Chapter Text
The problem with mirrors is that they never lie.
Glinda stares at her reflection in the vanity, watching the way the light catches on the diamond pins in her hair, the way her skin glows with an almost ethereal perfection. She looks, as Pfannee would say, absolutely divine. Radiant. The picture of grace and beauty that all of Oz has come to expect from Glinda the Good.
The problem with mirrors is that they never lie, and the girl staring back at her looks like a stranger.
It’s been three years, two months, one week, and six days since Glinda last saw Elphaba Thropp. Not that she’s counting, of course. Just…three years. Three years since she saw her best friend, since she last held her hands, since--
Since she kissed me.
A lot has changed in those three years. It feels like a lifetime and like no time at all. Sometimes Glinda can barely remember the girl she used to be-- that nervous, eager-to-please student at Shiz who worried about her grades and her popularity and whether her hair looked perfect. That girl seems so small now, so insignificant compared to the weight of who she’s become.
Or perhaps, more accurately, the weight of who she’s pretending to be.
“Glinda?” Pfannee’s voice chirps from the doorway of her chambers, syrupy sweet and grating in the way it’s been since their Shiz days. His head pokes around the corner of her closet. “The Wizard is expecting you in his workshop in half an hour!”
Glinda doesn’t turn. She keeps her eyes on the mirror, on the perfect façade staring back at her. “Thank you, Pfannee. I’ll be ready shortly.”
“Of course! Oh, and Glinda-- the new posters came in this morning. You look absolutely stunning in them, of course. But the Division of Prop & Ganda wants your official stamp of approval before they release them to the public. Just swing by after your meeting!”
Pfannee doesn’t wait for an acknowledgement before sweeping back down the hallway, and Glinda finally allows herself to close her eyes.
Posters. Of course. More propaganda. More lies dressed up in her face, her name, and her picture-perfect smile. She wonders, sometimes, if the citizens of Oz realize how many posters there are. How many speeches. How many carefully orchestrated appearances designed to keep them complacent and docile, believing that everything is wonderful under the Wizard’s rule.
Believing that the Wicked Witch of the West is the real enemy.
Glinda’s hands shake as she reaches for the glittering earrings on her vanity. A gift from the Wizard. He’d personally brought one of the ladies from the salon to the Emerald Palace, Morrible overseeing the process and rolling her eyes at Glinda’s “dramatic” reaction to having a needle pierced through her.
She’d resented the strange, new weight for months after the holes had healed, but now, the gleaming sight of metal and gems in her ears is as familiar as anything. Just another part of the costume that makes up her Glinda the Good persona.
Glinda the Good…Witch.
It still stings, the snide way Morrible always tacks on that last word. Glinda knows the older sorceress doesn’t believe that Glinda has even a hint of magic in her veins. Three years of study and practice, and Glinda can’t so much as lift a feather. She hates it. She hates that she still wants it.
Glinda stands, smoothing down the skirt of her shimmering, pale-pink gown. Everything she wears is carefully chosen by Morrible and the Wizard’s advisors, every detail calculated to present the perfect image. She hasn’t picked out her own dress in years. Hasn’t had a say in much of anything, really.
But that’s not true, is it? A small voice in the back of her mind whispers, sounding suspiciously like Elphaba. You could have said no. You could have chosen differently.
Glinda pushes the thought away violently, the way she’s learned to do with all thoughts of her. She shoves them into a box and locks it tight, then locks it again. She has a job to do. And she’s going to be late if she doesn’t get moving.
The walk through the palace halls is familiar now, though it still makes her stomach clench with anxiety. Three years of living here, and she still can’t shake the feeling that she doesn’t belong, that at any moment someone will see through her mask and realize she’s just Galinda Upland from the Upper Uplands, daughter of disappointed parents who she used to bend over backward to impress.
Except now she’s Glinda the Good, beloved by all of Oz, and somehow that makes it even worse.
