Chapter Text
When Galinda steps off the boat that delivered her to Shiz, she expects to be staggered by the sheer splendiferousness of it all. After all, this is her new beginning, the start of her new life.
Shiz University looms before her, its awe-inspiring architecture reaching for the sky. Every inch of its design makes her fingers twitch for a pen. In the distance, lush, verdant hills roll gently as far as her eyes can see. She suppresses a smirk, internally patting herself on the back for insisting on her attendance here. This is the kind of place that stirs her creative urges. It’s practically perfect.
So she expects to feel exhilarated, to step forward and giddily check off step two of her multi-step strategy to get everything she wants. But as her heel meets the landing dock, the anticipation is drowned out by the growing doubts in her head. The weight of uncertainty settles into her chest. She turns to catch her parents' eyes but instead finds them fixed on a group of people. Her gaze follows theirs, and her breath catches as she realizes exactly who it is they’re staring at.
Oh...Ew . Just the thought of being with a man is already nauseating.
When her parents turn her way again, she shoves that somewhere else. That’s enough, she knows she can’t disappoint them. Not anymore, not after everything she’s already done. She sucks it up for the moment, forces a smile, and pulls them into a quick hug. She waves them off, urging them to return to the boat. The smile remains frozen on her face.
Then, when she tries to look for company, she’s met by the eager gaze of a munchkin, his eyes sparkling with a very obvious crush on her. She’s not interested in his babble, but she plays along, throwing out some nonsense that sends him spinning. She scurries away before he could recover.
In less than five minutes, her mood’s gone from a flicker of anticipation to a latte emergency. She tries to look for the cafeteria when—
“Galinda!”
She looks around and sees familiar figures sprinting towards her.
“It’s Pfannee,” he points to himself.
“-And Shenshen.” The other blonde adds.
Ah. Galinda remembers her school days with them. She suppresses a grimace, forcing another smile. She really has no choice but to keep up the act.
Internally, she sighs. Then, she links arms with them and scans the area for registration.
As they walk together, her thoughts drift. This was her time to reinvent herself, a fresh start where she could explore who she truly was—away from her parents' expectations, away from the rigid rules of proper Gillikin society. And yet, before she could even begin, everything she had imagined could slip through her fingers.
She barely notices the crowd, too lost in her head. For a moment, she feels the restlessness leave her body. She wants to scream, to curse, to let everything out so badly. But she can't do that, not with Pfannee and ShenShen here, and certainly not with Momsie and Popsicle still obsessing over the idea of a suitable husband. They would have never sent her here otherwise. If they heard, her life would be over.
So yes, she’s quiet, nodding mindlessly to her friends' chatter, her thoughts spinning and the restlessness still settling within her. Even with the crowd moving around her, their eyes filled with wonder at the sight of her, she doesn’t register anything until they reach the quad.
Mid-step, she halts when a swell of voices in the choir catches her attention. In that moment, everything else fades away. The uncertainty, the internal conflict—all of it disappears. The only thing left is the music and the deep, aching longing that pulses through her veins.
This is what she came here for. To work on her art, to feel something real. To escape the confines of everything she’s been expected to be.
She wants to join, to lose herself in the music the way she’s secretly done to escape the life she’s always known. For a second, she almost steps forward.
Unexpectedly, it’s Pfannee who notices, who catches the gleam in her eyes. Without a word, Pfannee motions toward the group, encouraging her.
She gives him a real smile. When the choir trails off, she moves without hesitation. She steps forward, allowing the pull of the music to guide her.
She opens her mouth and sings.
There it is. It still feels right.
When she’s done vocalizing, she notices that everyone is staring at her. Well, not at her, but behind her. She turns around and—
“Oh, sweet Oz!” Galinda yelps. Elphaba stares back unbothered.
“What? What are you staring at? Do I have something on my teeth?” She questioned.
“No, it’s just…” Galinda tries to find the right words, “—you’re green.”
Elphaba looks down at her own skin, almost as if this fact is new to her. But Galinda can see it in her eyes, the way she reigns in a surge of anger.
"I am," Elphaba responds, her tone flat and indifferent.
There’s a beat of silence. Galinda doesn’t know what to say.
“Fine, let’s get it over with…”
She takes a breath, then launches into her spiel, her words rapid and almost rehearsed.
The whole time, Elphaba’s gaze burns into Galinda. The feeling makes her skin prickle. A rush of heat rises to her cheeks, and her hackles lift. There’s a suffocating tension.
She’s intrigued, there’s no dancing around it, but with all the eyes around them, she knows she can't afford to show anything else. She pivots, slipping into the role she’s been trained to play. She opens her mouth and says the insincere words everyone expects to hear, not what she truly wants to say
Everyone is charmed, of course, their cheers and smiles everything Galinda had hoped for. She basks in the approval, tossing her hair, feeling like she's effortlessly playing the part. But when she sees the unimpressed look on Elphaba’s face, she knows she didn’t get everyone.
She can feel the loathing emanating from the other girl.
Galinda had hoped to smooth things over, to make the situation lighter with her Gilikinese charm but the look on Elphaba’s face tells her it had the opposite effect.
She tries to salvage the situation, her mind racing to find the right words, but once again, the wrong words come out.
It’s ridiculous. She isn’t this tactless, and she certainly doesn’t believe half of what she’s saying.
It’s to her relief when a man with the most ridiculous eyesore of a top hat grabs Elphaba’s arm and yanks her back into their conversation.
Galinda exhales quietly. First day, and already a shit show. She needs that latte now.
That was only the first mistake. In her rush to fix things, she had misspoken, saying insincere words in a way that made everything worse. And then, to dig the hole deeper, she had accidentally volunteered to give up her private suite. It hasn’t been good for her.
