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It has been well documented—from days when there was unrest, days when there was turmoil, days when there was war—that poppy flowers would grow over the mass graves left in the wake of battle. They are the first flowers to grow back over the wreckage of a battlefield, the first thing to thrive in the aftermath.
The only war that is being fought these days is one of propaganda and media lies, but Elphaba thinks it’s actually kind of poetic, in a way, that when she finally chokes on that last flower, it will be the common poppy that blooms over the grave of her body.
She feels a little like a breathing, talking, walking grave these days. She lies awake some nights and imagines the aftermath of her death: there will be no one to find her body, no one to bury her, no one to mourn her.
No, instead she will keel over in the woods somewhere, coughing and coughing and coughing, until those cursed flowers finally choke her to death. She will curl into herself on the forest floor, and there she will decompose. Poppies will grow over the mass of dirt and decay that had been herself; the only thing to thrive after touching her in years.
The paper-thin petals will sway in the wind, blooming bold and red and beautiful in the woods somewhere. They will practically glow in the moonlight, like the blood glowing in the annual hunter’s moon. They will sing her name in the way that the breeze sings songs of tragedy, and they will laugh at her foolishness. Dying over her inability to tell someone she loves them. Choking to death on flowers that had once been given her at a train station years ago.
It’s pathetic. Elphaba knows it is. But a spell isn’t an option and she can’t confess—not while she’s a fugitive and he’s supposed to be hunting her down and the third is broadcasting all her evils. Not while she’s who she is and they’re who they are. Not while she can’t even bring herself to think of their names. She doesn’t even really know which of them it is that’s killing her, not when she wants them both so badly and so tirelessly and so secretly.
In Ev, supposedly poppies are a symbol of loyalty until death. This is something that Elphaba learns when one of her Animal contacts on the other side of the border catches her hacking up her lungs in the form of dozens upon dozens of red petals. She’s on her knees, her hands clutching at the fabric of her dress over her heart, and the Crow approaches her without words.
When she’s finally done, she’s kneeling in a pile of petals so red that it looks as if she’s cut open her heart and laid down amongst the blood. She feels a little like that’s exactly what she’s done.
“Poppies,” the Crow says, his voice a croak of a sound. “Loyalty until the end.”
Elphaba doesn’t look at him. She picks up a petal. It’s warm and sticky with her spit. The physical manifestation of her desire is disgusting, is nauseating, is sickening.
She crushes the petal in her fist and thinks of him. Of how his hand had brushed against hers, and with that touch, how he had seen her. How she had seen him. She thinks of how conflicted his gaze had been when he wished her luck on the last time she would see him.
She thinks, too, of the girl who had watched her fly away on a broomstick, the echo of her hand on Elphaba’s wrist still bruising. I hope you’re happy now, she thinks, and she means it so genuinely that it sends her into another fit of coughing. She thinks of—
“Don’t let this kill you,” the Crow says. “You mean too much to too many Animals to let something like this ruin you.”
Elphaba’s voice is hoarse and scratchy when she says, “I’ve been ruined by this for a long time now. And it has yet to affect my work.”
“You can’t go on like this forever.”
“Then I will just go on as long as I can.”
The thing, really, is that it was always meant to end like this, probably. Which is to say that the seeds have been in her lungs since the very start. Or, if you go all the way back to the beginning: Elphaba’s first memory is of her mother.
In the memory, she is refusing to fall asleep: she’s energetic for some reason, all keyed up, refusing to lie down. Melena is losing her patience with her; Elphaba figures she hadn’t been an easy child to raise, but she had at least usually given her mother a period of reprieve while she was sleeping.
That night, Elphaba remembers practically throwing a fit about going to bed. She just wasn’t tired and didn’t want to. Melena had said she had a special trick that could make anyone tired instantly. Elphaba thought she would call her bluff by telling her to try. And Melena had gone to the kitchen, taken the mortar and pestle, ground something up, poured Elphaba a glass of water, and then told her to drink.
Or: it is well documented, too, that poppy flowers contain rhoeadine, which can be used as a sedative. Elphaba supposes now that that night she had just ground up the poppy flowers from the garden. Looking back on it, it’s kind of a terrible memory. She supposes, too, that she’s just coming full circle now. She doesn’t put much stake in things like fate and destiny but from the very beginning, she had maybe been meant to die like this.