The guards bow as she passes. Palace staff curtsy. Everyone smiles at her with that same mixture of reverence and awe that used to make her heart sing, but now just makes her feel empty and hollow. It twists around her gut, tangling with the ghost of old guilt that has lingered since that day in the attic.
Is it everything you wanted? Is it everything you hoped for?
“Ah, Miss Glinda!” The Wizard’s voice booms through the room before she’s even fully entered, and she pastes on her brightest smile. “Right on time, and looking as gorgeous as ever.” He grins, eyes flicking over her pristine outfit.
There are little green flowers and vines embroidered into the skirt. Light and floral and innocent. Glinda’s signature color is pink- but there’s almost always a hint of green somewhere on her person. A reminder, though sometimes she wonders if it’s for the audience…or for herself.
“Your Ozness. You wanted to see me?”
“Indeed, indeed!” The Wizard descends from his platform with that characteristic jovial energy that she’s learned to recognize as carefully manufactured, not too unlike her own mask. He’s good at this, at being likable. Charismatic. Charming. It’s one of the things that makes him so dangerous. He’s so easy to believe.
“We have a very special engagement next week-- the opening ceremony for the Yellow Brick Road in Munchkinland! The culmination of years of hard work, bringing all of Oz together.”
All thanks to the Animals, Glinda thinks, and immediately hates herself for it. She buries the thought deep, where it can’t show on her face. She’s not supposed to think that way. Nothing but trouble lies down the path.
“How wonderful,” she says instead, and means none of it. That stupid road has been a pain in her ass for every minute she’s been here. The Wizard has been obsessed with getting it finished, commissioning the Munchkin tulip farmers to grow only yellow bulbs and send him every ounce of pigment made. She’s getting tired of hearing it come up in every conversation.
“And naturally, we’ll need Oz’s favorite Good Witch there to commemorate the occasion. Perhaps you could place the final brick? Make a speech?” The Wizard’s eyes gleam with something that might be amusement or might be calculation. With him, it’s always hard to tell. “The people do so love hearing from you, my dear.”
“Of course, Your Ozness. I’d be honored.”
The words taste like ash, but Glinda’s smile never falters. The Wizard loves to call her ‘Good Witch’ even though Morrible avoids the term at all costs. She thinks it’s rather intriguing, the way Morrible scorns Glinda for her lack of magical prowess but continues to uphold the lie of the Wizard himself.
The Wizard and the Witch. Neither of them is true.
“Excellent! Morrible should have the speech prepared for you later today. She’s really outdone herself with this one-- it’ll be just what the people need to hear in these troubled times.”
He waves a hand dismissively, already turning back toward his throne. “Oh, and Glinda? Do try to get some rest. You’re looking a bit peaky lately. Can’t have Oz’s sweetheart looking anything less than perfect, can we?”
The concern in his voice sounds almost genuine, as though he wasn’t well aware of Glinda’s continued issues with insomnia and nightmares. Nightmares so bad she’d turned to rather...drastic measures to try and null them. It’s a warning, and Glinda feels a shiver run down her spine even as she pulls her smile even wider, trying to sound lighter and happier in the way she knows he’s looking for.
“Of course not, Your Ozness. Why- thank you for your concern. I’ll make sure to pen in some beauty rest.” She giggles softly and clicks her tongue. “You’d think I’d be used to the excitement by now.”
Before she can get trapped in further conversation, Glinda sends the Wizard a quick wink and hustles from the room, hearing his humming ring through her ears as he turns back to working on another gadget. The hallway outside feels like it’s closing in on her, the walls pressing closer with each step. Her corset--laced up by ShenShen this morning with practiced efficiency--suddenly feels too tight, restricting her breathing and making her lightheaded.
Or perhaps that’s just the anxiety. It’s hard to tell anymore. The two sensations have blurred together over the years, until Glinda can no longer distinguish between physical discomfort and the constant, gnawing panic that lives just beneath her perfect smile.
