Chapter Text
Entry #1
For Elphaba Thropp–
It’s a strange thing to realize you would have done anything for someone only after you’ve demonstrously proven otherwise.
I guess that’s called regret. To be honest, I’m not especially familiar with the feeling. Like I said, it’s strange.
Did I make it clear enough to you—I do have regrets? I’m sorry. Every day I’m sorry.
There’s a lot I want to say. I want to tell you about everything that’s happened since you’ve been gone, but when I sit down to write to you and think about what I’d say if you really were here, I keep circling back to one thing: I want to know about your last moments. I hope that’s not too intrusifying. I just need to know—did you suffer? Did you hate me? Was the loneliness unbearable?
I was never good at being alone. You know that, obviously. But I’ve been alone a lot lately. This is a private project, after all. It’s on a need-to-know basis, and right now, I’m the only living soul who needs to know.
The thing is—I don’t feel like I’m alone. Not really. Everything I’ve found, every dusty old tome, every legend told in hushed whispers beside a campfire, every textbook about magic I can get my hands on… all of it tells me that to succeed, I need to focus on your life and not your death.
It hasn’t worked yet, but I do feel like I’m with you again. You’re beside me again. Standing over my shoulder, watching me write this.
I hope in those last moments, I was with you.
Anyway, my dearest Elphie, I decided that since I feel like I have you here with me, I should record this, now, so that later, you can feel like you were here, too.
I will be there with you when you wake up. And every moment afterward. I promise you that I’m going to fix what I did.
I’ll talk to you soon.
Love,
Glinda ♡
/
It felt good to be doing something.
At first, it was an idle thought, a daydream that Glinda afforded herself on quiet nights when she was alone in the palace.
What wonders could magic work? She had heard legends of heroes brought back from the nother side, of Wizards and Witches strong enough to defy death itself.
It was a silly, self-indulgent thought, of course. She didn’t have enough magic in her to flicker a torch, much less work miracles.
The most basic measures of magic still eluded her, and when she was frustrated, she’d remember what Elphaba had said a long time ago:
Maybe it's harder for you to make magic because things have been kind of easy for you, so you don't need it.
There was an ache in her, it lived in her ribs. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
She lived with it, she carried it with her for a long time, but she had to wonder whether this was what Elphaba had meant by needing it.
Then, the idle daydreaming became idle researching. The idle researching became active, and her as efforts turned up more and more evidence that a feat of resurrection might be possible, Glinda grew more and more attached to the idea as a reality.
It was a very exciting time; she made a lot of progress at first, and it was easy to imagine Elphaba close by, always just around the corner.
She gathered resources and research. Ancient tomes, storybooks about legends of resurrection, tales told straight from the mouths of the most wizened, widest travelers. She voyaged across Oz to get a rough phonetic translation of what was believed to be the most recent alleged resurrection incantation.
By the time she was writing letters to Elphaba, she had to admit that the project had become less of an idle pastime and more of a secretly fevered obsession.
Then, all at once, progress stagnated. She had all the information she needed, and she thought she had the spell. But no matter how hard she tried, Glinda was entirely unable to make the words anything more than words.
That time had been hard. It had been long and unbearable, Glinda wasting night after night muttering spells to herself and waving her useless little wand, scribbling her every agitated thought to Elphaba.
She had been miserable, hopeless.
It was just when she thought she couldn’t carry on anymore that she was given a saving grace, a reward for her tireless efforts. Oz only knew how hard she’d worked, and so Oz, Glinda couldn’t help but think, wanted her to have this.
Then it will be so, Glinda knew. It was simply meant to be.
This was where her destiny came to a head: just past the edge of Oz proper, surrounded by an endless sea of sand.
Glinda stepped onto the oasis that marked one of the farthest corners of the recorded Ozian world. She took a deep breath and held it. The Royal Palace’s doctor was right; sand-sea air was good for one’s health, and it brought her tranquility.
This easternmost oasis was empty, quiet, and claustrophobically small. There was a single bar waiting on the way to the docks she’d been directed to, and while Glinda was weary and hungry from her travels, she was also too excited, too close to stop now.
Glinda’s form cut through the oasis, trying to command the native plants as easily as she could people. It was certainly different; she’d swapped her usual frilly ballgowns for a powder-pink bush jacket and pants. Practical, save for the tassels and epaulettes that lent the outfit an ever-necessary element of authority and suave. The problem was, they kept getting snagged in the underbrush, the twigs and thorns that seemed to reach out to grab her.
