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10 hours before.
Glinda wasn't sleeping.
She couldn't remember the last time she had slept. She couldn't really remember breathing for — how many days had it been? They had all blended together, in flashes of colors and lines.
She hadn't even understood what she was looking at, at first. There were just suddenly red splotches on yellow and — stupidly — she had even had the thought that the colors looked so beautiful together. But then her brain realized what she was seeing, and the clarity of it all snapped so violently into place that it made her nauseous.
Elphaba had screamed — loud, and long, and angry until they did whatever they did to make her stop — and it had been enough that Glinda had forgotten to. She wondered later if that was truly her biggest sin. That her brain wrapped itself around Fiyero, dead or dying on the ground, and she had forgotten how to scream.
She didn't even know what they had done with his body. No one would tell her, and she hadn't known where to look.
There was a ringing in her ears, a gentle one — more gentle than she suspected she deserved — as she stood on the balcony looking out at the softly dimmed lights over the sleeping city.
She tried to will herself into a version that would know what to do, really know what to do, but — just the same as always — all that ever came up was the same old her. There was only ever one person Glinda had ever met who seemed to know what to do when the world got complicated — to have a real plan, the kind of thing that did something. That person wasn't here, and anyway — it was not as if Glinda had ever listened.
7 hours before.
They'd started setting up the square so early. That must have been something she'd known they were doing — or at the very least, something she'd been told. That was the whole point. The square was the whole point.
Glinda had gone to Madame Morrible, head held high, still thinking that she this was something she could fix. Glinda had asked when she could go and see her. She had asked when Elphie was going to be released, and it had not even yet occurred to her that there were things she could not ask for.
Morrible had looked at her — really looked at her — and Glinda had felt the disdain soak into the hems of her skirts and wick its way across the fabric like ink.
"Cold feet already? Maybe we truly were lucky to have the wedding cut so tragically short, if the bride is so truly so fickle."
"Cold feet? I don't —"
"After all, this was all your idea, was it not?"
Before she had consciously processed what had been said, Glinda stepped back, recoiling instinctively as if she'd been burned. "This wasn't what I meant. You know this wasn't what I meant. I didn't think —"
"This wasn't what I meant," Morrible repeated back, her voice high pitched and mocking. Standing, she moved out from behind her desk, forcing Glinda to retreat even further. "No, I am quite sure you didn't think, because I am quite sure you never think. You weren't even the one who did any of the work when it really came down to it — all you really did was get in the way. You should be grateful that deprecipice old house didn't fall on you too."
Glinda had felt her thoughts go gooey and stupid, as she stumbled backwards trying desperately not to fall. "Wait — the…the twister? That was you? You killed Nessa?"
Morrible leaned down, and gripped Glinda's chin, hard enough that she felt herself pulled on to her toes. She could feel the bite of Morrible's nails in her cheek, a pulsing point a pain against the beating of her heart. It made her try to pull away on pure instinct, but Glinda only managed far enough to squirm horribly in her gaze.
"You should feel tremeditiously lucky that I consider you are too stupid to be a traitor, my dear. But, I would be exceedingly careful in the coming days, if I were you. Even if the most simple minds can be seduced to the side of evil. And if I see any evidence of such in you, I will make sure you are dealt with." All at once, Morrible let her go. Glinda had collapsed against the wall behind her, the palms of her hands pressing into the wood to stop her from falling. Morrible had not even reacted, beyond a single raising of her eyebrow. "Do we understand?"
She could feel herself unsteady on her feet. Smoothing her skirts, Glinda's voice had sounded small when she said, "Yes, Madame."
"Good. Now I expect you ready within the hour for the announcement. And I expect you to do what you are best at: smile, wave, and shut up."
"Announcement?" Glinda knew what the answer was, of course, but she hadn't been able to stop herself from asking.
"Of course, my dear. The announcement of the capture and disposal of the Wicked Witch of the West. Oz must know she has been apprehended, and I would like to make sure everyone has sufficient planning time for next week's celebrations."
It was then that Glinda's eyebrows had knitted together in genuine confusion. "Wait, next week? What happens next week?"
Morrible returned to her seat behind her desk, and smiled, wide and terrible. "Well, one does not spend this long crafting an enemy, just to miss the finale."
"Miss Glinda, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you would be down so early, or I would have made sure to have breakfast ready."