This is also something that Elphaba finds kind of poetic. She hopes that her death is nothing more than falling asleep. She knows that’s probably a naive thing to hope for.
She can feel the end coming. The time between coughing fits is getting shorter; the petals have turned to buds, to stems, to half-blooms. It’s in the final stages now. She knows this. Every Animal and Resistance member who has seen her in the past week knows this—it’s impossible to hide, now.
“Where I’m from, they’re a symbol of honor for people who died for love,” another Animal tells her, once.
She’s curled up on the floor of the shack she calls home for now—the only safe house she has left, after the Captain of the Guard had managed to find the rest of them—and the Tiger is curled around her. He’s keeping her freezing, shivering, dying body warm in the only way he can. She presses herself closer to his side as if that will relieve the pain in her chest. She knows it won’t.
“Don’t be one of them,” he says softly. He says it not like a plea or a request; he says it like he’s already given up. “Don’t be one of them.”
Elphaba doesn’t say anything. She coughs again, and again, curling further into herself with the back of her hand pressed against her lips. But she can’t hold it back, can’t hold back the spill of dirt and poppy seeds that comes from her mouth when she coughs a third time.
“Oh Fabala,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against the crown of her head. “Please, just tell us who we need to bring you to.”
Fabala. It’s a code name, these days. But right now, the name reminds her of family. Of Melena. Of Nessarose. There is so much guilt in her body that she thinks it might kill her before the flowers do. She has so many regrets.
She coughs and the dirt is lingering like dust and her mouth is so dry that it feels like she’s gone years without water. She wants to quench her thirst desperately, wants to soothe the ache in her throat, but she thinks it’d just make her choke on mud and that sounds infinitely worse than the itching and scratching.
“I can’t,” she says hoarsely. “But I—there’s one last thing you can help me with.”
She has a list of things to do before she dies. There are two things left on the list, and then she’ll give up. The flowers—the desire, the lack of, the wanting, and the unrequitedness of it all—can take her. But first, there are two wrongs to make right.
The poppy flower is technically considered not a flower but a weed. They’re persistent little weeds, with something like 20,000 seeds produced per plant. The hated things infested fields of crops in Munchkinland, Elphaba remembers vaguely from early childhood, despite being staple plants in her later childhood gardens in Quadling Country.
She remembers Nessa picking the flowers from the garden and bringing them in to save in vases in the spring. A local Quadling once showed them how to cauterize the ends of the stems to help the buds bloom stronger and last longer. Her and Nessa watched, captivated, as he held a small candle to the ends, then placed the flowers into a vase. Watching the bud unfold, the petals unfurling and blooming brightly in the sun-dusted kitchen of their little missionary’s homestead is a treasured memory of hers.
Now, she stands in front of the Wicked Witch of the East, and she and her sister stare at each other like they’re seeing each other for the first time.
Nessarose could say a thousand things right now, but nothing comes out except, “You’re dying. That’s why you came back.”
Elphaba tries to swallow, but there’s a garden in her throat that’s clawing its way out. She can only hold it off for so long. She’s already standing in a pile of spit-soaked petals and curling leaves. She says, quietly, “I wanted to see you again.”
“Who is it?” Nessarose asks, taking a lurching step forward. She stumbles towards Elphaba, nearly slipping on the mess of her heart, grabbing onto her shoulders. Her grip is so tight it burns like nails to bruises. “Fabala, you can still—there’s still time, you can still—”
“I’m not confessing,” Elphaba snaps, her voice hard. She leaves no room for argument. “I can’t—Nessa, I’ve done everything I can for you, so—”
Nessarose shakes her head, her eyes wet, and she’s always cried so easily; will she cry over her sister, too, when Elphaba—
“Don’t—”
“This is it, Nessa.”
She coughs again, doubling over as Nessa takes a startled step back. Her hand covers her mouth to catch the now expected spill of petals and leaves and dirt, but nothing comes out. She coughs so hard it hurts, something awful clawing its way up her throat like an omen. Then, spit out onto her waiting, open palm: a single completely bloomed poppy flower. Red and slick and crumpled. Her heart, spit up and ripped and breaking. So this is really the end, then.