And true, she should have opted for a darker shade of boots, as those would stain less horrendibly, but for once, Glinda didn’t care about getting muck on her outfit.
As quickly as she could, Glinda followed the bushbeaten trail to the end of a sleepy dock, all leading up to the rickety sand-sailing galleon she’d been looking for. In the dark of the early morning, it was rendered grey and cold, but the sand-sailing ship looked like it could have once been great. Its masts shot strong into the sky, and its sails billowed gently in the dark like ghosts.
The thought she’d been trying to ignore surfaced: If this didn’t pan out, she didn’t know what she’d have to resort to.
Now she thought of the bar she’d seen on the other end of the oasis and considered cutting back, stopping for a drink and a hot meal to stall, if only to be able to hold onto her hope a little while longer.
But now she was too anxious to eat, sick with nerves.
There was only one thing to do.
She stepped onto the ship.
“Who goes there?” A Weasel corsair working the dock brandished his machete at her.
The machete was probably just for cutting rope, Glinda told herself as she prepared to speak.
She was quickly proven wrong when the Weasel pointed the tip of his blade squarely between Glinda’s wide eyes. She frowned, took a cautious step backward, and lowered it gingerly with one finger.
“Glinda. The Good Witch. I’ve come to inquirify about a certain artifact that I understand has recently come into your boss’s possession.”
The Weasel laughed, but he didn’t raise his blade again, so Glinda smiled and chuckled mildly to try to keep the peace.
“The Good Witch herself boarding our ship! Who’d have ever thought?”
It was pretty funny. “I certainly never envisioned coming to a place like this, either,” Glinda said, gesturing to the chipping walls and the rusting chains surrounding her, “but I am duty-bound.”
The Weasel snorted and flourished his machete mockingly. “Come on inside, then. Minotaur’s in his quarters.”
Glinda tried not to be nervous as she was led through the belly of the ship, Animal corsairs eying her as she passed. She had heard terriful things about the Minotaur, the Pirate King of the Shifting Sands, but she had come prepared to bargain, to haggle, to fight if necessary.
The latter option she ruled out instantly upon seeing him. The Minotaur was hulking, massive even for a Bull. When he drew his head up to look at her, his curved horns scraped the ceiling. Gold jewelry hung from every inch of his horns, some linked to the earrings on his ham-sized ears. His nose, too, was bejeweled with a gold ring. Glinda noted this and immediately searched her brain for the most impressive pieces of jewelry in the palace that she could offer him.
“Glinda the Good.” The Minotaur’s voice was loud and powerful, deep, but even. Glinda immediately felt disliked, which was alien to her and always uncomfortable.
“That’s correct.” She gave the Minotaur her brightest smile and extended one hand to shake. “I understand you are called the Minotaur?”
He eyed her for one unbearable moment. Glinda became suddenly aware of how easily he could give the command for the band of corsairs to take the ship out beyond Oz in this moment. She had a formidable force of royal guards waiting on her own ship on the other side of the oasis, but if the Minotaur let the sails catch the wind, they’d be useless. She’d be a hostage on board, helpless against the Minotaur’s horde of sailors and the endless expanse of sand all around them.
But in the next moment, he leaned forward and set his heavy cloven hoof in her hand. She staggered under its weight, but did her best to shake, as was proper.
“Minotaur. The Pirate King. Digsby. I go by many names,” the Minotaur said proudly.
Glinda nodded as though they were old comrades. “As do I. Such is the mark of an important figure.”
The Minotaur exhaled hot breath from his ringed nose. Whether this was borne of derision or agreement, Glinda wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter, either. She wasn’t here to make new friends; she was here for an old one.
“I’d like to jump directly to my business here, if I may. It is my understanding that you’ve recently come into the possessification of a most peculiar artifact.”
The Minotaur nodded to a corner of the room where the Weasel who’d led Glinda into the belly of the ship was playing with knickknacks on the Pirate King’s desk. He had lifted a round ruby stone to his eye and was holding it in place by squinting on one side, looking through the glossy red stone like a monocle.
The Minotaur pounded one mighty hoof on the desk, startling the Weasel into dropping the stone.
Glinda lunged for it, tried to save it from hitting the ground, but she was too late. She gasped when it fell to the floor, and she recoiled when the Minotaur stomped on it with his mighty hoof.