There was a young boy standing next to her suddenly, anxious and pimpled. She'd seen him before, but never really thought much of him. She didn't really think much of him then either, truth be told. All she could think was that this was just another day after all. Breakfast was still being made. Lunch would be made too, and she would be expected to eat it. She'd dressed before coming down, and she'd brushed out her hair with just as much care as she always did. She couldn't do anything with her hair a mess, now could she?
She couldn't do anything—
"Thank you, but you shouldn't trouble yourself. I'm not quite hungry yet this morning." Glinda smiled beatifically, spun sugar and nothing else.
Instead of leaving, the boy smiled back. "You can feel the excitement today, I think."
His voice had been earnest, but he caught himself immediately — remembered who he was talking to, and who he was in comparison. Glinda turned to face him, and he was already dissolving into the hall, apologizing the whole way.
He was right though. You could feel it.
Glinda felt sick.
4 hours before.
There were so many people. Crowds and crowds of them. There was a carnival atmosphere to the people milling about. There was a cart selling food, and she could see children laughing as they weaved in and out of the adults around them.
Glinda almost went down with them. She didn't know whether she could stomach the set-up balcony she'd be expected to watch the proceedings from. But when she saw the crowd from the window, she knew she'd be able to tolerate them even less.
The Wizard had been building something when she went to see him.
She had sat next to him for awhile, watching him carve a small wooden gear, occasionally testing its fit against a line of others on his work table. She didn't come back here often. No one really did. The Wizard didn't like the way it exposed the belly of the whole thing — turned magic into gears and work tables — but Glinda still had trouble shedding her awe. She still always found something miraculous in the creation of it all. She didn't know how to stop.
Finally, she had said, "You can't let them do this to her."
The man next to her had sighed. "I was afraid that was what you were going to say." He put his tools down and looked at her. He had looked tired. "I can't do anything else."
Glinda almost couldn't bear to look at him. The sincerity on his face. "She didn't —"
"Do anything wrong? Because you know that isn't true. Even if you stretch all the information to spare her personal blame for a single injury or fatality, she's directly responsible for the Animal uprisings. She's dangerous."
"She's just one person," Glinda had said, though she knew it sounded half-hearted. She knew Elphie could be dangerous. Glinda didn't know how to argue she wasn't.
"That's just it, isn't it? Everyone has seen the things she's capable of, and there's still only one of her. If there was a rabid Animal wrecking havoc in the City, the only right thing to do would be to put it down before more people got hurt. She needs to be put down, Glinda. We need to keep everyone safe."
She had known she was about to cry. She had blinked the tears away, trying to catch them with her finger before they fell. "It just seems extreme."
"Leadership requires us to be extreme, because the consequences we face are extreme." The Wizard's hand was gentle when he had placed it on her shoulder. "We've already made the announcement. People have been promised a dead witch. Without that promised safety people will keep being scared, and the longer people are scared the more people get hurt. How many of our people are you willing to see dead? That's the question we're asking."
Glinda hadn't been sure how many more of her people she could stand to see dead. She had not even been sure who she truly counted as her people — and she had know idea which definition was Good.
The balcony wasn't terrible, really. Just three simple chairs, a microphone for announcements. Alone, standing right at the edge of the door so she was out of view, it even felt calming. She could stand right on the edge of the balcony and pretend that she had a plan. That she was going to do something.
The crowd gave up a roar. Looking out, Glinda caught sight of the poster, dropped across the square.
She didn't see anymore than the black shape of a hat before she stumbled backwards, running back towards her room. She didn't breathe until she had closed the doors, sliding to the floor and taking in huge gulps of air. It didn't feel like breathing though. All that air, and Glinda still felt as if her body was refusing to use it.
If only.
1 hour before.
Morrible came to fetch her, obviously. Brought her down to lunch where she ate. The Wizard ate with them, as well as various other political figures she'd met once.
Every time Glinda walked past a window, she imagined it. She imagined stopping what she was doing, running headlong through the glass and breaking everything as she went. She pictured it in her mind over and over and over until she almost thought she could feel the tension of the window as it broke. And she didn't move.
Glinda hadn't known what she was hoping to do when she went to the dungeon. No one questioned her — of course they didn't. What would they have even said? How dare one of the most recognizably good people in all of Oz walk the halls, potentially gracing the poor and disadvantaged with her presence? She walked in, head held high like she was on her way to do something important.
She had thought it to be at least, at the time. Maybe it had been, but importance had been becoming a quite hazy concept.
She had almost done something drastic once she got to the cell. Maybe she had already done something drastic. Maybe she had never once in her whole life done enough. Who could say? (She had known who could say. Glinda didn't like thinking about what she would have said.)