“I have to go.” Elphaba takes a shaky breath and straightens up. “The last thing—what happened to those monkeys is my fault. I have to set them free.”
“It’s them, isn’t it?”
Elphaba doesn’t say anything. Just turns around and fucking runs. Just like she’s been running from her feelings, from his memory, from both of their memories—boy with kind eyes and girl with golden curls—and from the fact that she’s dying. Nessarose is calling after her, and Elphaba does not turn around.
But there’s no denying any of it anymore. She’s been on borrowed time since she first coughed up flowers alone in the woods after running from the Emerald City and the Wizard for the first time. She’s been running herself to the ground for a long time now. It’s finally time to fall into the grave she dug herself.
It’s said that if you’re picking poppies from a field and the petals fall off while you’re picking them, you’ll get struck by lightning. It’s a terrible omen of a terrible stroke of terrible luck.
“I’m going with her,” he says, and oh, there he is, she can see him now; there is Fiyero and there is Elphaba and this is the terrible strike of lighting that comes from a fallen petal.
But Fiyero grabs her hand and they run and for the first time in months she’s moving without difficulty breathing. He’s holding her and they’re together and the only breath she’s losing is that of which gets lost in his mouth, in his kiss. She feels like she’s been struck by lightning and electrified and she feels fucking invincible.
“I love you,” he murmurs, his breath a soft tickle against her lips.
Elphaba bites back a smile, and kisses him again. He tastes like poppy seeds. “I love you, too.”
And it’s okay, it’s going to be okay, they’re together: even if just for a moment, even if just for tonight, they’re together. The words have been said, the truth is out, and he loves her too. He loves her, and that’s enough for right now.
Then she coughs again. She coughs again and it hurts, oh Oz, it hurts so badly, it’s nails scraping up the sides of her throat, it’s a dead thing animating in her body and clawing upwards, it’s the roots of the flower constricting around her lungs, it’s the the end of everything finally coming for her, it’s the punishment for what she’s done and who she’s become, it’s the manifestation of every ugly desire she’s ever repressed—
She coughs and coughs and it might as well be a scream, might as well be a cry for help, with the way that she’s trembling and sobbing and she doesn’t want this—
About twenty days after the flower has opened, there is no longer any morphine present in the poppy seeds. Which is to say that dying like this is not as easy as falling asleep.
“Hey, hey, hey, Elphaba, Elphaba, can you hear me? C’mon, my love, stay with me.” Fiyero is saying something, a litany of her name, remnants of a series of promises that she swears she meant to keep. She doesn’t want to be this way when she has her wildest dreams in her hands here. “It’s okay, Elphaba, it is.”
His voice is so soft, so sweet, and everything is a little blurry. She thinks maybe she’s finally reached the end—then she realizes that the blur is just her tears.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes out around another round of coughing. “I thought—I love you, I—”
“I know, I know,” he murmurs. “It’s okay, Elphaba. I know. I already knew. It was selfish of me. To want you.”
Elphaba shakes her head, desperate, no, this isn’t right, none of this is right—
“I love you, I’m sor—”
“I know, I know,” Fiyero says, pressing a light kiss to her temple, to her cheek, to the side of her neck. “Don’t apologize, love. We’re going to get to her, it’s okay—”
Elphaba stiffens in his arms and goes still, holding her breath like it will hold in the flowers. “Her?”
Fiyero pulls away slightly. He looks at her with a frown, like he isn’t sure he heard her right. “Yeah—Glinda?”
“Glinda,” Elphaba echoes distantly. Then it clicks. What he’s saying. And he’s right, but— “No, no, Fiyero, Yero, no, I love you, I—”
“I know,” he cuts in, though not unkindly. There’s something so terribly understanding in his eyes that hurts as badly as these fucking flowers, because she cannot figure out how he could possibly understand. Even she herself doesn’t know where to begin with accepting this. “I love you too, Fae. But you and her—you have something I could never touch. I knew that. I’m okay with that.”