She makes it back to her chambers before the shaking starts in earnest, and her hands begin to tremble and her breath turns to short, sharp gasps. Pfannee and ShenShen are thankfully absent-- probably off gossiping with the other palace staff about the latest scandal or fashion trend or whatever it is they talk about when they’re not trailing after her like faithful ducklings.
Glinda doesn’t know why she always feels so rattled after meetings with the Wizard. She knows him by now, understands his quirks and eccentricities. She can play him just as easily as he plays her-- at least, she thinks so. She’s good at dealing with the Wizard. His little magician’s assistant, ready and willing to play her part.
So why does every encounter always give her such a shaky sense of dread? It crawls under her skin, leaving her shivering and unsettled. A memory rises unbidden, seeping out from the box in her mind: the Wizard’s chambers, the screaming Monkeys, Elphaba’s beseeching emerald eyes. One last chance. One final choice.
Are you coming?
Three years later, that moment still haunts her. Three years, and Glinda can still see the way Elphaba’s expression had shifted from hope to understanding to something that looked heartbreakingly like resignation. It had been an impossible choice, and Glinda still doesn’t know if she made the right one.
Yes, you do. You do-- you just won’t admit it to yourself.
Elphaba had told her to be brave, but Glinda had only ever been a coward.
A knock at the door makes her jump, heart racing. She gathers herself quickly, her mask sliding back into place as she smooths out her dress and straightens her posture. Shoves those memories away. “Come in.”
It’s Fiyero. Glinda feels her shoulders lose a bit of tension as the familiar face of her boyfriend enters the room. She can’t drop the mask around Fiyero, not entirely, but she doesn’t have to pretend nearly as much with him as anyone else. Besides-- he’d see right through it if she tried.
“They’re doing another poster run,” Fiyero says without preamble, shutting the door behind him. He looks tired, his Gale Force uniform wrinkled and worn. He always looks tired these days. “This time it’s ‘The Wicked Witch Wants Your Children.’ New low, even for Morrible.”
Glinda’s stomach turns. “That’s…horrible.”
“It’s effective.” Fiyero drops into the chair by her vanity, running a hand through his hair in a gesture that’s become achingly familiar. “Fear always is. Gets people riled up, makes them stop thinking critically. Makes them believe whatever the Wizard wants them to believe.”
His words land like tiny stabs, piercing the carefully constructed emerald veil that hides Glinda’s real self. Worry makes her teeth sink down on her inner cheek, eyes flitting to the side as though someone might be watching. “You can’t talk like that,” Glinda says, and she has to hide her flinch when he shoots her a glare.
“Oh, sorry, how dare I speak badly about the Wizard,” Fiyero snarks, three years of anger and frustration coloring his voice. Glinda bites down so hard she nearly draws blood.
Their relationship has felt brittle lately, splintering under the pressure and the growing divide between them. At one point, Glinda had thought Fiyero would be the most important person in her life for the rest of her life. At another, she’d at least thought he was a very good friend. Now, she has no idea what they are to each other. Friends? Lovers?
“I just want you to be safe,” Glinda says quietly, hating how small her voice sounds. Fiyero had galloped to the Emerald City in panicked confusion, hoping to get the full story rather than the radio version spread by Morrible. Glinda had given it to him-- but she had never expected his response would be to stay. Now, they’re both trapped. Bound together by circumstance and cowardice and poor decisions.
I have to find her, Fiyero told her early on, donning a low-ranking uniform and squaring his shoulders. I have to protect her.
It’s a noble cause, but Glinda has always been able to see the hidden conflict deep in his eyes. Like herself, Fiyero doesn’t know any other way to play the game except…play the game. Work from the inside. Try to throw the Gale Force off of Elphaba’s scent while Glinda…well, while Glinda--
I’m protecting her, too, Glinda thinks, and she wishes she could sound convincing even in her own head. The chill of old guilt slithers down her spine, making her wrap her arms around herself as she shivers. She just-- she wants to keep all the people she loves safe, and it eats away at her a little more each day when she’s faced with the plain truth that she can’t.