To her relief, the stone didn’t seem to have broken, but the Minotaur stood firmly on top of it, blocking her from even glimpsing its glassy red surface again.
Underneath that massive Bull was her best chance of ever seeing Elphie again—a legendary artifact known as the Spiffing Stone. Glinda composed herself, trying to mask her desperation. If the Minotaur knew how badly she needed this, he could extort her to the ends of Oz. She dragged her gaze away from the floor and met the Minotaur’s eyes.
“I hear that little stone has the power to focus tremendous amounts of magic for its holder.” She hoped she sounded convincingly skeptical, detached.
The Bull’s big head nodded. “The Spiffing Stone, yes. It was locked away in the far reaches of a desert cave because of how powerful it was. A few of my best men were buried getting to it.”
“Ah. So I suppose you’re not currently in the market to barter for it?”
The Minotaur lilted one ear inquisitively. “That stone was not the only treasure sealed away in the caves. We have already received more than enough payout for the sacrifices we made.”
“Oh?”
“And do I look like I practice magic to you?”
“So, you’d be willing to part with it if the price is right, I assume?”
The Minotaur snorted again. “I don’t believe I’ll be meeting a higher bidder than the Good Witch herself.”
Glinda weighed her options. She settled on saying this: “Of course not. But you must understand, I have no real need for such an artifact, being an incredibly skilled sorceress already. Still, I have peace to keep throughout Oz, and it would be wise to ensure this little rock doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“I’m not really interested in your reasons.”
“Just my price, then?”
“Actually,” the Minotaur lifted his hoof from the rock just enough that she could glimpse its red glare. “I’ve already mentioned that we’ve been flush with gold lately. Tonight, I have other desires.”
Glinda shifted her weight uncomfortably, wondering how badly it would go if she snatched the stone and ran. “Um… Can you give me some details, please?”
“My crew and I don’t have the most agreeable reputation, little witch. We’re misunderstood, see? We’re not violent. We’re just plunderers and adventurers.”
Glinda paused, digesting this, then nodded when she understood. “You’re after reputational restoration.”
The Bull broke into a grin. This did not put Glinda at ease. “Precisely. Plus, I imagine it will be beneficial to make friends in high places.”
Glinda froze. “Hold on, Mister. I take this stone from you now, and you come to me later with some ickspicably grim favor later on? Is that your game? Because I’d rather not keep debts open. If there’s something you want, now is your only chance to get it.”
The Minotaur lifted his hoof all the way off of the stone in surrender. Glinda couldn’t stop staring.
“All I want is to repay whatever debts I may have accrued to the people of Oz,” the Minotaur confessed. “My interests lie in proving that I’m not one to abuse power. Perhaps then the inhabitants of the far oases won’t shut themselves inside their huts when my ship comes to dock.”
“Especially that barkeep,” the Weasel said with a mischievous grin. Then, to Glinda, “A pretty Cow wench that’s afraid of him.”
The Minotaur huffed and, with one rapid charge, knocked the Weasel to the floor. One moment, he’d been upright, and the next, he was sprawled out on the floor, the Bull stomping in rage above him.
“The only person who should be afraid of me is you,” the Minotaur spat down at where the corsair lay helplessly under his hooves.
The brawl was over as quickly as it began. The Minotaur turned back to her. Was his big Bull’s head flush underneath his wooly coat?
Glinda had enough tact not to press. She had no desire to spend the night ironing hoofprints out of her gown.
The Minotaur kicked the stone, and it slid right to Glinda’s feet.
“This is a gift to you. No strings attached. You have my word.”
Glinda wasn’t sure how much the word of a Pirate King was worth, but she had no other options. It seemed too good to be true, but maybe that was fate at work. She had earned this—for years she had worked, worked like she never had before.
And it wasn’t unusual for people to want to give her gifts just for the sake of her being her. Maintaining goodwill with the people of Oz had many benefits.
So, she knelt down, bowed her head in thanks, and took the Spiffing Stone from the sandspotted floor.
/
Her heart was fluttering with anticipation an hour later. There was a long journey ahead; many days and nights before reaching the castle, still so much distance between Glinda and her coveted Elphie.
She didn’t want to celebrate prematurely, but she needed sustenance for the journey ahead, so found herself now sitting, elated, in the oasis bar, toasting with strangers. The stone was tucked safely under her left breast, close to her heart.
For now, all was well.