Elphaba coughs, another wracking cough that has her folding over in his arms. He catches her so willingly, so bravely; he doesn’t once blame her for this, this awful feeling that’s washing over her. She loves him, she truly does, but there is another love in her heart alongside his that’s killing her again.
She thinks of golden hair, a curl at the shoulder. She thinks of a yellow dress, a long time ago. She thinks of a hand ever so tenderly pinning a flower to her hair. She thinks of an oil lamp burning out late into the night. She thinks of laughter in the dark while the windows rattled amidst a thunderstorm. She thinks of a girl she once loved—a girl she isn’t sure she ever stopped loving, even after she stopped knowing her.
“Fiyero—”
Another kiss pressed to her temple. “I’m okay with it, Fae.” A kiss to her knuckles. “You two need each other.” A kiss to the back of her hand. “Please let me take you to her.”
“I love you,” Elphaba says, and then she chokes on another damned poppy and she’s coughing and shaking and he’s just holding her like there is nothing awful about this situation, like she has never hurt him, like nothing terrible has ever happened to either of them. “You’re enough for me.”
Fiyero opens his mouth to say something else, maybe a denial, maybe some other concession, maybe another promise neither of them can keep, and that’s when she hears the crying in the wind and she knows that something terrible has happened to her sister.
Some soothsayers in Quadling Country believe that when you put the leaves of the common field poppy onto hot coals, there are answers to all your questions in the shapes of the flames if you know how to read them. Elphaba does not know how to read her future in poppy leaves or in flame and she has no desire to know.
She does, however, wonder just a little bit at the irony. There is a flower that is killing her, and it supposedly holds the answers to the future she may not have if she were to burn it. There is a flower that represents her heart, and all she has to do to find out if she is loved in return is burn it. There is a flower that is choking her to death and a little flame would solve everything. Like cauterizing the stem of a bloom just to keep it alive a little longer.
Fiyero has to carry her to the place where she can feel Nessa’s spirit calling out to her. She curls herself up to be as small as possible, feeling terribly vulnerable there in his arms and trusting him to keep her safe. They’re moving slowly, much too slowly, but they can’t manage any faster with her weighing them down. She wants to close her eyes and sleep but the coughing keeps wrenching her back awake. No rest for the damned, for the dying.
“Fiyero—”
“Don’t talk,” he hushes her gently. “It’ll only hurt more.”
“How would you know?” she snaps. She doesn’t want to be told what to do, she doesn’t want to be babied, she wants to scream, wants to unfold her limbs and run from this, but she also knows that in her state, she wouldn’t make it five feet. “Why the fuck do you think you know anything about this?”
And Fiyero is silent. Awfully, horribly, achingly silent.
He’s looking straight ahead as they walk, his eyes fixed on some point in front of them. He very, very intentionally is not looking at her.
It hits her, then, like a flower blooming. It’s not a thought that clicks into place so much as it is a realization that dawns. Oh. He does understand, doesn’t he?
She murmurs, horrified and guilty, “Oh, Yero…”
“It was a long time without you there,” he says quietly. “But I’m better now.”
“Fiyero—”
He shakes his head then, still not looking at her, and she falls silent. She doesn’t think there’s anything left that should be voiced aloud; they’re just two walking graves and there are no words left to say.
Burning poppy flowers, hemlock, mullein, henbane, sandalwood, and sagapenum will summon spirits, according to some people in the Vinkus.
This is something that Fiyero told her a long time ago, when things were easier: poppy flowers were nothing more than the dots of red in the fields by Shiz, spirits were not hauntings of her little sister, smoke was not a screen hiding a fake of a Wizard. Fiyero probably never intended for that information to stick with her, and it hadn’t really, until she coughed up the first petal and recognized it as a poppy.
On an opposite note, throwing poppy seeds will ward off spirits. They’re cursed to stop and count all the seeds, apparently. It’s the same myth that Elphaba remembers from Munchkinland, about demons and the hundreds of kernels of corn that they have to count if you throw a handful at them.
She wonders, standing in front of the house that had fallen on the place her sister once existed, if she should try summoning a spirit with the petals that are killing her, just to beg forgiveness. She wonders if she should instead throw seeds in a circle around her to protect herself from whatever revenge Nessarose is planning—revenge against Elphaba for not being there the one time she was actually needed.