That all her smiles and speeches and spreading good cheer aren’t actually doing a thing to help the one person whom Glinda can’t-- she can’t live without--
“I know, Glin.” Fiyero’s expression softens slightly, some of the anger draining away and exhaustion settling in its place. “I know you do. I just…I’m tired of playing it safe when she could be out there-- sick or injured or worse.”
Glinda feels her mouth dry up, her pulse pounding at the mere thought of the danger Elphaba is always in. Of how Glinda has no way of knowing if she’s alright. She tries to swallow and feels a lump lodge in her throat, her hands trembling as she twists them together. In the back of her mind, a cracked and crumbling box is losing its grip on its contents, sending sparks of panic through her system with each leak.
She can’t think about it, please.
Fiyero must surely notice her brief turmoil, his gaze silent but knowing. He understands what’s coming next.
“The road opening is next week,” Glinda says, changing the subject just as she always does. Something falls in Fiyero’s expression. “In Munchkinland. The Wizard wants me to place the final brick.”
Fiyero scoffs, digging his boot heel into the floor. “Three years. Not even, since they didn’t start immediately. There’s no way they finished the entire road in that amount of time working fair hours.” There’s something about the look in his eyes, about the way he’s waiting for her response.
“They…they volunteered,” Glinda says weakly, but even she doesn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. The Wizard’s view on Animals is a complicated one, such that Glinda often doesn’t fully understand what his real goal is.
She has interacted with plenty of Animals in the past three years, after all. Her own staff has several who assist her, not too unlike ShenShen or Pfannee. The white Bats and quartet of Fennec Foxes and even some small songbirds that like to perch in her cherry blossom trees. They don’t speak often, but she knows they can.
“Do you want to be here?” she’d asked them once, and she’d been assured they all worked freely. Willingly.
But then again…wouldn’t Glinda herself say the same?
There are other examples, too, she’s sure. She…can’t think of them right now, but she knows there are more Animals in her life. Chistery is one. Feldspur is another. She can’t remember the last time she heard either of them speak, but they aren’t…they aren’t mistreated. Right?
The regulations about needing permits for housing and travel and things, that isn’t…that isn’t the same as being mistreated.
“Volunteered.” This time, Fiyero’s scoff is nearly a growl, frustrated and disbelieving. “Sure, Glinda. Whatever you say.”
Glinda finds her own frustration rising against her will. This was an old fight, but it always hurt like new. Can’t he see she’s trying? “I’m doing my best,” she grits out, resisting the urge to curl her fingers into the pristine cloth of her skirt.
Fiyero looks like he’s about to say another retort, a fiery light in his crystal blue eyes, but then he stops himself, hands curling into fists as his gaze rakes over her faintly trembling form. She can’t help but feel a spike of fear whenever he gets going like this. The Wizard has ears everywhere. Morrible has eyes in every shadow.
“I should go,” Fiyero says after a long, heavy silence. He’s watching her carefully, expression unreadable. They used to know each other so well. “Captain duties and all.” He sighs. “Goodbye, Glinda.”
He’s halfway to the door when Glinda speaks again, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I love you.”
Fiyero freezes. For a moment, Glinda thinks he won’t answer. Her heart climbs higher in her chest even as a stone sinks lower in her gut. Please, she wants to beg. She’s not actually sure what she’d be asking for.
There’s a tiny, gusty sigh, and Fiyero doesn’t turn around. Glinda is only able to see the sharp edge of his jaw as it clenches. “I love you, too,” he says, and then he leaves-- sweeping out of the room before Glinda can try and convince herself he wasn’t lying.