And if, before vanishing from the oasis for good, she happened to mention the good deed done by Bull pirate named Digsby to the pretty spotted Cow tending bar, well, that was just the thing to do.
Indeed, it felt good to be doing something.
/
Glinda had hoped that perhaps her luck on the easternmost oasis would carry on all the way back home.
This was not the case.
The journey had been too long to make by bubble—it wasn’t really a practical mode of long-distance transportation—and so she’d spent the past fortnight on horseback, on churning ships, or on her own two feet.
When she arrived back at the palace, she was tempted to collapse in her fluffy pink four-poster bed and fall dead asleep.
Instead, she couldn’t help herself. She had to try the spell again, this time with the aid of the Spiffing Stone.
The stone, which she’d been charging with precious memories of Elphaba on her whole, long return journey. The stone, which held her last hopes for recovering dear Elphie.
The stone, which seemed to make no difference in the world on her first resurrection attempt upon returning home.
Innards dripping with dread, Glinda tried to talk herself down from the possibility that her last beacon of hope had just flickered out.
She was tired, she rationalized, and she was out of practice.
Glinda tore herself away from the task. The more she tried, the more disheartened she would get, and the worse her prospects would be. She retreated to her bed, inwardly begging that things would be different in the morning.
Perhaps if she kept the stone tucked right there under her pillow and if she dreamed of Elphie in the night…
She was comforted by one thought as she drifted off to sleep, a thought that she had been trying to bury since the first time it struck her so long ago.
It was entirely possible that there was another beacon of hope, should the stone fail to aid her.
There was, perhaps, Madame Morrible, and the matters they'd spoken about.
/
Before she had even heard of the then-buried Spiffing Stone, back when she was just pacing across Oz in search of tales of the risen dead, she had returned to the palace one morning to find Madame Morrible, hands bound in front of her, flanked by two stone-faced guards.
“What is this?” Glinda had asked the guards grimly, avoiding Morrible’s gaze, refusing to dignify her.
“Madame Morrible has requested an audience with you.”
“Denied.” Glinda started to push past the guards, waved one arm to tell them to send Morrible back to her cell, but then—
“Please.”
—Morrible’s voice sounded so desperate that Glinda had to stop.
“I have nothing to say to you.” Glinda did not turn back, but she also hadn’t walked away.
“Then just let me talk. Everything that happened…” Was Morrible’s voice breaking? “Everything that happened, that…” She sounded like she was struggling for words. Glinda hadn’t known that Morrible to ever struggle for words. “Glinda, you were the only one who was there. Who understood. The only one who could possibly understand, now, how it feels…”
True to her word, Glinda said nothing; she had nothing to say. She wanted to push ahead, to leave Morrible in the clutches of the guards without looking back, but this was the soft and motherly voice of the woman she’d worked for so long to impress. And Morrible’s words were tempting; how badly she wanted someone—anyone—to understand the guilt and grief she’d been plagued with…
So, Glinda turned. She stayed, and she listened to every word.
When Morrible was done pleading, when all the apologies she could manage had spilled forth, she said this: “You are so lucky, Lady Glinda. You’re in a position where you can make amends. You were right—I cannot fare well in captivity. Please, I… I cannot make amends from a cell.”
“What are you asking for?”
“An opportunity—any opportunity—however small, Miss Glinda, however small—to make amends—to aid you in your quest… for goodness?”
She was begging, groveling. Her sentences were fragmented, a thousand pleas clawing over each other, desperate to be heard.
Glinda huffed, but she couldn’t seem to muster the contempt she wanted to feel. “So, what? You want to scrub toilets? Or stomp roaches? Or work leather until your fingers bleed?”
Morrible was staring at Glinda like she was her lifeline.
“You think that will just undo everything you did?”
“No!” The ferocity in Morrible’s voice startled Glinda. “Not undo. Never undone. Please don’t think I do not grasp the gravity of what we’ve done.”
We, as in Morrible and the Wizard? We, as in Morrible and Glinda? Glinda wasn’t sure, but she didn’t argue.
“I’m just asking for something, anything, to give my life meaning again, Miss Glinda.”
In the end, Madame Morrible was granted daytime access to the lowest levels of the palace, where she would toil until the sun went down.
“But know that the moment you step as much as one toe out of line, we will lock you underground and incinerate the key.” Glinda had hoped there was venom in her voice when she threatened this.