I’ve always taken care of my sister, Elphaba remembers saying, once.
Well, she’s done a great job of that one, hasn’t she?
Fiyero, who she loves, and the girl—woman, now; beautiful with her hair in curls and jewels crowning her head—that Elphaba won’t admit she loves too, are somewhere behind her, arguing in hushed tones. Elphaba has nearly completely tuned them out, staring listlessly at the house. There’s not even a body left to mourn. All that there is are the cheers and singing and chanting of Munchkinlanders somewhere in the distance. There are only memories now, and even those are slipping away by the moment, like petals in the wind.
She turns around. Faces them. Fiyero and Glinda. And then she collapses.
She falls to her knees and she’s ready for the coughing to come, ready to continue choking up flower upon flower upon flower. But it doesn’t come. She just opens her mouth and chokes on air. She curls in on herself, sitting there with her legs folded underneath her and her fingers digging into the dirt as she chokes on nothing.
“Elphaba—” and there’s Fiyero, rushing towards her, his eyes so concerned, oh those sweet, dear eyes that she loves so much—
—and there’s Glinda, following him just a step behind, her hands reaching out for her, that gentle curl and the sharp, perceptive gaze— “Elphie, breathe, please, sweet, don’t leave me, don’t leave us—”
—and there’s Nessa in the wind, calling out for her only to be ignored, only to have a back turned to her desperate cries; and there’s Doctor Dillamond, bleating out the words he doesn’t remember how to form in a language Elphaba can speak; and there’s her mother, lying on her bed with blood soaking the sheets between her legs, so terribly still—
Elphaba squeezes her eyes shut again. She can’t bear the sight of all her ghosts there next to both of her loves. She feels a kiss pressed to her forehead and she isn’t sure if it’s from Fiyero or Glinda but she knows that it’s too late. She opens her mouth to say something, an apology maybe, or an I love you, but all that comes out are poppies.
She squeezes her eyes shut, choking on the flowers, feeling the roots constrict around her lungs, burrowing into her heart, stabbing through the muscle and then making a home there like some kind of flowering parasite. The living evil in her body, the manifestation of every love she has ever repressed, the culmination of every terrible thing she deserves, tightens around the muscle of her heart and she gasps, taking ragged horrible inhales that can’t bring in any air through the blockage of the poppies.
She can feel hands on all sides: a hand on her back, a hand at her shoulder, a hand on her knee, a hand grasping her own. She can feel her throat closing. A hand rubs up and down her back in gentle, comforting strokes.
“The spell,” someone says. “Glinda—she can’t breathe—it’s the only option—”
“No,” Elphaba manages to choke out. “I don’t—I don’t want to lose—”
You. Her. Myself. This love that makes me. I can’t lose it. I can’t let go of it. This love is the best of me. It’s all the good that’s left.
“Elphie,” someone murmurs, close to her ear, so soft and gentle; a hand caresses her cheek and Elphaba falls into the touch, as soft as poppy petals. “I’m going to cast a spell. I know it well, I promise. It’ll keep you alive, okay? It’s going to be—”
“No.”
Elphaba opens her eyes, a fury in them that she didn’t think she was still capable of. Glinda and Fiyero are crowding around her, holding her so closely, like the three of them are one being, are made to be together. But they’re not, because her love for Glinda is killing her and her love for Fiyero isn’t saving her. And she wants them both so badly, wants to be better for them, but this spell is not a price she’s willing to pay.
She’s studied it, of course she has, she knew from the moment she started coughing up petals that her options were to confess to her love or to cast that spell that would tear the love out of her heart, never to be replicated. And while she was unwilling to confess, she’d rather die than live her life without loving them.
“It’ll be painless, I promise,” Glinda says, something wet and desperate in her voice. “You’re running out of time, Elphie.”
Elphaba looks at her—so terrified, trembling in front of her; hands touching her thigh and holding her hand but not holding tight; so beautiful even in her tears; big eyes watering in their preemptive grief for a girl who loves her dearly but doesn’t know how to do it right—and she murmurs, “It’s you, you know.”
