Chapter Text
Elphaba heaved a sigh of relief, standing in the Wizard’s chamber alone. She’d been so lonely these many long months, and to be reunited with Glinda was so exciting. Sure she didn’t completely trust the Wizard to do right by the Animals of his own accord, but he’d let her release the Monkeys! Maybe if she was there to be his moral compass—
A flapping of wings interrupted her train of thought as Chistery, the de facto leader of the Flying Monkeys, landed on the giant golden head overlooking the room. “Chistery?” she balked. Why had he come back? Chistery looked around conspiratorially and started to gesture, then froze. Footsteps were approaching.
“Actually, uh, Elphaba.” The Wizard’s voice entered the chamber before him. “Maybe you should come freshen up as well? Might help with your. Rehabilitational image.” He offered her his arm, and before Elphaba knew it she was being swept away to his “humble abode” — a massive green and gilded suite that seemed to Elphaba to be larger than the entire Governor’s estate where she grew up. Her strange meeting with Chistery was for now forgotten, overshadowed by a storm of servants descended upon her with measuring tapes and fabric samples, seemingly unsurprised at the presence of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard’s chambers. The man himself had disappeared somewhere, presumably to be similarly assaulted.
The process was not entirely unfamiliar, though these people seemed somewhat more competent at a makeover than Galinda had been back in the day. They did have a lot more green to work with, to be fair. While they worked, Elphaba found her mind wandering to the wedding she was to attend. Glinda, her best friend — her only friend — getting married! It was wonderful to be able to attend the momentous occasion. So why did she have a knot in her stomach, she wondered? Why had she had a knot in her stomach ever since she found out about the nuptuals? Why would she see any problem with Glinda getting married to-
“Voilá! A masterpiece, if I do say so myself,” said the short, mustachioed man who had been leading the troupe of seamstresses, hairdressers and makeup artists working in tandem to make the Wicked Witch of the West over. He wheeled over a massive mirror and dramatically angled it so that Elphaba could see herself at last. She had been expecting — well, she didn’t know what she had been expecting, but definitely something much frillier than what she saw.
The woman in the mirror was certainly green, and no attempts had been made to hide this fact. Instead, it had been underlined and highlighted. Her cheekbones shimmered with a light green sparkle, her lips were a deep and lustrous forest green. Even her nails had been filed down into a less sharp, more understated oval, and painted a colour that matched her skin tone almost exactly. A “nude”, she supposed. Her hair was minimally altered, still in its many small braids, but they had been cleverly maneuvered into a bun at the back of her head, with several strands strategically left out to give the impression of effortlessness.
The dress the man was now handing her was a perfect emerald green, with small golden accents on the hem and along the bust. It was simple but well constructed, and Elphaba marveled at the team’s ability to whip it up this fast. “Thank you,” she stuttered out as she was rushed into a huge washing room to get ready with some pretense of privacy — somewhat undercut by the two women in there with her. A few clock-ticks later Elphaba was clean, her old clothes in a pile on the floor, and the woman in the mirror was wearing the beautiful dress, along with golden shoes (sensible heels with a closed toe), earrings, bracelets and a necklace bearing the insignia of the Wizard of Oz.
Elphaba knew intellectually that the woman in the mirror was herself. But she was not accustomed to thinking of herself as beautiful, nor of green skin as something that could itself be a beautiful feature. Unable to reconcile these feelings with the evidence the mirror provided her, she resolved to put it out of her mind for the time being. She had a wedding to get to.