She was too jaded now not to suspect that Morrible had something horrendible up her sleeve.
But there was a thought in the furthest corner of her mind, much like there would be later, after her journey to the Shifting Sands. There was one guilty thought.
She was remembering Morrible’s seminars for Elphaba, and her soft guiding voice, the way she had once encouraged Elphaba so maternally.
Quietly, Glinda had had to consider the possibility that Morrible might be a last resort.
It was simply impossible not to consider Morrible and her undeniable magic.
So, when by all accounts, Morrible had been true to her word and was working diligently, when a week had gone by without incident, Glinda had thought it safe to go to her with a request.
“You want to make amends?” Glinda had asked the dark cell.
In a moment, Morrible’s eyes were upon her. They were black holes in the dim dungeon lighting, but even Glinda could see that they were wide with hope. Morrible did not speak out of turn; she bowed her head in response to the question and waited for Glinda to offer more information.
“Madame Morrible—” Glinda faltered, considering how much information to disclose. Show her hand, and she might be giving Morrible deadly ammunition to use against her in the future, or she might be endangering Elphaba’s life all over again once she returned. Play it too close to her chest, and Glinda wouldn’t receive relevant information. She decided to start mildly. “I want to become the person I’ve been pretending to be. The Good Witch.”
“But you still lack the ability to perform true magic.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. There was contempt in Morrible’s voice—or was Glinda projecting? If she wasn’t, was the tone borne of spite for Glinda herself or for their charade?
Glinda nodded. There would be time to analyze Morrible’s authenticity later. “I want you to teach me what you can about magic. I know you thought I was a lost cause back when—”
“Of course.”
Glinda stared at Morrible with scrutiny. Morrible had to be playing her; this was a bad idea.
“Lady Glinda,” Morrible started to address Glinda’s obvious concern, “you can’t imagine the loneliness I’ve endured down here. I would welcome any company. And for such a noble goal…”
So it was that Ginda had added stolen visits to the palace’s underbelly to her secret routine. Morrible versed her on all kinds of magic, though she seemed understandably fixated on showing Glinda only the most elementary forms of altering the world.
Glinda was grateful to learn more of simple illusions, of levitating objects so light that they might float and flutter on their own, of manipulating the elements in small, natural ways, but this was not what she had been clandestinely meeting with Morrible for, and she couldn’t think of a way to ask about the process of resurrections without arising suspicion.
Only once did Glinda manage to get Morrible talking about manipulating life and death.
“What entails the most advanced forms of magic?” Glinda had asked as though the thought had just then crossed her mind.
“You might think they are the common displays of power, manipulating natural forces in an unnatural way. Altering the skies themselves, defying gravity, seeing the future. Even ending lives… These are only the upper end of midrange difficulty. The truly advanced magical processes involve meddling with forces we scarcely understand.”
“Like what?” Glinda used her best confusified voice, like she didn’t even know where to start asking questions.
“Altering the past, for one. Touching the nother side—communing with the dead or raising them. Attempting to rewrite what is indelible.”
“Ohhh,” Glinda said, and let Morrible keep right on talking.
“Very few Wizards or Witches in recorded history have been able to reach the nother side. None knew what forces they were meddling with. Even the most experienced magicians were doing the thaumaturgical equivalent of blindfolding themselves and attempting to navigate a rapid raging river.”
“Oh.”
“But instead of risking merely their bodies being smashed to smithereens on the rocks, they were risking demolishing their souls, their entire worlds.”
“Yikes!”
Glinda had made an effort to sound vapid and disconnected from the reality of this concept, but Morrible’s words had shaken her.
After that, she had felt very small and very stupid.
Glinda shouldn’t have been surprised by Morrible’s warning; she had read the darkest of legends where resurrection had led to ruin, or those where the feat had demanded that a life be taken for life to be given.
Then again, she had told herself as she waited for her miracle, if nobody had ever known what they were doing when they attempted a resurrection, then didn’t she stand just as good a chance at succeeding as anyone else?
Inwardly, Glinda had commended herself for thinking so positively, so persistently in the face of such a daunting task. It would keep her going.
And it had kept her going, until the legend of the Spiffing Stone, unearthed in the vast Shifting Sands, had saved her from the grim sea of stagnation.
Now, when it appeared that Spiffing Stone might fail her, too, Glinda reassured herself, though uncertainly, that she still had other options.
She had Morrible and whatever else lurked in the darkest corners of the palace.