Glinda lurches back, staring at her, wide-eyed and looking even more horrified than she had before. “What?”
Unable to stand the look on Glinda’s face, Elphaba closes her eyes. She leans to the side, collapsing onto Fiyero. He takes her in his arms protectively, holding her tight, keeping her warm as she shivers in the hot daylight of the abandoned cornfield. There’s yelling in the distance, though whether it’s Munchkinlanders or an approaching army, Elphaba doesn’t know; they all sound alike and she can’t bring herself to care about either one.
“Both of you,” she whispers, eyes closed. “The best of me.”
Fiyero strokes her hair slowly, untangling the matted knots and murmuring something so softly that she doesn’t catch it, and something wet drips onto her temple. She flinches, curling tighter into herself, only when she registers it as a tear.
Then another hand on her waist. “Breathe, my sweet,” Glinda is murmuring. “You’re going to be okay now.”
Elphaba tenses, opening her eyes to the burning daylight, to the heat of the afternoon scorching the cornfield, to the drought of Munchkinland. She sees Glinda staring fondly at her, her eyes still watering.
“You cast the spell,” she gasps out, “no, no, no, please, I can’t—this is—”
This is the only part of me that I have left that’s untainted, she wants to say. This is all that’s left of me that’s mine alone. This is the only thing in me that all of Oz has not taken and stained with blood and dirt. You cannot take this from me.
But she knows that Glinda can never understand that. Still, she is begging: Please, please, don’t take this from me. I love you both too much to lose this.
Then the thought hits her again. I love you both.
Glinda shakes her head, her hand curling around her hip bone and pressing down with just enough pressure to keep Elphaba aware of her presence. “I didn’t do anything.”
Fiyero twirls a strand of hair around his finger and tugs a little. Not enough to hurt, but enough to let her know that he’s still there—as if she could ever forget.
“And you thought you’d never confess,” he teases gently. Teasing, but there’s an obvious, trembling relief in his breath. “Didn’t you?”
There’s a strange catch to his voice, though, like he thinks he doesn’t belong there, holding her.
“I confessed to you,” she points out, but her voice is so hoarse and worn out that her pointed look loses some of its severity.
“I remember my confessing first,” he says mildly, unbothered. “But that’s beside the point. You and Glinda—”
He cuts himself off, looking away from her and up at Glinda. Glinda is staring at him, speechless for once in her life, and Elphaba feels almost like she shouldn’t be a part of this. They look at each other like they are the only ones in the world who are in on some great secret to life. Like they are the only ones who can understand each other.
“You’re a part of this too.” Glinda’s voice is quiet, low, but it’s firm. Like there has never been any other truth. “Don’t say you aren’t.”
He drops his gaze down to Elphaba. Slowly, Elphaba forces herself to sit up. Already, her lungs feel clearer; breath comes easier and her mind is no longer clouded with pain. Her chest isn’t constricting with every movement, and there aren’t sharp, angry, stinging shocks running through her heart with every thought of the two of them.
Fiyero adjusts himself so that, while he’s no longer supporting all her weight, he’s still holding her hand. Glinda, too, has one of her hands in her own. She’s rubbing her thumb in gentle circles over the back of Elphaba’s hand, absentmindedly, like she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.
“Is that okay?” Elphaba asks quietly, staring down at the two hands that are holding her own. “That I want both of you? It’s selfish, but I—”
“It’s not selfish,” Glinda cuts in, at the same time as Fiyero says, “It’s never selfish to love.”
Elphaba looks up at Fiyero, then at Glinda. “I’m the number one most wanted in Oz. I’m ruining you both by just being near you. By touching you.”
Glinda hums. She tightens her grip on Elphaba’s hand. Then she takes a deep breath and looks up, making eye contact. Elphaba can see in her eyes the moment that the decision is made. “Then so be it, I suppose.”
She leans closer, her free hand going to Elphaba’s jaw to guide her face where she wants. Then she’s pressing a soft kiss to Elphaba’s lips, chaste and sweet and giving Elphaba more questions than answers.