The door closes behind him with a soft click, and Glinda is alone again. Alone with her perfect reflection, her glittering crown, her beautiful gowns and sparkling jewels and suffocating fear. Alone with the ghost of a green girl who had the courage Glinda never did.
I’m sorry, Glinda thinks, though she doesn’t know if she’s apologizing to Elphaba or Fiyero or herself or someone else. I’m so, so sorry.
But sorry doesn’t change anything. Not when she’s not even sure what she’s apologizing for. Sorry is just another pretty word, as empty and useless as the magic she’s supposed to have.
The clock on her wall chimes the hour, and Glinda stands. She has a schedule to keep, a role to play. She has no time for the arguments and accusations, for the doubt that creeps into her veins and floods her body with a weighted sense of wrong. Glinda breathes in deep and pushes all of that aside, shoving the messiness and emotions back back back-- until she can paste on a smile again.
She is Glinda the Good, beloved by all of Oz.
This is everything she’d dreamed of.
***
The rest of the day passes in a blur of manufactured moments, each one leaving Glinda feeling more hollow than the last.
There’s a brief meeting for the new propaganda posters-- they’ll be spreading them around right before the Yellow Brick Road opening, taking advantage of the citizens gathering for the celebration. In one pile, there’s an artist’s twisted rendition of the Wicked Witch with a bloody red background and creepy yellow eyes. In another, soft pastels paint her own image into something delightful.
“May I take one?” Glinda asks politely, smiling at the artists’ eager nods as she slips one of each pile into the folder in her arms. She always asks, and everyone in this department is used to the question. They probably don’t know why, exactly, she’s so intent on owning every piece of Wicked Witch art that gets made. Even the ones that don’t make it to press.
Maybe they think she’s just vain. Maybe they think she’s taken up scrapbooking. Glinda doesn’t really care anymore, so long as they don’t stop indulging her the request.
After that meeting, there’s another with some of the city planners about the secondary celebration that will be happening outside the palace while she’s away in Munchkinland. Having the final brick settled in Munchkinland is being marketed as a special favor to the young Governor Thropp, a touch of generosity from the Wizard.
It had been Glinda’s idea, actually. Though she will admit to no one that it may have been a different Thropp she had in mind when suggesting it.
Pfannee and ShenShen flit around her like butterflies all day as she prepares, cooing over fabric swatches for the new gown she’ll be wearing. Butterflies, she thinks, fingering the pale pink cloth. She repeats the word aloud, eyes flitting up to see what the seamstress thinks of such an idea.
After a moment of contemplation and brainstorming, the woman nods, smiling. “I can do that, Your Goodness,” she says easily, her eyes bright with imagination. It’s an honor to make dresses for Glinda the Good. Glinda has a closet full of gowns, and still she ends up donating half of them away once they’ve been worn.
The look of awe and excitement on the woman’s face makes Glinda’s gut twist and curdle. The seamstress looks at her like she’s something precious but almost inhuman, a perfect doll, and Glinda feels the weight of it pressing down on her shoulders. She just barely manages a smile, thanking her softly and making sure ShenShen jots down when she needs to come in for her final fitting in a few days.
The trio departs for their next task right on time, a well-oiled machine after three years together. It reminds her, just a little, of the dances they did as children, choreographed and stiff. Glinda has always performed well when told exactly what to do and how to move and when to smile.
“Do you want lunch?” Pfannee asks. “We should have time for a pastry.”
It’s a bit of an inside joke now, the pastry thing. Glinda has always had a bit of a taste for sweets, and pastries were often her go-to for something bite-sized and sugary when she needed just that extra little kick. Fainting was only lady-like the first time it happened, after all.
“I’m not hungry,” Glinda responds, her stomach tightening at the mere thought of giving it food. She’s felt slightly nauseous ever since her meeting with the Wizard that morning, and her talk with Fiyero had only made it worse.
