pose and how to shove all her emotions down until no one could see that she was nervous or scared. She learned how to eat and wear whatever she was given. She learned how to make friends and keep them.
She learned how to be popular.
“Why?” Glinda asks Morrible in the present day, voice scratchy and broken. “Why do I have to do that?”
Morrible gives her a sharp, sharp smile. Her nails dig into Glinda’s bony shoulders, the heat of her palm like a brand upon Glinda’s pale skin.
“Because, for some Oz-damned reason, the people love you. And because I said so.”
Love you. Glinda has learned how to make people love her.
Said so. Glinda has learned how to do as she’s told.
When Glinda was small, she learned how to play pretend.
She’s been pretending ever since.
***
In many ways, Glinda is grateful beyond relief that she still has Fiyero.
The first few weeks had been more than rough, but Glinda had known deep down that Fiyero would come around. At some point, he had shown up at her door with a heartbroken look in his eyes and a poppy held limply in one hand. She’d let him in without a word.
Glinda and Fiyero have an image to uphold now, more so than just being the star couple on campus. The citizens of Oz adore them; they’re the picture-perfect pair. They are quickly becoming the faces of the hunt against the so-called ‘Wicked Witch,’ and despite all of Fiyero’s raging backstage, they play their parts to perfection when the spotlight hits.
The lies taste like ash on both their tongues, but at the end of the day, despite knowing whatever feelings had been there in the beginning had been lost in the turmoil of the last year, they are the only two people who truly understand what the other is going through. They are the only two people left who know the truth.
Fiyero helps Glinda out of her gown and watches her clean her face of makeup, and it isn’t any more charged than when Pfannee or Shenshen help her, the gossip-hungry pair having followed her out of Shiz and into the Emerald Palace. It’s a bit ridiculous, almost. Here stands Glinda: perfect and pretty and popular and undressing for bed just a few feet away from the most perfect and pretty and popular boy in Oz. In any other story, there’d be an obvious ending to a scene such as that.
But their story isn’t a fairytale. Not anymore. Glinda is far from perfect, and her popularity is a ruse being used by those above her. Perhaps the worst part of it all…is that a small (not so small) part of Glinda can’t help but enjoy it. She thinks that may be the part of her that Fiyero hates the most.
The part that can’t help but feel relief when the crowd starts to cheer. That can’t help but gasp in wonder whenever she’s given a new dress or accessory. The part that still hangs on even the smallest note of approval or praise from Madame Morrible. The part that, when push comes to shove, is not brave enough to stand up to the system that has shaped her all her life.
Glinda is not like Elphaba. She has no power other than that which the people give her. That which the Wizard gives her. Her new gowns and crown and jewelry are wonderful, but they hang from her body like they’re made of lead, heavy with the weight of their own gravity, tethering her to the ground.
Are you coming? Elphie had asked her.
I can’t.
***
Months pass in a blur, time slipping through Glinda’s fingertips. She feels as though she’s wasting away, thinner than she’s ever been but being praised for her beauty all the same. She dreads every moment that she has to stand in front of a crowd. Her stomach twists into nauseous knots, her lungs constrict in on themselves, starving for air. But the people never see it- they see only Glinda the Good.
A part of her wants to believe that that means something.
“I am helping!” Glinda argues with Fiyero. It’s become part of their routine these days, fighting behind the scenes. “Can’t you see? If we defy the Wizard, we’ll be cast out just like Elphaba. At least this way, we can try to change things from within. Work with the system instead of against it!”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Fiyero scoffs, shaking his head as he gives her a pointed glance up and down. She’s wearing a sparkling pink and green dress with a small hat pinned atop her curls. Her eyelids shimmer and her lips gleam pink. “Or see yourself? Glinda, you aren’t trying to change anything. All you’re doing is playing dress-up for the Wizard!”
His words sting just as they’re meant to, but Glinda finds herself flushed and angry, squaring her shoulders and giving back as good as she’s gotten.
“And what has she been doing?!” she cries. They both know who she means. “Nothing good! The people treat Animals even worse these days. They’re terrified of her, and it’s only making the Wizard’s life easier!”
They rarely talk like this. She knows that most people don’t even realize Glinda has the brains to think this deeply. But she’s no idiot. She knows exactly what she’s doing whenever she steps out on that stage. More importantly, she knows exactly what the Wizard is doing, using the people’s fear of Elphaba to perpetuate his discrimination against Animals. Elphaba’s notable face amongst the rallies and protests has led to a surge in anti-Animal beliefs across all of Oz.
“At least she’s standing up! At least she’s fighting for what she believes in! For what’s right.”
“And what are we fighting for, Fiyero?” Her voice wobbles and breaks, tears clustered on the edge of thick lashes as the fight drains out of her. Glinda slumps to the bed, sitting on the edge and trying to catch her breath.
She feels more than sees Fiyero sigh and move to sit next to her. He hates fighting with her just as much as she does. She knows he hates to see her cry, despite how common that’s become. She lets herself fall sideways and tuck herself against his side, burying her nose in his shoulder and breathing in his familiar scent.
It’s not quite as calming as the one she misses.
“I don’t want to fight you, Glinda,” Fiyero says. “You’re all I’ve got, now.”
“I’m trying, Fi,” she sniffles. “I truly am.”
“I know, Glin. I know.”
In the morning, Glinda is expected to go out on stage yet again. She will be given a brand new dress, perfectly fitted and perfectly beautiful. Her makeup will be flawless, her hair shining gold. She will smile at the crowd when they cheer her name, and she will mingle easily with them after her speech, feeling warm under their gentle touches even as her insides shrivel and twist.
She will enjoy it, just a little, and she will hate herself for it. But for right now, she accepts Fiyero’s lie and lets herself believe that she is doing something good.
I’m sorry, Elphie, she thinks. This is what it means to be popular.