When she pulls away, Elphaba is left with her eyes closed and wanting more. It takes a moment before she gathers the will to open her eyes again, half convinced that she’ll be waking up from a dream on the cold, hard floorboards of the safe house.
But when she opens her eyes, the sunlight is still there and it is still warm and the two of them are still holding her hands and she is, for the first time in a long time, unafraid.
Then there’s a shout, much too close for comfort, and Elphaba is lurchingly thrown back into reality. A reality in which she is on the run—and maybe a reality in which they are in this together.
“We need to go,” Fiyero says, glancing back towards where the sound had come from. “We can’t get caught here.”
Glinda nods sharply, just once. She stands up, then offers a hand out to each of them. Elphaba takes the help gratefully, and they both stand, taking simultaneous deep breaths.
“Are you coming with me?” Elphaba asks, daring a look towards where she can hear the thundering footsteps of what must be the Palace Guard.
When she turns back, Glinda and Fiyero are looking at her with twin looks of determination. Of bravery that Elphaba doesn’t think any of them could have had before this. Before coming so close to a loss they can’t take back. Now, knowing what it would feel like to lose each other, this is their chance to do it all better.
She’s exhausted, and everything in her body is still sore and aching. She still feels like her skin is crawling with dirt in her veins. There is still something in her throat that itches and scratches when she talks. She still feels weaker than she ever has before.
But at the same time, she feels stronger, too. She thinks maybe she believes in something again. In them. In herself. In something bigger and greater than all three.
“I’m coming,” Fiyero says firmly.
Glinda takes a heavy, pained breath. “And neither of you are leaving me behind.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Fiyero says lightly, shooting her a smile. Something passes between them that Elphaba doesn’t really understand, but she decides she doesn’t need to.
Elphaba takes a shaky, ragged breath. She turns back to the house that had crashed into Oz and taken her sister with it. It stands there, small and humble and a little broken down, and Elphaba can do nothing to undo it. Can do nothing to undo the damage she caused or let happen. She can do nothing to change this.
For now, all she can do is pluck a single daffodil from the bush nearby. It’s as bright and yellow as the hanging lemon sun. She lays it at the foot of the door of the house, and closes her eyes for a moment. She thinks of how, in the aftermath of the dragon fires back before Oz had been industrialized and the dragons hunted to extinction, they say daffodils were the first flowers to grow back the next spring.
They say the daffodils grew back over the scorched earth, and they were the first sign that the soil was going to be fertile again eventually, and that crops could grow once more. They say that, in that first spring, people found peace in the daffodils.
Elphaba isn’t sure that there’s much peace here. But she hopes Nessa can rest now.
Behind her, Fiyero steps forward and then takes her hand in his. It’s so gentle that it startles her, and she looks over questioningly. “Someone once told me that daffodils mean beginnings. That the darkest days of winter are behind us.”
We can mourn, but the spring will come anyway, Elphaba thinks distantly. She thinks of the blood red of a poppy flower, and the yellow sun of a daffodil. She thinks of the past, and of the future. She thinks of Glinda, and of Fiyero. She thinks of Nessarose. She thinks of how the grief never ends, but the morning still comes.
Next to her, Glinda breaks her out of that thought as she steps up to her side. “Are you ready?”
Elphaba takes a breath, and despite how ragged, how grief-stricken, how tired it is, she still revels in how easy it is to do. How simple a thing, breathing. How much she had taken it for granted. How grateful she is to do it.
There’s another shout—clearly some kind of commanding call from an officer—closer by now. She doesn’t even flinch.
“I need to leave Oz,” Elphaba murmurs. “Before it kills me.”
Fiyero squeezes her hand: “We’ll follow you.”
And Glinda: “So don’t run off without us.”
Small and unsure and so desperately in love that it has both killed and revived, Elphaba lets herself smile.
They say that poppies are the first flowers to grow over the remnants of a battlefield. They’re the flowers that bloom on the mass burial ground of a warzone. Perhaps, though, Elphaba has been looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps she is not a walking grave. Perhaps she is not doomed.
Or, she isn’t anymore. Maybe, instead, she’s the healing that comes after the end. Maybe she is no longer the wicked thing. No—maybe she can one day soon be the beautiful thing that comes to bury it and start over.