She can hear Pfannee and ShenShen grumble behind her, but she knows it’s not worth telling them they’re welcome to get food on their own. Their intense desire to never be left out of anything important or noteworthy would keep them with her through her entire schedule, every day, without fail.
Glinda wishes that made her feel better. She wishes it made her feel at all less lonely.
Pfannee and ShenShen are her friends, after all. She should be able to feel like she can rely on them, confide in them, go to them for comfort. The way that-- the way she could with--
Elphaba.
Glinda shakes the thought of the girl from her head. Again.
Pfannee and ShenShen have never been friends in the way Elphaba was. Not even slightly. In fact-- Glinda might be the only person in Gillikin who remembers that Pfannee and ShenShen didn’t even like her at first, picking on her and teasing her back at Miss Cringeable’s Twirling Academy before Glinda learned all the rules to being popular and adored.
They’d dropped out of school for this job. All but fallen over themselves to move with Glinda to the Emerald City. She had been so grateful at the time for familiar faces to buffer her against the strange new world she’d been thrust into. She’d been desperate and terrified and grieving a loss she couldn’t even put into words. She had needed them, and they had wanted her.
Pfannee and ShenShen were not cruel people, but Glinda knows they don’t really like her for her. They like her because she plays the game well and has reached a level of popularity they couldn’t achieve on their own. They like her because she’s petite and pretty and blonde and everyone falls over themselves these days to stay in her good graces. They like her because she’s Glinda the Good, and they know they can take advantage of her to move up in society.
These days, they’re just another pair of faces in the sea of people around Glinda that will never be enough to fill a certain green hole in her heart.
“Come on,” Glinda sighs, lengthening her stride and hearing her…friends…hustle to keep up. “If we finish early, we can ask the kitchen for a special treat.”
***
By the time evening falls, Glinda is exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with physical exertion. It’s the kind of bone-deep weariness that comes from spending all day being someone she’s not, from holding up a mask so heavy it makes her neck ache.
She dismisses Pfannee and ShenShen early, claiming a headache-- which isn’t entirely a lie. The tight band of tension around her skull has been building all day, pressure mounting behind her eyes until everything feels sharp and too bright. This, too, has become familiar over the years.
Alone in her suite, Glinda drifts out to the balcony and stares down at the city below. The lights are starting to come on, twinkling in the growing dusk like artificial stars. It’s beautiful. The Emerald City is always beautiful, especially at night when she can’t see the dirt or the poverty lurking in the shadowed places between buildings. Even the city wears a mask around here.
Movement catches her eye, and Glinda leans forward, hands tight around the balcony railing. In the square below, workers are hanging a new banner from the palace gates. She can’t quite make out the words from this distance, but she can see the image clearly enough: a black silhouette of a witch on a broomstick, pointy hat and all, with the word “WICKED” emblazoned above it.
Another one. They go up faster than Glinda can keep track of these days. The Wizard’s propaganda machines work overtime, churning out posters and banners and flyers, each one more inflammatory than the last.
The Wicked Witch Flies Again!
Witch Destroys Public Property!
She’s Watching YOU!
Glinda wonders, sometimes, what Elphaba thinks when she sees them. If she sees them. They’re a bit hard to miss when the Wizard has them literally raining from the skies in the Emerald City. Though-- Glinda’s job often takes her all across Oz, giving special speeches and attending formal events, and she’s seen the same posters in every city she’s been in, and every crowd has that same wariness and disgust in their faces.
Surely, that means Elphaba has seen them, too. Glinda’s fingers tighten around the railing, her breath coming out a gusty sigh as her eyes veer to the western horizon, where the very last rays of sunlight are sliding out of reach. She knows Elphaba is in Oz. She was spotted several times while the Yellow Brick Road was under construction, disrupting and attacking the workers. People and Animal alike, if the reports are correct, but Glinda has long since stopped believing anything she’s told about Elphaba.
About the Wicked Witch.