There was a huddled mass of blankets at the back of cell, hidden in shadows and cobwebs. It didn't move. It didn't even stir.
It didn't stir until Glinda had asked the guards to "please just give us a moment, would you?" She said it sweetly, cloyingly, Glinda the Good in all her glory with an extra hair toss thrown in for good measure. The guards — to their credit, she supposed, despite her annoyance — hesitated at the request, but again, what else could they have done?
By the time they had left and Glinda had turned back, Elphie had turned her head and was staring at her.
She looked terrible. There was an ugly bruise on the side of her face, and a gentle line of crusted blood on her lips. Her hair hung in limp strands, tangled up at the ends like it was a waterfall churning against rocks. All that, and the first thing Glinda could think — Oz forgive her — was that there was the smallest smile on Elphie's face, like maybe, despite everything, she had been glad to see her.
Still, Elphie had rolled her eyes, and said "Do you come bat your eyelashes at all condemned prisoners, or is this just for me?"
Glinda hadn't come with anything prepared. She hadn't really even thought that something would come to her once she was there. She hadn't really thought at all. That was probably why — once she had gingerly made her way over to the bars and sank to her knees, pointedly arranging the folds of her skirt out of habit — that all she had managed was to hiss, "Elphie, this is serious."
There'd been a heavy pause, before Elphaba has burst out laughing, a biting edge to it. "Really? You know, I hadn't noticed before. I swear — only you, Glinda. Only you would float all the way down here just to make sure I really knew that things were serious."
"They're going to kill you." Glinda hated the way her voice sounded saying it. There wasn't enough gravity to it. Her voice had been shaking, but there was still an airiness she had not managed to abandon. She could have been saying anything at all.
Elphie sounded the same as she always had too, when she was annoyed. "That is the idea, yes. Did you come to rub it in, or did you somehow miss that part of the memo when you baited me into captivity with my sister's dead body."
Glinda's heart squeezed, and she felt the pain of it all the way down her arms. She tried to level her voice when she said, "That isn't what happened. Believe me, I —"
"Don't lie to me. Don't you dare waste my time like that. After all, I have so little of it left." The scorn dripping off of Elphaba's words was acrid, and she was glaring hard as flintrock.
"Stop it!" Suddenly, Glinda was angry, angrier than she had been in years. Scrambling back to her feet, Glinda had clenched her hands into fists at her sides, feeling the way the gauzy tulle crunched slightly in her grip, and tried to slow her breathing. She'd made mistakes, she'd made more mistakes than she deserved forgiveness for, but it hadn't been her who had signed the orders. It hadn't been her who wanted Nessa dead. And she was there now, wasn't she? Should that count for nothing? "Stop — stop acting like you know everything! Elphie, I know you've always thought that choices were simple, but things were complicated. Things are complicated. And how would you know? You weren't even there."
Elphaba had stood too, and was leaning her shoulder against the wall. Glinda could tell she was trying to do it in a way that seemed causal and practiced, but it was impossible to ignore how little weight she was putting on her right leg. "Glinda, you thinking otherwise doesn't change the truth. All it means is that you've once again shown yourself to be a gullible fool who prefers simple falsehoods. I am under no obligation to also believe those lies the Wizard spins for you."
"I don't understand why you're choosing to pick this fight now. I came to help you, not to argue the same things you've been arguing with me about for years."
"You came help, did you? Tell me, Glinda, what exactly do you plan to do? Break me out of here? Sail from the rooftops with me? Let them tell tales of the Good Witch who ran off into wickedness? I don't believe that for a second."
"Elphie," Glinda had said, her voice quiet and desperate as she walked up and gripped the cell bars like it was her that needed to escape. "Elphie, they don't need you dead, they need the Wicked Witch dead. You can leave her behind now. You can let her die and you get to live."
Elphaba had stared at her—just long enough for Glinda to try to convince herself she was seeing understanding in her face—before she had shook her head and spat, "Is — is that what you think this is about? Playing some part for my own ends? Pretending to have ideals, just to shuck them like a shed skin when they no longer serve me? Of course you think that. Why — why am I surprised."
"You've made your point, Elphie. This isn't about that. This isn't about proving your point anymore, this isn't about being right! This is about your life. They are going to kill you."