She hadn’t meant what she’d said, not really. But it didn’t matter now. The damage was done. As much as she tried to convince herself that she could fix it, this transgression wouldn’t be forgotten.
It’s not like she didn’t try. She’d bought the perfect pink strawberry drink, something sweet and comforting that’s perfect for planning. She’d even memorized her lines this time! She spent a clock tick rehearsing them in her head as she sipped her sugary drink.
But now, standing face to face with Elphaba in what had once been her private suite, the words she had carefully rehearsed seemed to vanish. Instead, the sting of losing her space, her one place to breathe, took over.
She opens her mouth, but the words she’d intended to speak felt hollow in the air. Instead, Elphaba’s voice cut through her silence.
“Do you really think this is fair?”
There’s no softness in her voice, just a raw accusation. It’s clear that even if she apologizes, forgiveness is not on the table.
Galinda, already feeling the weight of her frustration, shoots back. “I do not, as I was promised a private suite. But thanks for asking!”
Her voice trembles. The sharpness of her retort only seemed to thicken the tension between them. She’d hoped to fix things between them but instead, she found herself lashing out.
From that moment on, there was no more pretending. They argued. Consistently. There was none of that easy friendship she’d been told would happen. What had started as a misunderstanding had grown into an all out prank war.
It started with small things.
Once, before bedtime, Elphaba casually cut the cord of Galinda’s night lamp, plunging their room into darkness. Elphaba rolled over, flashed her a smirk and drifted into sleep. Galinda was left fuming after her meticulous routine got disrupted.
The next morning, long before Elphaba had a chance to wake, Galinda crept into Elphaba’s side of the room, a mischievous smile tugging at her lips as she got to work. She replaced Elphaba’s neatly stacked books with covers that were wildly mismatched. The alchemy book, for example, was now wrapped in a bright yellow cover with the words “How to Charm a Munchkin” emblazoned across it.
When Elphaba woke up, she did everything in her power to resist giggling and ruining the surprise.
Suffice to say it was worth it when Elphaba glimpsed the cover. At first, she thought she was hallucinating but no, there it was in its full glory: her treasured alchemy book had been transformed into something ridiculous. She almost chuckled, with the absurdity of it all, before remembering Galinda was in the room with her.
Elphaba has to admit, just a little, that Galinda has a knack for getting under her skin. And maybe, just maybe she enjoyed it.
And so, the prank war continued.
Galinda doesn’t know when the genuine frustration she’d felt had simmered into a weird fondness. With each prank, something had shifted between them.
It was the way Elphaba respected her boundaries. Just when she reaches the end of the line, she chooses to pull back. There were moments, like when she’d almost dropped a jug of dyed water on the sealed boxes containing her recording devices, that Galinda had shown genuine fear.
The panic in her eyes made Elphaba pause. For the first time, she glimpsed something real in Galinda. So she chose to leave it alone, her hand pulling back from the jug.
Galinda couldn’t shake the feeling that settled in her chest when Elphaba had nodded at her and acknowledged that some lines weren’t worth crossing.
The next thing she knew, she’d written a song inspired by Elphaba.
It isn’t like it’s impossible—she had written songs about her dynamic with Pfannee and ShenShen as well. But this song, this song, was different. It was filled with an odd warmth that she hadn’t expected. A warmth that she hadn’t felt in so long. It wasn’t just about their usual banter, this song means something. It makes Galinda want for an opportunity to be close to her, especially if this is what she inspires her to write.
When she spends the weekend camped in the studio, she grapples with her truth. When the pink fades away, and she’s left with the person she wants to be, that’s all she can do. She’s been working on that song, comping and refining the vocal layers, when the door creaked open.
"Hey," came Milla’s voice. "You've been at this for hours. Everything okay?"
She paused her work and offered her audio engineer a small, distracted smile.
“Yeah,” she said, the word coming out more uncertain than she intended. “Just... working on something different.”
Milla steps closer. "Is this new?"
She hesitates. Instead, she plays the track, hoping the music could say the things she couldn’t.
Milla stayed quiet as she listened. The beat was poppy and upbeat but the lyrics bared emotions she usually kept hidden. Making this felt... right though. As right as when she’d sung at Shiz, when she’d allowed herself to be a little more than her image.
When it ended, there was a long silence between them. Milla looks at Galinda, her expression thoughtful. “That was vulnerable,” she says softly.
She let out a breath, her fingers still resting on the keyboard. “I never thought I could write something like this,” she admits. “But she was the first person out there who treated me as someone respectable enough to have boundaries. I had to write this.”
Milla’s expression softened. “You know, sometimes the people we least expect have the biggest impact on us.”
She nods slowly. “Yeah. I didn’t even realize how much she affected me until I started writing. I just needed to find a way to make sense of it all.”
Galinda resolves. "One day, I think I’d like her to hear."
She’s just made a decision, a promise to herself and an apology, a real one, to Elphaba.
And Milla, who chose to follow her here, who knows her as well as she knows herself, simply gives her an encouraging smile. “Just be you, Ari.”
Before Galinda leaves the studio, she replaces her oversized sweater with a stunning blush pink dress. She fusses with her curls, running her fingers through them in an attempt to tame the unruly waves. She fixes her posture and corrects her slouch.
Two nights before, she’d received a letter from her parents, one that initially made her stomach twist. The letter informed her that rumors in their circles suggested the Winkie Prince was coming to Shiz, and that they expected her to make his acquaintance.
But as she stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the dress, she’s filled with a newfound sense of peace. For the first time, the anxiety is pushed to the backburner. For once, she didn’t dislike the person she was becoming.
With one last glance at her reflection, she straightens her shoulders and heads out, uncertain but determined.