The last sighting was just days ago, not far outside the Emerald City, close enough that Glinda could’ve been there within a handful of clock ticks if she rode hard. It’s the closest sighting to the city in years, and Glinda had heard nothing but her heart ringing in her ears when she’d been given the report.
Elphaba, her mind had cried. Oz, but she misses her. She misses her so much it hurts.
She misses her so much that she can no longer even think about the girl without her heart starting to fracture, the blooming hurt that had torn through her body that first night alone in the palace still such a visceral memory that Glinda knows she will die if she lets herself sit in it too long.
She had…she had lov--
“Miss Glinda?”
The sudden voice makes Glinda jump, heart leaping into her throat. She spins around to find Morrible standing in her doorway, severe and imposing in her dark robes. Glinda hadn’t even heard her come in.
“Madame Morrible.” Glinda quickly moves back into her suite, smoothing down her dress with trembling hands. “I didn’t hear you knock.”
“I didn’t.” Morrible matches her pace to the center of the room. “We need to discuss your speech for the road opening next week.”
“Of course.” Glinda reaches for the papers on her desk-- the speech Morrible had delivered early this afternoon, typed out neatly with helpful notes in the margins about where to pause for effect and where to smile and where Morrible herself would be talking. “Don’t worry, I’ll have it all memorized on time.”
“Mm.” Morrible looks skeptical of that, making Glinda feel like she’s eight years old again, struggling to read a book report in class. A buzzing sensation starts to grow in her chest. “See that you do. This is an important event, Miss Glinda. Historic. The eyes of all of Oz will be on you.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Morrible moves closer, studying Glinda with an intensity that makes her skin crawl. “Because sometimes I wonder if you truly grasp the gravity of your position. The responsibility you carry.”
Glinda’s throat feels too tight to breathe through. “I take my duties very seriously, Madame.”
“I’m sure you think you do.” Morrible’s lips thin into something that might be a smile on anyone else, but on her just looks cruel. “But thinking and doing are very different things, aren’t they? Take your predecessor, for example. Miss Elphaba thought herself very dedicated to doing good. Look where that got her.”
The mention of Elphaba sends a spike of adrenaline through Glinda’s veins, but she forces herself to remain still, to keep her expression neutral and not leap to her friend’s defense. This is a test. Morrible is constantly testing her.
“I’m not Elphaba,” Glinda says carefully, the buzzing growing, ringing in her ears now.
“No.” Morrible circles her slowly. An air of disappointment enters her tone. “You’re not. Though I suppose you’ll have to do.”
“I-I’m very grateful for the opportunities you and the Wizard have given me,” Glinda says, and hates herself for meaning it even a little bit. Because she is grateful, in a twisted, horrible way. Grateful to be inside the palace instead of being hunted outside it. Grateful to be loved instead of feared.
Grateful to still be alive, much as it makes her feel like a coward.
“Good.” Morrible finally stops her circling, standing directly in front of Glinda. Her eyes flick down to the papers still clutched in Glinda’s grasp, eyebrow ticking up just slightly as she notices the blonde’s tight grip. “The Wizard asked that you see him to go over the speech.”
Glinda makes sure none of her apprehension shows on her face, even as her fingers start to tingle. “What for?” she questions. The Wizard enjoys meeting with her, showing off his newest gadgets and rambling on about this and that. He likes to admire her new dresses and give her pretty gifts. But he’s not one to intervene when it comes to the speech writing. That’s much more Morrible’s area of expertise, the Press Secretary having quite the silver tongue.
“He didn’t say,” Morrible says, a rather put-upon tone to her voice, like it’s a chore just to talk to Glinda. Glinda has a feeling Morrible doesn’t like being the Wizard’s messenger. “Just that he had a proposition to run by you. Something he was sure you would like.”
That…sounds rather ominous. To Glinda, at least. The Wizard’s idea of “things Glinda likes” ranged anywhere from delicate earrings to disgusting beverages to Animals that he presented like pets.