"And this is your suggestion? Betray everything I have ever believed, kiss the Wizard's boots just to save myself? Live my life as some kept pet to simper on posters while Oz withers away?" Elphaba had been so angry, she'd shown weakness. She had pushed herself off the wall and almost dragged herself over just so she could jab Glinda in the chest. "You want me to live just like you do and I would rather be shot. Do you hear me? I would rather die than be you. You've never understood what it means to actually —"
Glinda had felt herself lose control of something, as she pushed herself away from the bars and screamed, "No, you don't understand! I have more power living my life that you could dream of setting fires out in Munchkinland. That's the life you're so adamant about dying for? Why?"
"Oh, tell me more about power, Your Great Goodness. Tell me what you've done with it lately."
"More than I could if I threw it away! You take away the posters, and bubbles and eye-batting, and everything you seem to hate so badly and I'm not anything at all, and where has that ever gotten anybody? It gets you right where you are right now. It gets you dead. Dead people don't change things, Elphie, they just die."
The beseeching whine in Glinda's voice had hung in the air. They had both stood there, angry and too far apart to touch, and Glinda had not known how to fix a single thing she had ever broken.
When Elphaba finally spoke, her voice had been quiet. Glinda had even sworn it sounded soft. "I don't make any claims that I'll die a hero, Glinda, but I won't die a coward. I hope you're happy living as one. I — I mean it."
Glinda's voice had been choked and wet when she asked, "Wouldn't you rather just…live?"
"No. Not how you want me to."
now.
Glinda looked at the microphone, looked at Morrible as she spoke to the crowd. She imagined the curve of the stand in her hand, felt her arm twitch as if to pull it towards her. Felt half-formed fragments of words she would say. Words she could pretend were spells to stop time, to spin it faster, to rewind years and years.
But when she saw Elphaba, she couldn't remember how to do anything at all.
She somehow looked worse than the last time Glinda had seen her, a guard at each of her elbows half-dragging her to the front of the platform. When one of the guards gave her a hard shove in the shoulder to force her to her knees, she couldn't even catch herself with her hands bound. Glinda felt herself seize as Elphaba collapsed forward, her hair pooling on the platform. The noise of the crowd and the microphone was a droning buzz in Glinda's ears as the other guard reached down and grabbed a fistful of her hair pull Elphaba back up onto her knees.
They'd gagged her, obviously, but it hardly mattered. Elphaba looked out to survey the crowd, and they hadn't thought to stop her clear and steady gaze. She looked at everyone gathered to watch her die like she knew more than them. Like a young woman who did not doubt for even a moment that the world would someday prove her right.
Another guard — higher ranked, it looked like — took his gun from his belt, and moved to walk behind her. Elphaba swept her eyes higher, and finally found Glinda. They stared at each other, caught.
Maybe no one else saw it. Maybe Glinda didn't even see it. It was half a second, a single heartbeat, where suddenly all Glinda could see was Elphie — Elphie young and scared and sad and trying to be so strong that no one ever noticed. Glinda wasn't sure anyone else ever had noticed — not when Elphia was dancing, holding her head up just like that, like if she looked the world in the eyes hard enough it might blink first. For the barest fraction of a moment, they were both nineteen again, and Glinda could pretend that if they were brave enough the world could go on forever. That —
She had to do something.
Glinda stood, moved towards the edge of the balcony, opened her mouth to say something—anything—just as the cacophony of noise came to an ear-splitting, abrupt end with the gun shot.
after.
"And now a few words from Glinda the Good!"
Morrible's voice rings in her head, echoing and reverbrating until she thinks her skull will burst. She's standing, so she doesn't even move before the microphone is swimming in front of her eyes.
The sky is so bright suddenly. It hurts to look at anything, especially not —
There are guards moving on the platform, and if she doesn't look at them, she can avoid noticing what they're carrying. What they're —
The world is quiet, like her ears have burst sound has vanished, until she realizes that everyone is looking to her. Quiet. Waiting.
There's nothing left to her. There hasn't ever been anything to her. She's empty and worthless and they're listening for her words anyway.
All she can think to conjure, from somewhere, is, "She's…gone." She says it in the same frippery, lighter than air voice. She's insubstantial. She's clouds on the air. She's bubble-skin and nothing more.
She's turning — maybe to go inside, maybe to die — when she hears it.
The crowd's voices bubble over the edge. A chant. An invocation.
She's gone. She's dead. She's dead and gone.
That's what rips her open. The truth of it all.
She walks into the hallway off of the balcony and screams. Screams until she cries and then she cries.
No one hears her.
There's too much excitement in the air.
Good news!
Good news.
She's dead