“I’ll make sure to see him,” Glinda promises, breathing deeply to dispel the growing buzziness in her chest. It doesn’t work.
Morrible hums, long fingernails tapping against the wood of Glinda’s desk. “He’s been working on something for you. He believes you deserve a little…treat…for your hard work as Glinda the Good.”
It is clear from Morrible’s tone that she does not agree. Glinda rather thinks Morrible doesn’t believe she deserves anything.
You don’t, her mind whispers traitorously.
Shut up!
“I’m flattered,” Glinda says evenly. She manages a wobbly smile, not anywhere near as good as her usual. “And grateful.”
“Yes, so you’ve said.” Morrible sighs, straightening her shoulders so she can look down at Glinda, imposing despite having barely a few inches on the blonde. “I suggest you remember that gratitude when you’re standing before the crowd next week. Remember who has given you everything you have. And what happens to those who forget their place.”
The threat hangs in the air between them, unspoken but unmistakable. Glinda’s gotten good at recognizing them.
“I won’t forget,” Glinda whispers.
“See that you don’t.” Morrible turns to leave, her dark robes swishing dramatically behind her. She sends one last look over her shoulder, eyes cold and hard and full of warning, before the door closes, and Glinda is alone again.
She sinks back into her chair, shaking. Her hands won’t stop trembling, her breath coming too fast and too shallow. The buzziness in her chest explodes outward, stealing her air and making her feel as though she’s drowning as she grips her upper arms, bruising tight.
She hates this, she hates this, she hates herself.
Her mind fractures around breaking boxes as she struggles to keep it together, a syrupy feeling of disconnect coming over her, like she’s floating somewhere above herself or watching through a thick pane of glass. It’s a relatively new, but not unknown feeling for Glinda to have during these…incidents, and she grabs at it with both hands, desperate for the numb relief that will take her out of this spiralling panic.
Only this time-- it doesn’t work. It slides from her fingers, and she’s unable to hold onto her mind or her breathing, curling into a ball as a sob rips out of her mouth. She’s wheezing, gasping in quick, shallow puffs that bring no oxygen into her lungs. She feels like she’s falling apart, and she knows she must look like she’s falling apart, which just makes it all so much worse.
What if Morrible returned? What if Pfannee or ShenShen came to see her? What if Fiyero burst through those doors?
Glinda clenches her eyes shut and tries to will herself into composure, but she’s shaking like a leaf and her hands and feet have lost feeling as she slides to the floor. She presses her back against the pink sofa, pulling her knees to her chest as she tries and tries and tries.
Breathe, she tells herself, but it’s not working. It’s the wrong cadence and tone--the wrong voice--not anything like the soothing softness of the only person who’s ever really been able to help Glinda.
Elphaba, she thinks once again, desperate and wanting. How many times is that today? I need you.
But Elphaba doesn’t appear. Elphaba doesn’t take Glinda into her arms or hold her hand or hum a little song to get her to calm down. Elphaba isn’t here- because she left. She left and she left Glinda and she promised her and she kissed her and she left.
Elphaba isn’t here. And Glinda is all alone in a palace that she can’t call home.
After a while, the tears dry up. They always do eventually.
Glinda stands, smooths down her dress, and prepares for the evening ahead. There’s a late meeting tonight-- some dignitary from Winkie Country, Glinda thinks, though she can barely keep track of all the people she’s supposed to smile at and impress. She’ll need to change into something more formal, let Pfannee or ShenShen do her hair again, and paint on another layer of perfection to hide the cracks showing through.
By the time she arrives at the meeting two hours later, no one would ever know she’d been crying. No one would ever guess that Glinda the Good, beloved by all of Oz, had spent any part of the evening drowning. That’s the thing about masks-- if one wears them long enough, they become indistinguishable from one’s real face.
And Glinda has been wearing hers for so long, she’s not sure there’s anything real left underneath at all.